Pakistan [Archive] - It's Happening Forums

Petronas

02-22-2005, 12:52 PM

Pakistan Army told to fire at intruding Americans
Tuesday, February 22, 2005

Washington: Pakistan has issued new rules of engagement permitting its Army to fire at US forces that cross the border from Afghanistan without coordinating first, according to a report contributed to the magazine ‘American Conservative’ by a former CIA officer. Philip Giraldi, now an international security consultant and writer of intelligence matters, writes in the February 28 issue of the magazine’s ‘Deep Background’ column that “President Musharraf has been receiving angry reports from his military that US forces have been engaging in hot pursuit across the border in violation of bilateral agreements.

Musharraf is also said to be unhappy about the recent abrupt withdrawal of Predators and other surveillance resources from Pakistan for transfer to Iraq for use against Iran. According to high level Pakistani sources, Musharraf and his Army chiefs expended a great deal of political capital in their support of the Al Qaeda hunt, clashing frequently with hostile tribesmen along the border. The US Central Command’s January announcement that the drones and other supporting surveillance technologies that were being used against Al Qaeda would be withdrawn to support ‘elections in Iraq,’ was an unpleasant surprise, particularly when ‘in Iraq’ turned out to be a euphemism for ‘against Iran. The drones have not yet been returned and many operations in the border areas are reported to be on hold. Musharraf has had a difficult time explaining to his own supporters in the military, and to the Pakistani public, why he continues to be so supportive of US policies in the region.

Earlier Giraldi, quoting Seymour Hersch, reported in ‘Intelligence Brief,’ a newsletter he co-edits that the White House has given the Pentagon permission “to operate unilaterally in a number of countries where there is a perception of a clear and evident terrorist threat,” including Algeria, Sudan, Yemen, Syria, Malaysia and Tunisia. The chain of command reportedly includes Donald Rumsfeld and two of his deputies. Under these new arrangements, “US military operatives would be permitted to pose abroad as corrupt foreign businessmen seeking to buy contraband items that could be used in nuclear-weapons systems. In some cases, according to the Pentagon advisers, local citizens could be recruited and asked to join up with guerrillas or terrorists. This could potentially involve organising and carrying out combat operations.”

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_22-2-2005_pg1_4

Petronas

02-23-2005, 11:55 AM

US has paid Pakistanis $57m for Qaeda tips
Wednesday, February 23, 2005

WASHINGTON: The United States has given away the staggering sum of $57 million to informants in Pakistan who provided information about Al Qaeda and other terrorist groups and individuals, according to a senior US official. The official was speaking to the Christian Science Monitor which carried a report in its Tuesday issue on the TV advertising campaign, now being run in Pakistan to capture Osama Bin Laden and other Al Qaeda figures. The official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told the newspaper, “This kind of thing has worked before, both here in Pakistan, and in Colombia as well,” adding that $57 million has been given out so far under this programme in Pakistan and some of the people here have been captured as a result of tip-offs. US officials say the campaign in Pakistan has already yielded some “useful information”.

The ads are being broadcast in Urdu, Sindhi, Balochi and Pushto and carry images of Bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahri and Mulla Omar. They include a voice-over that asks, “Who can stop the terrorists? Only you.” The rewards range from $5 million to $25 million for information leading to the capture of Bin Laden and his lieutenants. The rewards have also been publicised its rewards here on posters, matchbox covers, newspaper ads, and the Internet. The report says, “US and Pakistani officials have long suspected that the most likely hiding place for Bin Laden is somewhere along the Pak-Afghan border. Top Pakistan intelligence sources say the Al Qaeda leaders seem to avoid using modern communications equipment, relying instead on hand-carried messages. In addition, recent Al Qaeda videotape messages - broadcast by Al Jazeera, the Arab satellite TV channel - appear to have been taped indoors. Earlier videos were shot outdoors which gave hints to Bin Laden’s or Zawahiri’s geographical location. In the video of Zawahiri shown on Sunday on Al Jazeera, for example, he appeared before a plain brown backdrop.”

The report quotes Pakistani sources saying that their and American intelligence services have increasingly coordinated their efforts in the ongoing war against terrorism. “There are various cells working to capture Osama, Zawahiri, and leading Al Qaeda leaders. Pakistani and American intelligence and communication experts work separately and jointly in gathering information about Al Qaeda leaders,” says a senior Pakistani official source. “They collect and share information which could lead to the capture of these people. The intelligence experts also look for leads about the most wanted men from the arrest of militants across the country,” according to the source.

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_23-2-2005_pg1_2

Casey

02-24-2005, 10:37 AM

‘Al Qaeda-linked militants in disarray at Afghan border’
(AP)

24 February 2005

ISLAMABAD - President Gen. Pervez Musharraf said on Thursday that Pakistani forces have destroyed Al Qaeda-linked militants’ sanctuaries and communication systems along the Afghan border, but still have no clue as to Osama bin Laden’s whereabouts.

Musharraf told reporters that Pakistan - a key ally in the US-led war on terrorism since the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States - had captured 700 terror suspects in cities, and “eliminated” hundreds in military campaigns in tribal regions on the border.

“We have broken their communication system. We have destroyed their sanctuaries,” Musharraf said of militants fighting in the lawless South Waziristan region.

“Now some of them are hiding in mountains. They are not in a position to move in vehicles and go to Lahore or Karachi,” he said, referring to two major cities. “They are unable to contact their people.”

“I’m not saying we have achieved a 100 percent success, but this is definitely a success in the war against terrorism,” he said.

Musharraf said this month’s launch of US government-funded advertisements on Pakistani television and radio - offering multimillion-dollar rewards for bin Laden and other top terror suspects - did not mean they had information about the Al Qaeda leader’s whereabouts.

“The publication of these ads does not mean they are here,” Musharraf said. “Neither they (the Americans) nor we know they (Al Qaeda leaders) are here.”

http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticle.asp?xfile=data/subcontinent/2005/February/subcontinent_February841.xml&section=subcontinent

Casey

03-05-2005, 08:28 AM

Pakistan kills two Al Qaeda suspects, arrests 11

Pakistani soldiers have killed two foreign Al Qaeda suspects and arrested 11 people in a remote northern village bordering Afghanistan, senior officials said.

The militants were hiding in Devgar village in North Waziristan, roughly 300 kilometres south-west of the capital, Islamabad, a senior official said on condition of anonymity.

"Two foreign militants were killed in the exchange of gunfire with the security forces. Eleven others, including at least three foreigners, were arrested," he said.

It was not immediately known whether any Al Qaeda leaders were among the dead or the arrested men.

Witnesses said that troops moved into the small village after midnight and surrounded a mud-and-brick house, where the militants were hiding.

"But the shoot-out started early in the morning which lasted for more than two hours," one witness said.

"One workman and at least three security personnel also suffered minor wounds."

Another official, who also asked not to be named, said that the two dead Al Qaeda suspects appeared to be Arabs.

"The arrested men include two Sudanese and one Qatari national," he added. "The rest are locals."

The arrested men were hand-cuffed and swiftly moved to an undisclosed location for interrogation, witnesses said.

Hundreds of Al Qaeda-linked militants are believed to be hiding in Pakistan's rugged mountainous region bordering Afghanistan, where they enjoy support among the conservative Pashtun tribesmen.

Pakistani security forces have killed and arrested hundreds of militants in the neighbouring tribal region of South Waziristan in a spate of operations launched last year.

Officials say that the sustained crackdown forced militants to flee to other areas inside Pakistan as well as to Afghanistan.

But so far, the security forces have found no sign of Al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden or his deputy Ayman al Zawahri, who some experts say are somewhere in the Pakistan-Afghanistan border region.

-Reuters

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200503/s1316883.htm

Casey

03-05-2005, 08:45 PM

Pakistan to seize heavy weapons not surrendered by tribesmen: official
(AFP)

5 March 2005

PESHAWAR, Pakistan - Pakistani authorities will seize heavy weapons belonging to tribesmen near the Afghan border if they are not surrendered in a government buy-back program meant to disarm militants in the lawless region, a security official said on Saturday.

The government wants to purchase anti-aircraft guns, missiles, mortars, rocket launchers, landmines, hand-grenades, light machineguns and assault rifles from tribesmen, Brigadier Mehmood Shah, security chief of tribal areas, told AFP.

“We are waiting a response from tribesmen and if no one comes up to sell these weapons then we will work out a strategy to confiscate them,” Shah said.

“A committee has been set up in each tribal region to execute the government’s policy on keeping such lethal arms away from the people,” he said.

Tribesmen, however, could keep some small arms for personal protection, he said.

He did not say how many estimated heavy weapons were in the tribal regions or how much money the government had put aside for the buy-back.

Pakistan Thursday offered to buy heavy weapons at market price from tribesmen in South Waziristan.

Tribesmen were given one week to consider the government’s offer. They have said they would discuss it at an assembly on March 10.

US officials believe Al Qaeda mastermind Osama bin Laden and other key militants have been sheltering somewhere along the mountainous border between Pakistan and Afghanistan since the fall of the Taleban in late 2001.

Pakistani troops killed more than 300 Al Qaeda-linked foreign and local militants but lost about 200 soldiers in battles in South Waziristan last year.

The tribal belt was flooded with thousands of heavy weapons worth millions of dollars during the 1979-1989 Soviet occupation of Afghanistan.

http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticle.asp?xfile=data/subcontinent/2005/March/subcontinent_March135.xml&section=subcontinent

Petronas

03-09-2005, 11:25 AM

Govt official shot dead in Gilgit
Wednesday, March 09, 2005

GILGIT: Police stepped up security in a town near Gilgit after gunmen shot dead an official in an apparent sectarian killing on Tuesday. Muhammad Ayub, senior section officer in the Northern Areas Education Department, was gunned down at a bus stop in the town of Danyore, a police official told AFP, asking not to be named. The attack appeared to be sectarian, police said.

Gilgit police superintendent Rajiur Rehmat told AFP that Ayub, a Sunni Muslim, was shot with a pistol from a close range by an unidentified attacker who then escaped. Police had rounded up nine suspects in relation to the attack, he said. “It could be a sectarian attack but it’s premature to say anything before investigations are completed,” Rehmat said, adding the victim would be buried today (Wednesday).

Residents panicked and shops were closed as the news of the official’s death spread, while security forces were put on alert in the city, witnesses said. The situation in Gilgit was already tense after deadly riots in January in which 17 people were killed following the assassination of a top Shia leader.

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_9-3-2005_pg7_2

Petronas

03-10-2005, 12:37 PM

Pakistan (Country threat level - 5): Unidentified assailants opened fire on a truck transporting aid workers near Shna Khwara, located in North Waziristan, on 9 March 2005. Two people -- an aid worker and a driver -- were injured in the attack. The aid agency, South Fata Development Project, works with local farmers and women. The nationalities of the aid workers are unknown.

AIR SECURITY International - HOT SPOTS 3/10/2005

Casey

03-12-2005, 01:43 PM

Safdar asks tribesmen to evict foreign terrorists

Bureau Report

PESHAWAR: Corps Commander Lt Gen Safdar Hussain has urged ulema and elders of North Waziristan Agency to evict foreign militants from their area to avoid use of force by the Army.

He was talking to a 30-member representative jirga of ulema, mashaikh and maliks of the agency that called on him at the Corps Headquarters here on Friday, says a press release.

The commander said the presence of foreign terrorists though small in number at isolated places needs to be taken seriously for ensuring peace and stability in the agency.

He said various acts of terrorism in the last couple of weeks suggested that some terrorists were still at large in North Waziristan and reminded maliks of their pledges made with the government and obligations to cleanse the area from foreigners.

"Although all tribes and sub-tribes of your agency have signed agreement not to provide safe havens to terrorists but credible intelligence reports suggest that a number of terrorists are still present there. You must take tangible action against them otherwise government will be left with no option but to launch military action against them," he remarked.

He regretted that some locals were playing in the hands of inimical forces who were out to destabilize Pakistan either for monetary gains or misguided religious beliefs.

General Safdar said it was now an open secret that all terrorists like Tahir Yaldeshev were pursuing a specific political agenda in the name of Jihad on Pakistani soil and asked ulema to create awareness among tribesmen in this regard.

He said the government had sufficient funds for development works in Waziristan but the law and order situation was a major hurdle in the execution of uplift projects.

General Officer Commanding Maj Gen Muhammad Akram Sahi and Political Agent North Waziristan Agency Fakhre Alam were also present on the occasion.

Reuters adds: Last week Pakistani soldiers killed two foreign al-Qaeda suspects and arrested 11 people in a remote village in North Waziristan.

Pakistani security forces have killed and arrested hundreds of militants in the neighbouring tribal region of South Waziristan in a spate of operations launched last year.

Officials say the sustained crackdown forced militants to flee to other areas inside Pakistan as well as to Afghanistan.

Pakistan has arrested more than 600 al-Qaeda and Afghan Taliban and handed them over to the US authorities since joining the war on terror declared by Washington after the Sept 11 attacks on the United States in 2001.

http://jang.com.pk/thenews/mar2005-daily/12-03-2005/national/n13.htm

Petronas

03-12-2005, 07:21 PM

Suspect jailed for Karachi bomb
Thursday, 10 March, 2005, 17:34 GMT

A Pakistani suspect arrested last week has been jailed for his alleged role in the June 2002 Sheraton hotel bomb that killed 11 French engineers in Karachi. Mohammad Sohail was sentenced to death in absentia in 2003 after being found guilty of involvement in the attack, which also killed three Pakistanis. He is also being questioned in connection with the 2002 murder of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl. Officials say Sohail belongs to banned militant group Harkat Jihad-ul-Islami.

Suspect Mohammad Sohail fell off his motorbike during a shoot-out with police in Karachi last Wednesday, since when he has been in custody. He will now be tried for an armed encounter with the police and for carrying arms and explosives, police said on Thursday. The authorities blame Harkat Jihad-ul-Islami for several bomb attacks in Pakistan in recent years, including the 2002 attack outside the Karachi Sheraton and a failed attack on Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf in the northern city of Rawalpindi in December 2003. Sohail is one of three men sentenced to death in the Sheraton case. Daniel Pearl was kidnapped in Karachi in January 2002 and later beheaded.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4335927.stm

Casey

03-13-2005, 08:23 PM

Gunmen arrested for murder of tribal elder in Pakistan

TANK, Pakistan (AFP) -- Two gunmen have been arrested in northwestern Pakistan for the murder of a pro-government tribal elder suspected of informing on Al-Qaeda-linked militants, police said Sunday.

Mehsud tribal elder Rasool Khan was shot Saturday in the Tank district of South Waziristan, a semi-autonomous region bordering Afghanistan where Pakistani forces are hunting militants.

The detainees, identified as Ehsan Ullah and Saeed Alam, told investigators they shot Khan because he had been providing information to authorities about Al-Qaeda linked militants, local police official Javed Chughtai said.

U.S. officials believe Al-Qaeda mastermind Osama bin Laden and other key militants have been sheltering somewhere along the mountainous border between Pakistan and Afghanistan since the fall of the Taliban in late 2001.

Pakistan's military said its troops killed 303 militants in 42 operations in the tribal region last year, destroying hideouts and training camps run by foreign Al-Qaeda militants, with the loss of 202 soldiers.

Members of the dominant Mehsud tribe last week agreed to sell their heavy weapons under a government buy-back drive as part of an effort to keep arms out of the hands of militants.

http://www.tehrantimes.com/Description.asp?Da=3/14/2005&Cat=4&Num=15

Petronas

03-15-2005, 01:18 AM

Lashkar explosives expert arrested
Tuesday, March 15, 2005

LAHORE: The Anti-Terrorist Force has arrested Mufti Eid Muhammad, an explosives expert for the defunct militant group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, intelligence sources told Daily Times on Monday. Intelligence agencies were tipped off about his location in Lahore and a special squad took him into custody, sources said, adding that interrogations revealed that he used to make bombs for terrorist activities. Eid Muhammad carries a Rs 500,000 bounty. Sources said, “Eid Muhammad also directed authorities to two of his accomplices hiding in Karachi. They were also arrested.” Local police denied having any information of his arrest.

Eid Muhammad is alleged to have been the man who rigged Chaklala Bridge, Rawalpindi, with explosives in an attempt to assassinate President Pervez Musharraf on December 14, 2003 in Rawalpindi. The bomb exploded seconds after President Musharraf’s motorcade crossed the bridge, the jamming device installed in the president’s car stalling the bomb.

Eid Muhammad is also alleged to have rigged a bridge on Raiwind Road with explosives in an attempt to assassinate former prime minister Nawaz Sharif on January 3, 1999 in Lahore. Nawaz Sharif and former Punjab chief minister Shahbaz Sharif were scheduled to travel on the road separately on the same day. The bomb exploded a few minutes before Shahbaz’s arrival, destroying the bridge.

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_15-3-2005_pg7_6

Petronas

03-16-2005, 01:00 AM

Bomb defused
Wednesday, March 16, 2005

ISLAMABAD: A bomb that had been planted near Yadgar Chowk, F-10, was defused by bomb disposal squad on Tuesday. The missile was discovered when CDA employees were digging near Yadgar Chowk.

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_16-3-2005_pg7_16

Petronas

03-18-2005, 08:41 PM

Goss warns of terrorism in Pakistan
Saturday, March 19, 2005

WASHINGTON: Terrorists in Pakistan remain committed to attacking US targets and it is a matter of time before Al Qaeda or another group uses chemical, biological, radiological and nuclear weapons, said CIA Director Porter J Goss on Friday.

Talking to the Senate Select Committee on Intelligence in his first public appearance as CIA director, Goss said that defeating terrorism must remain one of the core objectives of the US intelligence community. “Al Qaeda is intent on finding ways to circumvent US security enhancements to strike Americans and the country,” he said while elaborating the worldwide threat to the US. He added that Al Qaeda was one facet of the threat from a broader Sunni jihadi movement, “Our pursuit of Al Qaeda and its most senior leaders, including Bin Laden and his deputy Ayman al Zawahri is intense.

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_19-3-2005_pg1_6

Petronas

03-18-2005, 08:44 PM

2 Lashkar-e-Mehdi members arrested
Saturday, March 19, 2005

ISLAMABAD: Law enforcement agencies have arrested two suspects who allegedly threatened a high-ranking official of the United Nations designated in Pakistan, via email. The suspects reportedly belong to Lashkar-e-Mehdi and were arrested from sector I-10, sources told Daily Times. The email threatened the official with dire consequences if he continued to gather information about religious seminaries and underground ‘elements’ of banned militant religious outfits. The identity of the two accused has not been ascertained yet, however they have been taken to an undisclosed location, sources added.

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_19-3-2005_pg7_5

Ono

03-19-2005, 05:21 PM

Pakistan Explosion Kills 24, Injures 16

36 minutes ago Top Stories - AP
By NASEER KAKAR, Associated Press Writer

QUETTA, Pakistan - A bomb exploded Saturday as minority Shiite Muslims congregated at a shrine in a remote town in southwestern Pakistan, killing at least 24 people and wounding 16, police said.

Thousands of worshippers were at the shrine of a Shiite saint near the town of Naseerabad, about 210 miles south of Quetta in restive Baluchistan province, when the bomb went off outside, Mubarak Ali, a local police official, said.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility and no indication the attack was linked to clashes between renegade tribesmen and government forces at a town elsewhere in southwestern Baluchistan that left at least 30 people dead this week.

"It was a powerful bomb. There was blood and body parts everywhere," Mehrab Khan, another police official told The Associated Press.

"Right now people are angry. They are wailing and crying. Some of them have blocked roads in the town and we are trying to control the situation."

Khan said the dead and injured, some in critical condition, were transported to a nearby hospital and he expected the death toll to rise.

Pakistan has a history of sectarian violence, mostly blamed on rival majority Sunni and minority Shiite extremist groups. About 80 percent of Pakistan's 150 million people are Sunnis and 17 percent are Shiites.

Most of the Muslims live together peacefully, but small groups of militants on both sides stage attacks.

Also late Saturday, two homemade bombs went off in a residential area of the town of Turbat, about 400 miles southwest of Quetta, wounding four people, local police official Naqeeb Ullah said. Police do not know who carried out the attacks, he said.

In another area of Baluchistan, thousands of people fearing the collapse of a shaky cease-fire escaped a remote town where fighting this week between Pakistani troops and renegade tribesmen left at least 30 people dead, officials said.

Thursday's fighting in Dera Bugti, which lies about 30 miles from Pakistan's main gas fields, was an alarming escalation of a low-level tribal rebellion in Baluchistan, the country's poorest province.

A parliamentary committee has been set up to examine the grievances of the tribesmen in the province, which was roiled by insurgency in the 1970s. Tribesmen are demanding more returns from the natural gas extracted from their territory and resent the army's moves to set up garrisons in the region.

As government workers and their families fled the area in vehicles under paramilitary escort, ethnic nationalists accused the army of preparing a major offensive and warned they could turn the province into a "graveyard" for soldiers.

Interior Minister Aftab Khan Sherpao told reporters in the capital, Islamabad, that fighters loyal to the local tribal leader were digging in around Dera Bugti and destroying roads. He described these as "serious developments," but maintained the government wanted to resolve the situation through talks.

The two sides agreed to a cease-fire early Friday after 16 hours of clashes. But on Saturday all 3,300 government employees and their families — who are not from the local Bugti tribe — evacuated the town, which has a population of about 84,000 and is 185 miles southeast of Quetta.

Abdul Samad Lasi, the top government official in Dera Bugti, said at least 1,500 armed Bugti men have taken up positions in mountains outside the town and were waiting for an order to attack. He cited intelligence and security reports.

He said the evacuation was prompted by a warning from tribal chief Nawab Akbar Bugti on Saturday that he could not guarantee the government employees' safety.

The government has asked paramilitary forces not to initiate fire but to defend government installations, security official Col. Mohammed Furqan said. "We are ready to face any situation," he said.

In Quetta, the provincial capital, about 3,000 supporters from ethnic Baluch nationalist parties staged a protest Saturday, accusing the government of "ruthless firing" against tribesmen and concealing the deaths of civilians. They carried black flags and wore black arm bands.

http://story.news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&cid=514&e=4&u=/ap/20050319/ap_on_re_as/pakistan_explosion

Petronas

03-20-2005, 12:40 AM

Pakistan test fires longest-range missile
March 19, 2005 12:47 AM EST

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Pakistan on Saturday successfully test-fired its longest-range missile, a military spokesman said, capable of carrying nuclear warheads and hitting many targets deep inside neighboring India. The test of the Shaheen II missile, which has a range of 2,000 kilometers (1,250 miles), was not, however, expected to hurt peace efforts between the nuclear rivals. Both countries routinely conduct missile tests and inform each other in advance. The military did not disclose where the test was conducted, but said it was witnessed by President Gen. Pervez Musharraf. There was no immediate reaction from New Delhi.

Maj. Gen. Shaukat Sultan, spokesman for the Pakistan army, said the missile successfully hit its target. "This missile which incorporates an advanced two-stage solid motor technology, can carry all types of conventional and nuclear warheads," a military statement said. The test came two days after the U.S. Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice visited Pakistan to encourage the peace process - and ahead of Pakistan's National Day on March 23, to be marked with a major military parade in the capital, Islamabad.

Pakistan and India have a history of bitter relations. They have fought three wars since gaining independence from Britain in 1947. Early last year, they began peace talks aimed at resolving their disputes, including their competing claims to the divided Himalyan region of Kashmir. The dialogue has helped ease tensions significantly between the two nations that nearly fought a fourth war in 2002.

In a statement, Musharraf said Pakistan's nuclear capability would continue to "receive the highest national priority." He reiterated its policy of "consolidating and strengthening its minimum deterrence needs as well as strict adherence to nonproliferation." Pakistan became a declared nuclear power on May 28, 1998, when it conducted underground nuclear tests in response to those carried out by India. It tested its first missile the same year.

Pakistan has weathered a diplomatic storm over the dealings of its top nuclear scientist A.Q. Khan who was exposed last year as the key player in an international black market in nuclear weapons technology that supplied Iran, North Korea and Libya. Khan now lives under virtual house arrest in Islamabad.

http://start.earthlink.net/article/int?guid=20050318/423bb1d0_3426_1335020050319837178238

Alli

03-25-2005, 09:24 AM

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - President Pervez Musharraf said Pakistan is considering sending centrifuge components to the U.N. nuclear agency, which could enable the international watchdog to determine if Iran (news - web sites) has been building an atomic bomb.

Diplomats familiar with a U.N. investigation into Iran's nuclear program said this month that Pakistan had agreed to hand over the parts so U.N. inspectors could compare them with machinery sold to Iran by Abdul Qadeer Khan, the father of Pakistan's atomic bomb program.

Musharraf told the private Aaj television channel, in comments made available on Friday, that Pakistan was in negotiations with the Vienna-based International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) on supply of the parts.

"We are considering and negotiations are under way and we will see," he said, when asked if the parts would be sent.

Pakistan initially denied it had agreed to hand over the parts, saying it had neither been asked to supply them, nor would.

The IAEA has been investigating Iran for more than two years. It has found no proof Tehran has atom bomb plans, as suspected by the United States, but it has also been unable to verify Tehran's assertion that its program is entirely peaceful.

The centrifuge parts could hold crucial "fingerprints," or "DNA," of uranium traces found on equipment in Iran, experts say.

Musharraf said Pakistan had offered to provide their parts, or to test parts supplied by the IAEA. Either way, Pakistan was making a one-off offer, he said.

"We have said 'OK, we will give you them and you examine them outside, or maybe you give to us'," he said. "But once and for all, and after that, we've told them that once we do it, then don't ask next time."

Pakistan acknowledged this month for the first time that Khan, the disgraced scientist at the center of a global atomic black market, had provided Iran with centrifuges used to produce enriched uranium fuel for nuclear power plants or arms.

SUSPICIOUS TRACES

In 2003, the IAEA found traces of uranium in Iran that had been enriched to various levels, some of them close to what would be usable in weapons.

That sparked fears that Tehran's secret centrifuge program had been used to purify uranium for atomic weapons.

Iran blamed the traces on contaminated centrifuge components it acquired second-hand from Pakistan.

Pakistan's refusal to allow IAEA experts to take environmental samples inside the country has prevented the IAEA from verifying Iran's explanation.

Pakistan, which successfully tested a nuclear weapon in 1998, has also not allowed foreign investigators to question Khan. He has been kept under virtual house arrest in Islamabad since admitting nuclear proliferation last year.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice (news - web sites) said on a visit to Islamabad this month that Khan's clandestine nuclear supply network had to be completely destroyed and Pakistan had cooperated in the investigation.

"We all have an interest in knowing how it happened so that we can safeguard against this kind of black market entrepreneurship in the future," she said.

A team from the Nuclear Suppliers Group, a 44-nation alliance that polices global exports of materials and equipment that can be used in atomic weapons, is due in Pakistan next month to assess whether controls are now in place to prevent illicit exports.

http://news.yahoo.com/news?tmpl=story&u=/nm/20050325/wl_nm/nuclear_pakistan_dc

Petronas

03-25-2005, 09:45 PM

Travel Warning
United States Department of State
Bureau of Consular Affairs
Washington, DC 20520
----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------
This information is current as of today, Fri Mar 25 18:41:21 2005.

PAKISTAN
March 25, 2005

This Travel Warning is being reissued to remind U.S. citizens of ongoing security concerns in Pakistan. This Travel Warning supersedes the Travel Warning dated September 24, 2004.

Due to on-going concerns about the possibility of terrorist activity directed against American citizens and interests, the Department of State continues to warn U.S. citizens to defer non-essential travel to Pakistan. The U.S. Embassy in Islamabad and the Consulates in Karachi, Lahore, and Peshawar continue to operate at reduced staffing levels. Family members of official Americans assigned to the Embassy in Islamabad and to the three consulates in Pakistan were ordered to leave the country in March 2002 and have not been allowed to return.

Al-Qaida and Taliban elements continue to operate inside Pakistan, particularly along the porous Afghan border region. Their presence, coupled with that of indigenous sectarian and militant groups in Pakistan, continues to pose potential danger to American citizens. Continuing tensions in the Middle East also increase the possibility of violence against Westerners in Pakistan. As security has tightened at official U.S. facilities, terrorists and their sympathizers have demonstrated their willingness and capability to attack more vulnerable targets, including facilities where Americans are generally known to congregate or visit, such as hotels, clubs, restaurants, places of worship, schools, or outdoor recreation events.

U.S. citizens who travel to, or remain in Pakistan despite this Travel Warning are encouraged to register with the Embassy's Consular Section or the Consulates in Lahore, Peshawar, and Karachi through the State Department's travel registration website, https://travelregistration.state.gov and obtain updated information on travel and security within Pakistan. Americans without Internet access may register directly with the nearest U.S. Embassy or Consulate. Persons wishing to register in person at the U.S. Consulate General in Karachi should call that office for information on how to register given the special security measures in effect. Updated travel and security information for Pakistan is issued periodically via the emergency alert system (the warden network). U.S. citizens in country should take appropriate individual precautions to ensure their security and safety. These measures include maintaining good situational awareness, avoiding crowds and demonstrations, as well as keeping a low profile, varying times and routes for all required travel and ensuring that travel documents and visas are valid.

From time to time, any post in Pakistan may temporarily suspend public services for security reasons. Official Americans may be prohibited from traveling to certain areas of Pakistan due to security concerns. Therefore, they may not be able to render immediate service to American citizens in distress. The Embassy and Consulates websites have the latest information on more specific travel restrictions and conditions. Many areas of Pakistan such as the Federally Administered Tribal Areas along the international border and the area adjacent to the Line of Control in the disputed territory of Kashmir are restricted for non-Pakistanis. Travel to any restricted region requires official permission by the Government of Pakistan. Failure to obtain such permission in advance can result in arrest and detention by Pakistani authorities. ...

http://travel.state.gov/travel/cis_pa_tw/tw/tw_930.html

Petronas

03-31-2005, 12:18 PM

Rockets target Miranshah base
Thursday, March 31, 2005

MIRANSHAH: Five rockets slammed into open fields near a base housing hundreds of Pakistani soldiers in a restive tribal region, but there were no casualties, an official said on Wednesday. It was not clear who was behind the attack late on Tuesday against troops on the outskirts of Miranshah. The security official, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said soldiers had launched a search for the assailants.

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_31-3-2005_pg7_9

Casey

04-02-2005, 09:02 AM

Pakistan ; Al Qaeda still prevalent in Peshawar;:

[Pakistan News] Islamabad: Pakistan's North West Frontier Province still remains the hot bed of jihadi militancy with Pakistani security forces having arrested six foreigners alleged to have links with Osama bin Laden's terrorist network Al Qaeda.

According to the Daily Times, personnel belonging to the anti- terrorism police and Pakistani intelligence in a combined raid following a tip off, arrested the six suspects believed to be Afghans and Central Asians from their hideout in Abdara near Peshawar.

Officials said that the raid revealed hand grenades, a pistol, some computer disks and jihadi literature glorifying militancy, adding that the arrested had been under surveillance for quite some time.

"Two hand-grenades, a pistol, computer disks and literature glorifying militancy were seized during the raid. These people have been under surveillance for some time and we have credible information that they are linked to Al Qaeda," the paper quoted an official as saying.

[Pakistan News] "When their hideout was raided the suspects were caught by surprise and were unable to resist. They had been living in a rented house in Peshawar's University Town neighbourhood for a few weeks," he added.

Pakistan's Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed said that the six suspects arrested were under interrogation, adding that however none of them were on the most-wanted list.

"We have arrested six suspects and interrogations are underway," the paper quoted Rashid in an interview to PTV as saying. (ANI)

http://www.keralanext.com/news/indexread.asp?id=170613

Atlas

04-02-2005, 11:07 AM

Petronas

04-02-2005, 08:17 PM

Pakistan (Country threat level - 5): A nationwide strike is scheduled to take place on 2 April 2005. The opposition group Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA), which is demanding the resignation of President Pervez Musharraf on the grounds of his support for the United States and the war on terror, organized the strike. In raids taking place on 31 March and 1 April, police officers in Karachi arrested approximately 150 opposition supporters who were reportedly harassing storeowners and members of the general public in an effort to get them to participate in the strike. Security will be increased in Karachi on the day of the strike in an attempt to ensure order. <br><br>

In related events, suspected MMA activists in Karachi supporting a 1 April 2005 anti-government strike by ethnic minority groups under the auspices of the Pakistan Oppressed Nation Movement (PONM) set fire to at least nine vehicles in various areas of the city. In Quetta, the PONM strike closed stores and businesses and halted traffic. Protesters reportedly attacked cars on roads and set other vehicles on fire. In Peshawar, PONM demonstrations turned violent when crowds attacked a Honda dealership and a Subway restaurant franchise. Reports also indicate that protesters attacked at least one taxi driver in Malir Halt as well as a police checkpoint in Gulistan-I-Jauhar. Approximately 57 protesters were arrested during the strike.

AIR SECURITY International - HOT SPOTS 4/1/2005

Bman

04-04-2005, 12:45 AM

Paki's go ape shit over women running in a road race

Copyright 2005 Associated Press

April 3, 2005 Sunday 6:34 AM Eastern Time

Islamic radicals ambush road race in Pakistan, call female competitors indecent; 18 people injured

ASIF SHAHZAD; Associated Press Writer

LAHORE, Pakistan

Hundreds of Islamic radicals protesting against the participation of women in a road race hurled stones and bricks at competitors, and clashed with police in eastern Pakistan on Sunday, leaving at least 18 people injured, police said.

About 2,000 men, women and children were taking part in the three-kilometer (1.86-mile) race when more than 200 supporters of an Islamic coalition, the Mutahida Majlis-e-Amal or United Action Forum alliance, launched their attack, police official Arif Mushtaq said.

The attackers, wielding sticks and throwing stones, blocked the race course and chased competitors away as they approached a sports stadium in Gujranwala, a city about 200 kilometers (125 miles) southeast of the capital Islamabad, where they were expected to finish race, Mushtaq said.

The attackers also set fire to cars and broke windows nearby.

Policemen who tried to protect the runners also came under attack, he said, adding that officers fired gunshots into the air and lobbed tear gas shells to disperse the attackers.

Eighteen people, including eight policemen, were reported injured in the violence. It was unclear if any of the competitors were injured, but Qazi Hameedullah, a lawmaker from the six-party religious coalition who allegedly led the protesters, was among the wounded, Mushtaq said.

He said police detained 25 people for their involvement in the attacks, but did not say if Hameedullah was arrested.

A spokesman for the Islamic alliance accused police of using force against peaceful protesters who wanted the race canceled.

"We had warned them in writing not to hold the race because it is against Islam. But despite that, this happened. They want to undress the entire nation," Riaz Durrani said.

"It is indecent for women to run in the streets," he said. "They want the sisters and sisters-in-law of the nation to wear knickers and T-shirts."

The pro-Taliban alliance made unexpected gains in parliamentary elections in 2002 mainly on a platform of opposition to the U.S.-led war against terrorism.

A U.S.-led coalition ousted the Taliban militia from power in Afghanistan in late 2001 for harboring al-Qaida.

The alliance has called for the strict implementation of Islamic laws in Pakistan.

Petronas

04-08-2005, 12:34 AM

Pakistan deporting 17 Afghans linked with Taliban regime
Friday, April 08, 2005

QUETTA: Pakistan will deport 17 Afghans, including a former Kabul police chief, who were arrested in January for having links with the Taliban, said southwestern Balochistan police chief Chaudhry Mohammed Yaqub on Thursday. Twenty-three Afghans were arrested from Quetta on January 27, but six were later released. The 17 remaining include an alleged former Taliban deputy governor and Kabul’s former police chief. Yaqub said the government had decided to send the remaining suspects home. “They will be deported to Afghanistan soon,” he said but gave no other details. Pakistan was once a key supporter of the Taliban but switched sides to support the United States after the September 11, 2001, attacks in America. US-led coalition forces ousted the Taliban from power in late 2001. Since then, Pakistan has arrested over 700 terrorism suspects, including some Al Qaeda operatives who were handed to US officials.

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_8-4-2005_pg7_2

uchiuke123

04-12-2005, 08:04 AM

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7471806/

U.S. consulate in Pakistani city closed
Americans warned not to visit building or nearby hotel in Karachi

Aamir Qureshi / AFP - Getty Images
A Pakistani policeman stands alert outside the US consulate in Karachi, Tuesday after the building was closed due to security concerns.
The Associated Press
Updated: 6:42 a.m. ET April 12, 2005KARACHI, Pakistan - The United States closed its consulate in this southern Pakistani city on Tuesday due to a security threat.

advertisement

The consulate in Karachi warned American citizens not to visit the building or the nearby Marriott Hotel until further notice.

“We received information that increased our security concerns,” U.S. Embassy spokesman Greg Crouch said from the capital, Islamabad.

He declined to discuss the nature of the threat but said the consulate would reopen Wednesday.

Karachi is Pakistan’s largest city and a hotbed of Islamic militancy. Militants have launched a string of attacks, including two against the U.S. Consulate, in recent years.

In June 2002, a suicide bombing near the U.S. Consulate left 14 Pakistanis dead and in March last year police defused a huge bomb less than five minutes before it was timed to detonate outside the building.

Islamic militants have been angered by the U.S.-led war against that ousted the Taliban militia from power in neighboring Afghanistan in late 2001 for harboring al-Qaida.

They are also opposed to President Gen. Pervez Musharraf’s alliance with Washington in the anti-terrorism campaign.

© 2005 The Associated Press. All rights reserved. This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or redistributed.

uchiuke123

Casey

04-13-2005, 07:35 AM

Algerian Suspects Speak of Al-Qaeda Links
Reuters PESHAWAR, 13 April 2005 — Pakistan security forces have arrested two Algerians who admitted during interrogation to receiving money from the Al-Qaeda network, a security official said yesterday.

The two, identified as Medjouri Mohammad Said and Mehdi Rabbah, were arrested on Friday in the northwestern Pakistani city of Peshawar, near the Afghan border.

They initially told interrogators they were from Iraq but later confessed to being Algerians, the official said.

“Both have admitted they were paid regularly by Al-Qaeda contacts,” said the official, who declined to be identified.

Investigators were still trying to determine why the two had been getting money from Al-Qaeda, although neither man was regarded as a prominent member of the group, or was on any wanted list, the official said. The two had been living in Pakistan since 1990 and had married Pakistani women, he said.

Pakistan has arrested hundreds of Al-Qaeda suspects since joining the US-led war on terrorism declared after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks.

http://www.arabnews.com/?page=4&section=0&article=62033&d=13&m=4&y=2005&pix=world.jpg&category=World

Petronas

04-14-2005, 11:44 AM

Pakistan (Country threat level - 5): Reports issued on 12 April 2005 indicate that unidentified assailants fired two rockets at Panjgur Airport (OPPG/PJG), located in Baluchistan, at approximately 0215 local time on 10 April. One rocket fell approximately 0.5 mi/1 km from the airport, while the other hit the building that houses the radar system. While the building sustained damage, there is no indication that the radar system was affected. Airport officials have reportedly increased security as a result of the incident. No further information is available.

AIR SECURITY International - HOT SPOTS 4/13/2005

Petronas

04-16-2005, 12:44 AM

4 arrested for Quetta bombing
Saturday, April 16, 2005

QUETTA: Four militants have been arrested for bombing the shrine of a Shia saint last month that killed 43 people, police said on Friday. The men were detained two days after the March 19 attack on Dargah Khel Shah Fatehpur Gandawaha close to Naseerabad after a bomb-making accident in the same region that injured one of them, said Balochistan police chief Chaudhry Yaqub at a press conference.

“Police arrested Maulvi Abdul Hakim, Muhammad Aslam, Abdullah and Abdul Hakim who masterminded the attack, from a local mosque. They belong to the banned militant group Sipah-e-Sahaba. They were very clever people. They kept changing their statements during investigations, but now they have confessed to masterminding and carrying out the bomb attack near Naseerabad,” said Yaqub. He said the suspects had trained at camps in Afghanistan during the Taliban’s tenure, but he would not say whether they were involved in previous sectarian attacks.

“They are terrorists and their trial will be held very soon,” he said. The suspects and their lawyers were not available for comment. All four have been in police custody for the past month.

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_16-4-2005_pg1_6

Casey

04-19-2005, 01:23 PM

Alleged Daniel Pearl killer says met bin Laden twice: report
(AFP)
19 April 2005

ISLAMABAD - An Islamic militant sentenced to death for the murder of US reporter Daniel Pearl in Pakistan said in a rare interview published on Tuesday that he met Osama bin Laden twice in Afghanistan.

British-born Sheikh Omar also admitted he was “involved” in kidnapping Pearl in 2002 but said he did not take part in his brutal murder, according to the latest edition of the English-language magazine Newsline.

The magazine said it had obtained written answers from Sheikh to questions smuggled into his cell while he was at Adiala Jail in the northern town of Rawalpindi, near Islamabad. He has since been moved to another prison.

“Yes, I met him twice in Afghanistan,” Sheikh said when asked if he had met the Al-Qaeda chief, the first time the 31-year-old has admitted encountering bin Laden. He did not say when the meetings took place.

But he added that he did not agree with all bin Laden’s methods and was now committed to Mullah Mohammed Omar, the one-eyed, fugitive head of Afghanistan’s Taliban regime, as the “overall leader of all mujahideen (holy warriors)”.

Sheikh expressed no regret for his actions, saying only that he had “some causes of anxiety, such as the fact that my son is growing up without me -- he’s three years old now”.

His lawyer, Mohsin Imam, said he was not aware of the interview and could not verify its contents.

Sheikh’s appeal against his conviction for plotting the abduction and murder of Wall Street Journal correspondent Pearl in the southern city of Karachi is pending in a Pakistani court.

The High Court of Sindh province, of which Karachi is the capital, is due to take up the appeal on May 13. He was convicted by an anti-terrorism court in July 2002 and sentenced to death.

Sheikh was held briefly at Adiala in connection with the probe into an abortive attempt on the life of President Pervez Musharraf in December 2003, and is now at Hyderabad jail in southern Pakistan.

Pearl, the Journal’s Bombay-based South Asia correspondent, disappeared in Karachi on January 23, 2002, while working on a story into the murky underworld of Pakistani militant groups.

One week after Sheikh’s arrest was made public, a graphic video depicting the gruesome decapitation of Pearl was delivered to the US consulate in Karachi.

Sheikh told the magazine Pearl was “an informer, an American spy.”

http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticle.asp?xfile=data/subcontinent/2005/April/subcontinent_April589.xml&section=subcontinent

Petronas

04-19-2005, 05:52 PM

Pakistan (Country threat level - 5): On 16 April 2005, security forces arrested approximately 150 activists from the opposition Pakistan People's Party (PPP) -- including PPP leader Asif Ali Zardari, the husband of exiled former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto -- following clashes at Allama Iqbal International Airport (OPLA/LHE) in Lahore. Crowds of demonstrators broke through a heavy security presence at the airport to greet Zardari, who was returning to Lahore to stage a rally after visiting Bhutto in Dubai, U.A.E. Approximately 200 additional PPP supporters, who staged a rally on the road from the airport to central Lahore, clashed with police officers and were arrested. Zardari was released later on 16 April. On 15 April 2005, additional security forces were brought in to seal off the airport in advance of Zardari's arrival, in what officials announced as a red alert based on warnings of a terrorist attack. Officials from the PPP reported that the terror threat was only being used as a cover to prevent activists from greeting Zardari at the airport. It is not known if the clashes affected operations at the airport.

AIR SECURITY International - HOT SPOTS 4/18/2005

1001

05-03-2005, 05:36 AM

Pakistan again declines to send troops to Iraq

ISLAMABAD, May 02 (Online):

Pakistan and US have agreed on further bolstering co-operation in fight against terrorism, security and military exercises amid the reports that Pakistan has once again declined to despatch its troops to Iraq in the perspective of security concerns.

Military sources informed Online Monday President general Pervez Musharraf met chief of US central command army General John P Abizaid, who is on emergency visit in Pakistan. The wide spectrum of matters concerning boosting of co-operation in defence and military exercises between US and Pakistan, regional situation, Afghanistan, Iraq issues, operation for search of Osama bin Laden and central leadership of Al-Qaeda and Pak-Afghan border issues featured in the discussion.

Sources told both the countries agreed that co-operation will be further expanded for elimination of terrorism. US will provide training facilities and financial assistance to Pakistan army and law enforcement agencies on this count.

President observed that Pakistan had fought successful war against Al-Qaeda and over 700 terrorists had been tracked down so far. As far Osama bin Laden is concerned, efforts are underway to hunt him down. " We will continue co-operation with coalition forces in this respect", president assured.

Sources disclosed that President Musharraf apprised General Abizaid about Pakistan concerns on violation of Pak-Afghan borders by US troops and their intrusion and search operation in Pakistan border territories. This is tantamount to calling into question our intent, Musharraf told. President made it clear that Pakistan role is very clear.

US general sought support of Pakistan troops for Iraq security. But President Musharraf made it clear that security situation in Iraq was not clear, therefore, Pakistan could not send its troops.

http://www.thepakistaninewspaper.com/news_detail.php?id=1879

Petronas

05-03-2005, 10:14 PM

Many dead in Pakistan gas blast
Tuesday, 3 May, 2005, 13:53 GMT 14:53 UK

An explosion of gas cylinders in the basement of a building in the eastern Pakistani city of Lahore has killed at least 26 people, police say. Many others were injured in the blast, which damaged nearby houses, and rescuers are still searching for people who may be trapped under the rubble. It is not clear what set off the explosions, though police say sabotage has been ruled out. The building housed a small ice-cream factory as well as residential flats. The blast occurred at about 0330 (2230 GMT) when many residents were asleep. Police say that a lorry was delivering gas cylinders to the building, where they were kept in the basement, at the time of the explosion. The BBC's Shahid Malik in Lahore says dozens of people have been killed in the city in the last five years in incidents involving use of residential premises for commercial purposes.

Rescue workers used cranes and bulldozers to remove the rubble. Dazed survivors were pulled out from underneath huge concrete slabs. "I heard a deafening bang, then it seemed like the world fell on me and then I passed out," one survivor, Mohammed Mushtaq, told the AFP news agency. "The next thing I knew I was being pulled out of the rubble by rescuers several hours later."

A spokesman for a local health service provider, Edhi Foundation, told the BBC that the number of casualties could rise. One report says four women and two children were among the dead. "The blast was so powerful that it broke window panes of nearby houses," a police official, Zubair Nawaz Chatha, was quoted as saying by AFP. The injured have been moved to a nearby hospital, police say.

The provincial authorities have announced compensation for those affected by the blast. Families of those killed will receive 150,000 rupees ($2,500), and the injured will receive 50,000 rupees ($840). Punjab Chief Minister Chaudhri Pervaiz Elahi has also ordered an inquiry. "If it is found that any unlawful activities were going on regarding the use of gas, punitive action will be taken against whosoever was responsible," he promised.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4507749.stm

Petronas

05-04-2005, 08:40 PM

Pakistan catches al Qaeda number three
May. 4, 2005

Pakistani security forces, with help from U.S. intelligence, have arrested al Qaeda's third most senior leader after Osama bin Laden and Ayman al Zawahri, Western intelligence sources said Wednesday. Pakistan says Abu Faraj Farj al Liby, whom it has said is a Libyan, was the ringleader behind at least two assassination attempts against President Pervez Musharraf in December 2003. Liby is not on the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation's "most wanted" list but is believed to have taken over the role of the arrested Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who allegedly masterminded the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on U.S. cities. "Al Liby is a top general for (Osama) bin Laden. He was a major facilitator and a chief planner for the al Qaeda network. His arrest removes a dangerous enemy who was a direct threat to America and to those who love freedom," President Bush said Wednesday, before going on to praise Pakistan.

A U.S. counter-terrorism official in Washington said: "He is the third most important after bin Laden and Zawahri. It's a significant blow to the group. After he (Khalid Sheikh Mohammed) disappeared from the scene, Faraj took on some of his leadership responsibilities and was instrumental in directing al Qaeda operations globally, including attacks against the homeland." The official said U.S. human intelligence played a critical role in Liby's capture.

Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the importance of this breakthrough could become more apparent in the coming days. "I think that over the next couple of days, we will be able to describe that this is a truly significant arrest," she told reporters in Washington.

Pakistan's Interior Minister Aftab Sherpao told reporters Liby was caught a few days ago. "The arrest of this man will lead to new routes against terrorism," Sherpao said, with hopes high that more arrests would be made soon. But he said it was premature to say whether Liby could lead security forces to bin Laden or Zawahri, but intelligence sources said he was the man most likely to know their whereabouts. Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed hailed Liby's arrest as the most important since those of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, caught in March 2003, and Abu Zubaydah, the al Qaeda operations chief caught a year earlier, also in Pakistan.

Intelligence officials gave several differing versions of where Liby was arrested, including the southern port city of Karachi and the troubled tribal region of South Waziristan. But according to the most detailed account he was caught during a raid Monday morning in North West Frontier Province. Security officers said Liby surrendered with four others after being tear-gassed in a house near Mardan, a town 110 km (68 miles) northwest of Islamabad.

BIG CASH REWARD

Musharraf, an ally in the U.S.-led war against terrorism, survived two assassination attempts in December 2003. Several arrests and convictions have been made in the case, including of low-ranking military personnel. Pakistan had offered a 20 million rupee (around $340,000) reward for information leading to the arrest of Liby, who was believed to have enlisted Pakistanis to carry out the attacks. Sherpao said Washington had offered a $10 million dollar reward for Liby, but that he was not on the U.S. "most wanted" list. A namesake, Anas al-Liby, wanted in connection with the 1998 bombings of U.S. embassies in East Africa, is on the list.

An Interior Ministry photograph of the captured militant showed a bearded man suffering from a skin ailment akin to vitiligo, which causes blotchiness due to loss of pigmentation. The photograph contrasted sharply with one released a year ago which showed a bearded Liby looking smart in a collar and tie.

PEARL MURDER LINK

Sherpao said Liby was linked to Amjad Farooqi, a Pakistani militant killed by security forces in a shootout in southern Pakistan last September, who had figured in the Musharraf plots. Farooqi was also involved in the kidnapping and murder of American journalist Daniel Pearl in Karachi in 2002, and was associated with several Sunni Muslim Pakistani militant groups that shared similar world views to bin Laden's al Qaeda. Musharraf says Pakistan has broken the back of terrorism in the country, killing and arresting hundreds of militants. Attacks have fallen off recently, as the military continues to apply pressure in tribal areas close to the Afghan border.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=728256

Alli

05-04-2005, 08:48 PM

question: if he was not on the most wanted list, how is he #3? One would think the top operatives would be on the list?? :confused:

Liby is not on the U.S. Federal Bureau of Investigation's "most wanted" list

Petronas

05-05-2005, 12:00 PM

For some, it seems to be preferable to send off others to becme martyrs than to become one themselves.

Pakistan closes net after big al Qaeda catch
May. 5, 2005

Pakistani security forces have rounded up about two dozen al Qaeda suspects after arresting a man President Bush called "a top general" of Osama bin Laden, intelligence officials said on Thursday. They said Abu Faraj Farj al Liby, who U.S. counter-terrorism agents say became al Qaeda's third-most important figure two years ago, could provide clues to the whereabouts of bin Laden and his deputy Ayman al-Zawahri. Pakistan says Liby was the ringleader of at least two assassination attempts against President Pervez Musharraf in December 2003.

Liby's capture was announced late on Wednesday, and he has been brought to Rawalpindi, the garrison town close to Islamabad, for questioning. "Raids are being carried out in several cities after his interrogation," a Pakistani intelligence official said. However, some officials doubted whether his arrest would have been trumpeted if security forces were hot on the trail of two of the world's most wanted men.

U.S. security officials said they had supplied information that helped track Liby down, but the White House emphasized that Pakistan took the lead in the arrest. Some Pakistani security sources said the Central Intelligence Agency had been monitoring Liby's movements since February, and orders for the arrest came when it seemed the risk of losing him outweighed the chance of him leading agents to bin Laden or al-Zawahri.

There were varying versions of when and where Liby was run to ground, but the most detailed account was given by policemen in North West Frontier Province and several intelligence sources. Liby was caught along with four comrades on Monday morning, said Amanullah Khan, deputy superintendent of police in Mardan, a town 110 km (68 miles) northwest of Islamabad. The militants had been hiding at a shrine on Mardan's outskirts, but fled to a nearby house when they realized they were under surveillance by Pakistani agents, including some disguised in burqas -- the head-to-toe garment worn by Muslim women in the area -- according to one policeman.

Khan said tear gas was used to flush out Liby and his comrades after they refused to surrender. "We tried for half-an-hour to 45 minutes but he remained quiet," Khan said. "We tried to break down the door but it was bolted from inside. So, we broke windows and threw a tear gas grenade inside. He came out unarmed with hands in the air and his head slightly bowed. We found a cell phone on him. He was immediately whisked away by the intelligence agency."

BREAKTHROUGH

The White House called the arrest the most significant since that of Khalid Sheikh Mohammed, who was captured in March 2003 and was the alleged mastermind of al Qaeda's Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States. Liby was a successor to "KSM" -- "in some sense the leadership is a bit constrained, he was not only doing operations, he was a facilitator, he was into finance, he was into administration," National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley told reporters.

Pakistan has decimated al Qaeda in the past three years, arresting and killing hundreds of militants, but bin Laden's network struck back by enlisting like-minded Pakistani Islamist militants. Hundreds of al Qaeda members arrested in Pakistan have been handed over to the United States in the past, but it was uncertain if Pakistan would do the same with someone who had tried to kill Musharraf.

And after catching Liby, security forces closed the net on other suspects with several raids elsewhere in the country. They also recaptured a man sentenced to death for his role in one of Liby's plots to kill Musharraf. Mushtaq Ahmed, a member of a Pakistani militant group that had forged links with al Qaeda, was caught on the road from Lahore to Islamabad earlier this week, a senior security official said on Thursday. He had escaped with embarrassing ease from an air force base in Rawalpindi last December. The official said the timing of Ahmed's recapture was a coincidence, unrelated to operations surrounding Liby's arrest.

But in other swoops in Lahore, the capital of the eastern province of Punjab, Peshawar, capital of North West Frontier Province, and the Bajaur tribal area of the NWFP had already netted more than 20 other al Qaeda suspects, officials said. "In one raid last night, in Lahore, six men and two women were arrested," the official said, adding that automatic rifles and more than three dozen hand grenades were seized.

http://abcnews.go.com/US/wireStory?id=730822

Petronas

05-06-2005, 09:53 AM

Enemies ‘within’ can attack Musharraf again
Friday, May 06, 2005

KARACHI: A junior federal minister on Thursday said President General Pervez Musharraf had a lot of enemies ‘within’ who could make an attempt on his life again at any time. “President Musharraf has a number of enemies who can try to assassinate him,” Dr Aamir Liaqat Hussain, minister of state for religious affairs, said in a Daily Times’ HARDtalk interview (the newspaper will be carrying it in its Saturday’s issue) at the newspaper’s Karachi offices.

He substantiated his fears on the third attempt on President Musharraf’s life while saying that there were certain elements within the forces who could attack the army general. “No common people could attack President Musharraf and certainly there are elements in the forces who can launch yet another attack against him,” he said. The authorities have recently captured a senior Al Qaeda suspect, Abu Faraj Al Libbi, who is accused of masterminding two attempts to kill President Pervez Musharraf. Al Libbi is said to be a close associate of Osama Bin Laden and ranks third in the current hierarchy after Bin Laden and his Egyptian-born deputy Ayman Al Zawahri. President Musharraf has previously named Al Libbi as the ringleader in the attempts to assassinate him in December 2003.

Dr Hussain said there was “an ISI within the ISI, which is more powerful than the original and still orchestrating many eventualities in the country.”

While expressing his fears about President Musharraf’s life, the outspoken minister said that even his own life was in danger due to his radical thoughts about religion, which were unacceptable to many religious forces operating in the country. Dr Hussain is generally believed to be a preacher of ‘tolerant Islam’ and, according to him, he has been tasked to persuade the West and the orthodoxy in Pakistan to understand enlightenment and moderation as the gist of the Muslim religion. “We are preaching the true religion to all levels, including to the army ranks,” said the minister. Dr Hussain said he was busy authoring ‘sermons’ for Friday prayers which would be delivered at the military mosques.

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_6-5-2005_pg1_2

1001

05-06-2005, 04:23 PM

Electronics stores in Pakistan attacked

Friday 06 May 2005, 14:13 Makka Time, 11:13 GMT

A bomb has exploded in a bazaar in Pakistan's northwestern region near the Afghan border, damaging several shops but injuring no one, an official said.

The explosion before dawn at Garai bazaar in Miran Shah, the main town in the North Waziristan tribal region, smashed windows, doors and goods at about 10 shops.

Many of the shops sold TV sets, audio and video cassettes and rented out music and movie CDs, an intelligence official in Miran Shah said.

No one claimed responsibility.

Aljazeera reported that an organisation calling itself the al-Qaida Group threatened in a statement to attack video shops and hotels that promote what it called immoral values in the country.

Threat

The unnamed official said pamphlets had been distributed in Miran Shah five days earlier warning that unless all video rental shops and stores selling television sets, audio and video cassette players closed, they risked being attacked.

The pamphlets, in Pakistan's main Urdu language, also warned hotel owners against having TVs in rooms or showing movies to their guests, the official said.

Radical Muslim groups - like Afghanistan's Taliban, vanquished from power in late 2001 - consider films and the playing of music as against Islam. The Taliban banned televisions and nearly all other forms of entertainment.

Protest

Aljazeera reported that the Muslim Scholars Society, headed by Mawalana Fazur Rahman, held a rally in Miran Shah.

Thousands of tribesmen at the rally demanded an end to Pakistani military operations in the region.

They also denounced calls of moderation by Pakistan's president, General Pervez Musharraf, as spreading immoral values under slogans of reform.

Pakistan, a key ally of the United States in the "war against terrorism", has deployed thousands of troops to the north and the adjoining South Waziristan regions, which both border Afghanistan, to track down fighters.

The authorities think hundreds of Arab, Central Asian and Afghan fighters, suspected of links with al-Qaida, are hiding in the region.

Aljazeera + Agencies
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/ED5C859E-D466-424F-9885-91784CB92F91.htm

1001

05-08-2005, 01:27 PM

Pakistan in big trouble – UN puts Dawood Ibrahim on most-wanted list with Al-Qaeda links

May 8, 2005

The underworld don, Dawood Ibrahim, who is believed to be shuttling between the Pakistan port city of Karachi and a Gulf country, was named by the United States as ''Specially Designated Global Terrorist'' after which it decided to move the UN for freezing of all his assets.

Now he is on the most wanted list of UN.

The move by the United Nations could cause some problems for Pakistan, whom India has been accusing of supporting and providing shelter to the underworld don.

The United Nations has named Dawood Ibrahim, underworld don and alleged mastermind behind the 1993 serial blasts in Mumbai, in the wanted list of individuals having links with Al-Qaeda.

According to the fresh list released by the UN, Dawood Ibrahim figured in the list under UN resolution 1267, which mandates all states to freeze the assets, prevent their entry into or transit through their territories.

The resolution also asks the member countries to prevent the direct or indirect supply, sale and transfer of arms and military equipments to the entities belonging to the Taliban, Osama bin Laden and the Al-Qaeda.

The UN list has named him as an Indian citizen with his place of birth being Ratnagiri in Maharashtra and having an Indian passport -- A-333602. However, the world body has failed to name his present location.

The move by the United Nations could cause some problems for Pakistan, whom India has been accusing of supporting and providing shelter to the underworld don.

http://www.indiadaily.com/editorial/2599.asp

Petronas

05-08-2005, 03:48 PM

Hunt starts for Qaeda supporters in Army?
Sunday, May 08, 2005

KARACHI: With the capture in Pakistan of Libyan Abu Farraj Al Libbi of Al Qaeda, wanted in connection with two assassination attempts against President Pervez Musharraf in 2003, Pakistani authorities are stepping up investigations into Al Qaeda’s investment in the Pakistan Army, Asia Times Online reported on Saturday.

It reported that information gleaned from well-connected military analysts suggested that army officials connected with the Afghan cell during the Taliban period in Afghanistan (1996-2001) were likely to be in the firing line and that action was expected soon against several serving and retired army personnel. “Abu Farraj is expected to be handed over to the US soon and is likely to be kept in a US detention centre in Jordan or Morocco. Abu Faeraj was deeply connected with Al Qaeda’s North African cells before becoming involved in Pakistan a few years ago. The North African cells are Al Qaeda’s most preserved, and are believed to be key to any future strikes on the US,” it reported. Asia Times Online reported that Abu Farraj was a trainer at al-Farooq camp in Afghanistan during Taliban rule and rose in prominence and became popular among the trainees as well as with the Inter-Services Intelligence’s (ISI) Afghan cell. “Abu Farraj’s interaction with Pakistanis, whether they were private militants or military men, was deep,” it added.

It said Abu Farraj had been used as a facilitator between Al Qaeda’s cells in North Africa and their support system in the UK and that his first field operation was the assignment to kill President Musharraf, which was delegated to him because of his proven abilities and his connections among Pakistani jihadis and members of the armed forces, some of whom participated in the two attempts on President Musharraf’s life.

“Al Qaeda had invested in Pakistan well before the US invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001, anticipating the consequences of the September 11 attack, that is, that they would be driven out of Afghanistan. It was that goodwill among military men and jihadis that Abu Farraj tapped into to carry out his attacks on President Musharraf,” Asia Times Online reported.

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_8-5-2005_pg1_3

candypreet

05-12-2005, 12:25 PM

Proposal to blacklist Pakistan: Religious freedom

WASHINGTON, May 11: A US Congress-mandated commission advised the government on Wednesday to blacklist Pakistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan for alleged violation of religious freedom and beliefs. The US Commission on International Religious Freedom also sought the removal of India from the government’s list of “countries of particular concern” following “significant” improvements in that country since the defeat of the ruling Hindu nationalist BJP in 2004 polls.

The State Department annually blacklists countries for alleged religious freedom violations based on recommendations from the commission, whose 10 members are jointly appointed by President George Bush and Congress.

Last year, the department added Eritrea, Saudi Arabia and Vietnam to the blacklist, which already included China, Iran, Myanmar, North Korea and Sudan. Countries added to the department’s blacklist could face government sanctions on various fronts.

Commission chairman Preeta Bansal told reporters on Wednesday the governments of Pakistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan “have engaged in or tolerated particularly severe violations of religious freedom.”—AFP

http://www.dawn.com/2005/05/12/top13.htm

Petronas

05-13-2005, 10:06 AM

Pakistan (Country threat level - 5): The U.S. Consulate General in Karachi issued the following Warden Message on 12 May 2005: "In light of the possibility of protests in the Peshawar area the afternoon of May 13, 2005, the American Consulate in Peshawar will be closed to the public on May 13. Any American requiring emergency services should call the Consulate. American citizens are advised to avoid Peshawar, or if they reside inside the city, restrict their movements in Peshawar to essential travel only. ..."

AIR SECURITY International - HOT SPOTS 5/12/2005

Petronas

05-13-2005, 11:19 AM

Two Lashkar men arrested
Friday, May 13, 2005

MULTAN: Police arrested two members of the outlawed Lashkar-e-Jhangvi suspected of plotting a series of attacks on parliamentarians, said a police official said on Thursday.

Multan’s district police officer Sikandar Hayat said the pair Amer Shehzad (22) and Khawaja Muhammad Ibrahim (50) arrested from Jalapur Pirwala, were part of a network of up to 23 members who had been recruiting “suicide attackers” for assaults on the National Assembly and on the country’s Shia Muslims. “They had planned to make their way into the National Assembly and take the lawmakers hostage to press for their demands,” he said.

The two men were also suspected of involvement in a suicide bombing that killed 30 people in Sialkot’s Imambargah on October 1. Hayat said the two had also confessed to plotting to kill Tehrik-i-Jafaria chief Allama Sajid Ali Naqvi in October 2004, adding that police had arrested up to eight members of the network and were hunting for the rest.

Hayat said Shehzad had volunteered for a suicide mission and five hand grenades were confiscated from him. Speaking from a mobile telephone given to him, Shezad said, “I am arrested on charges of being Lashkar-e-Jhangvi member. My friends carried out attacks.”

On Monday, police nabbed four other Lashkar-e-Jhangvi members after a shootout in Karachi. Last week, intelligence sources said that at least 10 suspects arrested in and around Lahore had been planning to make another attempt on Musharraf’s life. Several of them belonged to Jaish-e-Mohammed, another Sunni militant group, said intelligence sources.

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_13-5-2005_pg1_4

Petronas

05-13-2005, 11:25 AM

Pakistan(Country threat level - 5): Protests against the alleged desecration of the Quran by U.S. interrogators at the Guantanamo Bay detention facility in Cuba have spread beyond Afghanistan. ... in Pakistan, the opposition Islamist alliance Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) staged rallies in Lahore, Quetta and Peshawar on the same issue on 12 May. Approximately 1,000 people rallied in Quetta, and an estimated 200 people were present at the Lahore and Peshawar rallies. Crowds chanted anti-U.S. slogans and burned U.S. flags and effigies of President George W. Bush. On 13 May 2005, similar demonstrations involving several hundred MMA supporters took place in Lahore, Karachi, Islamabad and other major cities. The U.S. Consulate in Lahore closed on 13 May in advance of the demonstrations as a precaution.

AIR SECURITY International - HOT SPOTS 5/13/2005

Petronas

05-14-2005, 01:17 AM

CIA drone said to kill al-Qaida operative
Updated: 1:11 a.m. ET May 14, 2005

NBC News has confirmed that a CIA Predator drone has killed al-Qaida operative in the remote northwest part of Pakistan where other members of the militant group are believed to be hiding. A U.S. official confirmed that al-Yemeni is a senior al-Qaida member. "The debate was over whether to hit him individually or wait until he was part of a bigger group," NBC analyst Roger Cressey reported. There was no clarification if the actual strike was against just al-Yemeni or targeted a gathering of suspected militants.

Information leading to the hit is thought to be connected to the recent capture of Abu Faraj al-Libbi, described as al-Qaida's No. 3, in northwest Pakistan on May 2. The CIA said Friday it would not confirm, deny or comment in any way on the operation. That could mean that operations are continuing in the field. However, sources say that the CIA has all the approvals necessary within its counterterror center in Langley, Va., to fire missiles within Pakistan when an al-Qaida target is spotted. The agency does not have to check with the White House or with Pakistani authorities or the CIA director. The purpose is to expedite rapid action in the field in case the opportunity is time sensitive.

Several times in recent months, Predators have been used to fire at suspected militant targets, including sites described as training camps inside Pakistan territory. Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed denied to NBC News that any such incident had taken place on Pakistani soil within the last week.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/7847008/

Petronas

05-15-2005, 01:57 PM

Police unwilling to monitor prisoners if they’re freed
Sunday May 15, 2005-- Rabi-us-Sani 06, 1426 A.H.

ISLAMABAD: The government has been told that Station House Officers (SHOs) of different police stations all over Pakistan are not ready to monitor the activities of repatriated Pakistani prisoners from Guantanamo Bay in case they were freed from jails at home. Despite being released by the Americans some eight months ago, these 35 prisoners continue to languish in jails without any charge.

The tug of war between the Interior Ministry and the provincial government over the issue of non-cooperation of SHOs in monitoring the activities has contributed a lot to the misery of families of these prisoners, who wait for their release with little hope. A brother of the detainee told The News that the government had been telling the families of these prisoners that they all would be released soon.

A top level source in the Interior Ministry confirmed that the involvement of SHOs in the process of the prisoners release was seriously considered after Americans handed over 35 Pakistani jihadis to Pakistan and authorised Islamabad to decide their fate on its own after ‘security clearance’. The source said even at one stage, the government had agreed in principle to release these detainees as all legal experts were of the view that the government could not hold them for a long time in jail without formally framing charges against them.

Later, it was planned to book these prisoners under a law that gives Interior Ministry powers to detain any one suspected of spying for India for a year in jail without producing them before any court of law. Superintendent jail Shahid Baig the other day told The News these prisoners were ‘under house arrest’ on the orders of Punjab government but he did not know the exact nature of their crimes. But, the source said, the role of local SHOs was given importance in monitoring the activities of these prisoners so that none of them could create any problem for them in future as happened in some other cases of similar nature. However, the source said SHOs were not ready to cooperate with the federal government on the sensitive issue of monitoring the released prisoners on the grounds that some of them might create problems, which could lead them to losing their job.

As many as 18 prisoners from NWFP, Sindh and Balochistan after being repatriated from Cuba have already been sent to their respective provinces to enable them to stay close to their families. But, the Punjab government is dragging its feet on the proposal to shift the 17 prisoners from Adiala. The source said as a first step, 17 prisoners from Punjab were being sent to four district jails in Punjab - Sahiwal, Faisalabad, Mianwali and Lahore - so that they could be detained nearest to their homes.

However, the source said the government was not willing to take the risk of releasing these prisoners because they fear that they all could follow the precedent set by terrorist Abdullah Mahsud, who after his release, organised a band of tribal youths to target Pakistani and American security agencies. The source said the government did not release these prisoners immediately because they were returned to Pakistani in a miserable condition and government did not want to expose them before the media and their families in such a deplorable condition as it was assumed it would create further hatred against the Americans.

The source said Interior Minister Aftab Ahmed Khan Sherpao had been presiding over different meetings of the provincial and federal authorities to chalk out a plan to address the issue of detention of these prisoners released from American jail in Cuba. The source said the interior minister had been telling the participants of the committee that government wanted to rehabilitate these prisoners as many of them belonged to very poor families and the government could not take the risk of releasing them only to make them available to the religious groups for a future ‘jihad’. But, the source said, for the time being, the government appeared indifferent to the prisoners who have already suffered a long ordeal first in Afghanistan, then in Guantanamo Bay and now in Adalia jail.

http://www.jang.com.pk/thenews/may2005-daily/15-05-2005/main/main5.htm

Casey

05-25-2005, 06:14 PM

Posted on Wed, May. 25, 2005

Bomb in elder's house kills 6 in Pakistan

PAZIR GUL
Associated Press

MIRAN SHAH, Pakistan - A bomb exploded in the house of a tribal elder in Pakistan's South Waziristan region, killing five women and a child, officials said Wednesday.
It was not immediately clear who was behind the attack late Tuesday at the house of Namdar Khel, a local tribal elder in the town of Mukin, said Anwar Zeb, a local government official. The victims were members of Khel's family.

Zeb said authorities did not know the motive for the attack.

South Waziristan, near the Afghan border, has been a battleground between al-Qaida linked militants and Pakistan security forces, but violent family feuds are also common.

"We have no idea who was behind it. It may be the result of personal enmity or because of some other reason, including an attack," Zeb said.

Also late Tuesday, two bombs exploded in neighboring North Waziristan, damaging three shops and injuring a passer-by, officials said Wednesday.

The bombs exploded 30 minutes apart in a market in Miran Shah, the main town in the North Waziristan, said Iftikhar Ahmad, a government official in the area.

He said it was not clear who was behind the blasts, and that authorities were still investigating.

The bombs were planted near shops which were closed at the time. The injured passer-by was listed in stable condition, Ahmad said.

Pakistan, a key ally of the United States in its war against terrorism, has deployed about 70,000 soldiers in its tribal regions along the border with Afghanistan to trace and arrest al-Qaida men and their local supporters.

http://www.thestate.com/mld/thestate/news/world/11736136.htm

Petronas

05-28-2005, 01:05 AM

20 killed in Bari Imam bombing
Saturday, May 28, 2005

ISLAMABAD: Twenty people were killed and 82 were injured, some critically, when a suicide bomber blew himself up amid the annual Shia Muslims congregation at the Bari Imam Shrine on Friday. The intense blast made a crater of almost ten metres in radius littered with human limbs, mutilated bodies, pools of blood, the dead and injured, portraying a horrifying scene. Twelve bodies have been identified.

“The blast tore the body of the suicide bomber and his head fell 20 yards away from the scene,” said an eye-witnesses. The district administration announced Rs 2 million as a reward for information leading to the arrest of the criminals behind this incident. Soon after the incident, a state of emergency was declared in all hospitals here. Law enforcement agencies cordoned off the entire area and baton-charged protestors. The dead and injured were immediately taken to hospital.

Interior Secretary Syed Kamal Shah, who visited the shrine along with State Interior Minister Shahzad Waseem, told reporters that three investigation teams consisting of the capital police, the Federal Investigation Agency’s Special Investigation Group and Crime Investigating Department (CID) had been formed to trace the culprits.

Hospital sources told Daily Times that 14 people died instantly, four on their way to the hospital and two in hospital. The dead were taken to the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS), 54 injured people were also taken to PIMS, 23 were admitted to the Polyclinic Hospital and seven to the Capital Development Authority (CDA) Hospital. Witnesses said the incident took place when Shia Muslims annual congregation was progressing towards the shrine’s vicinity. Shias claim Bari Imam as their religious leader and hold a special Majlis-e-Aza (religious gathering) the day after the conclusion of the four-day annual Urs of Bari Imam.

Witnesses said the suicide bomber entered the congregation area when Tahreek-e-Nifaz-e-Fiqa-e-Jafria (TNFJ) Islamabad president Raja Basharat Hussain Imami entered the venue with his supporters. Talking to Daily Times, Imami said, “As soon as I entered the congregation area and people stood up to welcome me, a powerful blast took place and I saw the bomber’s upper body flying through the air.” Imami was about to address the gathering. He said human flesh and blood was seen all over the place with people beating their chests and the injured crying for help. Local Shia leader Syed Mazhar Ali called the incident an act of terrorism by enemies of the country, saying, “No Sunni or Shia Muslim can do such a thing.”

However, another witness gave a different account saying that two bearded men had entered the gathering and sat near a podium at the front. “An explosion then occurred, and the body of one of them flew in the air,” he said, adding that he did not know what happened to the other man. Though their leaders did not call it a sectarian incident, some Shias called it premeditated and asked the government to take action against the perpetrators. “Nothing happened during the four days of annual Urs and a blast occurred during our annual gathering, showing that the bombing targeted Shia Muslims,” said a young Shia Muslim, Asad Abbas.

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_28-5-2005_pg1_1

Petronas

05-28-2005, 01:07 AM

2 arrested with 147 passports
Saturday, May 28, 2005

PESHAWAR: Police arrested two people for helping foreign terrorists travel with Pakistani passports, a senior police official told Daily Times on Friday. The men were arrested on Thursday and police recovered 147 passports from their possession during a raid on their base, Senior Superintendent Police Saeed Wazir said. “We are investigating if any terrorist fled the country using a Pakistani passport, and whether the passports were stolen or sold to the group,” Wazir said. He declined to disclose the names of the two arrested local men and the group’s name.

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_28-5-2005_pg7_6

Petronas

05-31-2005, 01:05 AM

Pakistanis Find Bloodied Head of Suicide Bomber
Sunday, May 29, 2005

ISLAMABAD, Investigators have found the head of a suicide bomber who attacked a Muslim festival in the Pakistani capital, killing at least 19 people, and are trying to establish his identity, officials said on Saturday. The attack occurred on Friday at Islamabad's Bari Imam shrine, less than half a mile from Pakistan's main government buildings and diplomatic enclave. It was the latest incident of religious violence to rock Pakistan since it joined the U.S.-led war on terrorism after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the United States, but the worst-ever attack since then in the capital, which has largely been spared militant attacks.

The bomber blew himself up in a gathering of minority Shiite Muslims at a festival also attended by majority Sunnis. Nineteen people were killed and 65 wounded, six critically. Officials said most of the victims were Shiites. Authorities have circulated a picture of the suspected bomber, shown with a bloodstained, clean-shaven face and announced an $8,300 reward for information. The blast came as U.S. Assistant Secretary of State Christina Rocca was concluding a visit to the country. Rocca expressed condolences. "This was a horrible thing to have happened," she told private Geo TV in an interview shown on Saturday. "This is a tragedy for Pakistan."

The Bari Imam shrine is dedicated to Shah Abdul Latif Kazmi, a 17th century scholar known for his religious writings and also called Bari Imam. He is Islamabad's patron saint. Friday's ceremony was one held annually to pay homage to him. Interior Minister Aftab Khan Sherpao said it was too early to be sure about motive for the attack, but the involvement of sectarian militants could not be ruled out. Most of the recent attacks have been attributed to Sunni militants with links to Osama bin Laden's al Qaeda network. Gen. Pervez Musharraf, the Pakistani president, condemned the attack and said Pakistan needed to follow a moderate form of Islam.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2005/05/28/AR2005052800882.html?nav=rss_world

Petronas

05-31-2005, 11:46 AM

Six KFC workers die in Karachi violence
Published: May 31 2005 10:46

Six employees of Kentucky Fried Chicken, the American fast food chain, were killed in Karachi overnight Monday when their restaurant was set on fire by Shi’ite youths seeking revenge for a suicide bomb attack on a local mosque, police and rescue workers said. The KFC outlet, located in the southern city’s densely populated Gulshan-e-Iqbal district, was ransacked in a riot that also damaged petrol stations, bank branches, shops and dozens of vehicles.

The bodies of the KFC workers - five restaurant staff and a security guard - were found before sunrise Tuesday, when rescue workers entered the premises to check on the scale of damage. Four of the victims were burned to death while the two others froze to death after taking refuge in a refrigeration unit, a senior police official, Manzoor Mughal, was quoted as saying by Associated Press.

The riot followed an attack Monday on the Shi’ite Madinatul Ilm mosque in Gulshan, in which three assailants, suspected to be Sunni Muslim extremists, clashed with police before exploding a bomb that killed two of the attackers, two policemen and a worshipper. Twenty-six people were injured, AP said.

The surviving assailant told police he was associated with Jaish-e-Mohammad, a Sunni militant group accused of orchestrating several attacks against minority Shi’ites, Christians and government officials, and suspected of having links with al-Qaida, the AP report said. About 80 per cent of Pakistan’s 150m people are Sunnis, while 17 per cent are Shi’ites. Rauf Siddiqi, home minister of Sindh province, of which Karachi is the capital, condemned the mosque bombing and said security had been put on “high alert.”

The latest violence in Karachi has revived concerns over security in the country, coming only three days after a suicide bomb attack at a shrine in Islamabad Friday that left 20 people dead. The shrine is located close to Islamabad’s main diplomatic area, the prime minister’s house and various government buildings.

Pakistan’s opposition leaders Tuesday intensified their criticism of General Pervez Musharraf, the country’s military president, for failing to tackle the worsening security situation. “This country has to have a democratic government to be able to unite the public to fight terrorism,” said Enver Baig of the opposition Pakistan People’s Party. “Keeping the government under a single ruler is not the way to handle lawlessness. Pakistan is like the wild west - you don’t run countries fighting terrorism like this.”

http://news.ft.com/cms/s/c440429e-d1b8-11d9-8c82-00000e2511c8.html

And what does Kentucky Fried Chicken, or the United States, have to do with Sunni terrorists?

Casey

06-05-2005, 08:50 AM

Newly appointed DIG Rawalpindi assumes office

Our crime correspondent

ISLAMABAD: Newly appointed Deputy Inspector General (DIG) of Police Syed Morevat Ali Shah has assumed his office as DIG, Rawalpindi Range Saturday.

A smartly turned out contingent of police presented guard of honour to the new chief. Senior police officials were present on the occasion.

Morevat Ali Shah had served as District Police Officer (DPO) Rawalpindi for over three years and traced out many cases of terrorism and arrested the religious extremists involved in such cases.

Shah detected sensitive cases including attempted assassination on President Pervez Musharraf and arrested many terrorists after breaking into the networking of Al-Qaeda. He also divulged the extremists involved in attempted assassination of Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz.

He was awarded the highest police award Quid-e-Azam Police Medal and Tamgha-e-Imtiaz for his outstanding performance.

http://jang.com.pk/thenews/jun2005-daily/05-06-2005/metro/i9.htm

Casey

06-06-2005, 09:49 AM

Pakistan handed al Qaeda's Liby to U.S. -Musharraf

swissinfo
June 6, 2005 11:20 AM
http://www.swissinfo.org/images/divider/dotted_line-465x1.gif
http://www.swissinfo.org/common_images/spacer.gifPakistan handed al Qaeda's Liby to U.S. -Musharraf

DUBAI (Reuters) - Pakistan has handed senior al Qaeda operative Abu Faraj Farj al Liby to the United States, President Pervez Musharraf said in remarks published on Monday.

U.S. counter-terrorism agents say Liby, a Libyan captured by Pakistan earlier this year, became al Qaeda's third most important figure two years ago.

"We recently handed al Liby to the United States. We don't want people like him in our country," Musharraf told the United Arab Emirates daily al-Ittihad when asked if Liby was in U.S. hands. Musharraf told the U.S. network CNN last week that Pakistan intended to hand Liby over to the United States.

Musharraf also told the Arabic-language newspaper that Pakistan's fight to root out al Qaeda, and attempts to kill senior state officials last year, were not linked to recent sectarian violence.

More than 100 people have died in tit-for-tat attacks by majority Sunni and minority Shi'ite Muslim militants in the past year.

"What happened recently was a form of sectarian violence between Shi'ites and Sunnis," Musharraf said.

"It has no link to terrorism. Pakistan has not seen any terrorist attack on individuals, foreign interests or Pakistani bases by remnants of the Taliban or al Qaeda for over a year."

"After attacks on me and the prime minister we broke the backs of the terrorists, both those who carry them out and plan them, so the danger of terrorist attack has been reduced by 95 percent," Musharraf said.

Pakistani investigators have said they suspect Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, a group linked to al Qaeda, was behind suicide attacks which killed mainly Shi'ites in Islamabad and Karachi last month.

http://www.swissinfo.org/common_images/spacer.gifhttp://www.swissinfo.org/common_images/spacer.gifURL of this story
http://www.swissinfo.org/sen/swissinfo.html?siteSect=105&sid=5847227

Casey

06-09-2005, 08:50 PM

Suspected bomber sisters arrested
From correspondents in Islamabad, Pakistan
10jun05

PAKISTANI police have arrested two sisters from an Islamic militant group with links to al-Qaeda who were allegedly plotting suicide attacks against minority Shiite Muslims, officials said today.

They would have been the first female suicide bombers to strike the key US ally and were the subject of an intensive year-long hunt by security forces in Pakistan, which has suffered a recent wave of suicide bombings.

The pair, identified by police as Arifa and Habiba and said to be aged between 18 and 20, were seized from a hideout in the scenic northern tourist town of Swat early this week, a senior security official said.

Investigators said they were trained by their uncle, a top member of the Sunni Muslim Lashkar-e-Jhangvi group, who was sentenced to death last week for killing 45 people in two suicide attacks on Shi'ite mosques in Karachi in 2004.

"Security agencies had been desperately looking for the two sisters and located them hiding in a house in Swat following a tip-off," a security official said.

"It would have been the first attack of its kind and a very difficult one to prevent," said a senior police official involved in the interrogation of the uncle.

Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, which has alleged links to the Al-Qaeda terror network, is regarded as the fiercest of Pakistan's Sunni extremist outfits and has been blamed for the murder of US reporter Daniel Pearl in early 2002.

Police say they suspect the group was behind a suicide bombing on a Muslim shrine in Islamabad on May 27 which killed 21 people, most of them Shiites, and an attack on a Shiite mosque in Karachi three days later in which five died.

The Karachi attack also sparked riots by Shiite youths who burned down an outlet of US fast food chain KFC, killing six of the company's employees.

Police first revealed the existence of the two women in July 2004, when security forces were placed on high alert and told to look out for the pair.

The women's uncle, Gul Hasan, had admitted training his nieces for a suicide attack on a gathering of Shiite men and women, the police investigator said.

A Pakistani anti-terrorism court on Saturday convicted Hasan on murder charges for his role in the May 2004 attacks in Karachi, which also wounded 127 people.

Swat, where the women were arrested, is around 50 kilometres from the industrial city of Mardan, where alleged senior Al-Qaeda operative Abu Faraj al-Libbi was arrested in early May.

Pakistan said the Libyan, who was implicated in two attempts to assassinate military ruler President Pervez Musharraf in 2003, was deported to the United States last week.

Lashkar-e-Jhangvi emerged in the 1990s and was banned by General Musharraf in August 2000. It is accused of killings hundreds of minority Shiite Muslims over the past decade. Thousands of Shiite and majority Sunni Muslims have been killed in Pakistan in recent years in bomb blasts, suicide bombings and targeted killings. Last year 160 people were killed.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/common/story_page/0,5744,15568222%255E23109,00.html

Petronas

06-11-2005, 12:58 AM

Blowing up Muslims while they are praying inside a mosque strikes me as something the Prophet Mohammed would frown on. I'd like to see how the Fundamentalists attempt to show how such an action is in conformity with true Islam.

Bomb defused in mosque
Saturday, June 11, 2005

LAHORE: Jamia Masjid Bahawalpur on Friday escaped a horrible accident when a bomb planted inside the building was found before Friday prayers, the APNA news channel reported. According to the report, the bomb was discovered when someone noticed a suspicious bag in the mosque and alerted the police. Police officials along with the bomb disposal squad arrived at the scene and surrounded the mosque. The mosque was evacuated and the bomb disposal squad removed the fuse, the report said.

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_11-6-2005_pg7_2

Casey

06-14-2005, 07:27 AM

http://www.newsday.com/news/nationworld/world/wire/sns-ap-australia-musharraf,0,6989898,print.story?coll=sns-ap-world-headlines
Posted on Tue, Jun. 14, 2005

Musharraf downplays Al-Qaida suspect's info
MIKE CORDER
Associated Press

CANBERRA, Australia - An alleged al-Qaida kingpin has not provided information to Pakistani interrogators that could lead them to Osama bin Laden, President Gen. Pervez Musharraf said Tuesday.

Abu Farraj al-Libbi, al-Qaida's alleged No. 3 man who is accused of masterminding two assassination attempts against Musharraf, was captured after a shootout with Pakistani agents in the country's northwest on May 2. He was later transferred to U.S. custody.

"No he didn't give any information, and he still hasn't" about bin Laden's whereabouts, Musharraf said of al-Libbi in an interview with The Associated Press.

"But he did divulge a lot of information which led to the arrest and apprehension of, I think, 14 other individuals," he said.

Despite being Pakistan's most wanted man, al-Libbi was deported to the United States recently amid expectations he will be grilled on the whereabouts of bin Laden, who is assumed to be hiding near the Pakistan-Afghan border.

Musharraf defended his decision to hand al-Libbi to the United States as necessary for the war on terror, which his administration strongly supports.
"We thought that his being in the United States, deporting him there to gather more intelligence through interrogation would serve a better cause than holding him for trial here which has its own sensitivities in our environment," he said.

Musharraf said Pakistan has not made a decision on trying al-Libbi after his alleged role in masterminding two bombings that narrowly missed Musharraf in 2003 and a suicide attack aimed at Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz in 2004. Neither leader was hurt, but 26 people died in the attacks.

Asked if Pakistan has an idea where bin Laden currently is hiding, Musharraf said: "No we don't at the moment. We don't have a clear idea."
Musharraf also defended his strong support for the U.S.-led war on terror, which has drawn criticism from political opponents.

"What we are doing mainly is for Pakistan's sake. Fighting extremism, fighting terrorism is in our own interest," he said.

"The vast majority of the people understand that this is a right policy," he added.

On Wednesday, he was to hold talks with Prime Minister John Howard and his government and sign a memorandum of understanding on counterterror cooperation.

Petronas

06-15-2005, 07:52 PM

Rape victim cannot travel abroad
Sunday, 12 June, 2005, 11:10 GMT 12:10 UK

The Pakistan government has confirmed that a victim of a notorious gang rape is on a special list of people who are not allowed to travel abroad.
Mukhtar Mai, raped allegedly on the orders of a tribal council in 2002, has demanded the restrictions be lifted. "We want her case to be processed and resolved first," junior interior minister Shehzad Wasim said. On Friday a court ordered that 12 men imprisoned in connection with the case must be released by Monday.

Ms Mai's name suddenly appeared on the "exit control list" earlier this month. Immigration officers in Karachi say they have received instructions to stop her if she tries to travel abroad. Ms Mai has been invited by human rights group Amnesty International to visit the United States. Pakistan's opposition says that she is being prevented from travelling abroad because the government believes any such visit would hurt the country's image.

Ms Mai was gang raped allegedly on the orders of a tribal council to punish a crime attributed to her brother. The case brought women's rights in Pakistan under international focus. It has become bogged down in a number of appeals and counter-appeals over the men's guilt.

At present 12 men are behind bars following a ruling by the Punjab provincial government in March that ordered their detention for 90 days. That period ends on Monday and the Lahore High Court ruled on Friday that there were no grounds for extending their detention. Ms Mai has said she will try to get the authorities to prevent the men's release.
This is the latest twist in a number of legal developments:

- 2002: Six men sentenced to death, eight acquitted
- March 2005: Lahore High Court acquits five men, and reduces death sentence on sixth to life in prison
- March 2005: Sharia court suspends Lahore High Court decision
- March 2005: Prime Minister Aziz orders re-arrest of four of the accused
- March 2005: Punjab government arrests 12 men originally implicated in case
- June 2005: Lahore High Court says 12 men must be released

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4085178.stm

Petronas

06-17-2005, 03:17 PM

Rashid had Jihad links: Ex-ISI man
THURSDAY, JUNE 16, 2005 02:17:26 PM

ISLAMABAD: Former ISI (Inter-State Intelligence) functionary Khawaja Khalid has corroborated Yasin Malik and Mirza Aslam Baig’s assertions that Pakistan Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed ran militant training camps near Islamabad from 1989 to 1991. "Sheikh Rashid is a mujahid and played a great role in jihad. I would like to meet him and ask him why he is denying his involvement in training mujahideen. I had personally visited Rashid’s camp," he said.

The Daily Times also quoted Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, the acting president of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N), as confirming that Rashid ran a militant camp in Fateh Jang, near Rawalpindi. He said that in 1991 the then premier Nawaz Sharif had ordered the camp’s closure. He added: "Why do you want me to dig out skeletons from the closet? If I do that, no one in the ruling PML will come out smelling like a rose."

According to the paper, former interior minister Maj Gen (Retd.) Naseerullah Babar also said that Rashid used to run a militant training camp in 1989 when he was the Opposition Leader in the NA. "In 1989, Rashid himself confessed to running a training-cum-refugee camp for Kashmiris near Islamabad," Babar said adding that even if the government pressed JKLF chairman Yasin Malik to retract his earlier statement, it would not absolve Rashid of his past.

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1143769.cms

Petronas

06-24-2005, 01:57 PM

Cleric shot dead in Karachi
Friday, June 24, 2005

KARACHI: Mufti Atiqur Rahman, Shaikhul Hadis of Jamia Binnoria Mosque and Madrassa in SITE Town, was shot dead and his son and a man accompanying them were injured in an attack near the Sindh Secretariat in Artillery Maidan police precinct on Thursday night. Mufti Rahman, aged 55, was traveling in his pickup van (No KB 1852) with his son Ammar and Irshad. They were returning after giving lessons at Madina Masjid on Burns Road. When the van approached the Sindh Secretariat, it was stopped by an unidentified vehicle. Three or four assailants opened fire on the three men travelling in the van.

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_24-6-2005_pg1_7

Petronas

06-25-2005, 11:21 PM

Presumably the rape victim can then be stoned to death once she has been found guilty of adultery. Good luck finding four MEN who witnessed the rape and will testify for the woman!

Rapist cop booked under controversial religious law
6/23/2005 12:03:00 PM

A Pakistani policeman charged with raping a teenaged girl in a police station has been charged under a controversial religious law that carries the death penalty - but which could also enable him to walk free. Sub-inspector Qaiser Shah was booked under Sections 10 and 11 of the Hud Zina Ordinance, which puts the onus on the victim to prove she was raped.

Under this law, the victim has to produce four male Muslims who were witness to the rape. If she fails to prove the allegation, she can be ostracised and even charged with adultery.

Late military dictator Zia-ul Haq had enacted the law in 1979. Successive governments - even the one headed by Benazir Bhutto - have paid lip service to repealing the ordinance but have not done so.

Shah is alleged to have raped 15-year old Saira at the Shahzad town police station here on the night of May 17-18. A judicial probe into the incident held Shah guilty. The police then conducted their own probe, which tallied with the earlier inquiry, The News Wednesday quoted Superintendent of Police (Investigation Wing) Ehsaan Sadiq as saying. "After it was established during investigations conducted by the police department that the accused cop, in addition to taking a bribe from the victim, had also raped her in the police station, a new section was added in the first information report. Now, the accused has also been booked under Sections 10 and 11 of the Hud Zina Ordinance," The News said.

Police picked up Saira and her friend Saima, 32, around 8.30 p.m. May 17 while they were travelling in a car to a bus terminal. Two men who were in the car were also detained. Saima was also molested while the two men bribed police with Rs.29,000 before all four were released. After the story broke, Shah was arrested while three officers of the Shahzad Town police station - a deputy superintendent of police, an inspector, a sub-inspector and a constable - were suspended.

President Pervez Musharraf had taken note of the case and ordered stern action against the guilty. "Considering the gravity of the allegations, immediate action has been taken to ascertain the facts. In the light of the report of the inquiry committee, further legal and administrative action would be initiated against the culprits," an official statement issued at the time said.

But, as The News said Wednesday, the findings of the judicial enquiry "are lying with the interior ministry and top police officers without any serious attempt on the part of the government to implement the recommendations".

http://www.newz.in/large35.asp?catid=5&number=10378

Petronas

06-25-2005, 11:27 PM

THREE WOMEN ARRESTED, CHARGED
Leaders of ‘Happy Sunday’ program accused of attempted conversion.
Thursday June 23, 2005

A Muslim council has accused three Indonesian women of attempting to convert Muslim children. Dr. Rebekka Zakaria, Eti Pangesti and Ratna Bangun were arrested on May 13 and taken to the Indramayu State Prison, where they await trial. Dr. Zakaria is the pastor of Gereja Kristen Kemah Daud (GKKD), or Christian Church of David’s Camp, located in the small town of Harguelis, Indramayu district, West Java.

Church Asked into Public School
In 2003, a public elementary school in nearby Babakan Jati approached the church staff and asked if they would establish a Christian education program for the school. After the National Education System Bill became law in June 2003, all public schools were required to provide religious education for children of religious minorities attending their schools (see Compass Direct, “A New Twist on Indonesia’s Controversial Education Bill,” September 12, 2003.)The school in Babakan Jati had no means of providing Christian education, and therefore asked the GKKD church to provide teachers and an appropriate program. The Christian students would then be evaluated at the end of each semester and given the required marks in their school reports.

The women of the GKKD church set up a “Happy Sunday” program, with Christian songs, games and Bible study for the children. The program was run by Bangun and Pangesti, under the direction of their pastor, Zakaria.

Program Attracts Muslim Attention
After running for approximately 18 months, the number of children attending the program had grown to 40 -- but only 10 were from Christian homes. The Muslim children attended the popular program with the full consent of their parents. Some of them began to sing Christian songs at school and at home, and this attracted the attention of Islamic elders who, in December 2004, forced the church to close.

The women then continued to run the Happy Sunday program from Pangesti’s home. On March 26, they organized an Easter bus tour to the Taman Mini Indonesia Indah, an amusement park in Jakarta. Each of the participating children was given a t-shirt displaying the name of the church and the Star of David logo, so that the teachers could keep track of them during the outing. The children had also received gifts on other occasions. For example, at Christmas time each child was given a carry bag. During the tour, one of the children asked for and received a Bible from one of the teachers.

Muslim Complaint Leads to Arrests
As a result, Islamic leaders approached church staff and demanded that Muslim children no longer be allowed to attend the program. A complaint was also made to the Indramayu District Majelis Ulama Indonesia (MUI) council. As a result, the local MUI chairman, K. H. Muzakir Mahmud, made an official complaint to the Indramayu police. On May 1, a local Islamic leader interviewed four of the Muslim children who had attended the Happy Sunday program and recorded their answers on video. The children were asked whether the women had ever offered them money, to which they responded, “No.” However all the children said they had received gifts, and one told the interviewer that he had asked for and been given a Bible.

On the evening of May 13, the three women were arrested and taken to the police station for questioning. They were accused of breaching the Child Protection Law, Chapter 86, No. 23/2002. If convicted, they could be sentenced for up to five years and fined 1,000,000,000 rupees ($103,600). Pastor Edward Monijong, the head of the GKKD Synod based in Bandung, West Java, immediately launched a campaign to secure the women’s release. Initially he contacted former president Abdurahman Wahid, more commonly known as Gus Dur, who was known for his policy of religious tolerance and now chairs the Islamic group Nadhlatul Ulama (NU). Monijong also wrote a letter of appeal to the MUI chairman, Mahmud, asking that the women be release.

Mahmud, who is also a member of NU, agreed to drop the case. However, H. Erik Isnaeni, an influential lawyer acting for the MUI Council, refused to drop the case. He also asked that bail be refused for the women, which meant they were unable to live at home under house arrest and take care of their own children.

Imprisoned for Their "Protection"
The women were moved from police detention to the Indramayu State Prison on June 1 under the “protection” of the Attorney General’s office, to await trial. At press time, no date had been set for the first court hearing.

One source, who declined to be named, visited the women last week at the prison. Apart from being “eaten alive by mosquitoes,” all three were in good spirits; apparently many visitors had come to express their support and encouragement.

Bangun has sent her children to live with their grandfather on Sumatra island. Pangesti and Zakaria’s children will also be moved to another location in the near future to protect them from possible attacks or intimidation during the trial.

Meanwhile, legal assistance has been arranged for the women, and their lawyers are currently preparing for a trial that could make headlines in a country still clearly divided along religious lines.

http://www.compassdirect.org/en/newslongen.php?idelement=3865

Casey

06-27-2005, 10:11 AM

Pak soldier kills former militant

AFP, WANA

June 26: A Pakistani soldier has shot dead two people including a former militant to avenge the death of his brother in a military operation against Al-Qaeda-linked suspects last year, officials said Sunday.

Nur Janan opened fire late Saturday when a group of tribesmen was returning after playing a cricket match with a team of paramilitary soldiers in Wana, the main town in the tribal South Waziristan region near the Afghan border.

The firing left Nur Hassan and a 19-year old boy dead, local administration official Abbas Khan told AFP.

He said Hassan had surrendered after a former Taliban commander, Nek

Mohammad, was killed in June last year after leading bloody resistance to the army's largest-ever offensive to drive out Al-Qaeda-linked militants in South Waziristan.

Janan claimed that Hassan was close to the slain Taliban commander. "I killed him to take revenge for my brother's death," he said. Janan's brother was a paramilitary soldier who died in that operation.

Pakistan, a key ally in what the US calls a war on terrorism, has conducted several major operations in its tribal regions since last year.

http://independent-bangladesh.com/news/jun/27/27062005ap.htm#A9

rectar

07-02-2005, 04:10 PM

ISLAMABAD, July 1: Bad weather has delayed for another 24 hours arrival of a ship to Karachi from Dubai to repair the faulty undersea optic fibre cable, Pakistan’s sole Internet link with the rest of the world, excepting satellite links recently acquired...

experiencediz

07-29-2005, 10:41 AM

All foreign students are to be barred from Pakistan's religious schools

Friday, 29 July 2005, 14:27 GMT 15:27 UK

Most foreign students' visas are invalid if they cease to study at the madrassa they applied to.

This is the latest in a series of measures Gen Musharraf has announced in a renewed clampdown on extremism.

Madrassas have been in the spotlight after one of the London bombers was reported to have studied at one.

The move against foreigners at the madrassas also applies to Pakistanis holding dual nationality, the AFP news agency reports.

Gen Musharraf also told journalists that action would be taken against any of the madrassas that did not register with the authorities.

After the 11 September attacks on the United States the Pakistani government tightened the rules around madrassa visa applications, saying that the visas would become invalid once a student ceased to study at the school.

Madrassa foreigners 'must leave' (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4728643.stm)

NYer

08-08-2005, 08:25 AM

Government trying to hoodwink US: Fazl

Staff Report

LAHORE: The Pakistani government is deceiving the US and the West by helping militants freely enter Afghanistan from Waziristan, Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) Secretary General Maulana Fazlur Rehman said on Sunday.

He told a press conference that the government should give the identity of the infiltrators and its (government’s) motives for helping them enter Afghanistan.

“They must also give the nation the identities of the men being moved from Waziristan to militant camps in Mansehra. This is hypocrisy. The rulers are not only trying to deceive the US and the West, but also hoodwinking the entire nation,” he added.

Earlier, Fazl had said that if pressured he would reveal facts that would open a Pandora’s box.

“We ask the rulers to reveal the identity of the people being transported to Afghanistan from Waziristan via Kaali Sarak in private vehicles, reveal who is supervising their trouble-free entry into Afghanistan and reasons for their infiltration,” he said.

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=story_8-8-2005_pg1_1

Ono

08-11-2005, 02:32 AM

Aug. 11, 2005 9:05

Pakistan test fires nuclear-capable cruise missile

By ASSOCIATED PRESS
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan

Pakistan test fired its first cruise missile on Thursday, capable of carrying nuclear and conventional warheads, and did not give advance warning to its archrival India, officials said.

The missile, named Babur, has a range of 500 kilometers (310 miles), and was fired early Thursday. The launch site was not disclosed.

"By the grace of Allah, all design parameters for the flight were validated," a military statement said.

The Foreign Ministry said Pakistan did not inform India, as an agreement formalized between the two countries over the weekend in New Delhi on pre-notification of missile tests does not cover cruise missiles.

There was no immediate reaction from India.

Army spokesman Maj. Gen. Shaukat Sultan said Pakistan has joined the few countries "that can design and make cruise missiles."

President Gen. Pervez Musharraf praised the scientists and engineers involved in the Babur project for their success, "and reiterated Pakistan's resolve to continue to meet emerging challenges and geo-strategic developments in its neighborhood," the army statement said.

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1123727184330&p=1078397702269

NYer

08-11-2005, 08:50 AM

Aug. 11, 2005 9:05

President Gen. Pervez Musharraf praised the scientists and engineers involved in the Babur project for their success, "and reiterated Pakistan's resolve to continue to meet emerging challenges and geo-strategic developments in its neighborhood," the army statement said.

There goes the neighborhood ...

Casey

09-13-2005, 10:30 PM

Last Update: Wednesday, September 14, 2005. 0:03am (AEST)
Pakistan forces find 'drone' in raid on Al Qaeda

Pakistani forces have recovered an unmanned drone aircraft and a major weapons cache in a raid on a suspected Al Qaeda hideout in the tribal areas near Afghanistan, a top commander says.

Militants used the Chinese-made vehicle to spy on security forces in the rugged area, where Pakistani soldiers have been battling Islamic militants for more than a year, Lieutenant General Safdar Hussain told reporters.

The find, believed to be the first of its kind in Pakistan, came on the same day as President Pervez Musharraf unveiled plans to build a fence along part of the border with Afghanistan to curb the movement of militants.

Twenty-one people were arrested in Monday's raid on a compound and religious school near Miranshah, capital of the North Waziristan tribal zone, General Hussain said.

The buildings are owned by relatives of a former Taliban minister.

"The terrorists used the RPV (remotely-piloted vehicle) to check the position of security forces and attack them," the general said, adding the drone was capable of carrying weapons.

A military officer from the army's Signal Corps said the vehicle had a sophisticated, wide-angle camera to take pictures of targets on the ground, while General Hussain said they had seized a CD which pinpointed Pakistani troops.

Security forces also found a "suicide jacket" and Jordanian, Afghan and Pakistani passports along with Al Qaeda training material from the compound, he said.

Additionally they uncovered a cache of weapons including 17 machine guns, 29 rockets, 51 grenades, eight improvised bombs and 10 landmines, he added.

- AFP

http://www.abc.net.au/news/newsitems/200509/s1459636.htm

Petronas

09-14-2005, 11:02 AM

Pakistan Questions 21 Terror Suspects
September 14, 2005 9:05 AM EDT

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Pakistani counterterrorism experts are questioning 21 suspects captured at an al-Qaida hide-out for clues about remnants of the terror network and the Taliban, an intelligence official said Wednesday. The suspects - who intelligence official said include Afghans - were captured this week during the biggest-ever military operation in North Waziristan, a strategic tribal region in North West Frontier Province bordering Afghanistan.

Lt. Gen. Safdar Hussain, the top army commander responsible for anti-terrorism operations in northwestern Pakistan, said Tuesday that troops had destroyed a major al-Qaida hide-out and caught "some important men." He would not identify them.

The hide-out appeared sophisticated, Hussain said, with communications equipment to contact militants in Afghanistan, a cache of bombs, detonators and rockets, and a tiny Chinese-made drone aircraft used for surveillance. Hussain said officials were checking whether the remote-controlled drone, with a wingspan of about three feet, could have been used to check the position of security forces or carry weapons.

But Talat Masood, a retired Pakistani general and military analyst, said he thought that was impossible, calling the drone "ridiculous." "It's a toy. It does not have the capability to carry any load whatsoever. You can't see how it's powered. ... I'm not even sure it can fly."

On Wednesday, an intelligence official said on condition of anonymity that "four or five important people" were among the detainees. He gave no other details. Interior Minister Aftab Khan Sherpao would only say that security agencies had nabbed five suspects in recent operations against terrorists.

This week's operation coincided with a visit by Pakistan President Gen. Pervez Musharraf to the United States, where he said Pakistan is winning the war on terror. "We are on the winning side because al-Qaida has been neutralized," Musharraf told U.S. cable news network CNN. "They cease to exist as a homogeneous body. We have broken their vertical and horizontal communication linkages. They are on the run." Musharraf's government has faced criticism from U.S., Afghan and U.N. officials over cross-border militant attacks at targets inside Afghanistan, where violence has escalated ahead of Sunday's elections for a new legislature.

http://enews.earthlink.net/article/gen?guid=20050914/4327a040_3ca6_1552620050914-863013234

Petronas

09-14-2005, 11:12 AM

Dying for a jihadist adventure
ARMAN AHMAD
Sept 13

AAMIR is barely 20 years old. Most of the year, he studies the Quran at a madrasah in Islamabad. But during holiday breaks, he adopts an entirely different persona from the image of the peaceful religious scholar that he is studying to be. During these times, Aamir will be with a band of jihadist fighting the Americans in Afghanistan.

I was introduced to Aamir through my guide and interpreter, who brought me to the madrasah in a remote part of Islamabad. It was late afternoon, and some of the students were playing football, volleyball and other games. A few were just lounging about on the grass. They were all wearing kurtas — the traditional dress for Pakistani men. Many of them also wore skull caps as they played games. The boys seemed happy to meet a fellow Muslim from Malaysia. One of them had ambitions of going to Malaysia or Saudi Arabia to work after obtaining his certificate.

Aamir, like many Pakistanis, felt strongly about the presence of Americans in Afghanistan. The Afghan people have very much in common with the people from the northern regions of Pakistan, even speaking the same language that Aamir uses in his village. He said Muslims who went to fight the invaders of Afghanistan were fighting a holy war, and that dying there was to die syahid, or as a martyr. He himself had made the journey twice. He claimed he had once hit an American helicopter with a shoulder-mounted rocket launcher, but did not know if it went down because after firing it, he ran off immediately.

Young men like Aamir are common in Pakistan. Being a jihadist is regarded as an adventure that many of the youths here are reluctant to miss. Between 1994 and 1999, it was estimated between 80,000 and 100,000 Pakistani men fought alongside the Taliban in Afghanistan. The Pakistan Government was sympathetic with the Taliban regime during its rise in the 1990s, regarding it as a strategic advantage. Islamabad was the first to recognise the Taliban regime, and even though official support for the Taliban has ended since Sept 11 — replaced with official support for the American war on terrorism — many ordinary Pakistanis still sympathise with the Afghans.

These men are often from madrasahs and some have received military training. They are armed with Chinese- and Russian-made weapons which are easily available — almost every household here has a gun of some sort. Many have assault rifles while others even have heavy weapons like rocket launchers in their closets.

The men who wish to go to jihad ride buses to the Afghanistan border, while their supplies and weapons are carried on donkeys through the mountains. Upon reaching the border, they equip themselves and cross the porous Durand line to join hands with the Afghans in ambushing American troops.

Recently, the Government has been making an effort to put a lid on these militant activities. Pressured to end the militant problem once and for all, President General Pervez Musharraf outlined long- and short-term measures recently to combat this form of extremism, including banning militant organisations, taking action against publications propagating hate material and registering all madrasahs as well as revising their syllabus.

But despite all these precautions, Musharraf also acknowledged that the war against terror could not be won without addressing its root causes, which lay in political disputes involving the Muslims, like the situation in Afghanistan, Iraq and Palestine.

This, of course, is why people like Aamir exist and do what they do. The day I met him, he was just about to finish his final examinations. After his finals, he would have a few weeks’ break — during which time, he told me, he had already planned a jihad excursion to Afghanistan.

http://www.nst.com.my/Current_News/NST/Tuesday/National/20050913085325/Article/indexb_html

Casey

09-16-2005, 09:41 AM

Pakistan busts Qaeda base

MIRANSHAH: Pakistan has busted the biggest Al Qaeda base in its North Waziristan tribal zone and recovered huge caches of weapons in a swoop that will cut violence in neighbouring Afghanistan before key elections, the military said yesterday.

The militant den was in a madrassa, or Islamic school, and a nearby compound owned by the son of a former minister of the hardline Taliban regime that ruled Afghanistan until late 2001, Lieutenant General Safdar Hussain said in the city of Peshawar.

He said the owner, Sirajuddin Haqqani, whom he described as a senior Al Qaeda insurgent, had escaped after a tip off.
“The raid on the Haqqani madrassa and compound is still going on but we can say we have busted the biggest Al Qaeda terrorist den in North Waziristan,” Hussain, who commands troops in northwestern Pakistan, said.
“We have recovered 15 truckloads of ammunition and weapons from there and arms and ammunition are still being recovered,” he said.
“We also busted a communications centre which was used to coordinate operations in Afghanistan.”

Militants loyal to the Taliban and its ally Al Qaeda are suspected of crossing from bases in Pakistan to Afghanistan to launch attacks.
Seven militants were captured in the operation, raising the number arrested this week to 28, Major General Mohammad Akram Sahi said in the nearby border town of Miranshah where journalists were shown another cache of weapons recovered from militant hideouts.
“All 28 are Afghans,” Sahi said.

The weapons found in 18 compounds in the Miranshah area included anti-aircraft guns, rockets, improvised explosive devices, communication equipment and military fatigues.

Among them were pictures of Sirajuddin Haqqani and his father Jalaluddin Haqqani, a former anti-Soviet fighter who later served as the Taliban’s minister for frontier regions.

Hussain, in Peshawar, said the border between the countries had been sealed and 763 guard posts had been established on the Pakistani side.
An overnight curfew had also been imposed and troops given orders to shoot on sight anyone found within five km of the border, Hussain said.
However Afghanistan had only set up 120 posts on the border, he said. “They need to do more to stop infiltration,” he said.

The operation would help to reduce bloodshed blamed on Taliban militants in the run up to Afghanistan’s parliamentary elections on Sunday, the general said. “Naturally it will reduce violence in Afghanistan,” he said.
Pakistan would also conduct “extensive air surveillance with helicopters” on the day of the election, he said.

Hussain said Pakistani forces had killed 353 militants in the tribal areas since March 2004, including 175 foreigners such as Uzbeks, Tajiks, Turkmens, Chechens and a few Arabs. – AFP

http://www.bahraintribune.com/ArticleDetail.asp?CategoryId=3&ArticleId=82812

Casey

09-17-2005, 09:14 AM

Posted on Sat, Sep. 17, 2005

Pakistani troops on alert by Afghan border

MUNIR AHMAD
Associated Press

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Thousands of Pakistan troops deployed near the Afghan border have been put on alert amid growing violence in the neighboring country ahead of this weekend's elections, an army official said Saturday.

The Afghan government and coalition forces had asked Pakistan to help them hold Sunday's elections in a peaceful manner, said the army official, who spoke on condition of anonymity according to government rules.

Pakistan is a key U.S. ally in the war on terror and has deployed about 80,000 troops along the Afghan border to stop remnants of al-Qaida and the Taliban from sneaking into Pakistan or crossing over to Afghanistan.

Last week, Pakistan army spokesman Maj. Gen. Shaukat Sultan said an additional 9,500 troops had been deployed near Afghanistan to foil any bid by terrorists to disrupt the elections. Pakistan has also imposed a dusk-to-dawn curfew for people living within about a mile of the border.

About 100,000 Afghan policemen, soldiers and 30,000 foreign troops will also be on alert in Afghanistan during the voting.

Pakistan was once a leading supporter of Afghanistan's former Taliban regime, but President Gen. Pervez Musharraf switched sides after the Sept. 11 terror attacks. Since then the country has backed Afghan President Hamid Karzai.

http://www.thestate.com/mld/thestate/news/world/12670971.htm

Jake

09-18-2005, 01:06 AM

Casey

09-23-2005, 01:04 PM

Pakistan troops raid tribal zone
10 suspected militants arrested

MIRANSHAH: Pakistani troops backed by helicopters arrested 10 suspected militants yesterday during a search in a tribal zone near the Afghan border, officials said.

The crackdown in the rugged region of North Waziristan came a week after the military said it had busted the biggest Al Qaeda base in the area.
“Our forces carried out the search operation on an intelligence tipoff in two different areas of North Waziristan region, bordering Afghanistan, and arrested 10 suspected terrorists,” Brigadier Shahjehan said.

Brigadier Shahjehan did not disclose nationalities of the terrorists captured during yesterday’s operation.

“As the investigation is underway, it is inappropriate to disclose their nationalities or any other details,” he said.

Around 600 rounds of anti-aircraft ammunition were also recovered in the raids, the official said, requesting anonymity.

Earlier, soldiers in about 100 vehicles had cordoned off Tatta Khel, 35km from the region’s main town Miranshah, to hunt for militants after a series of rocket attacks, a local official said.

One soldier was injured when the convoy came under fire from unknown gunmen, the official said, requesting anonymity.

Searches were also made in the nearby villages of Mizer and Hamzoi. Some ammunition and documents were uncovered but no arrests were made there.
Last week Pakistan said it had raided the largest Al Qaeda hideout in North Waziristan, arrested 35 people and recovered a huge hoard of weapons from a religious school compound owned by a Taliban sympathiser.

Pakistan has pushed thousands of troops into the tribal areas to hunt Al Qaeda and and Taliban militants who crossed the border after Afghanistan’s hardline Taliban Islamic regime fell in late 2001.

It had 80,000 soldiers along the border to prevent militants crossing into Afghanistan and disrupting the war-shattered country’s landmark parliamentary elections on Sunday. – Agencies

http://www.bahraintribune.com/ArticleDetail.asp?CategoryId=3&ArticleId=83496

Casey

10-06-2005, 05:21 AM

Captured Taliban official says Mullah Omar in Afghanistan

IN HIDING: A man who claims to be a Taliban spokesman was arrested in Pakistan, and has told officials that the regime's former leader is still alive

AP , QUETTA, PAKISTAN
Thursday, Oct 06, 2005,Page 5

A detained Taliban spokesman has told Pakistani interrogators that the militia's fugitive chief, Mullah Mohammed Omar, is hiding in Afghanistan and remains in contact with top commanders, an intelligence official said yesterday.

Mullah Hakim Latifi, who has often claimed responsibility on behalf of the Taliban for attacks on US-led coalition forces, was arrested in Pakistan's southwestern Baluchistan Province, Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed said.

Latifi was not a prominent figure in the Taliban while the Islamic militia was in power in Afghanistan, only becoming a media contact after the ouster of the movement in a US-led war in 2001. His exact ties to the Taliban leadership are unclear.

Satellite phone

"So far, he has told interrogators that Mullah Omar is alive, he is in Afghanistan and he remains in contact with senior aides by satellite phone," said the intelligence official, who was involved in the raid to arrest Latifi in Quetta, the capital of Baluchistan. The official declined to be named because of the secretive nature of his job.

Some Pakistani officials said Latifi was arrested on Tuesday, but the intelligence official said he was detained on Sunday at a home in Quetta's Newi Killi neighborhood. Latifi's arrest was not announced because he was being interrogated about other Taliban leaders, the official said.

Four "low-level" aides of Latifi were arrested from several other homes in Newi Killi, the official said.

Intelligence agents seized two satellite phones, two Pakistani mobile phones, Taliban literature, audio cassettes and CDs containing films of Taliban operations, he said.

Spokesman?

Pakistani officials described Latifi as a Taliban spokesman. But information from Latifi in the past has sometimes proven exaggerated or untrue.

Afghan and US military officials say that he is believed to speak for factions of the rebel group.

Afghanistan welcomed Latifi's arrest. Relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan have sometimes been strained because of Afghan suspicions that rebels are using Pakistan as a staging area for cross-border attacks. Pakistan denies it.

Rebels are active in the volatile south and east of Afghanistan, and have stepped up attacks this year.

More than 1,300 people, including hundreds of militants, have died in the past seven months.

Pakistan was once a supporter of the Taliban, but withdrew its support and became a chief ally of the US-led coalition forces that ousted the militia, which refused to hand over al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden after the Sept. 11, 2001 terrorist attacks in the US.

http://www.taipeitimes.com/News/world/archives/2005/10/06/2003274643

Casey

10-18-2005, 07:34 PM

Militant groups reach quake-hit areas
Oct. 17, 2005 at 11:56AM

Some extremist Islamic groups have reportedly moved into Pakistan's earthquake-hit areas in the absence of the military, winning the victims' gratitude.
"They (the extremists) helped us when everyone else had forgotten us," said one woman in the Pakistan-occupied part of Kashmir, which took the brunt of the 7.7 quake's wrath.
After waiting in vain for five days for the Pakistan military to rescue her, the woman was helped by a member of the Jamaat ul-Dawa, The Times of London reported.
Dawa is the parent of Lashkar-e-Taiba, which has been linked by the United States to al-Qaida. There are similar militant groups operating in the area, said The Times.
The soldiers of Dawa sprang into action while government and relief agencies dragged their feet in helping the victims, the report said.
In Muzaffarabad, the shattered capital of the province, Dawa members set up a field hospital within 36 hours of the catastrophe, run by Amer Aziz, a British-trained orthopedic surgeon who had once been Osama bin Laden's doctor, the report said.

http://www.washtimes.com/upi/20051017-113220-5995r.htm

Petronas

11-03-2005, 10:10 AM

Two suspected al-Qaeda figures arrested in Pakistan, sources say
November 2, 2005

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan – Pakistani security agencies have arrested two al-Qaeda suspects and are investigating whether one is a Syrian believed to be a key figure in Osama bin Laden's terror network in Europe, two intelligence officials and a senior government official said Thursday. The two suspects were captured this week during a raid on a house in Quetta, the capital of Pakistan's southwestern Baluchistan province, said one of the intelligence officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he is not authorized to speak to the media.

A senior government official confirmed the arrests and said authorities were investigating whether one of the suspects was Mustafa Setmarian Nasar, alleged to have had a key role in the March 11, 2004, Madrid bombings that left 191 people dead and more than 1,500 people injured. That official also declined to be named, saying he was not allowed to comment on the investigation. Neither the intelligence officials nor the government official had information about the identity of the second suspect. Pakistani government spokesmen and the U.S. Embassy said they could not immediately confirm the arrests.

The U.S. government last year announced a $5 million reward for information leading to the capture of Nasar, also known as Abu Musab al-Suri. The U.S. Justice Department's Rewards for Justice Web site describes Nasar as an al-Qaeda member and former trainer at terrorist camps in Afghanistan who instructed extremists in using poisons and chemicals. It also says he is likely to be in Afghanistan or Pakistan. Al-Suri was born is Syria and also has Spanish nationality. His name has also been linked to July 7 bombings in London that left 52 people dead.

http://www.signonsandiego.com/news/nation/terror/20051102-2107-pakistan-al-qaidaarrests.html

Casey

11-03-2005, 06:27 PM

Qaeda man killed in Pak shootout

ISLAMABAD: Pakistani forces killed an Arab Al Qaeda suspect and seized another in a shootout, ministers said yesterday, but intelligence officials played down reports that one was a wanted Syrian militant.

Agents got into a gunbattle with the foreign suspects when they raided a house on Tuesday in the restive southwestern city of Quetta near the Afghan border, Information Minister Sheikh Rashid said.

“Security forces had an encounter when they raided a house in Quetta on Tuesday. They captured a foreigner and killed another and they may be Al Qaeda operatives,” Rashid said.

Both were Arabs but their identities had not yet been confirmed, he added.

Interior Minister Aftab Sherpao also confirmed the incident, saying they had not yet identified the dead man and his captured companion. “We are still trying. We don’t know who they are,” he added.

A top-level security official said investigators had found no indications that one of the men was Syrian national Mustafa Setmariam Nasar, also known as Abu Musab Al Suri, who has reported links to the Madrid and London bombings. – AFP

http://www.bahraintribune.com/PrintPage.asp

Petronas

11-14-2005, 12:37 PM

Christians under siege in Pakistan after riot
Filed: 14/11/2005

The Christians of Sangla Hill in Pakistan were a community under siege last night after a Muslim mob rampaged through the town, burning churches and a Roman Catholic compound. Father Samson Dilawar, parish priest of the Roman Catholic Church of Nazooli-i-Rooh, the Blessing of the Sacred Spirit, was still dressed in the cassock in which he fled when the mob knocked down the gate to the church compound on Saturday. "I heard the mullahs had been telling people over loudspeakers, 'We are guardians of the Koran and it is our foremost duty to teach a lesson to those kafirs'," he said. "Then they came to my door."

Werner Scherhaufer, an Austrian on holiday in the Punjabi town with his Pakistani wife, said the crowd was "like a football match". He saw several thousand people streaming towards the Christian quarter. "We locked ourselves in as we feared they were coming for us," he said. They shouted insults at the Christians, calling them "kafirs" and "chucha", the abusive term for non-Muslims and untouchables, and "kuta", which means dogs.

Local police and the Christian community agreed on how the violence began: a Christian man had spent several days gambling with Muslim men and had won a small fortune. Embittered, his opponents spread the rumour that he had set fire to the koran mahal, a box for preserving torn pages of the Koran. Soon the alleged deed was broadcast by mullahs from mosques.

Fr Dilawar fled to the nearby convent where he hid with a group of nuns. "Ours was the only door that they did not try," he said. "It was luck. That is how our lives were saved." His residence was doused in chemicals and set alight, gutting the building and destroying century-old documents.

In the same compound, St Anthony's Primary School, which has 1,500 Muslim and Christian pupils, was ransacked and burnt. The same treatment was meted out to the church, convent, boarding house and medical centre. The feet were snapped off statues of Jesus, metal crucifixes were buckled and nuns' habits torched.

"I will try to carry on as before," said Sister Anthony, the principal of the primary school. "But surely the government must help us." Standing outside the smouldering shell of his Union Presbyterian church, the Rev Tajmal Pervez said: "Christians have been in the area for over a century. There has never been any problem." The beams of his parsonage were open to daylight yesterday. "Religious fanatics have stirred this up," said Mr Pervez, who has been in the area for 15 years.

The rampage extended to three other churches on the outskirts of Sanga Hill. "We told the authorities that there was going to be trouble," said Mr Pervez. "So they sent four policemen who did nothing to stop the mayhem." Yesterday a 1,000-strong congregation wearing black armbands knelt in the street opposite the burnt out church and Mr Pervez said a mass "for peace and love".

Sanga Hill, 50 miles west of Lahore, is a town in the heartland of Punjab's ethnic jigsaw where violence between Shia and Sunni, and Christian and Muslim has grown more frequent. A 10th of the town's 10,000 population is Christian. Dr S F Martin recalled only one other incident of violence against Christians before partition in 1947. This weekend his possessions were thrown out of his house and it was burnt down.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=/news/2005/11/14/wpak114.xml&sSheet=/news/2005/11/14/ixnewstop.html

Petronas

11-14-2005, 01:05 PM

Hunt for new obscure terror outfits begins
Monday, November 14, 2005
By Hasan Mansoor

KARACHI: After some intelligence reports about the potential presence of new terror outfits, a secret hunt by expert investigators in the police and other law enforcement agencies has been launched countrywide, sources told Daily Times. “There are reports that some new terror outfits are active in different parts of the country which can launch terror attacks anytime if they are not tackled efficiently,” an Islamabad-based official dealing with terrorism-related matters said on condition of anonymity. He said Islamabad had asked all provincial governments to take the reports seriously and activate mechanisms dealing with terrorism to unearth any such groups or individuals. The sources said that past incidents showed that some major terror attacks were launched by similar obscure outfits about whom no one knew until their leaders or front-men were arrested.

The sources were alluding to the sudden emergence of Harkatul Mujahideen al-Aalmi (HMA) in July 2002 when Rangers officials produced three of its leaders before the press for their alleged involvement in the suicide attacks on French naval engineers outside Sheraton Hotel and the US consulate in Karachi. In April 2003 an anti terrorism court awarded death sentence to two HMA members for their involvement in the US consulate bombing. HMA chief Mohammad Imran and his deputy Mohammad Hanif were sentenced to death. Soon after the HMA leaders’ arrest, investigators widened the scope of their investigations and arrested around 50 more of its militants.

The most valued catch, as the investigators put it, was of Asif Zaheer, an HMA mastermind who had trained as an explosives and chemical expert at terror camps in Afghanistan. He was inspired by Harkat Jihad al-Islami and was in Karachi making bombs for half a dozen terror groups. Asif Zaheer was sentenced to death last year for masterminding the killing of the French engineers. But his organisation merged with others to form the World United Army, taken seriously by the Karachi police only after it blew up 21 petrol stations owned by Shell in Karachi in May 2003.

Another significant catch was of Sohail Akhtar alias Mustafa and Kamran Atif. Investigators believe that about forty terrorists, including Saud Memon from whose plot the police had recovered the remains of Daniel Pearl on May 17, 2002, are still at large.

Another group that was unearthed only three days after a deadly attack on then corps commander Karachi, General Ahsan Saleem Hyat, was Jundallah. This jihadi outfit had then warned that many such ‘independent groups’ might be running underground. The police arrested eight youngsters living in central parts of the city who declared they had formed a new group to attack Western targets and security forces of the country, and named it Jundallah (Allah’s army).

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2005\11\14\story_14-11-2005_pg7_7

Petronas

11-14-2005, 01:06 PM

Six arrested for Gwadar blasts
Monday, November 14, 2005

QUETTA: Police said on Sunday they have arrested six suspects over last year’s car bomb attack that killed three Chinese engineers in Gwadar. Nine Chinese engineers were also injured when an car blew up near their bus on May 3, 2004. The engineers were heading to a dam project. Police captured the suspects on Saturday, and two of them “confessed their links to the attacks,” said area police official Salim Ahmed. He said the men also were involved in attacks on paramilitary forces in the province. Ahmed said the suspects belonged to the BLA.

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2005\11\14\story_14-11-2005_pg1_4

Petronas

11-15-2005, 12:45 AM

Car bomb hits Karachi restaurant
Tuesday, 15 November 2005, 05:36 GMT

At least three people were killed and 12 others wounded when a car bomb struck a fast food restaurant in Karachi, southern Pakistan. Police said the explosion ripped through the front of the KFC outlet and burned several vehicles on the street. The bomb exploded in a crowded business area near two luxury hotels at 0840 (0340 GMT), during rush hour. The city has been the scene of several bomb attacks blamed on Islamic extremists opposed to the government.

Karachi police chief Mushtaq Shah told reporters the bomb was hidden in a car parked outside the restaurant. "It was a high-intensity explosion and its noise was heard in several parts of the city," he said, quoted by news agency AFP. "It appears that the KFC was the target."

Office worker Muhammad Ramzan was stepping off a bus when the blast occurred. "I suddenly heard a loud explosion and I sat on the ground," he told AFP. "There was smoke rising everywhere."

Police official, Sanaullah Abbasi, quoted by Associated Press, said three people were killed and 12 were injured. The dead and injured include security guards, reports the BBC's Barbara Plett in Islamabad.

Pakistan Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed condemned the bombing, calling it the work of the "enemies of Pakistan". In September, several people were wounded when a KFC and a MacDonald's restaurant were bombed. In May, six people were killed when protesters set fire to a KFC outlet in the city, during clashes between religious groups.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4437708.stm

Petronas

11-15-2005, 10:47 AM

Terror from Amman to Karachi
By Syed Saleem Shahzad
Nov 16, 2005

KARACHI - The powerful car bomb that killed at least six people in the Pakistani port city of Karachi on Tuesday morning has confirmed the worst fears of intelligence agencies that the recent al-Qaeda-claimed suicide attacks in Amman, Jordan, mark an intensification in activities against countries that sympathize with the US in the "war on terror".

Pakistani security contacts told Asia Times Online that they saw a clear link between the Amman and Karachi attacks and that there would now be an upsurge in violence after a lull of several months. They pointed out, though, that al-Qaeda-linked activity in these two countries also represented divisions within the organization.

The massive car bomb in Karachi ripped through an outlet of US-based KFC and damaged two five-star hotels in a high-security area of Karachi at 8.45am. The blast virtually destroyed the restaurant, located in a government building, and damaged the Pearl Continental and Sheraton luxury hotels. The security officials said the timing of the explosion, before the area was busy, indicated the attack was partly symbolic, especially as it took place in such a high security zone. The area is home to the headquarters of the Pakistan Rangers, the chief minister's house and the governor's house.

Jordan has developed into a strategic backyard for US and coalition forces, which use the country for important political and economic meetings related to Iraq, while the intelligence community uses the country as a base to keep an eye on the Iraqi resistance, for which Jordan and Syria are the main recruitment centers. Sunday's suicide attacks at three upscale hotels in Amman aimed at sending an unequivocal message to the Jordanian monarchy, the majority of whose subjects are pro-Taliban or anti-American Palestinians. More such operations can be expected in an effort to destabilize the kingdom.

Similarly, Pakistan's leaders - and US interests - have been frequent victims of terror attacks since President General Pervez Musharraf threw the country's lot in with the US after September 11, 2001 and reversed support for the Taliban in Afghanistan.

Targeting Jordan and Afghanistan, however, does not represent the pattern of thinking of mainstream al-Qaeda, which still abides by the thoughts of the Muslim Brotherhood, which essentially dictate that all segments of Muslim society should be galvanized in the fight against America and Israel.

Abu Musab al-Zarqawi, al-Qaeda's leader in Iraq, who claimed responsibility for the Amman attacks, and Egyptian Abu Amro Abdul Hakeem, also known as Sheikh Essa, in the Pakistan-Afghanistan border area, represent factions that have deviated from the core, and who will fight against any US ally, even if it happens to be Muslim.

The Essa group, whose allies in Pakistan include the Lashkar-i-Jhangvi, an anti-Shi'ite group, and other breakaway factions of the Jaish-i-Mohammed and the Harkatul Mujahideen, reject outright the presence of North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO) and US troops in the earthquake disaster-struck areas of Pakistan-administered Kashmir, even though they are only helping with relief operations there - especially in Balakot and Manshera.

A vast percentage of Pakistan's prayer leaders (of whatever belief) come from Balakot and Manshera and they are assigned to mosques and madrassas (seminaries) all over the country. The same areas have also traditionally been the main suppliers of mujahideen. Manshera is renowned for its militant training camps.

As soon as it was learned that Musharraf had agreed to NATO and US forces being allowed into the area following October's quake, Pakistani Minister of Information Sheikh Rasheed Ahmed and others began receiving warnings that there would be consequences. Tuesday's car bomb attack in Karachi is one of them.

Syed Saleem Shahzad, Bureau Chief, Pakistan Asia Times Online.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/GK16Df04.html

Petronas

11-18-2005, 01:05 AM

Algerians denied bail again
Friday, November 18, 2005
By Akhtar Amin

PESHAWAR: A District and Sessions judge in Peshawar has dismissed the bail applications of two Algerian men, who are wanted by intelligence agencies for interrogation in President Musharraf assassination attempt case. The two Algerians Abul Ghayas and Abu Safyan had moved their bail applications before District and Sessions Judge Shah Jehan after Trial Court Judge Mohammad Tufail had cancelled their bail after receiving bail cancellation applications from the Criminal Investigation Department (CID). Shah Jehan, upholding the trial court decision, refused to grant bail to the two Algerians.

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2005\11\18\story_18-11-2005_pg7_9

Petronas

11-21-2005, 10:49 AM

Religious minorities fearful after attack in Pakistan
November 20, 2005

SANGLA HILL, Pakistan -- The enraged mob had already started to scale the walls of the Catholic compound in Sangla Hill when the Rev. Samson Dilawar hurriedly ushered the nuns, teachers, and 23 teenage students to safety. The group crammed into a small upstairs room of the convent in eastern Punjab Province. Out on the roof, Dilawar watched in horror as about 1,500 men swarmed across the mission, destroying everything in their path.

The Muslim crowd, incensed by rumors that a Christian had desecrated copies of the Koran, tore open the doors of the Holy Spirit church, smashed the marble altar, and shattered the stained-glass windows. They torched Dilawar's residence and the neighboring St. Anthony's Girls school. Within moments flames were licking the walls and black smoke filled the sky.

An hour later, Dilawar recalled, the mob crashed through the convent door and he retreated into the locked room where the nuns were praying. ''They tried to break the door down, but did not succeed. Otherwise, we could have all been killed," he said Thursday, sitting on a grassy patch outside the vandalized convent.

The violence that swept across Sangla Hill, a market town 140 miles south of the capital, Islamabad, on Nov. 12 has rocked Pakistan's small Christian community. It has also highlighted the fragile position of religious minorities in this overwhelmingly Muslim country.

Two other churches -- one Presbyterian and the other belonging to the evangelistic Salvation Army movement -- and at least six houses were also torched, in violence that lasted for several hours and that local police were apparently powerless to prevent or combat.

President Pervez Musharraf condemned the attack ''in the strongest terms. Muslims need to show more tolerance towards a smaller, minority community," he told reporters. But human rights campaigners say the attacks are partly a product of the government's failure to overhaul what many perceive as regressive laws and the reluctance of his Muslim-dominated police to protect minorities.

Under Pakistan's strict blasphemy laws, desecration of the Koran is punishable by life imprisonment, while any proven insult to the name of the prophet Mohammed carries a mandatory death sentence. The law, which can be invoked on the word of one witness, is frequently misused to settle scores, avoid debts, or rouse violence against religious minorities. ''It is used and misused to spread fear and terror," said Hina Jilani, a lawyer with the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan. ''It's a tool to be used against anyone you are in conflict with."

Both communities agree that the trouble in Sangla Hill started with a blasphemy allegation after a heated gambling session. Two men -- Christian cattle trader Yusuf Masih and a Muslim named Kalu Sunaira -- were playing cards on a patch of open grass near the city sports stadium last Friday morning. What happened next is in dispute. Muslims allege that Masih became angry after the card game and set fire to a copy of the Koran being stored in a small office belonging to a local Islamic organization. Christians countered that Sunaira had invented the story to distract attention from a heavy gambling debt he had incurred with his local rival.

Whatever the truth, news of the alleged desecration spread rapidly across the town. Hours later, after the weekly Friday prayers, Muslim clerics denounced the alleged incident over the loudspeakers. ''They said, 'Come out from your houses for the protection of the Koran and your religion,' " Dilawar recalled.

By 9 p.m. a crowd had gathered outside the Catholic compound and had started to throw stones. Dilawar called for help. ''I contacted all the officials I knew to request protection. They told me not to worry," he said. The crowd dispersed but returned about 10:30 the next morning. The small group had swelled into a large mob. There was evidence of considerable organization. Protesters had arrived from outlying villages, brandishing sticks and hammers. Witnesses told human rights investigators that some wore green turbans of the type favored by militant Islamists.

After breaking through the walls they torched the buildings using an inflammable orange substance, the traces of which were still apparent on the few unburned walls of the school. ''We've never had anything like this before," the school's headmistress, Sister Anthony Edward, who as part of a tradition within her order, took the names of male saints, said as she stood in front of the charred classrooms. ''I feel broken inside," she said. Of the school's 450 pupils, at least 90 percent were Muslim, Sister Anthony Edward added. ''People always wanted to bring their children here," she said. ''They appreciate our education."

The Rev. Tajjamal Pervez stood in the blackened ruins of the gutted Presbyterian Church, which was built 103 years ago. ''This was all preplanned," he said bitterly. ''The burning of the Koran was just an excuse to attack."

Police have detained 88 Muslims but have not arrested the town's mayor and a senior councilor, who many Christians allege were the ringleaders behind the attack. Now, Christians say they feel vulnerable to further violence. ''If the police cannot protect us in broad daylight, then what can we expect of them?" said Javed Masih, a nephew of Yusuf Masih, at his ransacked house. Yusuf Masih remains in jail, but no charges have been pressed, said Arshad Ali, acting chief at Sangla Hill police station. ''He is being held outside of the city because of security," he said.

Both Christians and Muslims in area said they previously enjoyed good relations. ''We even used to attend each other's weddings," said Botta Masih Shindhu, a local Christian leader. ''This is the first time we have seen anything like this in our lifetime." The leader of the town's mosque, Mufti Muhammad Zulfiqar Rizvi, echoed the sentiment. Christians and Muslims had lived in harmony in the area for generations, he said.

Rizvi denied allegations by Catholic leaders that he had incited the crowd to violence over the mosque loudspeakers on Nov. 12. ''The attackers came from outside this town," he said. ''I tried to stop them. I told them there should be no violence against any religious house. But they would not listen."

http://www.boston.com/news/world/articles/2005/11/20/religious_minorities_fearful_after_attack_in_pakis tan/

Petronas

11-21-2005, 11:40 PM

Blood debt women offered up for rape
22/11/2005

A village council in Pakistan has decreed that five young women should be abducted, raped or killed for refusing to honour childhood "marriages". The women, who are cousins, were married in absentia by a mullah in their Punjabi village to illiterate sons of their family's enemies in 1996, when they were aged from six to 13.

The marriages were part of a compensation agreement ordered by the village council and reached at gunpoint after the father of one of the girls shot dead a family rival. The rival families have now called in their "debt", demanding the marriages to the village men are fulfilled.

The case is becoming a cause célèbre in Pakistan, pitting tribal mores against a group of modern-minded, educated women. Amna Niazi, the eldest of the five at 22, is taking a degree in English literature, while both her sisters want to attend university. Their fathers are supporting them and have refused to hand them over, leading to a resumption of the blood feud, with two relatives shot recently and 20 people arrested, while promises of further retribution and murder abound.

In addition to the sentence on the women, the village council has sentenced to death Jehan Khan Niazi, the father of three of the women, and the fathers of the other two for failing to honour the supposed bond with men whose identities they are not even certain of. The women have said they will commit suicide if their fathers obey the council. Speaking at their home in Sultanwala, a remote cotton and sugar-cane growing village, Amna said: "It is a great injustice that should be ended. Why should we pay for a crime committed by someone else? We will commit suicide if it happens. We would be treated like animals by them. Our misery would never end as this is just another way of using us as tools in the feud." None of the women has so far been able to marry as their childhood "marriages" hang over them.

The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan condemned the "barbaric custom of vani", - the tradition of handing over women to resolve disputes - and called on President Pervez Musharraf to enforce a ban. Last year a three-year-old girl near Multan was betrothed to a 60-year-old man in a similar settlement. The case led to parliament passing a law banning vani and honour killings, but it has been widely ignored. The case of Mukhtar Mai, a Pakistani woman whom a village council ordered to be gang-raped for an alleged offence committed by her brother, has also reached international attention.

The Daily Telegraph was granted access to the young women, despite Mr Niazi's fear that the village will further condemn him for being "un-Islamic" by allowing his daughters to be photographed, albeit with their faces covered by veils. Amna, who hopes to become an English lecturer, said: "We are proud of our father. Despite having little money, he has educated us and shown us that we must stand up in society and demand our rights." She is studying at a college affiliated to the university of Lahore, while her sister Abida, 18, is applying to study medicine, and Sajida, 15, is still at secondary school.

The other girls, Assia, 20, and Fatima, 16, are the daughters of Mr Niazi's brothers. "Only a few of my friends know about this," said Abida. "But those that do support us and say we are fighting for the oppressed women of Pakistan."

Mr Niazi, who is a government accountant, was candid about the cause of the feud. "My brother murdered one of our neighbours after being shot at. But it is complicated, they had already insulted us by making indecent remarks to our girls," he said. He added that his family had already paid blood-money to the aggrieved party. "I have refused to give into the council's request as it is un-Islamic. I cannot hand over my girls like goats to marry these illiterate boys," he said.

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml;jsessionid=KXTT4NASY5X4XQFIQMFCFF4AVCBQ YIV0?xml=/news/2005/11/22/wdebt22.xml&sSheet=/news/2005/11/22/ixworld.html

Petronas

11-25-2005, 12:40 PM

‘Terrorists will be eliminated’Friday, November 25, 2005

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan’s message to terrorists and extremists is clear –they will be eliminated, said Foreign Minister Khurshid M Kasuri while addressing the Commonwealth foreign ministers’ meeting in Malta. A Foreign Office press release quoted Kasuri as saying that terrorism was a common threat to all Commonwealth nations. He called for a long-term strategy to address the root causes of terrorism. The foreign minister said President Pervez Musharraf’s concept of ‘enlightened moderation’ dealt with terrorism through a two-pronged strategy. He also highlighted Pakistan’s role in fighting terrorism and promoting peace and security in South Asia. The statement said the Pakistani delegation to the Commonwealth had played an active role in finalising the draft communiqué for heads of governments during the draft committee meeting. A number of proposals made by Pakistan helped finalise the draft and eliminate differences among various countries, it said.

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2005\11\25\story_25-11-2005_pg7_45

Petronas

11-26-2005, 12:23 AM

Terror network intact in Pak despite quake: Army
Jammu, November 25, 2005

Even though supply lines of arms and ammunition got clogged due to the October 8 quake, the terror infrastructure across the border is intact and the level of infiltration the same, a top Army official has said. "Supply lines of arms and ammunition to the terrorists got choked somewhere due to the October quake, but the terrorists have been carrying out attacks in desperation, using grenades and IEDs to show their presence," Northern Command General Officer Commanding-in-Chief Lt Gen Deepak Kapoor said.

Reports of the entire terror infrastructure being destroyed in the quake were incorrect, he said. "It has been damaged to some extent only." The infiltration level too had not come down, he said. "It is as it was before the quake." Several terrorist training camps around Muzaffarabad had been damaged due to the quake but terrorists were continuing to sneak into the state, Kapoor told reporters in Jammu on Thursday.

On the recent spurt in terrorist activities in J&K, the Army commander said the acts had a twin aim - to show their presence and to hamper development by creating panic. The terrorists were "frightened by the alienation" of the civilian population people and were desperately trying to win them over, he said. He said terrorism "will affect tourism, which continues to be the backbone of the state's economy. The killing of a single tourist can lead to sudden decline in tourist traffic".

http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/181_1556494,000900010002.htm

Petronas

12-03-2005, 01:09 AM

Shia cleric shot dead
Saturday, December 03, 2005

QUETTA: Gunmen on a motorcycle shot dead a minority Shiite Muslim cleric Friday in a remote town, police said, in the latest suspected sectarian killing to hit the country. Two armed men ambushed religious leader Allamma Badar-ud-Din as he left his home to go to a mosque in Dera Murad Jamali, some 240 kilometres south of Quetta, police said. “The attackers were riding a motorcycle and fled after the shooting,” local police officer Khalid Magsi said.

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2005\12\03\story_3-12-2005_pg1_5

Petronas

12-03-2005, 01:29 AM

‘Senior Al Qaeda commander killed ’
December 3, 2005

PESHAWAR, Dec 2: A senior Al Qaeda commander has been killed in the Thursday missile attack at a house in the North Waziristan Agency, sources said. The sources said that Al Qaeda operational commander Hamza Rabia, said to be of Syrian origin, was among the five killed in the missile attack on a mud-house in Asoray village in Mirali tehsil, to the east of North Waziristan’s regional headquarters, Miranshah.

Officials and tribal witnesses said that among those killed were three foreigners of Middle-Eastern origin. While the administration in Miranshah claimed the casualties were the result of an explosion inside the house, tribal witnesses insist that a hail of missiles fired from unmanned air vehicle struck the house at around 1.45 am. A drone is usually armed with two hellfire missiles and judging from the six explosions, the locals claimed they had heard, it is possible that more than two UAVs took part in the Thursday’s action.

The sources said that Hamza, who carried the local alias of Nawab to disguise his identity, was among those killed but his body as well of two other foreign militants were quickly taken away by their comrades and buried at an undisclosed location. Hamza had escaped a similar attack at his location in Mosaki in Mirali on Nov 5 that had left eight people dead including his wife and children. Hamza was said to have been slightly wounded in the leg. The authorities then had also attributed the incident to an explosion caused by an improvised explosive device.

http://www.dawn.com/2005/12/03/top4.htm

Petronas

12-03-2005, 11:36 AM

Some more details on the late and unlamented Rabia. If he allegedly is Al Qaeda's No. 3, where is the US reward for him (http://www.rewardsforjustice.net/)? What am I missing?

Officials: CIA missile strike kills al-Qaida No. 3
11:04 a.m. ET Dec. 3, 2005

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - The operational commander of al-Qaida and possibly the No. 3 official in the terrorist organization, Hamza Rabia, was killed early Thursday morning by a CIA missile attack on a safehouse in Pakistan, officials told NBC News. Pakistan's president later confirmed the militant leader's death. “Yes indeed, 200 percent. I think he was killed the day before yesterday if I’m not wrong,” President Pervez Musharraf told reporters as he arrived in Kuwait on an official visit on Saturday.

While Pakistani officials publicly said Rabia died in a blast caused by explosives stored in a house for bomb-making, officials speaking on condition of anonymity told NBC News he was killed by a CIA missile strike carried out by an unmanned Predator airplane. Pakistan's government has always been reticent to admit that Predators are used in Pakistani airspace to hunt down al-Qaida operatives. The sources told NBC News Rabia was one of five men killed at a safehouse located in the village of Asorai, in western Pakistan, near the town of Mirali. Among those killed in the attack were two Pakistanis and three Arabs. The attacks were reportedly carried out between 1:45 a.m. and 2 a.m. local time on Thursday.

Local residents said that the men were killed by an unknown number of missiles fired by an unmanned Predator aircraft. The witnesses said that missile remnants bearing U.S. markings remain in the area. They also said they had heard six explosions, but it is uncertain how many of these were the result of missile attacks and how many may have been the result of the missiles detonating explosives inside the safehouse. The U.S. government confirmed that a missile attack took place, but would not confirm that Rabia was killed.

Rabia has been sought by both U.S. and Pakistani officials for more than two years. Pakistan has offered a $1 million reward for his capture. He is believed to have participated in the planning for two assassination attempts against Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf on Dec. 14 and Dec. 25, 2003. At that time, Rabia was believed to be the chief deputy to Abu Faraj al-Libbi, al-Qaida's operational chief and the No. 3 man in the organization. In May, Pakistani security forces captured Abu Faraj and turned him over to the United States. U.S. officials have said that Rabia succeeded Abu Faraj as operations chief. Rabia was brought into al-Qaida by Ayman al-Zawahiri, Osama bin Laden's No. 2. Like al-Zawahiri, Rabia is an Egyptian. U.S. officials have described him recently as "top-five al-Qaida" and, as one US official said on Friday, "killing him would be indeed a very big deal."

Rabia was the target of another Predator attack on Nov. 5, according to local Pakistani officials. During that strike, in the village of Mosaki, eight people were killed in what is now described as an unsuccessful attempt to kill Rabia. Local officials have told NBC News that the dead included the wife and children of the al-Qaida leader. Both the village of Asorai, where Thursday's attack took place, and Mosaki, where the November attack took place, are within 45 minutes of the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. The area is a hiding place for top al-Qaida officials, according to U.S., Pakistani and Afghan officials.

http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/10303175/

Vancouver

12-03-2005, 07:47 PM

Chalk one up to the often questionable Pakistani paper Dawn.
Here's an early mention of Rabia:
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/1093049611255_6/?hub=TopStories
Rabia (Egytion? Syrian?) inherited the office of the captured Libyan Abu Faraj Farj aka Faraj al-Liby. Pakistan had put out a reward for Rabia, but not the States AFAIK. Anyway what are these Qaeda "operational chiefs" doing these days, other than telling other people to kill Musharref, while hiding there own arses in the tribal areas?

Solo

12-03-2005, 09:42 PM

Hmmm........denial again from AQ?
--------------------------------

December 04, 2005 09:27 AM

Musharraf confirms Al-Qaeda commander killed in Pakistan

KUWAIT CITY (AFP) - President Pervez Musharraf has confirmed that an Egyptian and top Al-Qaeda operative in Pakistan had been killed, but someone claiming to represent the terror group denied that the man was dead.

Asked by reporters on arrival at Kuwait airport to confirm a newspaper report that Hamza Rabia was killed in a missile strike on Thursday, Musharraf said: "Yes indeed, 200 percent confirmed." Musharraf said Saturday Hamza was killed "in North Waziristan", a tribal area on the Afghan border. "It is a place called Mirali, or little north of this town, that's the place," he said. "I think he was killed the day before yesterday (Thursday), if I am not wrong."

In Islamabad, Interior Minister Aftab Sherpao also confirmed the killing and made clear that Rabia was Egyptian. The Dawn newspaper, which had reported the news earlier Saturday, had said he was a Syrian. "Al-Qaeda operative Hamza Rabia, who was killed in the explosion, was an Egyptian national," Sherpao told AFP. "He was a very important Al-Qaeda commander." "Five people were killed in the explosion and we have identified that one of them was Hamza Rabia. There were two other foreigners but we do not know their identities," he said.

Officials say the bodies of the two locals were found in the house, but that those of the foreigners, including Hamza, were believed to have been spirited away. They said intelligence had intercepted inter-militant communications, according to which the man known as Nawab, a Hamza alias, had been killed. But Al-Arabiya television said it had been contacted by a person claiming to be from Al-Qaeda denying that Hamza was dead.

"An official from the Al-Qaeda group has denied, in a telephone conversation with the Al-Arabiya channel, that Hamza Rabia has been killed," a presenter on the Arab satellite channel told viewers.

The caller said five people were killed in the explosion, but that they were two local men, two Tadjiks and an Arab named Suleiman al-Moghrabi. According to a CIA list of most wanted Al-Qaeda terrorists operating in Pakistan and Afghanistan seen by AFP, Hamza has a five million dollar bounty on his head.

Dawn claimed the casualties were the result of an explosion inside a house, but tribal witnesses insisted that a "hail of missiles fired from unmanned air vehicles struck the house".

Information Minister Sheikh Rashid said the explosion was not a result of any operation in the rugged region, where the army has been hunting for Al-Qaeda and Taliban fugitives.

http://www.bernama.com/bernama/v3/news.php?id=168419

Solo

12-04-2005, 06:28 AM

The plot thickens :)
---------------------------------
Sunday, December 04, 2005

Suspected Qaeda supporter surrenders in N Waziristan

By Iqbal Khattak

PESHAWAR: A senior suspected Al Qaeda and Taliban supporter in North Waziristan has surrendered to the government, a senior administration official said on Saturday.

Maulana Ajab Noor, a former resistance commander against the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1980s, has pledged allegiance to the anti-terror war.

The administration official in Miranshah said that Noor, along with hundreds of supporters, had surrendered to the political administration. “I and my comrades fully support the government’s policies against foreign elements and will remain loyal to the country,” Noor declared during the ceremony at a seminary in Khaisor, 10 kilometres south of Mir Ali, the town where top Al Qaeda commander Hamza Rabia and two other foreign militants were killed on December 1.

Senior administration officials attended the ceremony and praised the former resistance commander’s support to the government.

Noor, 55, assured the government that he will not shelter foreign terrorists linked to Al Qaeda and the Taliban, the official said.

Military spokesman Maj Gen Shaukat Sultan welcomed Noor’s surrender and hoped that the government will soon prevail in the war against terror in North Waziristan with the support of the local population. “It (Noor’s surrender) signifies that the government is also involving the tribal elders to support the operation against militants,” he said. Noor’s support comes in the wake of the surrender of 34 wanted tribal militants in Miranshah on November 28.

Meanwhile, Sultan said that the identity of the two other foreigners killed in the explosion in Mir Ali on December 1 had not yet been established. “The bodies of the three foreigners are in the security forces’ custody,” he said.

The administration official said that only three men, including Maulana Sadiq Noor, on the government’s list of wanted men were still on the run.

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2005\12\04\story_4-12-2005_pg1_9

Petronas

12-06-2005, 12:48 AM

Suicide squads being formed to kill Shias in NAs
Tuesday, December 06, 2005

ISLAMABAD: Intelligence agencies have uncovered a plot by two banned militant groups to kill Shia members of the legislative council of the Northern Areas, sources said on Monday. Sources said that leaders of banned outfits Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP) and Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LJ) had directed their operatives to form suicide squads to kill Shia members of the legislative council.

Intelligence agencies outlined details of the plan in a report submitted to the Interior Ministry, that contained information gleaned from three members of the banned groups. The report said that the SSP and LJ had asked their members in the Northern Areas to recruit women and children to the suicide squads.

Clerics belonging to these organisations had also contacted people in the earthquake-hit areas to convince them to send their children to seminaries in Punjab. In return, they offered to pay for the children’s education, boarding and lodging, the report said. Maulana Ghulam Kibriya of Rahim Yar Khan was assigned to arrange for these children’s admissions to seminaries in southern Punjab, said the report.

The banned organisations were also found distributing periodicals – Paigham-e-Haq (The Message of Truth) and Zarb-e-Momin – in the quake-affected areas, sources said. “The report says that members of foreign rescue teams, including US nationals, frequently seen in the markets of Rawalpindi and Islamabad, are also potential targets for militants,” the sources said. The Interior Ministry has ordered the Northern Areas’ chief secretary, the Islamabad chief commissioner and the Punjab home secretary to take measures to prevent acts of terror.

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2005\12\06\story_6-12-2005_pg1_6

Petronas

12-07-2005, 12:16 PM

'Bandits killed' in Taleban clash
Wednesday, 7 December 2005, 16:57 GMT

At least 15 people have died in a clash between suspected Taleban militants and bandits in Pakistan's tribal area of North Waziristan, eyewitnesses say.
The fighting near the town of Miranshah left 11 bandits and four Taleban fighters dead, reports said. The news came as four troops went missing, presumed kidnapped, in South Waziristan. Pakistan has sent thousands to the area to try to curb militancy. A Pakistani journalist is also feared kidnapped in North Waziristan. Officials say security in the region is deteriorating fast. Taleban militants hung up three bodies of the bandits from electricity poles and chanted slogans on Wednesday, eyewitnesses said.

One local journalist, who wished to remain unnamed, told the BBC's Imtiaz Ali that suspected Taleban had taken over Miranshah and were roaming freely in the streets with their guns. "Shops are closed because of fear," one shop keeper told the Associated Press. "The administration has done nothing." The fighting is reported to have taken place on Tuesday. The militants are said to have attacked the bandits who were extorting money on a road.

In South Waziristan, eyewitnesses say they saw two paramilitary soldiers being forced into a vehicle. Two others are missing, security officials say. The soldiers had been told not to leave their camp as a security measure but the four went out to a market, one official told the AFP news agency.

Journalist Hayatullah Khan went missing on Monday after he reported on the alleged killing of an al-Qaeda commander. The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists said that five armed men kidnapped Mr Khan in North Waziristan. CPJ Executive Director Ann Cooper demanded that Pakistani officials act swiftly to save his life.

Pakistani authorities said at the weekend that an al-Qaeda commander, Abu Hamza Rabia, and four others were killed when bomb-making material stored at their hideout was detonated accidentally. Mr Khan, who had reported that Rabia was killed by a US missile, was kidnapped by unidentified gunmen.

Hundreds of militants and more than 250 Pakistani soldiers have died in the tribal areas of North and South Waziristan in the past two years. Many al-Qaeda and Taleban militants are believed to have slipped into Pakistan after the US forces entered Afghanistan in 2001.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4506714.stm

Petronas

12-08-2005, 12:33 PM

Several killed in Pakistan blast
Thursday, 8 December 2005, 13:05 GMT

At least 12 people have been killed and 30 injured in a bomb explosion in Pakistan's troubled tribal area bordering Afghanistan, officials say.
The blast ripped through a hotel and shops in a market in Jandola town in South Waziristan. Earlier this week four soldiers were kidnapped in South Waziristan and 15 people killed in clashes in neighbouring North Waziristan. It is the worst violence in the region for several weeks.

The central government began deploying soldiers in large numbers in the tribal areas two years ago to counter the movements of members of the Taleban, al-Qaeda and their supporters. The BBC's Aamer Ahmed Khan in Karachi says the army is in control of the main population centres and road routes. However, he says the military cannot reduce its heavy presence because it has not been able to gain the trust of many of the tribesmen there.

There were two explosions in Jandola town on Thursday. The first one was the hotel bomb that left 12 dead, officials say. The hotel is situated on land owned by the army. It is not clear who planted the device. The hotel is next to the headquarters of the local paramilitary force. Ninety minutes later there was a second explosion in the same market area of the town. Officials say this blast was caused by fire in an arms and ammunition shop, local officials say.

Four paramilitary soldiers and a journalist have gone missing in South Waziristan in recent days. The bodies of two of the soldiers have now been found. One report said they had been beheaded, another that their throats had been cut.

South and North Waziristan have been at the centre of prolonged confrontations between the army and militant groups. Hundreds of militants and more than 250 Pakistani soldiers have died in the tribal areas along the border with Afghanistan in the past two years.

North Waziristan saw a further development this week when 15 people were killed in clashes that started after bandits tried extorting money from Islamic students at a roadblock. The students, backed by local tribesmen sympathetic to the Taleban, set fire to the gangsters' homes. They then hung the bodies of at least three of the bandits from electricity poles. Residents said the fighting was so fierce the authorities did not intervene.

Pakistan has sent thousands of soldiers to hunt down the militants as part of the US-led war on terror. Last week the Pakistanis authorities said a leading al-Qaeda member, Abu Hamza Rabia, was killed in an explosion in North Waziristan.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4509160.stm

Petronas

12-10-2005, 12:29 AM

PAKISTAN: CLAMPDOWN ON CLERICS FALTERS
Dec-09-05 16:52
by Syed Saleem Shahzad

Pakistan's federal government has decided to conduct a major operation against religious leaders who last year asked people not to say the funeral prayers of any soldier who died in fighting rebels in South Waziristan, along the Afghan border. However, there is tension in the capital Islamabad, where law enforcement agencies are on high alert to clamp down on influential clerics, but the fear of fierce retaliation has to date prevented them from proceeding.

The main force driving the campaign against the Pakistan Army is Islamabad's famous Lal Masjid (mosque) and its two leading clerics, Maulana Abdul Aziz and Maulana Ghazi Abdul Rasheed, who also run two prominent Islamic seminaries, Jamia Hafsa (for girls) and Jamia Fareedia (for boys).

The religious edict, barring the reading of Islamic prayers by clerics at the last rites of troops killed in operations in the tribal areas, was issued last year and signed by 70 clerics and later endorsed by another 430 religious leader. The edict was a major boost to the movement against the Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf and the United States and there were reports of Pakistan Army personnel refusing to take part in campaigns in South Waziristan.

North and South Waziristan have been at the centre of prolonged confrontations between the army and militant groups, which include suspected al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters. Hundreds of militants and more than 250 Pakistani soldiers have died in the tribal areas. Thousands of troops have been deployed to tackle militants in the Afghan border region

One soldier who not only refused to take part in South Waziristan operation but also instigated others was Mohammed Islam Siddiqui. Siddiqui was charged with "abetting mutiny" against Musharraf and attempting to persuade "a person in the military" to rebel against the government. He was executed by firing squad earlier this year.

In an attempt to clamp down on this campaign against the army, the two leading clerics at the Lal Masjid, Maulana Abdul Aziz and Maulana Ghazi Abdul Rasheed, are already under siege. Last week, Pakistan's interior ministry issued a notification in which it termed the two brothers Maulana Abdul Aziz and Maulana Ghazi Abdul Rasheed as “Badmash Basta Alif” or high-level hoodlums. However, security agencies have not conducted any raids to arrest them.

"The law enforcement agencies are all around our seminaries and Lal Masjid. Neither do we go out nor do they dare to raid on our premises," Ghazi Abdul Rasheed told Adnkronos International in a telephone interview from Islamabad. Jamia Hafsa, Jamia Fareedia and the Lal Masjid belong to these two brothers and have become icons of the pro-jihad movement in Pakistan, at the heart of the capital.

Last year, the government tried to conduct raids against them but faced fierce retaliation which forced the government to find a truce. The influential prayer leaders of Lal Masjid, were in hiding as the government had charged them with al-Qaeda connections and even implicated them in the conspiracies to kill Musharraf.

The Pakistani federal minister for religious affairs Ejazul Haq (son of the late Pakistani president General Zia ul Haq) played a leading role in cutting a deal between the two clerics, Maulana Abdul Aziz and Maulana Ghazi Abdul Rasheed, and Musharraf. Abdul Aziz's father, the slain Maulana Abdullah, had been very close to Zia and his family. Therefore, on the guarantees given by Ejazul Haq, all cases against the two clerics were withdrawn, and they were allowed to take over their mosques and madrassas (seminaries) in Islamabad.

Soon after 7 July bombings on the London transport system, where it was found that one of the suicide bombers who carried out the attacks had spent time in a Pakistani madrassa, the international pressure was once again on Pakistan which responded with a crackdown on militant Islamic activities in the seminaries, including a raid on the women's hostel of the Jamia Hafsa madrassa. The raid ended in a scuffle between the female students and police commandoes in which 150 young women were wounded while several police men also sustained injuries.

The main alliance of Islamic parties in Pakistan, the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) had criticised the governments actions against the madrassas saying that they had been done to appease the government's foreign masters and threatened to take strong action against the government if the raids did not stop. Protests were held in Pakistan against the crackdown.

"Our seminaries have gained international attention and that’s why they have become target everytime. But despite international pressure, it is not an easy task for the government to arrest as it has bad experiences whenever they tried,” Ghazi Abdul Rasheed maintained.

So far only the cleric Qari Ehsanullah has been arrested. The police have raided the premises of Maulana Sohail Abbasi, the prayer leader of a mosque in Islamabad, charged with fanning sectarianism, but he managed to escape.

http://www.adnki.com/index_2Level.php?cat=Security&loid=8.0.238349566&par=0

Petronas

12-13-2005, 02:16 AM

Militants rule the roost in Waziristan
December 13, 2005

WASHINGTON: Militants have begun to open recruiting offices in North and South Waziristan to recruit fighters against the Pakistan Army and US forces in Afghanistan, asserts a report appearing in an American newspaper on Monday. The Christian Science Monitor reports from Islamabad that videos released by the militants, and sold in local shops as part of their recruitment drive, show militants training openly. The militants have even held public gatherings, the most recent in October to mark the year anniversary since the Pakistan military bombed a militant camp in Dela Khula, killing 40 of their comrades.

“Music and TV have been banned. Women are confined to their homes. Shops must close five times a day for prayers, an edict enforced by armed religious police who patrol the streets. These changes, say local residents and reporters, have come just within the past few months to Waziristan … seen as a possible hideout for Al Qaeda leaders. Last year, under pressure from the US to clean up the semi-autonomous zone, Pakistan launched military operations that ended 10 months ago in a peace deal with some rebel tribes,” the report says.

The newspaper points out that the harsh edicts and an upsurge in violence suggest that Waziristan is far from pacified. It quotes observers as saying that the area is slipping back into the hands of Al Qaeda and Taliban militants, despite the 60,000 Pakistani troops and paramilitary personnel garrisoned there. A journalist told the newspaper that since the deal the Pakistan government’s authority seems to have become weak, and the vacuum has been filled by the militants. More than 60 pro-government tribal and religious leaders have been killed, two local journalists have been gunned down, and hundreds have fled since February. A local newsman told the US newspaper, “They do what they feel like doing and there is no one to stop them. And it’s the foreign elements among them who are calling the shots.” The report refers to seminary students clashing with a group of bandits, killing at least 20 of them and hanging their victims in the streets of Miran Shah.

Senior Pakistani officials say it’s too soon to jump to the conclusion that terrorists were behind last week’s violence. “I don’t think it should raise eyebrows or concern. It appears these incidents are more related to local politics between the tribes … It is more related to that than terrorism,” according to ISPR chief Maj Gen Shaukut Sultan.

However, writes the newspaper, “analysts point out that tribal battle lines have been drawn of late between groups that allied themselves with the army, and those who sided with the militants.” There is increasing evidence that Arab, Uzbek, and Chechen fighters linked to Al Qaeda are operating in the area, according to some.

As part of the February deal, militants pledged to renounce violence and end attacks in Afghanistan. Yet Afghan officials in the three provinces that border Waziristan told the Monitor that the frequency and sophistication of cross-border attacks have increased. “They launch suicide attacks, plant bombs, and launch ambushes. Increasingly, we see Arab fighters leading them,” Paktia police chief Aghul Suleiman Khan said.

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2005\12\13\story_13-12-2005_pg1_1

Petronas

12-24-2005, 06:10 PM

'Landmine blast' in S Waziristan
Saturday, 24 December 2005, 12:21 GMT

Two soldiers have been wounded in a landmine explosion in Pakistan's South Waziristan tribal area, near the Afghan border, officials say. Around a dozen men have been detained over the incident, the officials say. The explosion took place when the security personnel were out on a routine patrol. The injured soldiers have been shifted to a military hospital in the nearby town of Bannu. Their condition is said to be critical. Tens of thousands of Pakistani security personnel have been hunting down al-Qaeda and Taleban militants and their supporters in the area for the past three years.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4557956.stm

Casey

12-30-2005, 04:54 PM

Pakistan urges foreign students to leave ‘soon’

Middle East - Africa / News
Date: Dec 30, 2005 - 03:54 PM
(Reuters)

30 December 2005

ISLAMABAD - Pakistan backtracked on Friday on a demand for foreign students enrolled in Islamic schools to leave the country by year’s end, but urged the hundreds remaining to go as soon as possible.

President Pervez Musharraf had ordered all foreigners studying at the schools, known as madrasas, to leave by Dec. 31 as part of a drive to stamp out terrorism and religious extremism following the July 7 London bombings.

His order came after revelations that at least one of the four London bombers -- three of whom were Britons of Pakistani descent -- had spent time at a madrasa.

Officials have said that around 700 foreign students, out of a total of 1,400, have since left and madrasas have stopped enrolling more foreign students. But hundreds remain.

Interior Minister Aftab Ahmed Khan Sherpao told Reuters that foreign students might face “some administrative issues” in leaving by Saturday.

“As such, there is no deadline for them to leave, but we want them to go back to their countries as soon as possible.”

Sherpao said the government was not considering forced deportation of those who failed to meet the deadline.

“What action can we take against those students? The managements of the madrasas are responsible to arrange departures of their students and we are pushing them to help us in implementing our decision.”

On Thursday, Sherpao had said that the deadline would not be relaxed.

Madrasas vow to resist

Maulana Ghulam Rasool, a senior cleric at the Ittehad-e-Tanzeemaul Madaris, (the Alliance of Organisations of Religious Schools), told Reuters that students and madrasa managements would resist any deportations.

“Not one foreign student wants to go back,” he said. “They will give themselves up for arrest if the government uses force.”

Authorities in the southern province of Sindh say they have cancelled the visas of 92 foreign students still at madrasas there.

Sindh government spokesman Salahuddin Haider said foreign students might take seven to eight days to leave. “They need flights to go back and it will take some time.”

Rasool said the government move was aimed at “pleasing European countries and the United States”.

“These students should be given a chance to complete their studies, it’s their basic right,” he said.

Pakistan has about 12,000 madrasas, which provide education, shelter and food to boys from poor families. Some are suspected of being breeding grounds for Islamist militants.

The number of foreign students at madrasas fell sharply after Pakistan imposed tougher visa rules after joining the U.S.-led war on terrorism following the Sept. 11 attacks in 2001.

The country saw a spectacular rise in the number of madrasas in the 1980s, when the schools, backed by funding from the West and Arab countries, became recruiting grounds for Islamic volunteers fighting Soviet forces in neighbouring Afghanistan.

Some madrasas also supplied recruits for Afghanistan’s Taliban regime toppled by U.S.-led forces in late 2001 for sheltering Sept. 11 mastermind Osama bin Laden.

http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticle.asp?xfile=data/subcontinent/2005/December/subcontinent_December1086.xml&section=subcontinent&col=

Petronas

01-11-2006, 07:57 PM

7 troops, 14 militants killed in Waziristan
Wednesday, January 11, 2006

MIRANSHAH: Security forces on Tuesday killed 14 militants after a rocket attack left seven soldiers dead shortly after Monday midnight, security officials said. The Tuesday casualties put the death toll of paramilitary troops at 15 since Saturday, as the government withdrew the January 15 deadline for tribesmen to handover suspected militants. Military sources told Daily Times that the deadline was withdrawn because militants had attacked security forces twice after tribal elders pledged to hand them over at a jirga (local court) in Miranshah on Saturday.

Five paramilitary and two army troops were among the dead on Tuesday when suspected militants having links with Al-Qaeda and Taliban fired rockets and one of them hit the Sarbandki check-point, three kilometres east of North Waziristan’s regional headquarters Miranshah. Security forces at nearby checkpoints retaliated and the gunfight lasted for more than four hours, leaving 14 militants dead. Local Taliban commander Bilal was among the dead. A security official, requesting anonymity, told Daily Times that foreigners were among the killed militants.

A tribal jirga between Utmanzai tribe elders and the political administration of the area decided to set up village committees to guard their areas against militants launching attacks on security forces and government installations. The jirga also decided to hold another jirga on January 16 to discuss the situation. Malik Khan Marjan, a tribal elder, said the recent attacks on security forces was a “setback” to the peace process. He feared much bloodshed in coming days.

The North Waziristan administration imposed a curfew, warning that anyone found in Miranshah streets after sunset would face “serious consequences”. Security forces also raided Mosaki village, 29 kilometres east of Miranshah, to hit suspected militants, but there was no reports of casualties.

Reuters adds that residents said they believed a gunship helicopter had attacked the house of a religious scholar who supports Afghanistan’s Taliban guerrillas on Saturday. US authorities had denied their troops were involved, Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Tasnim Aslam told a briefing on Monday, adding that authorities were investigating reports that a foreign helicopter had landed on the Pakistani side.

Many Al Qaeda members have been given shelter in Waziristan, an area that stretches through rugged mountains and deserts, by militant sympathisers from conservative Pashtun tribes on both sides of the border.

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2006\01\11\story_11-1-2006_pg1_1

Petronas

01-19-2006, 07:40 PM

Pakistan (Country threat level - 5): On 17 January 2006, the United Nations temporarily closed all its offices in Quetta due to what it believes is a credible terrorist threat. Other U.N. offices along the Pakistani-Afghan border were closed as well after the U.N. Refugee Agency received a threatening phone call. A spokesperson for the United Nations in Pakistan stated that all personnel were told to stay home for 48 hours. The threat also closed local offices of the World Food Program.

AIR SECURITY International - HOT SPOTS 1/18/2006

1001

01-22-2006, 10:41 AM

Thousands Rally Against U.S. in Pakistan

Thousands of Pakistanis Protest U.S. Airstrike in Second Week of Anti-American Rallies

By RIAZ KHAN
The Associated Press

INAYAT QALA, Pakistan - Thousands of angry Pakistanis protested Sunday against a U.S. airstrike that killed civilians, chanting "Long live Osama bin Laden!" as anti-American rallies in the country entered their second week.

Pakistani authorities, meanwhile arrested a relative of a man suspected of hiding the bodies of four suspected al-Qaida operatives believed killed in the Jan. 13 attack, said a security official who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media.

The man, who was not identified, was arrested in Damadola, the remote hamlet near the Afghan border where U.S. missiles struck Jan. 13, the official said. The suspect was related to Faqir Mohammed, a pro-Taliban cleric who intelligence officials believe was responsible for hiding the bodies.

"We are investigating his links" to the extremists targeted in the airstrike, the official said, adding that authorities were also seeking Mohammed and another cleric believed to have helped hide the bodies.

Pakistani officials say 13 other civilians were also killed in the attack, including women and children. The attack reportedly targeted al-Qaida's No. 2 leader Ayman al-Zawahri, who was not there.

About 5,000 demonstrators assembled on a dry riverbed in a mountain market town near the site of strike, shouting "Long live Osama bin Laden!" and "Death to America!" They also burned effigies of President Bush.

"America is the biggest terrorist in the world," said Maulana Mohammed Sadiq, a lawmaker of the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam party that helped organize the protest. "America bombed innocent people inside their homes."

The rally was the latest in a string of protests over the missile strike.

The assault has sparked friction between Islamabad and Washington and widespread outrage in the Islamic nation of 150 million. Thousands have taken to the street in protest over the past week in Pakistan's biggest cities.

On Saturday, Pakistan's President Gen. Pervez Musharraf told visiting U.S Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns that the United States cannot repeat such attacks, a Foreign Ministry official said. Foreign Minister Khursheed Kasuri called the assault "counterproductive" given the "prevailing public sentiment."

They were Musharraf's first publicized comments on the attack, as the leader tried to soothe mounting disapproval of his backing of the U.S.-led war on terror.

The attack was believed to have been launched by a predator drone based in Afghanistan, where the U.S. has about 20,000 troops. Pakistan does not allow U.S. forces to pursue militants across the border or launch strikes without permission.

Shahid Shamsi, a spokesman for the opposition Mutahida Majlis-e-Amal, or United Action Forum, said Musharraf's comments came "too late."

"He made the statement under the pressure that has been building up in the country," Shamsi said.

Pakistan officials those killed in the strike may have included Egyptian master bomb maker Midhat Mursi, who has a $5 million bounty on his head by the U.S. government.

Hundreds of al-Qaida and Taliban militants, including bin Laden and al-Zawahri, are believed to be hiding in the rugged mountains along the porous Pakistan-Afghanistan border.

Pakistan authorities suspect al-Qaida operatives gathered at a dinner last week in Damadola to plan attacks for early this year in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Associated Press writer Sadaqat Jan in Islamabad contributed to this report.

Copyright 2006*The Associated Press. All rights reserved.
Copyright © 2006 ABC News Internet Ventures

http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory?id=1530718

Petronas

01-25-2006, 01:52 AM

Al Qaeda members probably killed in Bajaur: Musharraf
Wednesday, January 25, 2006

OSLO: President Pervez Musharraf said on Tuesday that Al Qaeda fighters were probably killed in a suspected CIA air strike that killed 13 civilians in Damadola village in Bajaur Agency earlier this month.

“Now that we’ve started investigating the reality on the ground, yes, we have found that there are foreigners there. That is for sure,” Musharraf said in response to a question at the Oslo Nobel Institute following his lecture on ‘Pakistan’s Role for Peace and Development in the Region and Beyond’.

“There is indication that there were some people, also Al Qaeda people, who have gotten killed. Now we need to ascertain that. I’m not 100 percent sure of that,” he added. The president said Pakistan contacted the United States after the air strike on Damadola village. “Yes, indeed, they do assure that they will not act against Pakistan’s interest,” he said, without giving details. “My regret is that these foreigners are there and we need to eliminate (them),” he added. He said Pakistan’s armed forces were capable of combating Al Qaeda militants without outside interference. “We don’t want interference in Pakistan ... only Pakistan forces will act,” said Musharraf.

He dismissed criticisms by opposition politicians that his government was too servile in allying itself with the US war on terror. He said that Pakistan was acting in its own interests. “We are first of all doing something for ourselves,” he said, adding that peace was a condition for economic growth. Asked whether he was concerned about Iran’s nuclear ambitions, Musharraf said: “Iran is our neighbour. There is no threat from Iran to Pakistan.” He added that Pakistan opposes nuclear proliferation.

Earlier on Tuesday, Musharraf met with Norwegian Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg and had lunch with King Harald. He was also to meet with representatives of the Norwegian telecom company Telenor. Speaking to reporters after talks with Stoltenberg, he said that only “dozens” of Al Qaeda fighters remained in Pakistan. “We’ve taken over their sanctuaries. Where they were in the hundreds, now they are only in the dozens around in the mountains and we are chasing them,” he said.

Musharraf said Pakistan had done more than any other to crack down on Al Qaeda, arresting 700 militants and deploying 50,000 troops to scour trackless mountainous areas where he said British colonialists never dared to venture. “We are succeeding. It will take some time, you have to show patience,” he said. “There are no limits. We will go anywhere.”

He said that only a long-term “Muslim Renaissance” could defuse the threat from religious extremism. Military action against mountain hideouts of Islamic militants was only a short-term fix. “We are trying to introduce a ‘Muslim Renaissance’ as I call it,” he said. In the long run, he planned to work against extremism through school curricula, the teaching of tolerance in Islam and by integrating madrassas into the general education system. Norway on Tuesday agreed to cancel $20 million of Pakistan’s $45 million debt on condition that Islamabad spends an equivalent amount on reconstruction efforts in the regions devastated by last October’s earthquake.

There was tight security for Musharraf’s visit to Norway – the first by a Pakistani head of state. Norway is home to about 30,000 Pakistani-born immigrants. Musharraf’s visit is part of a weeklong tour of the Middle East and Europe, and he is also due to attend the World Economic Forum in Davos, Switzerland.

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2006\01\25\story_25-1-2006_pg1_1

Casey

02-12-2006, 12:32 PM

Al Qaeda establish 'Islamic state' in Pak province
[ Sunday, February 12, 2006 02:35:43 pm PTI ]

NEW DELHI: After taking "virtual control" of the entire North Waziristan province of Pakistan, Taliban and Al Qaeda have recently "declared" the establishment of an 'Islamic State' in the area and gained a major base for their operations against the US-led forces in Afghanistan, media reports said.

"The Taliban recently declared the establishment of an 'Islamic State' in North Waziristan, and they now, through the brutal elimination of criminal elements who previously held sway, in effect rule in the rugged territory," a latest report in 'Asia Times' magazine said.

It said that by "taking control of virtually all of Pakistan's North Waziristan tribal area on the border with Afghanistan, the Taliban have gained a significant base from which to wage their resistance against US-led forces in Afghanistan.

..."At the same time, the development solidifies the anti-US resistance groups in Iaq, Iran and Afghanistan, which will now fight under a single strategy," the report in the Hong Kong-based magazine said.

In a related report, 'The Friday Times' said "the growing influence of militants and resultant insecurity have forced tribesmen in the restive North and South Waziristan to migrate to adjacent districts of the North West Front Province".

http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/articleshow/1411318.cms

NYer

02-18-2006, 11:07 AM

Religion of Beheadings (http://mypetjawa.mu.nu/archives/158377.php) caught on tape.

candypreet

02-20-2006, 06:06 AM

Pakistan tests N-capable missile
By Farhan Bokhari
Published: February 20 2006 02:00 | Last updated: February 20 2006 02:00

Pakistan yesterday tested a short-range, nuclear-capable missile, renewing international concerns over the country's nuclear weapons programme.

The Pakistani military said in a statement that the "Abdali" surface-to-surface missile had a reach of 200km and could carry nuclear and other types of warheads.

A foreign diplomat said yesterday's test was unlikely to prompt immediate concerns, as Pakistan was known to possess long-range missiles. Farhan Bokhari, Islamabad
http://news.ft.com/cms/s/067079e0-a1b6-11da-9ca4-0000779e2340.html

Casey

02-27-2006, 08:29 AM

Monday, February 27, 2006

Lahore protest thwarted, modest rally in Karachi

* Qazi, Imran Khan among 200 arrested
* Fazl, Fahim prevented from travelling to Lahore
* JI will protest again today

By Mubasher Bukhari and Qamar Jabbar

LAHORE/KARACHI: Security forces prevented a rally in Lahore organised by the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) on Sunday, while just 25,000 people protested peacefully in Karachi against the publication of cartoons depicting the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him).

In Lahore, the organisers planned to gather at Nasir Bagh and then march to Faisal Chowk, but security forces blocked all routes to The Mall and arrested around 200 people, including MMA chief Qazi Hussain Ahmed, MNA Imran Khan and PML-Nawaz leader Pervez Malik.

The government also stopped Maulana Fazlur Rehman, opposition leader in the National Assembly, and Amin Fahim, ARD chairman, from entering Punjab, though Chief Minister Pervaiz Elahi denied this. JI leader Liaqat Baloch later told a press conference that the MMA, especially its women supporters, would protest today at the government’s clampdown on the Lahore rally.

Khan and other leaders were later released, but Ahmed was shifted to Ravi Siphon Rest House in the Wagah area and had not been released when this report was filed, a JI leader said. All entry points to the provincial metropolis were manned by security forces while a small portion of Multan Road around the JI headquarters in Mansura was closed. Some 15,000 policemen and 3,000 Rangers guarded major traffic intersections, government buildings, mosques and foreign consulates.The JI had invited young activists from all over Punjab to Lahore for the rally and arranged accommodation for them, according to intelligence reports. Small clashes between police and youths took place at Regal Chowk, The Mall and Imamia Colony.

Police made the first arrest near Nasir Bagh at around 11:30, when an old man started shouting anti-government slogans. Police arrested him and later several others around Nasir Bagh. At Regal Chowk, around 100 JI youths pelted police with stones. Police retaliated with tear gas and arrested 70. At Shahdara, police tear-gassed and baton-charged a large crowd of MMA activists and arrested 20. Some 25 protestors were arrested at Lohari Gate.

“Security forces have arrested around 200 people who tried to violate Section 144,” Punjab Law Minister Raja Basharat told Daily Times.

JI chief Ahmed tried to go to Nasir Bagh at noon but police sent him back inside Mansura. After Zohr prayers, he and hundreds of supporters staged a sit-in outside Mansura and then crossed police barricades. Police and Rangers stopped them near Multan Chungi and charged at them with batons. A group of policemen encircled Ahmed and arrested him. Khan headed a convoy of cars from 14 Zafar Ali Road, but police stopped and arrested them near MAO College. MMA leaders staged a demonstration near Ichra, making fiery speeches and blocking Ferozepur Road. Police baton-charged them but did not arrest the leaders.

In Karachi, 25,000 people attended an anti-cartoon rally organised by the Tahaffuz-e-Khatm-e-Nabuwwat, a grouping of Deobandi parties and seminaries. The rally was modest by Karachi standards, which usually attracts at least 50,000. Shia organisations also marched from Old Numaish Roundabout to the overhead bridge near Tibet Centre. Both rallies were peaceful.

Shahzad Malik and Mohammad Imran add from Islamabad: Rehman told reporters that the MMA would continue with its schedule of anti-cartoon protests.

The opposition leader, who was taken into police custody at Islamabad airport to prevent him attending the Lahore rally, said the government’s refusal to allow the rally was undemocratic.

He added that the opposition would hold a massive rally on March 3, the day George W Bush is to visit Pakistan, “to tell the US president that you are backing a dictator, you have no right to talk about democracy and human rights”.

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2006\02\27\story_27-2-2006_pg1_1

candypreet

02-27-2006, 10:39 AM

Afghans say solid evidence Taleban in Pakistan
(Reuters)

27 February 2006

http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticle.asp?xfile=data/subcontinent/2006/February/subcontinent_February1138.xml&section=subcontinent&col=

KABUL - Afghanistan has solid evidence about militant training camps in Pakistan and the presence there of fugitive Taleban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar, a senior Afghan security official said on Monday.

President Hamid Karzai visited neighbouring Pakistan this month and urged it to take action against the Taleban, Al Qaeda and other militants who he said launched attacks from sanctuaries there.

During the visit, his delegation handed over confessions of 13 Pakistani terrorists arrested in Afghanistan and details of Taleban leaders in Pakistan, including phone numbers, locations and descriptions, the Afghan security official said.

Yet Pakistani authorities had suggested through the media that Afghan intelligence was not valid and outdated, he said on condition of anonymity.

“It is currently crystal clear ... that terrorists are using Pakistan soil for planning attacks, for masterminding attacks on our soil and that situation is hurting the feelings of Afghanistan’s population vis-a-vis Pakistan,” he told Reuters.

“It is not helping the long-term relations between the two countries if our people continue to be hurt by terrorists who have safe haven in the Pakistani soil.

“We cannot build trust by accusing and counter-accusing each other in the media. We are looking forward to tangible results based on what we have given to the Pakistani authorities.”

Pakistan was the main supporter of the Taleban government in Afghanistan but became a US ally in its war against terrorism after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.

US-led forces overthrew the Taleban weeks later because Omar refused to hand over Al Qaeda chief, Osama bin Laden, architect of the attacks.

More than four years on, bin Laden and Omar remain at large and a Taleban insurgency in which more than 1,500 people have died since the start of last year rages on.

Pakistan says it has deployed tens of thousands of troops along its border with Afghanistan and does all it can to stop militant infiltration.

The Afghan security official repeated a charge by Afghan officials that Mullah Omar was operating from Pakistan.

He said bin Laden, the world’s most wanted man who was a $25-million US reward on his head, was not in Afghanistan but stopped short of saying he was in Pakistan.

Asked if bin Laden was in Pakistan, as many Afghans believe, he said: “The major difficulty is the areas where the terrorist camps are located and those areas are on the other side of the tribal border.”

He was referring to the semi-autonomous tribal area of Waziristan in Pakistan where Afghan officials say Al Qaeda and Taleban organise most of their attacks against Afghan and foreign troops based in Afghanistan.

NYer

03-03-2006, 07:52 AM

New AQ Leader Planning Attacks Against US. (http://abcnews.go.com/WNT/story?id=1676096&page=1)

http://a.abcnews.com/images/International/abc_terrorist01_060301_sp.jpg

Pakistani officials told ABC News that they believe they have indications that a new terrorist attack against the United States is being planned there. They told ABC News that while their intelligence does not give any specific details as to a target or time, it does indicate that an emerging al Qaeda figure is making plans.

Pakistani military officials say Matiur Rehman, 29, a Pakistani militant, is behind the new plans for an attack against the United States. Pakistan has posted a 10-million rupee (about $166,000) award for his capture.

"He is probably Pakistan's most wanted right now," says Alexis Debat, a former adviser in the French defense ministry and now an ABC News consultant. "He is extremely dangerous because of his role as the crucial interface between the brains of al Qaeda and its muscle, which is mainly composed these days of Pakistani militants."

Pakistani officials suspect the attack outside the U.S. consulate in Karachi today is connected to Rehman, who has had a base of operations in Karachi.

Petronas

03-03-2006, 11:41 AM

Pakistan bomb kills US diplomat
Thursday, 2 March 2006, 16:09 GMT

A suicide bomber has killed a US diplomat and two other people in a suicide attack near the US consulate in Karachi, Pakistani police say. Many more were hurt in the blast, which tore through a car park near the consulate in a high-security zone. The blast comes two days before US President George Bush visits Pakistan. He says his trip will go ahead. US National Security Adviser Stephen Hadley said there was some evidence the diplomat was deliberately targeted. The BBC's Jonathan Beale, travelling with the president, says the attack will only increase security concerns as Mr Bush prepares to visit Pakistan.

Mr Bush is currently in India. He is due to hold talks in Islamabad, 1,100km (690 miles) north of Karachi, on Saturday. "Terrorists and killers are not going to prevent me from going to Pakistan. My trip to Pakistan is an important trip," Mr Bush told reporters in Delhi. He confirmed the killing of the US diplomat.

Police in Karachi said they believed a suicide bomber had rammed a car packed with high-intensity explosives into the diplomat's vehicle. The force of the blast hurled the vehicle into the air and across a seven-foot-high concrete barrier, police said. Karachi police chief Niaz Sadiqui told a press conference: "We have reached the conclusion that it was a suicide attack, and we have found body parts of the attacker."

Official police spokesman Deputy Inspector Zubair Mahmood said a consulate employee and a paramilitary ranger had died along with the US diplomat. Initial reports suggested there had been two bombs, but police now say a small second blast may have been a petrol tank exploding as a result of the first blast. About 50 people were reported to have been injured.

A bomb disposal expert said it was one of the most powerful explosions the city had seen. It left a crater 2m (six feet) deep. There has been no indication yet who is behind the attack. If it was directed at the US consulate, it could have been carried out by Islamists opposed to Mr Bush's trip, the BBC's Barbara Plett in Islamabad says.

Investigators are reportedly seeking video surveillance footage from the scene. The explosion happened in the car park of the Marriott Hotel, several windows of which were shattered by the blast.

The BBC's Aamer Ahmed Khan says most people use the rear entrance of the hotel because the road in front of the hotel is part of the US consulate's high-security zone. "We are investigating the motives behind the blasts but apparently it coincided with the visit of Bush," Salahuddin Haider, a spokesman for the provincial government, is quoted as saying by the AFP news agency.

Karachi has experienced previous attacks against Western targets. In June 2002, 12 people were killed when a suicide-bomber detonated a vehicle laden with explosives outside the same US consulate that was hit on Thursday. Members of an Islamic militant group were convicted of carrying out that bombing and an earlier attack on the Sheraton hotel which killed 11 French engineers.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4765170.stm

Petronas

03-06-2006, 11:14 AM

'More militants die' in Pakistan
Monday, 6 March 2006, 14:28 GMT

Pakistan's army says 19 more militants were killed in clashes on Monday in the restive region of North Waziristan. The number of dead has gone up to 73, including five soldiers and a civilian, after three days of clashes between the army and militants, the army says. However, provincial authorities say the death toll is more than 100. These are the fiercest clashes between security forces and pro-Taleban militants since the army went into the lawless area more than three years ago. The Pakistani army has been using helicopter gunships to tackle sporadic but continued resistance.

An official spokesman said nearly 20 militants were killed when security forces moved in to retake a telephone exchange building occupied at the weekend in the regional capital Miranshah. Several more militants were killed at a checkpoint overnight. The teenage daughter of a government official was also killed when a rocket hit a residential compound. Provincial officials said the authorities had imposed a curfew, but thousands of people have already fled and residents report the city is virtually deserted.

For more than three years, the army has been trying to flush out foreign Islamic extremists and their local supporters in this tribal area along the Afghan border. But this is the most intense fighting so far. It began after security forces bombed an alleged militant hideout last week, killing dozens of people.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/4779002.stm

Petronas

03-11-2006, 02:21 PM

Terrified villagers flee as bombers strike at Taleban
March 09, 2006

THOSE who fled came across the hills with tales of terror: bombed hospitals, beheaded government officials, helicopter gunships and indiscriminate bombings. The survivors escaped in pick-up trucks — their frightened women and children crying in the back — to make the 15-minute journey to the Afghan border and safety. When they arrived in Ghulam Khan yesterday, they described a ferocious five-day battle between Taleban insurgents and the Pakistan military for control of the town of Miran Shah in the tribal lands of Waziristan.

Akram Zahid, a 24-year-old Afghan who lived in the town, said: “So many people were killed. The Government destroyed a mosque and bombed hospitals. They were bombing the whole city with their Cobra helicopters.” The engagement at Miran Shah is at the centre of a furious row between Pakistan and Afghanistan — both key US allies in the War on Terror. More than 120 pro-Taleban militants and five Pakistani soldiers are said to have died during the fighting in the past week.

President Karzai of Afghanistan pleaded yesterday for greater co-operation from his neighbour, President Musharraf, who the previous day had accused elements within the Afghan regime of maligning Pakistan. Commander Karim, the leader of an Afghan Special Forces unit tasked with securing the frontier between the Afghan province of Khost and North Waziristan in Pakistan, looked across the border. “We could see helicopters bombing and hear mortar shells. We heard one only half an hour ago,” he said.

Ashraf Khan, 23, held a crying child in his arms as he described why he had fled. “The Taleban were arresting people, government employees or those supporting them, and beheading them. The Army came and we were watching them, they were fighting, they came in Jeeps and helicopters and they were bombing the area,” he said.

The region is notoriously wild and is inhabited on both sides of the border by Pashtun tribesmen, a proud warlike people who defend their guests to the death. It is in these tribal belts that many of the senior Taleban, who were made homeless by the American-led invasion of 2001, are believed to be living.

The fighting started last week as President Bush flew into Pakistan to meet President Musharraf. In a show of strength, the Pakistani Army attacked a militant stronghold killing 45. Pro-Taleban insurgents responded by seizing government buildings in Miran Shah and unleashing the terror. The violence has come when relations between Pakistan and Afghanistan are strained. Last month President Karzai gave Pakistan a list of Taleban and al-Qaeda insurgents who he said were hiding in Pakistan. President Musharraf said that the intelligence was outdated.

The tension is such that America has sent General John Abizaid, Central Command Chief, to Pakistan to smooth things over. In Afghanistan, however, there is a feeling that finally Pakistan is addressing the problem of militants. “This fighting has a positive impact on the security of Khost. Pakistan has decided to chase and fight the terrorists. Of course the terrorists are based there,” said Mirajuddin Pathan, the governor of Khost, whose punishment for suspected terrorists is to parade them through the streets and allow his townsfolk to pelt them with tomatoes. “Mr Musharraf said that the information given by Mr Karzai is three months old, indirectly he is admitting they have terrorists there.” Back on the border Yassin Tajik, 40, wearing a white turban and a smile, was obviously happy to be back on Afghan soil. “I am Afghan, now there is peace here and violence there — why would I stay?”

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,3-2076728,00.html

Petronas

03-20-2006, 12:16 PM

Pakistan bomb kills seven
Sunday, March 19, 2006

DERA ISMAIL KHAN, Pakistan (AP) -- Suspected Islamic militants triggered a bomb near a police van Sunday in northwestern Pakistan, killing seven people and wounding four others, an official said. The remote control bomb shattered the police vehicle while it was on a routine patrol in Dera Ismail Khan, a city in northwestern Pakistan, about 290 kilometers (180 miles) southwest of the capital Islamabad, local police official Dar Ali Khattak said.

Three policemen, three paramilitary soldiers and a passer-by were killed in the explosion on the road in the city's Kotli Imam neighborhood, Khattak said. The death toll increased from six after a paramilitary soldier, who was seriously hurt, died at a state-run hospital, Khattak said. Four other people -- two women and two men, all bystanders -- were being treated at the hospital for injuries from the explosion, he said.

Khattak initially reported that the bomb was planted in the police vehicle but he said that according to the latest information from the scene the explosion was caused by a roadside bomb. No claimed responsibility for the explosion but Khattak blamed Islamic militants from a neighboring tribal region from involvement. He did not give details immediately. Dera Ismail Khan is located near South Waziristan tribal region, where, according to military officials, Islamic militants are hiding. The fighters have been blamed for attacks on security forces.

http://edition.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/europe/03/19/pakistan.violence.ap/

Petronas

03-23-2006, 12:18 PM

PAKISTAN: CLERIC KILLED IN SOUTH WAZIRISTAN
Mar-23-2006 06:15 pm
Wana, South Waziristan

In ongoing violence in the tribal area of South Waziristan, bordering Afghanistan, a pro-government cleric has been killed by gunmen and a telephone exchange blown up. Witnesses told the Pakistan daily Dawn that the car of Maulana Sibghatullah was ambushed at Laddah on Wednesday by masked men who killed the cleric and abducted the three people travelling with him. Maulana Sibghatullah had in the past been associated with the Taliban but had since dissociated himself from Taliban militants, who are seeking to rebuild their power base in the mountainous Waziristan region.

The telephone exchange at Shakai was blown up cutting the town's communications with the rest of the country. Officials said that the explosive device planted by militants had damaged the exchange building, line cable, power antenna and transformer. No one was injured in the blast.

http://www.adnki.com/index_2Level_English.php?cat=Security&loid=8.0.279129274&par=0

Petronas

03-31-2006, 01:09 AM

Pakistan to retain jihad in school curriculum
March 29, 2006|15:54 IST

While aiming to provide quality education, the new education policy to be implemented in Pakistan next year will retain the subject of jihad in the school curriculum, a senior minister has said. The government was using all available resources to promote quality education and had started working on the education reforms, Education Minister Javed Ashraf Qazi told reporters.

He said the subject of human rights would be included in the syllabus and the government had no plan to omit the subject of jihad from the Islamiat (moral studies). "We will teach Islamiat from class one to twelve," Pakistan Today quoted Qazi as saying. The minister said geography and history would be re-introduced as part of the school syllabus under the new education policy. ...

http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/7598_1661791,000500020000.htm

candypreet

03-31-2006, 12:03 PM

Petronas

04-08-2006, 01:19 AM

Christians protest attack on churches
Monday, April 03, 2006

MULTAN: Christians on Sunday protested against the desecration of the Holy Bible and arson attacks on their places of worship in various parts of the country, terming the incidents ‘religious terrorism’. Special services were held for those who had died in various incidents of violence against minorities.

“It is religious terrorism to set our church (in Mian Channu) ablaze during the period when we (Christians) fast. It is an attack on our religion and belief. We feel unsafe and insecure,” said Chaudhry Naveed Amer Jeeva, MPA and the coordinator of All Pakistan Minorities Alliance, South Punjab. He said that the present regime had failed to protect churches, missionary properties and religious leaders. He said that churches had been burnt down in Sargodha and Sukkur, more than 300 copies of holy Bible were set ablaze in Sangla Hill and the cross desecrated and Christians killed in terrorist activities. ...

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2006%5C04%5C03%5Cstory_3-4-2006_pg7_7

Petronas

04-08-2006, 12:58 PM

SSP vows to establish caliphate worldwide
Saturday, April 08, 2006

ISLAMABAD: Activists of the Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP) vowed to establish a global caliphate, beginning with Pakistan. In a rally attended by thousands of activists of the banned group to commemorate the birth of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) on Friday, leaders of the SSP called for an Islamic theocracy in Pakistan. “The concept of nation state is an obstacle in the way of the establishment of Khilafat. We will start the establishment of Khilafat in Pakistan and then will do so across the world,” said Zaheerul Islam Abbasi, a former general who was sacked and arrested in 1995 for trying to topple the government of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto.

Activists distributed pamphlets in Islamabad preaching jihad and hatred against Shias, as their leaders delivered fiery speeches to a crowd of around 5,000 late on Thursday.

They also sold video compact discs of the beheadings of American soldiers in Iraq, and militant activities in Afghanistan and Pakistan at the rally, which they said was convened to celebrate the birthday of the Prophet Muhammad (peace be upon him) this month. One of the organisers thanked the Islamabad administration for allowing the rally, which was held under floodlights in a bus depot, with hundreds of riot police watching on. SSP is known to have close links with Jaish-e-Mohammad, a militant group fighting in Indian-occupied Kashmir and with links to Al Qaeda.

Some of the crowd briefly chanted anti-Shia slogans, until they were told to refrain by their leaders. They also swore allegiance to their late leader, Maulana Azam Tariq, a fiery pro-Taliban cleric who was assassinated in Islamabad in 2003, and founder of the organisation Haq Nawaz Jhangvi, who was killed in 1980s.

Last July, President Pervez Musharraf ordered a major crackdown against clerics and organisations inciting sectarian violence. The SSP was banned by the government in 2002. The SSP has often been blamed for violence against Shias, planting bombs in mosques or attacking religious processions. Thousands of people have been killed in tit-for-tat attacks by militants from the two sects over the past 20 years. Most of the victims are Shias, who account for about 15 percent of Pakistan’s predominantly Sunni Muslim population of 150 million.

On Thursday, a prominent Shia Muslim cleric narrowly escaped an assassination attempt in Karachi after his car was hit by a remote-controlled bomb Authorities have launched several crackdowns on militant outfits since Pakistan joined a US-led war on terrorism in the wake of the September 11 attacks on the United States, but critics say that the steps taken have been half-hearted and many groups have resurfaced under new names.

Like other groups, SSP remerged under the new name of Millat-e-Islamia Pakistan. Founded in the 1980s, SSP wants Pakistan to be officially declared a Sunni Muslim state. It had recently been reported in the press that the government might relax some restrictions on the group and allow it to commence political activities in a “very low profile”.

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2006%5C04%5C08%5Cstory_8-4-2006_pg7_3

keith

04-11-2006, 12:00 PM

Explosion in Pakistan park during religious meet 1 hour, 18 minutes ago

KARACHI (Reuters) - An explosion shook a park in the Pakistan port city of Karachi on Tuesday where Muslim worshippers had gathered to celebrate the anniversary of Prophet Mohammad's birthday, police said.

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The cause of the blast and number of casualities was not immediately known.

keith

04-11-2006, 12:05 PM

Karachi park explosion 'kills 40'

There were scenes of chaos after the bomb went off
At least 40 people have been killed in a bomb blast at a huge gathering to mark the Prophet Muhammad's birthday in the southern Pakistani city of Karachi.
Dozens more were injured when the bomb went off under the wooden stage where senior religious leaders were sitting.

Eyewitnesses said the explosion happened as tens of thousands of people were taking part in evening prayers.

Chaos broke out crowds of people rushed to leave Nishtar Park where the event was being held.

"It is a very unfortunate incident," Interior Minister Aftab Khan Sherpao told the Associated Press news agency.

"I can confirm that 40 people have died in the bomb blast."

No-one has claimed responsibility for the explosion at what was believed to be the biggest of such events being held in Pakistan.

Karachi has a history of sectarian and ethnic violence, but this is the first time in decades that a religious gathering being held in connection with Prophet Muhammad's birth anniversary has been targeted, the BBC's Zaffar Abbas in Pakistan says.

Petronas

04-14-2006, 12:57 PM

Christian woman nailed with Muslim blasphemy charge for defending cross
13 April, 2006

A Christian woman is languishing in prison for defending the cross from desecration. Naseem Bibi is in solitary confinement, charged with having offended an image of the Kabah, the most sacred shrine of Islam in Saudi Arabia. On 7 April, judges refused to release her on bail. Meanwhile, her husband and their three sons have been forced to flee their home and to go into hiding out of fear of retaliation by Muslim extremists.

The woman’s family said she protested against a group of Muslims who were drawing a cross on top of a rubbish heap. The prison authorities have not allowed members of the Sharing Life Ministry Pakistan (SLMP), a Protestant organization, to visit the detainee. The SLMP has disseminated a statement by Gulzar Masih, the woman’s husband, narrating Naseem’s story.

Everything started on 3 March when many Muslims were protesting the blasphemous cartoons of Muhammad near Naseem’s house in Kasur. “They were raising slogans against the US president George W. Bush, abusing him and Christianity too,” said Gulzar. “Naseem saw the protesters draw a cross on top of a rubbish help and so she went out to protest the desecrating gesture.” The woman told the demonstrators they were violating a sacred symbol of Christianity while protesting about exactly the same offence against their own faith.

According to her husband’s account, Naseem was beaten and stripped. The group of Muslims then left only to return after a few hours with an image of the Kabah soiled with excrement. The men accused Naseem of blasphemy and the police, who came to the spot, took her away to the local police station. Gulzar admitted that he did not intervene to help his wife because he was afraid.

The SMLP said a blasphemy case has been opened against the woman and her husband has been unable to visit her after more than a month. The so-called blasphemy law (article 295 b & c of the Pakistani penal code) carries life sentences for offences against the Koran and the death penalty or life imprisonment for defamatory actions against the prophet Muhammad. The Catholic Church and human rights groups have long been calling for a total abrogation of the law. So far, the government has only introduced weak amendments.

http://www.asianews.it/view.php?l=en&art=5902

Petronas

04-17-2006, 10:50 AM

Militants behead US 'collaborators'
April 17, 2006

SUSPECTED pro-Taliban militants beheaded two tribesmen in a remote part of Pakistan for allegedly working for US forces across the border in Afghanistan, officials said today. Gunmen captured one of the tribesmen, who had been supplying food to US troops in Afghanistan, and killed him in the town of Khar Qamar in the restive North Waziristan region on yesterday, a security official said.

"They beheaded the man and fled in his vehicle," the official said on condition of anonymity. "He was well known as someone who supplied food to the Americans."

Residents also found the headless body of a man in Madhakhel, another town in the region where Pakistani forces have been battling Taliban fugitives and al-Qaeda linked militants, the official added. A note found near the body claimed the slain man was a US spy. "All those working as US spies will face the same fate," the official quoted the note as saying. ...

http://www.news.com.au/story/0,10117,18843394-401,00.html

keith

05-16-2006, 01:01 PM

Pakistan's Taleban gamble

By Aamer Ahmed Khan
BBC News, Peshawar

Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf says his country's battle against al-Qaeda in the lawless tribal region has almost been won.

He says he is more worried about the rise of Taleban-like extremism in the tribal area of Waziristan.

But those watching the current conflict in Waziristan say it is unrealistic to separate the two entities.

They argue that al-Qaeda and the Taleban are in fact locked in a symbiotic relationship in which a crackdown on the former automatically galvanises the latter.

Open border

For Pakistan, though, a clear distinction between the Taleban and al-Qaeda has been a defining element of its policy perceptions vis-à-vis the US-led war on terror.

"Our security paradigm at the time the US bombed the Taleban regime in Afghanistan out of power was very clear," says a top military source who has extensive knowledge of the tribal region.

Hundreds of Taleban and foreign militants... would arrange for local protection and disappear into the rural areas
Professor Zubair Mehsud

"We kept telling the Taleban that they do have a future as a political entity indigenous to the area, whereas al-Qaeda doesn't."

It was perhaps this perception that allowed a large number of Afghan Taleban and their fellow al-Qaeda fighters to enter Waziristan during the extensive US bombing of the Tora Bora mountain ranges in Afghanistan in December 2001.

Pakistan said at the time that it had sealed the border to prevent militants hiding in Tora Bora from crossing over into Waziristan.

But locals tell a completely different story.

"Hundreds of Taleban and foreign militants were seen lining up at public baths [called hamams] in major Waziristan towns such as Wana and Miranshah in those days," says Zubair Mehsud, a law professor at Peshawar University.

Mr Mehsud is putting together his thesis on how the conflict in Waziristan measures up against international humanitarian law.

"They would be covered in dirt, some would be injured, others near starvation.

"They would clean themselves up, arrange for local protection and disappear into the rural areas," says Mr Mehsud.

Locals in Wana say these refugee militants included Afghan Taleban, Central Asians and Arabs.

'Milking the Arabs'

Waziristan's economy has always been dependent on the smuggling routes that run through the area linking Pakistan with Afghanistan.

Before the September 2001 attacks on the United States, trafficking in foreign militants was a relatively controlled affair, "closely monitored and often orchestrated by the Pakistan army".

"But the sudden influx after the Tora Bora bombing led to a kind of a free-for-all," says a tribal in Wana.
"Swathes of unemployed locals, many of whom had never had connections with the militant networks in Afghanistan, suddenly discovered the lucrative business of harbouring foreign militants."

Grocery stores in towns such as Wana and Miranshah were suddenly overflowing with canned foodstuffs such as tuna fish and mushrooms - the kind that most local tribesmen had never seen before.

These events are not denied by Pakistani military officials, only interpreted in a different context.

"It is impossible to completely seal off Pakistan's border with Afghanistan along the Waziristan region," says a top military official who has worked in the tribal areas for several years.

"So when the bombing of Tora Bora drove the militants into Waziristan, a large number of local smugglers and criminals seized it as an opportunity for making money by providing them with shelter and provisions," he says.

"A 20kg sack of sugar worth $10 was sold to the Arabs for as much as $100 in those days," says the military official.

"This was very different from the culture of hospitality seen during the anti-Soviet war, when militants were housed as honoured guests by the proud tribesmen."

Military officials say that for nearly two years between 2002 and 2004 - when the army's principal engagement in Waziristan was restricted to intelligence gathering - this new breed of "tribal entrepreneurs" acquired a prominence and wealth that they never had before.

"Sadly, it was these extortionists that took over the Pakistani Taleban uprising in October last year," says this official.

"They saw an opportunity to cash in on the local anger at the general lawlessness and umpteen gangs of bandits on the prowl and in doing so, assumed the leadership of the Taleban."

The official contends that these people are now making fortunes milking the Arabs in the garb of anti-US ideology.

Taleban return

The new situation presented Pakistan with two policy options: it could declare an indiscriminate war on all foreign militants and their local protectors or it could try to isolate the locals from the foreigners.

Making a distinction between al-Qaeda and the Taleban or between good and bad Taleban is like picking white hairs from your beard
Tribesman in Wana

The government clearly chose the latter.

There are many in Pakistan's security apparatus who expect that one day, when the Americans are gone, the Taleban will regain power in Afghanistan. Therefore, they argue, it is essential to have good relations with the Taleban in order for Pakistan's western borders to be secure.

Few understand the nuances of such policy issues better than local tribesmen.

And many have their own distinct way of putting it.

"Making a distinction between al-Qaeda and the Taleban or between good and bad Taleban is like picking white hairs from your beard," says a local tribesman in Wana.

"No matter how long you do it, the white is eventually going to win."

candypreet

05-19-2006, 09:11 AM

very good posts

Petronas

05-25-2006, 11:12 PM

PAKISTAN: RECOGNITION OF TALIBAN 'ADMINISTRATION' ON THE CARDS
May-25-06 16:01
Syed Saleem Shahzad

Sources in northern Pakistan have told Adnkronos International (AKI) that Islamabad is rapidly reviewing its policies on Waziristan and will eventually withdraw its troops and recognise the Pakistani Taliban militants who in practice run the tribal region. A clear sign of this shift in policy is the recent appointment of retired Lt. General Ali Muhammad Jan Orakzai - widely considered a foe of Washington - as governor of Pakistan's North West Frontier Province (NWFP). which borders the tribal area.

For the past four years, Pakistani security forces have been battling Taliban militants in the tribal areas of North and South Waziristan under the banner of the US-led war on terror. Tens of thousands of Pakistani troops have been deployed in the lawless tribal belt of Waziristan, which lies on Pakistan's border with Afghanistan, in order to hunt down Islamic militants. Both Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters are believed to have fled into the area after the US-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001.

However sources say that a defeat of the security forces in North and South Waziristan is inevitable. Reports say that Pakistani forces are unable to move on the ground. Even within the regional capitals of Miran Shah in North Waziristan or Wana in South Waziristan where they are based, the Pakistani troops are at the mercy of the local Taliban commanders.

The pro -Taliban militants have provided a more efficient and rapid system of justice readily available to the tribal people of Waziristan and it is also free of cost. Reports of long queues of people outside the Taliban offices in South Waziristan seeking solutions to their grievances and also help through the Taliban's policing system, show the popularity of the Islamist militia in Waziristan.

Sources said that there are orders from Washington for a Tora Bora-style bombardment of Waziristan, referring to the US bombing of the Tora Bora mountains of Afghanistan in 2001 in their search for al-Qaeda leaders. However Islamabad is reluctant to carry out such an operation as the number of troops killed in the region will likely increase in any attempt to suppress the Taliban.

It is believed that the pragmatic approach demands a Pakistani military retreat, and sources say that Pakistan has already decided to do so, as signalled by Orakzai's appointment as governor of the North West Frontier Province. Orakzai who retired as an officer of the Pakistan Army in 2004, has, according to a report published on the website Asia Times Online in 2004, "been in Washington's bad books since last year [2003], when he visited the US and openly condemned the behavior of US authorities towards Pakistanis."

The report goes on to say that "Orakzai was an official guest, but was forced to go through a plethora of screenings and checks at the immigration counter on his arrival. As well as complaining about this particular incident, Orakzai spoke against what he felt was discriminatory behavior against Pakistanis at functions hosted by the Pakistani embassy in the US". As such, the appointment of Orakzai, who is also a native of the tribal region, is a clear signal that Pakistan has reviewed its policy and is aiming towards a reconciliation with the local Taliban in Waziristan.

A grand jirga (council of tribal elders) is already being formed. Pakistan's six party religious alliance, MMA as well as some top religious figures from all over the North West Frontier Province (NWFP) are the main drivers of this formation. The jirga shall be comprised of top religious scholars from all the seven tribal agencies, members of the national assemblies and senate of the tribal belt, the chief minister of the NWFP as well as other dignitaries respected among the Taliban.

The grand jirga will negotiate with the Taliban in North Waziristan where the security situation is volatile. Pakistan's federal government is in no position at the moment to withdraw its forces and yet if they continue in North Waziristan, they are very likely to lose more lives or have their troops deal with injuries and physical disabilities on a daily basis. At the same time the Taliban has suffered few losses as their bases are difficult to access.

"The grand jirga will only give Pakistani security forces an honourable face-saving way to withdraw and although formally it will not be mentioned, practically the administration will be handed over to the Taliban," sources told AKI. Still sources say that while Pakistan may be ready to give up its powers in the tribal region to the Pakistani Taliban, it remains to be seen if such a move will appease the militants and pave the way for a ceasefire.

http://www.adnki.com/index_2Level_English.php?cat=Security&loid=8.0.302677702&par=0

keith

05-31-2006, 03:15 PM

US plans "significant" Pakistan missile sale By Jim Wolf

The Bush administration said Wednesday it was planning to let Pakistan buy advanced Boeing Co. Harpoon anti-ship missiles and related equipment valued at up to $370 million in "a significant upgrade" of the Asian nation's existing weapons systems.

Of the total "Block II" Harpoon missiles sought by Pakistan, 50 would be for launch from submarines, 50 from surface ships and 30 by air, the Pentagon's Defense Security Cooperation Agency said in a notice to Congress required by law.

The equipment would provide "a significant upgrade to Pakistan's existing systems and allow for improved target acquisition," said the agency, which handles U.S. government-to-government weapons sales.

The notice does not mean that a sale has been concluded. In addition, Congress can interfere.

"This proposed sale will contribute to the foreign policy and national security of the United States by helping to improve the security of a friendly country that continues to be a key ally in the global war on terrorism," the agency added.

Chicago-based Boeing describes the advanced Harpoon as capable of knocking out coastal defenses, surface-to-air missile sites and exposed aircraft as well as ships in port. It uses a satellite-aided inertial navigation system.

The upgraded targeting capability "significantly reduces the risk of hitting noncombatant targets, thus improving Pakistan's naval operational flexibility," the agency told Congress.

Pakistan, which has fought three wars with neighboring India since partition of British India in 1947, plans to use the Harpoon on its Lockheed Martin Corp. P-3 maritime surveillance aircraft, surface ships and submarines, the agency said.

The Bush administration last June signed a 10-year defense pact with India outlining expanded two-way defense trade, missile-defense cooperation plans and increased opportunities for technology transfers and weapons co-production.

Last year, Pentagon officials gave India a classified briefing on Patriot Advanced Capability (PAC-3) short-range missile defense systems built by Bethesda, Maryland-based Lockheed and Raytheon Co. of Waltham, Massachusetts.

Copyright © 2006 Reuters Limited. All rights reserved. Republication or redistribution of Reuters content is expressly prohibited without the prior written consent of Reuters. Reuters shall not be liable for any errors or delays in the content, or for any actions taken in reliance thereon.

Copyright © 2006 Yahoo! Inc. All rights reserved.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20060531/pl_nm/arms_pakistan_usa_dc_1

keith

06-10-2006, 07:39 PM

Pervez may clip army chief's wings before giving up uniform

Aditya Sinha

New Delhi, June 11, 2006|03:46 IST

Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf is planning to give up his uniform, but not before a paradigm shift in his country's power structure. It is believed he is planning to dilute the power of the army chief, the post he's promised to quit before the 2007 general elections.

Presently, Musharraf has nine corps commanders (of Lt General rank) under him. together, they function as Pakistan's board of directors. Government sources say he's planning an ordinance that will create posts for two regional commands — a northern commander and a southern commander (India has such regional commands).

These regional commanders, sources say, will be full Generals, like the army chief. The nine corps commanders will report to them (four to one, five to the other). This will dilute the army chief's power in two ways. One, being of nearly the same rank, the regional commanders will keep an eye on him. Two, he cannot conspire with the corps commanders without the regional commanders knowledge (coups in Pakistan are carried out by key corps like the one in Rawalpindi).

Musharraf is apparently doing this because he's seriously considering fulfilling his promise to shed his uniform before elections. The current national assembly will expire in November 2007. By law, the President can be re-elected within 60 days prior to the end of the assembly's life. The elections, however, can be called within 90 days after the assembly's expiry. The President evidently plans to re-elect himself.

Musharraf seems confident that the opposition political parties will be unable to dislodge him. The Charter for Democracy, which includes Nawaz Sharif's PML and Benazir Bhutto's PPP, does not appear to be working on the ground. Benazir is suspected of keeping a channel open with the army. And there's no common political agenda to send the army back to the barracks.

On the other hand, Musharraf's advisers are cautioning him about the worsening situation in Balochistan, and increasing US pressure vis-à-vis Afghanistan. They are seeking ways for him to consolidate power while giving up the top army post.

http://www.hindustantimes.com/news/7598_1717827,000500020000.htm

NYer

07-25-2006, 08:40 AM

Pakistan expanding Nuclear Program (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/07/23/AR2006072300737_pf.html)

Pakistan has begun building what independent analysts say is a powerful new reactor for producing plutonium, a move that, if verified, would signal a major expansion of the country's nuclear weapons capabilities and a potential new escalation in the region's arms race.

Satellite photos of Pakistan's Khushab nuclear site show what appears to be a partially completed heavy-water reactor capable of producing enough plutonium for 40 to 50 nuclear weapons a year, a 20-fold increase from Pakistan's current capabilities, according to a technical assessment by Washington-based nuclear experts.

40 - 50 nukes annually? Sheesh ...

NYer

08-06-2006, 12:07 PM

Another Darwin Award (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,207193,00.html) winner.

http://rantburg.com/images/looney_tunes_020800.jpg
Image from Rantburg

A suicide bomber was killed early Sunday in southwestern Pakistan when the explosives belt he was wearing exploded prematurely, police said. No one else was injured in the blast in Hub, an industrial town in Baluchistan province, local police official Munir Hussain said.

"This man was riding a cycle. He had strapped explosives to his body for a suicide attack and they exploded," Hussain said of the blast in Hub's Zehri Street neighborhood. The man's intended target was not immediately known, and police were investigating, Hussain said.

Petronas

08-08-2006, 09:57 PM

I am waiting for the demonstrations and condemnations to show that Islam does not tolerate such despicable bigotry in its name ... This is no better than Apartheid.

Christian Stone Mason Beaten For Drinking Water From Public Facility
Sunday, August 6, 2006
By Sheraz Khurram Khan

LAHORE, PAKISTAN (ANS) -- A Christian stone mason received critical injuries, including dislocation of his shoulder after he was seen drinking water from a public facility, by a Muslim man on June 6 (Tuesday) just outside the eastern city of Lahore, the Pakistan Christian Post (PCP) has reported.

Nasir Ashraf, the Christian mason was working at the construction site of a school. The trouble for him began while he was returning to the site. Confronting him with anger the Muslim man asked him as to why he drank water from the public facility by using a glass that was placed at the water tank.

“Why did you drink water from this glass since you are a Christian?” the PCP quoted the Muslim man as asking Nasir. “The man accused the mason of polluting the glass and proceeded to destroy it. The Muslim man then summoned a crowd by shouting, “This Christian polluted our glass,” and encouraged them to beat him up”, the PCP report said. “The crowd began beating Nasir, eventually pushing him off a ledge. The fall dislocated his shoulder, broke his collarbone in two places and knocked him unconscious,” it said.

http://www.assistnews.net/Stories/s06080026.htm

candypreet

08-12-2006, 07:51 AM

Vancouver

08-25-2006, 07:34 AM

The natives are restless in Bajaur Agency, which borders Kunar in Afghanistan, a Taliban/Qaeda hotspot:
http://www.thenews.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=21301

candypreet

08-31-2006, 05:32 AM

Two alleged spies beheaded in Pakistan
By Bashirullah Khan

The Associated Press

MIRAN SHAH, Pakistan — Insurgents decapitated an Islamic cleric and an Afghan refugee accused of spying for U.S. and Afghan authorities in northwestern Pakistan, an intelligence official said Wednesday.

The men's beheaded bodies were found early Wednesday in two villages near Miran Shah, the main town in the North Waziristan tribal region bordering Afghanistan, the official said on condition of anonymity.

Notes written in Pashtu were left on the bodies, accusing the men of being spies for the U.S. and Afghanistan, he said.

The cleric was an Afghan identified as 45-year-old Noor Wali. His decapitated body and severed head were dumped next to each other on a roadside in Khati Khel, a village near Miran Shah, the official said.

The body of the Afghan refugee, identified as Hak Nawaz, was found in Darpakhel village, on Miran Shah's western outskirts. Militants had cut off his head and placed it on his chest, leaving a note saying "this is a gift for Karzai," referring to Afghanistan's President Hamid Karzai, according to the official.

Copyright © 2006 The Seattle Times Company
http://seattletimes.nwsource.com/html/nationworld/2003236936_pakistan31.html

candypreet

09-02-2006, 03:09 AM

Pakistan frees 13 more local militants

Some 13 militants arrested in recent months for attacks on security forces in Pakistan's restive North Waziristan, were freed on Friday, the NNI news agency reported.

The freed men were handed over to a jirga, or council of elders, at Miranshah, the headquarters of North Waziristan, a tribal leader Malik Nasrullah Khan was quoted as saying by the NNI.

The jirga was formed last month to mediate between the militants and the government to end their bloody conflict, which had claimed lives from both sides.

It is the second group of militants freed in less than two weeks, and a group of 10 militants was freed last week.

In return, the militants, who announced ceasefire in June to give opportunity to tribal elders to find out a peaceful settlement of the crisis, had extended ceasefire till Sept. 10.

The militants want withdrawal of the government forces from the region and release of all of the militants arrested, while the government wants the local militants to refrain from offering shelter to al-Qaeda suspects and Afghanistan's Taliban, who have fled Afghanistan since 2001.

Sources close to the jirga said that an agreement is likely to be signed between the militants and the government, according to the NNI.

The deal could end months of bloody confrontation between tribesmen and the Pakistani army in the lawless region of North Waziristan.

Many of the foreign inhabitants of the region, including Arabs and Central Asians, are veterans of the war against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s who later settled in Pakistan, said the report.

Source: Xinhua

http://english.people.com.cn/200609/02/eng20060902_298989.html

Petronas

09-03-2006, 08:27 PM

PAKISTAN: 'TALIBAN' CALLS THE SHOTS IN TWO WAZIRISTANS
Sep-01-06 18:26
by Syed Saleem Shahzad

"We will bring the Islamic revolution to Pakistan and make the country the home of Islam" - powerful lines from a Pashtu poem - rang out loud and clear in a tent packed with hundreds of people celebrating the graduation of madrassa students in Miran Shah, on the Pakistan-Afghan border. But it was far more than just a ceremony. Locals referred to Wednesday's meeting as the largest ever gathering of pro-Taliban militants, tribal elders and politicians in Waziristan's history, and for many it was a snapshot of the changing dynamics in the volatile region.

The meeting comes at a period of negotiations between the Pakistan government and the pro-Taliban militants in the tribal region, which were both engaged in intense fighting earlier this year in which dozens of tribal militants and government troops were killed.

A conditional ceasefire agreement was reached in June and was extended last Friday until December 2006 with the government agreeing to the demand for the release of 10 pro-Taliban militants and the reduction of the Pakistan Army presence in the tribal belt to just three ares.

Both North Waziristan and South Waziristan appear to have now begun to develop a new system to administer the tribal agency where politicians, tribal elders and clerics are in the forefront and pro-taliban militants, also known as Pakistani Taliban, appear to be in the backbenches, but are actually in charge of the situation.

Seated at the meeting were some of the most-wanted faces from the past - Maulana Sadiq Noor and Maulana Abdul Khaliq - religious scholars whose seminaries were demolished by Pakistani forces just a few months ago. Also at the meeting was Maulana Deendar, an ideologue for the Pakistani Taliban. All three were silently seated in the back row.

The stage was in the hands of political-cum-religious figures in the region like Maulana Abdul Rahman and a member of the provincial assembly in Pakistan's North West Frontier Province (NWFP), Maulana Amanullah, who are believed to be the two main brokers of the truce agreement between the Pakistani security forces and Pakistani Taliban.

As usual, the commander of the Pakistani Taliban in North Waziristan Gul Badar did not make a public appearance and instead sent his representatives, the members of Mujahadeen Shura (council), to attend the ceremony for fresh madrassa graduates.

"We have given a great sacrifice on many counts to give this truce a chance," said Maulana Mehmoodul Hasan, the chief patron of the Jamiat-i-Talba-i-Islam, a student wing of Jamiat-i-Ulema-i-Islam led by Maulana Fazlur Rehman. Rehman is the opposition leader in Pakistan's national assembly who has joined the efforts to restore peace in the retive tribal region.

"Now Mujahadeen (Pakistani Taliban), Ulemas (clerics) and the Mishran (tribal elders) are at one forum and are aiming to develop an indigenous system to run the region without the intervention of the Pakistan Army,” Mehmoodul Hasan told Adnkronos International (AKI).

"We made it clear that the political agents must be in charge of the tribal area and we, the locals, will run the affairs with their coordination like it has been in the past," Mehmood asserted. The political agent is the Pakistan government's representative in each tribal agency.

According to local sources, the gathering which has been called the largest-ever in the history of both North and South Waziristan, is part of a strategy to counter any moves by US-led coalitions forces to target the two Waziristans in fresh attacks as part of their war on terror. Last month a tripartite commission including Pakistan, Afghanistan and US and NATO forces, discussed plan to track down Taliban fighters across the Pakistan-Afghanistan border. At the meeting, it was agreed that North and South Waziristan were the main conduits of violence and suicide bombers and that it was necessary that the region be part of the front in the war on terror.

As a solution to the problem, Pakistan has proposed to fence the border in this region which is known as the Durand Line, an imaginary border that passes through the mountainous areas, porous and impossible to seal. While Afghanistan has expressed reservations about such a proposal, the Americans are also not satisfied insisting instead on a broad scale pursuit of the Taliban militants, wherever they find terror, even if it is on the Pakistani side of the Durand Line. The most recent visit by US Centcom (Central Command) General John Abizaid was part of this same campaign.

Wednesday's gathering highlighted the position of the hardliners in the two Waziristans and made it clear that the pro-Taliban forces in tribal belt are really calling the shots. More such gatherings are expected to bring forward a real tribal council to take over control in the region.

http://www.adnki.com/index_2Level_English.php?cat=Security&loid=8.0.335981342&par=0

candypreet

09-05-2006, 03:28 AM

Pakistan may sign N-power deal with China in November

http://www.dawn.com/2006/09/05/top11.htm

September 05, 2006 Tuesday Sha'aban 11, 1427

By Our Correspondent

WASHINGTON, Sept 4: Pakistan may sign a deal with China in November for acquiring six nuclear power plants with an installed capacity of 300 MW each, diplomatic sources told Dawn.

Top Chinese officials are expected to visit Pakistan in November to sign the deal, they added. Pakistan has a target of producing 8,000 MW of nuclear power by 2025.

Pakistan had earlier invited the United States to set up nuclear power plants in the country but Washington showed little interest. Instead, the US signed a deal with India to supply nuclear fuel and technology.

Pakistan has made a comprehensive 25-year energy security plan and is willing to invest as much as $150 billion from 2005 to 2030 to meet its growing energy needs. Nuclear energy is a major component of this plan.

At present, natural gas and oil supply 80 per cent of Pakistan’s energy needs. However, the consumption of those energy sources vastly exceeds the supply. For instance, Pakistan currently produces only 18.3 per cent of the oil it consumes, fostering a dependency on imports that places considerable strain on the country’s financial position.

At a recent meeting in Washington on South Asia’s energy needs, a Pakistani delegation told international energy experts that from October 2005 to June 2006 alone, Pakistan spent more than Rs68 billion on power subsidies.

Pakistan is also worried about its natural gas resources which may begin to deplete by 2015 at the current rate of consumption.

Mukhtar Ahmed, energy adviser to the prime minister, told another recent meeting in Washington that over the next 20 years, the country’s overall demand for energy will increase by 350 per cent. During this period, the percentage of Pakistan’s total energy needs met from indigenous sources will fall from 72 to 38 per cent.

To deal with this situation, Pakistan is focusing on the development of indigenous energy resources, and programmes emphasising greater energy efficiency and better management.

At the same time, Pakistan also is focusing on developing alternative energy resources, which includes increasing the capacity to produce nuclear energy.

keith

09-05-2006, 01:12 PM

Pak, pro-Taliban tribals sign no hostility pact

AP | Miran shah

Pakistan's Government and pro-Taliban militants on Tuesday signed an agreement to ensure "permanent peace" in a tribal region bordering Afghanistan, a move hoped to end five years of violent unrest in the region.

Senior army officers and militants hugged, and congratulated each other after inking the agreement at a school in Miran Shah, the main town in the semiautonomous North Waziristan tribal region, where thousands of Pakistani troops were deployed after the Sept 11, 2001 attacks following the United States-led invasion of Afghanistan.

Under the pact signed by a fugitive militant leader, Azad Khan, and a Government representative, Fakhr-e-Alam said no militant in North Waziristan will shelter foreign militants or cross the nearby border to attack the Afghan or coalition forces. Militants will also not target Pakistani Government and security officials or pro-Government tribal elders or journalists, North Waziristan lawmaker Maulana Nek Zaman said before both sides signed the agreement.

For almost five years, Pakistani soldiers and paramilitary forces have battled local tribesmen, many believed allied to the Taliban and Osama bin Laden's al-Qaeda network, in this fiercely independent mountain region where Central Government powers were not applied. Pakistani security officials have said that Arab, Afghan, area tribesmen and Central Asian militants allegedly linked with al-Qaeda operate in North Waziristan.

Pakistan has said that at least 350 soldiers have been killed with hundreds of militants and civilians in the region. The Government has already freed all 132 militants arrested in recent years.

http://www.dailypioneer.com/indexn12.asp?main_variable=WORLD&file_name=wld3%2Etxt&counter_img=3

Petronas

09-10-2006, 08:05 PM

A report on Pakistan's madrassas. Here's the link (it is 9 pages long):

By the book
09/09/2006
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/arts/main.jhtml?xml=/arts/2006/09/09/ftmadrass09.xml&page=1

candypreet

09-11-2006, 12:42 AM

good very good link. thank you

keith

09-13-2006, 09:13 PM

Pakistan delays rape reform plans

Pakistan's government has delayed presenting a bill in parliament which would have reformed rape laws.
The bill would for the first time have allowed rapists to be tried under civil law as well as Islamic law.

But following complaints from Islamic and secular parties the government says it will now re-draft its proposals to create more of a consensus.

Rape is currently dealt with under the Hudood Ordinance, an Islamic law strongly criticised by women's groups.

The BBC's Barbara Plett in Islamabad says that the government's attempt to reform rape laws have suffered a setback amid growing controversy.

Our correspondent says those political parties which supported the original bill are furious and the Islamic parties are now demanding even more changes.

The government had already revised its original draft to satisfy strong opposition from Islamic parties, and critics accused it of rolling back the reforms to make it even harder for women to take action in rape cases.

Compromise

The Hudood Ordinance criminalises all sex outside marriage, so if a rape victim fails to present four male witnesses to the crime she herself could face punishment and prosecuted for adultery.

The government says that makes it almost impossible to prosecute a rape case.

It proposed putting the offence of rape in the secular penal code where normal rules of evidence apply.

But it revised the bill because of strong opposition from Islamic parties.

A compromise draft was presented, which said that rape would fall under both Islamic and secular penal codes.

Human rights activists say this will create confusion, allowing powerful religious lobbies to manipulate what is seen as a weak judicial system.

Story from BBC NEWS:
http://news.bbc.co.uk/go/pr/fr/-/2/hi/south_asia/5337752.stm

Published: 2006/09/13 14:48:45 GMT

© BBC MMVI

Vancouver

09-13-2006, 11:55 PM

Daily Times, Pakistan:

Thursday, September 14, 2006
14 Taliban arrested in raid on Quetta hospital
Staff Report

QUETTA: Police claimed to have arrested 14 suspected Taliban in a raid on a private hospital here on Wednesday.
According to sources, police arrested the suspected Taliban during a raid on Pakistan General Hospital on Zargoon Road. “Six of the arrested Taliban were injured while the rest had come to see them at the hospital when the police arrested them,” government sources said, adding that the suspects were being investigated.
Sources said the suspects were from Afghanistan’s Helmand province, and that some of them had been admitted to the hospital after they were injured in a clash.
“We are not sure if any Taliban commander is among the arrested. This will be known only after the investigation is complete,” a police source said.
However, hospital authorities said they had no idea that the injured men were Taliban.
AP said Taliban group commander Mullah Ghaffar was among the arrested. Balochistan Police chief Chaudhry Mohammed Yaqoob refused to confirm the arrests.

NYer

09-16-2006, 08:38 AM

Our "Ally" Pakistan Releases Over 2500 Taliban, Al Qaeda ... among them the killers of Daniel Pearl. (http://billroggio.com/archives/2006/09/pakistan_releases_ov.php)

candypreet

09-19-2006, 02:57 AM

Dadar's Plaza theatre verdict establishes Pakistan role

Anshika Misra
Tuesday, September 19, 2006 01:25 IST

http://www.dnaindia.com/report.asp?NewsID=1053875

MUMBAI: A 13-year suspicion of Pakistan’s role in the 1993 bomb blasts was confirmed on Monday when the TADA court held Shahnawaz Qureshi, who planted a bomb at Dadar’s Plaza cinema, guilty of the conspiracy as well as of undergoing weapons training in Pakistan.

Judge PD Kode convicted Qureshi (48) and Asgar Mukadam (45), manager of prime accused Ibrahim Mushtaq ‘Tiger’ Memon, of leaving a red Maruti van loaded with RDX at the cinema’s parking lot on March 12, 1993. The bomb went off at 3:15pm, minutes after the afternoon show of the Raaj Kumar-Nana Patekar-starrer Tirangaa began, killing 10 persons, injuring 37, and damaging property worth Rs87 lakh.

Judge Kode upheld the confessions of both the men as “true and voluntary” despite their retraction. Qureshi, an illiterate butcher at the Deonar abattoir, had confessed to his role and of being taken to Pakistan via Dubai for weapons training.

According to public prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam, Qureshi’s passport showed that he had visited Dubai in February 1993. During the visit, he went out of the emirate for 14 days. While the passport confirmed that he had left Dubai and returned, it did not reflect where he had gone in that period.

Qureshi’s confession that he was taken to Pakistan and given arms training was confirmed by one of the two approvers in the case, who, when outlining the way the conspiracy was planned, said 19 persons were taken to Pakistan to be trained in handling weapons and explosives.

“The undeclared entry and exit from Pakistan could not have been possible without the active support of immigration authorities at Islamabad airport,” Nikam told DNA. This is the first judicial finding of the accused undergoing training in Pakistan, he said.

Two eyewitnesses had identified Qureshi and Mukadam as the men who parked the vehicle at Plaza.

While Qureshi was acquitted of the charges of participating in conspiratorial meetings in Mumbai and filling RDX in vehicles, he was held guilty of landing explosives at Shekhadi in Raigad district and 11 other charges.

Mukadam, the first person to be arrested in the case (March 18, 1993) was convicted on 14 counts, including abetting the planting of explosives at Sea Rock Hotel in Bandra and the Centaur hotels at the airport and Juhu. Both face life imprisonment at the very least.

candypreet

09-19-2006, 03:02 AM

Pakistan printing fake Indian currency

NEW DELHI (XFN-ASIA) - A Pakistani government printing press in the city of Quetta is churning out large quantities of counterfeit Indian currency, The Times of India reported, citing a Central Bureau of Intelligence note to Indian security agencies and the finance ministry.

The rupee notes are then smuggled into India as 'part of Pakistan's agenda of destabilising (the) Indian economy through fake currency,' the daily said.

The notes are 'supplied by the Pakistan government press (at Quetta) free of cost to Dubai-based counterfeiters who, in turn, smuggle it into India using various means,' the report said.

Pakistan's intelligence agency, Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) is alleged to play an active role in the scam.

The notes 'are pushed into India by ISI through all possible channels using smugglers, underworld gangs, terrorists and general air/rail passengers', the report said.

The Indian intelligence agency picked up the trail of the counterfeiters from interrogations of a Gulf-based bookmaker who was deported from Dubai to India, it said.

The Reserve Bank of India has estimated the amount of fake currency in circulation at almost 1.7 trln rupees, the report said.

tl/bp/lod/rc

http://www.forbes.com/business/feeds/afx/2006/09/18/afx3023363.html

Vancouver

09-19-2006, 05:33 AM

Somebody in the Pakistani regime tells somebody in the American press that Adam Gadahn was spotted a month ago in South Waziristan:
http://blogs.abcnews.com/theblotter/2006/09/american_al_qae_1.html

keith

09-19-2006, 03:00 PM

PAKISTANI DAILY CRITICIZES GOVERNMENT PEACE DEAL WITH TRIBAL MILITANTS

A September 14 editorial in the Pakistani daily The News questioned the government's strategy to fight the Talibanization of its tribal regions. The editorial pointed to Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf's recent deal with militants in North Waziristan agency in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA). As part of the deal, government troops would cease attacks against local Taliban fighters in exchange for these militants ending their cross-border attacks into Afghanistan along with their attacks against Pakistani security forces and other state interests. The editorial expresses the paper's skepticism over the deal, saying that this will allow militants in North Waziristan to spread their influence throughout the tribal region. According to the editorial, "The government's view on this seems naive because it considers that the local Taliban will not spread their rigid interpretation of Islam, their subjugation of women, smashing television sets or forcibly making people pray outside the region...The fact of the matter is that Talibanization has spread to the settled districts of the [North-West Frontier Province] adjoining FATA, especially Tank, Bannu and Dera Ismail Khan, where incidents of people being forced to part with their television sets and cable TV wires being cut have been reported in recent months." The editorial concludes by saying that the deal is "a good example of appeasement of extremists."

http://jamestown.org/terrorism/news/article.php?articleid=2370130

Petronas

10-27-2006, 02:02 PM

In an Islamic truce both sides will be free to regroup and rearm for the next battle. ... A "truce" in Islam is not a negotiated peace ... they aren’t battling on the field, but they are preparing for the next season of war.http://www.answering-islam.de/Main/Silas/levine_truce.htm

Taliban militias take control
October 26, 2006

Taliban militias in Pakistan have set up offices, introduced taxes and taken control of justice in the tribal agency of North Waziristan, where last month the government signed a peace agreement with militants. In violation of the agreement, a Taliban shura, or council, distributed pamphlets of its policies while militants patrolled the area's streets. They have already killed numerous "American spies."

A "tax schedule" detailed how businesses are liable for paying charges to the Taliban. Trucks entering the agency will pay for a six-month pass, and gas-pump owners will have to make contributions to the Taliban shura. The taxes were described as a "donation" in the pamphlet.

The deal signed by the government on Sept. 5 stipulated that al Qaeda fighters were to be expelled from North Waziristan, and pro-Taliban militants were not to run a "parallel administration" or take part in fighting against coalition forces across the border. In return, Pakistani forces, who had been fighting local militants over the summer, withdrew from combat. The army retained the right to carry out strikes in the area if militants did not adhere to the deal. But it was later discovered by Pakistani journalists that the deal was signed with wanted militants and not with tribal elders, as was officially claimed. Pakistani officials hoped the deal would empower tribal elders to control militants in their region, but an estimated 120 of them have been killed in the past year.

After the withdrawal of the army, a power vacuum was filled by mullahs and their long-haired, bearded, weapon-toting militants. According to Pakistani reporters, some of the militants wear badges that read: "Appointed by the office of the Taliban, the mujahedeen of the North Waziristan Agency."

Power is now in the hands of a so-called "mullahcracy" and people who Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf recently dismissed as hashish-smoking thugs who use the Taliban's mantle to coerce locals. Maulana Abdul Khaliq Haqqani, a member of North Waziristan's Taliban shura, said his followers were abiding by the pact. But he said they still offered "moral support" to those fighting in Afghanistan. "There is no doubt that we support this jihad against infidels, against these Christians who have invaded a Muslim land," he said.

Instead of crossing from Waziristan, fighters continue to cross into Afghanistan from other areas. "If you can't go into Afghanistan from Waziristan, you can go from other areas. There are many, many other ways to go," a fighter from North Waziristan told Reuters news agency.

NATO officials in Afghanistan said militant activity has increased 300 percent in the border regions since the pact was signed.

http://www.washtimes.com/world/20061025-101010-8249r.htm

candypreet

10-28-2006, 01:15 AM

http://www.answering-islam.de/Main/Silas/levine_truce.htm

Taliban militias take control
October 26, 2006

Taliban militias in Pakistan have set up offices, introduced taxes and taken control of justice in the tribal agency of North Waziristan, where last month the government signed a peace agreement with militants. In violation of the agreement, a Taliban shura, or council, distributed pamphlets of its policies while militants patrolled the area's streets. They have already killed numerous "American spies."

A "tax schedule" detailed how businesses are liable for paying charges to the Taliban. Trucks entering the agency will pay for a six-month pass, and gas-pump owners will have to make contributions to the Taliban shura. The taxes were described as a "donation" in the pamphlet.

The deal signed by the government on Sept. 5 stipulated that al Qaeda fighters were to be expelled from North Waziristan, and pro-Taliban militants were not to run a "parallel administration" or take part in fighting against coalition forces across the border. In return, Pakistani forces, who had been fighting local militants over the summer, withdrew from combat. The army retained the right to carry out strikes in the area if militants did not adhere to the deal. But it was later discovered by Pakistani journalists that the deal was signed with wanted militants and not with tribal elders, as was officially claimed. Pakistani officials hoped the deal would empower tribal elders to control militants in their region, but an estimated 120 of them have been killed in the past year.

After the withdrawal of the army, a power vacuum was filled by mullahs and their long-haired, bearded, weapon-toting militants. According to Pakistani reporters, some of the militants wear badges that read: "Appointed by the office of the Taliban, the mujahedeen of the North Waziristan Agency."

Power is now in the hands of a so-called "mullahcracy" and people who Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf recently dismissed as hashish-smoking thugs who use the Taliban's mantle to coerce locals. Maulana Abdul Khaliq Haqqani, a member of North Waziristan's Taliban shura, said his followers were abiding by the pact. But he said they still offered "moral support" to those fighting in Afghanistan. "There is no doubt that we support this jihad against infidels, against these Christians who have invaded a Muslim land," he said.

Instead of crossing from Waziristan, fighters continue to cross into Afghanistan from other areas. "If you can't go into Afghanistan from Waziristan, you can go from other areas. There are many, many other ways to go," a fighter from North Waziristan told Reuters news agency.

NATO officials in Afghanistan said militant activity has increased 300 percent in the border regions since the pact was signed.

http://www.washtimes.com/world/20061025-101010-8249r.htm

good post

Vancouver

10-30-2006, 05:04 AM

Pakistan has flattened a madrassa not far from Damadola in Usamastan:
http://edition.cnn.com/2006/WORLD/asiapcf/10/29/pakistan.militants.ap/index.html

Vancouver

10-30-2006, 06:34 AM

According to al-Jazeera, this is the site of the madrassa blown by the Pakistanis:
http://www.aljazeera.net/mritems/images/2006/1/19/1_591371_1_34.jpg
http://www.aljazeera.net/mritems/images/2006/4/13/1_611242_1_34.jpg
Additional al-Jazeera propaganda:
http://english.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/576BC18A-9416-422F-BFED-1165F66D908B.htm
In their Arabic version of the tale, al-Jazeera inserts an insinuation that "a large body of American forces" participated, which is just the usual Arab bullshit:
http://www.aljazeera.net/NR/exeres/E2171900-25A6-4ED7-A3F4-A8E07C6FE5C0.htm

Vancouver

10-31-2006, 05:17 AM

A report from an NBC guy who was within earshot of the attack:
http://msnbc.msn.com/id/15486181/
Excerpt:

Prior to this attack, what was the reputation of school? Was it known to be a training ground for militants?
Yes, it was. [Faqir] Mohammed, the al-Qaida leader in the area, was one of the first people in the area to publicly support the Taliban and Osama bin Laden. ...
Mohammed has been accused of providing shelter to militants and even invited bin Laden’s deputy, Ayman al-Zawahri, to the madrassa.

keith

11-02-2006, 04:25 PM

NATO takes the fight to Pakistan
By Syed Saleem Shahzad

KARACHI - The air attack on Monday in which up to 80 suspected militants were killed at a religious school in the Pakistani tribal area of Bajour marks the first successful operation after a tripartite meeting in Kabul on August 24 of representatives of Afghanistan, the North Atlantic Treaty Organization and Pakistan. And it won't be the last.

It was agreed at that meeting that NATO forces operating in Afghanistan would be allowed to conduct hot-pursuit operations across the border into Pakistan.

Although Pakistani officials claim that Monday's operation was conducted by the Pakistani military, Asia Times Online contacts in the area are convinced that foreign forces were also involved, including US unmanned Hellfire Predator aircraft. NATO and the US have only acknowledged that they provided intelligence on the possible presence of Taliban and al-Qaeda figures at the madrassa that was attacked, which was known to be pro-Taliban.

After Monday's operation, intelligence sources say that Pakistan will further facilitate NATO in the strategic back yard of Pakistan in an attempt to bolster the struggling NATO forces in Afghanistan in their battle with the Taliban.

"I can see slit throats beneath these turbans and beards," were the words of Hajaj bin Yusuf, an 8th-century tyrant in what is now Iraq, as he witnessed a gathering of leading religious and political figures.

This was the start of an article (The knife at Pakistan's throat, Asia Times Online, September 2) by this correspondent on returning from the largest-ever meeting of the Taliban in the North Waziristan tribal area two days before a peace deal was signed between the Taliban and Pakistani authorities.

The inspiration behind the quote was a genuine sense of upcoming bloodshed in the Pakistan tribal areas, given the hot-pursuit agreement in Kabul to which Pakistan had agreed in principle, though it unsuccessfully demanded a clear demarcation of the boundaries up to which hot pursuit would be allowed.

Subsequently, Pakistani officials traveled to the tribal areas, where they tried to explain their position of being under immense pressure from the increasingly desperate Americans. The Pakistanis suggested that the tribals develop a mechanism under which militants would retreat into the background, allowing the "soft-faced" (moderate) tribal leaders to come to the fore.

All the same, it was fully understood by both sides that bloodshed was inevitable, of which Monday's massacre in Bajour agency is just the beginning of a new phase in the "war on terror" battlefields that will embrace all seven of Pakistan's tribal agencies. These remote and semi-independent agencies along the border with Afghanistan have steadily developed into hideouts and bases for the Taliban and al-Qaeda and serve as the back yard for operations in Afghanistan.

The prospect of foreign forces becoming a regular feature on Pakistani soil conjures up visions of disastrous proportions. Just as such troops have been fiercely resisted in Iraq and Afghanistan, so they will be opposed in Pakistan.

More important, Pakistan will then become a new base for anti-US jihadis, that is, a new front will be opened.

The prelude to this phase was President General Pervez Musharraf's recent visit to Washington, where he was placed under heavy pressure to take a broader operational role in the US-led "war on terror". Soon after Musharraf's return home, the British commander of NATO troops in Afghanistan, Lieutenant-General David Richards, visited Islamabad.

He talked to the Pakistani authorities of creating a joint operational strategy for Afghanistan. It was speculated at the time that this would involve joint patrols on the border. But sources close to the strategic quarters of Rawalpindi maintain that there is more to it than that.

In the first week of October, a team of British army officers visited the southern port city of Karachi and inspected the medical facilities in various hospitals and discussed with the administration of Aga Khan Hospital the availability of special wards with emergency facilities for wounded soldiers.

Many US troops are already stationed at Jacobabad Air Base in Sindh province, and recently the Pakistani air force reported extended reconstruction operations there that appear to be preparations for extended action. Similar information has been gathered about Kohat Air Base in North-West Frontier Province.

"The recent comment of the British commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan [Richards] that NATO had failed to deliver on promises made to the Afghan people and a warning that the Taliban will be back in strength next summer explains very well these preparations," a security official told Asia Times Online.

Meanwhile, in many places in Afghanistan, especially the south, allied forces are virtually being held hostage in their bases by the Taliban.

As a result, they are negotiating with the Taliban in many districts for a peace deal to give them some breathing space, especially as the Taliban have in recent weeks focused their attentions on attacking bases, and will continue to do so until winter brings the current offensive to a standstill.

The Taliban have sustained heavy casualties from this fresh approach, but they have succeeded in rattling the nerves of the allied forces in the southwest, to such an extent that those forces feel they are rapidly losing the ground from under their feet in Afghanistan.

It is for this reason that Pakistani territory is so important, as it would give the NATO-led forces room to consolidate and take the fight into the enemy's home territory - the longer-term consequences be damned.

Syed Saleem Shahzad is Asia Times Online's Pakistan Bureau Chief. He can be reached at saleem_shahzad2002@yahoo.com.

http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/HK02Df02.html

Petronas

11-02-2006, 04:48 PM

Pakistan court acquits U.S. consulate car bomb convicts
Tue Oct 31, 2006 7:35 PM IST

A Pakistani high court on Tuesday acquitted four Islamist militants who had been convicted of taking part in a suicide car bomb attack on the U.S. consulate in the southern city of Karachi in mid-2002, a defence lawyer said. Twelve Pakistanis were killed and 43 people were injured in the attack. No consulate staff were killed. An anti-terrorism court had sentenced the four suspected members of a shadowy militant group to either death or life imprisonment in 2003.

The government had sought capital punishment for all of them, but after an appeal hearing the high court decided instead on Tuesday to acquit them. "The court ruled that the eyewitness accounts and evidence given by security officials was flawed and overturned the earlier sentences," Abdul Waheed Katpar, a defence lawyer, told Reuters.

The men were alleged to be members of the militant group Harkat-ul-Mujahideen al-Almi, a splinter faction of the outlawed Harkat-ul Mujahideen which is fighting Indian rule in the disputed Kashmir region. One of the acquitted men remained on death row, however, due to a conviction in another case.

Islamist militants, furious at President Pervez Musharraf's support for the U.S.-led war on terrorism, have carried out a spate of attacks across the country targeting Westerners and religious minorities since the Sept. 11, 2001 al Qaeda attacks on the United States. Musharraf himself survived two al Qaeda-inspired assassination attempts in 2003.

http://in.today.reuters.com/news/newsArticle.aspx?type=worldNews&storyID=2006-10-31T193040Z_01_NOOTR_RTRJONC_0_India-274419-1.xml&archived=False

Petronas

11-06-2006, 06:32 PM

Rocket plot uncovered
5 November 2006

ISLAMABAD: A group said to be affiliated with Al Qaeda, planned rocket attacks on Islamabad from its sanctuary in the country's tribal lands near the Afghan border, it was revealed yesterday. Pakistani security agencies arrested three suspects after rockets were found last month opposite the presidency, parliament and the headquarters of military spy agency, Inter Services Intelligence.

According to a report, the men took their orders from an Uzbek commander of the Islamic Jihad Group based in North Waziristan. "While the fingers were in Islamabad, the tail was in Mir Ali," an investigator said, referring to a town in North Waziristan. The government signed a pact on September 5 with tribal elders to end fighting between security forces and militant tribesmen, but critics said the deal risked creating a safe haven for Taliban and Al Qaeda fighters.

http://www.gulf-daily-news.com/Story.asp?Article=160909&Sn=WORL&IssueID=29230

rabzon

11-08-2006, 12:34 PM

Suicide bomber kills more than 40 in Pakistan (http://www.mg.co.za/articlePage.aspx?articleid=289385&area=/breaking_news/breaking_news__international_news/)

A suicide bomber killed at least 42 soldiers at an army base in north-west Pakistan on Wednesday, in what appeared to be a revenge attack for a missile strike against an al-Qaeda training camp, officials said.

Witnesses said the huge explosion at Dargai in North West Frontier province sowed panic, and left body parts and shredded clothing scattered across a parade ground where trainee soldiers had gathered for morning assembly.

"Forty-two recruits died in the attack and others are hospitalised, some are in critical condition," military spokesperson Major General Shaukat Sultan said.

The spokesperson condemned the bombing, the deadliest since the Pakistan army was deployed in the tribal region about five years ago to hunt down al-Qaeda militants.

He described it a terrorist attack and warned the death toll could rise. Other security officials said 20 people were wounded.

Sultan said the investigations were ongoing, but the attack appeared to be an act by militants whose training school was destroyed by a military raid in Bajaur last week.

"We strongly suspect the attack on the army centre was done by the people trained in Bajaur in the madrasa run by al-Qaeda facilitators Maulvi Liaqat and Maulvi Faqir," Sultan said.

Suspicion has fallen on Tehreek-e-Nifaz-e-Shariat Mohammadi (TNSM), a group that has widespread presence in the area and is known for its links to Afghanistan's Taliban and al-Qaeda.

Both Faqir and Liaqat, who was among 80 militants killed in the air strike, were members of the TNSM group President Pervez Musharraf banned in January 2002 for sending about 10 000 armed tribesmen into Afghanistan to fight the United States-led invasion.

Interior Minister Aftab Sherpao said the attack was a suicide bombing and vowed there would be no let up in the anti-terror hunt launched by Pakistan, a key US ally.

An Interior Ministry official said the bomber targeted recruits on a parade ground next to the regiment's main training centre. "The bomber was clad in a shawl and he blew himself up in the middle of the assembly, causing large-scale casualties," the official said.

Hidayatullah Khan, who saw the explosion from his newspaper stall just a few hundred metres from the parade ground, described the grisly aftermath. "Human limbs, army caps and shoes were scattered all around the blood-splashed ground," he said.

A local official said the military cordoned off the area around the base and put up barricades to prevent people leaving or entering the tribal district, about 160km north-west of the capital, Islamabad.

He said investigators had found a torso that appeared to be that of the bomber and were examining it.

The area had until now not been touched by the fighting between al-Qaeda-backed militants and the Pakistani military, but it is only 80km south-east of Bajaur.

The government alleged al-Qaeda used the Islamic school or madrasa to train suicide bombers, but hard-line Islamic parties accused the authorities of killing innocent students.

Tens of thousands of armed tribesmen and students protested against the air strike, shouting slogans against Musharraf and burning effigies of him.

Hours after the bombing an unknown caller claimed that the Pakistani Taliban carried out Wednesday's suicide attack. The man, who refused to give his name in a telephone call to a prominent journalist, Rahimullah Yousafzai of local daily the News, vowed that he would himself be the next suicide bomber.

The caller said the attack was launched by the Pakistani Taliban, identifying the group's leader as Abu Kalim Mohammad Ansari, Yousafzai said.

The Pakistani military said the Bajaur madrasa was frequently visited by al-Qaeda number two Ayman al-Zawahiri, but that he was not there at the time of the air strike. It denied the US was involved in the attack.

The semi-autonomous tribal regions of north-west Pakistan are a hotbed of opposition to Musharraf's alliance with the US, and are seen as strongly supportive of the Taliban and al-Qaeda. -- Sapa-AFP

rabzon

11-09-2006, 04:23 AM

MMA hypocritical: Musharraf (http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2006\11\09\story_9-11-2006_pg1_5)

ISLAMABAD: President Gen Pervez Musharraf has accused the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) of spreading propaganda about the raid on a madrassa in Bajaur Agency last month and told cabinet members to respond and inform the public of the truth.

“The MMA has no right to criticise the operation as they give tickets of heaven to extremists while their own children sit in full comfort at home,” the president said at a meeting with ministers and MPs from the four provinces, according to a state minister who was present.

Gen Musharraf said that the security forces had proof that the seminary was being used for terrorist activities and training. Security forces had been monitoring Maulvi Liaqat, the head of the madrassa, and he had been causing trouble in the area for the last year, he said.

He said that terrorism and extremism was a threat to national security.

“We are dealing with the Taliban and Al Qaeda separately and we will be successful in crushing terrorism at its very root,” he said. “Extremism and terrorism is the critical problem facing the nation and we have to deal with it very forcefully.”

rabzon

11-09-2006, 04:30 AM

Don’t succumb to MMA blackmail on WPB, Musharraf tells cabinet
(http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2006\11\09\story_9-11-2006_pg7_2)
ISLAMABAD: President General Pervez Musharraf has told the federal cabinet not to bow to the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal’s pressure on the Women’s Protection Bill and pass the legislation.

Sources told Online that the president told the cabinet members not to be swayed by threats by the MMA and Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz to resign if the bill is passed. “If they tender resignations from the assemblies in the event of passage of bill, let them do so and don’t be worried about it. It will reinforce the government writ,” the sources quoted Gen Musharraf as saying.

The president told the cabinet that if the bill were not passed, the MMA would exploit it for political gains.

The sources said Railways Minister Sheikh Rashid opined the bill should not be passed in haste and all parties should be taken on board. “The MMA should not be sidelined all at once as it will trigger a crisis in two provinces where they are in power. It is not easy to hold by-polls there too,” he said. online

Petronas

11-09-2006, 12:28 PM

Pakistan (Country threat level - 5): On 9 November 2006, the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad issued the following Warden Message: "On 8 November a suicide attack was conducted against the Dargai Fort, a Pakistani military base located approximately 50 miles north of Peshawar in the North West Frontier Province Malakand District. The attack killed at least 42 Pakistani soldiers. It is believed the blast was in retaliation to the operation carried out on 30 October by the Pakistani military on the alleged terrorist training camp at Bajaur.

"We recommend that American citizens postpone travel to Peshawar today or Friday, 10 November. U.S. citizens may want to limit nonessential travel around the city, and are reminded to examine their personal security practices.

"The Embassy would like to remind the American citizen community of the need to stay alert, be aware of your surroundings, vary times and routes, reduce travel to minimum acceptable levels, act self-defensively at all times, and avoid all demonstration activity. We remind American citizens that threats, protests and demonstrations may occur throughout Pakistan without prior notice or warning. ..."

http://www.asigroup.com/HOTSPOTS.asp

Petronas

11-24-2006, 11:57 AM

Suicide bomber dies attacking Pakistan police
Fri Nov 17, 7:23 AM ET

A suicide bomber killed himself in an attack on a police van in the northwestern Pakistan city of Peshawar on Friday, but neither of the policemen in the vehicle were hurt, police said. Islamist groups seeking to destabilize the government because of President Pervez Musharraf's alliance with the United States in the war on terrorism are suspected of being behind a wave of attacks in the northwest of the country in recent weeks.

Later on Friday, a bomb planted in a rubbish bin exploded at bus station in the eastern city of Lahore wounding 14 people, police said. Some of the victims were in a van and some standing nearby. Lahore police said two people had been killed but the city's police chief, Khawaja Khalid Farooq, later said his men had been mistaken and there were no fatalities in the blast. There was no claim of responsibility for either of the explosions.

Pakistani security forces inflamed anger among pro-Taliban militant tribesmen in the northwest, in areas bordering Afghanistan, with an airstrike on a religious school at the end of October that killed about 80 suspected militants. Days later, a suicide attacker detonated a bomb among army recruits on a training ground in a nearby northwestern town, killing 42 of them. It was the bloodiest ever militant strike on Pakistani security forces.

Police said the bomber killed in the Peshawar blast was a 20-year-old man who had been living in the city. His father came to the scene and identified the body, police said. The dead man was said to have been a committed Muslim.

There have been more than half a dozen bombings in Peshawar in recent weeks, including one that killed six people and wounded more than 30 in a crowded market on October 20.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20061117/wl_nm/pakistan_violence_dc_4&printer=1

NYer

11-28-2006, 09:17 AM

Catholics sentenced to Ten Years for Blasphemy. (http://www.theindiancatholic.com/newsread.asp?nid=4755)

akistan’s controversial blasphemy law strikes again and two more Catholics are jailed for alleged offences against the Qur’an in Pakistan.

The victims this time are James Masih, 70, and Buta Masih, 65, both resident of Munir Park, Faisalabad.

The defendants were arrested by police last October 8 for allegedly burning pages of the Qur’an. Last Saturday they were found guilty and sentenced to ten years in jail under the infamous Section 295 B of Pakistan’s Penal Code—also known as the blasphemy law—by judge Muhammad Islam from the Anti-Terrorism Court in Faisalabad.

The two Christian men were also sentenced to five years under the Anti-Terrorism Act but will purge both sentences concurrently so that they will spend ten years in prison altogether.

The court also fined them 25,000 rupees. Failure the pay that sum will result in an additional year in prison.

Khalil Tahir, the two men’s defence attorney and a Catholic, said he was disappointed by the judge’s decision since there was “no direct evidence against the two men who rather seem to be the victims of a personal vendetta”.

Petronas

12-01-2006, 12:39 PM

Four bombs explode on railway line linking Pakistan with Iran; no casualties
November 29, 2006

QUETTA, Pakistan: Four bombs exploded minutes apart on a railway line linking Pakistan with neighboring Iran, but there were no casualties, police and a railway official said Wednesday. The attack happened late Tuesday in Naushki, a town about 200 kilometers (120 miles) west of Quetta, the capital of southwestern Baluchistan province, said Maqbool Ahmed, an official with state-run Pakistan Railways.

No train was scheduled to pass at the time of the explosions. Engineers were dispatched to repair the damaged track, he said. Local police official Yasin Shah confirmed the blasts, but refused to speculate who might have been responsible.

Similar attacks in the past have been blamed by police on ethnic-Baluch tribesmen, who have waged a guerrilla campaign to force the government to increase royalties from resources extracted from the province, such as natural gas. The rebels are also blamed for firing rockets at gas fields and attacking security forces.

http://www.iht.com/articles/ap/2006/11/29/asia/AS_GEN_Pakistan_Bomb_Blasts.php

Petronas

12-01-2006, 03:15 PM

Bomber Strikes Outside Pakistan Building
Friday, Dec 1, 2006.

A suicide bomber struck outside a military facility in this northwestern Pakistan city Friday, killing himself but causing no other casualties, police said. The bomb was attached to the attacker's motorcycle and went off in the parking lot of a park in the military quarters in Peshawar, said police chief Habib ur-Rahman, the city's police chief. Army offices and residences are located in the area. Bomb disposal experts and soldiers were examining the wreckage of the blast, but the identity and allegiance of the attacker was not immediately known.

Peshawar is the capital of the North West Frontier Province and has been the scene of small-scale bombings in recent months, including a suicide attack in November that wounded two police officers. ...

http://enews.earthlink.net/article/int?guid=20061201/456fb6d0_3ca6_1552620061201-1020594890

NYer

12-01-2006, 03:30 PM

keith

12-02-2006, 05:13 AM

The Black-Turbaned Brigade: The Rise of TNSM in Pakistan

By Hassan Abbas

TNSM is active in Pakistan's NWFP
Tehreek-e-Nafaz-e-Shariat- e-Mohammadi (TNSM, Movement for the Enforcement of Islamic Laws) is emerging as one of the most dangerous religious militant groups in Pakistan. Its founder and leader, Sufi Mohammad, is behind bars and the organization was banned in early 2002. Still, its support base in the Pakistan-Afghanistan border areas (especially in Malakand district and Bajaur Agency) is solid. The organization witnessed its peak in 1994-95 when Pakistan experienced its first brush with this indigenous Taliban-style movement. At this time, the group took to the streets in large numbers in the Malakand region and demanded the enforcement of religious laws. The Pakistani government responded in a lackluster and weak manner, providing additional confidence to TNSM's cadres. The failure of law enforcement, coupled with the chronic lack of imagination on the part of Islamabad, ensured a long life for the organization. Today, TNSM is a potent force of extremism in Pakistan.

The U.S. military campaign in Afghanistan, beginning in late 2001, gave TNSM new energy and enthusiasm. The Pakistani army has faced tough resistance from many Taliban and al-Qaeda supporters in the Pashtun tribal belt since it began its military offensive in 2002, and TNSM is now at the forefront of these activities. The deadliest attack on the Pakistani military in the tribal zone on November 8 is widely believed to be a TNSM orchestrated operation (The Post, November 9). The group also has firmly developed into a satellite of al-Qaeda and its existence is a threat to Pakistani as well as U.S. interests in the region. Surprisingly, TNSM's profile is not available even on many leading terrorism focused databases and websites. This analysis endeavors to understand the nature and capabilities of TNSM and to discuss effective methods to tackle the problem.

Brief History of TNSM

To fully comprehend the genesis of TNSM, the politics and economics of the Malakand region (which is TNSM's primary base) deserve some attention. In northwest Pakistan, three semi-autonomous states—Dir, Swat and Chitral—were amalgamated to form the Malakand Division of the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP) in 1970. The laws of Pakistan were extended to the area, sweeping aside old legal systems such as Sharia law in Swat. A legal battle erupted in 1975, however, when a dispute arose between the government and timber merchants about forest royalties in the area. A new judicial order was soon introduced to resolve the problems. This change, however, was incorporated after violent street protests were orchestrated by powerful landowners who had a monopoly on forestlands and wanted to pursue their vested interests. Getting the attention of the state through violence and armed conflict became an unhealthy precedent.

Failure of the Pakistani state to tackle these issues in a timely manner created political confusion and religious groups found an opening for their agendas. Sufi Mohammad, an activist of Jamaat-e-Islami (JI), followed the situation closely. After returning from the successful Afghan jihad in the late 1980s, he was more convinced of his religious ideals. His exuberance, according to Pakistani journalist Amir Rana, led him to create TNSM on May 10, 1989. The very name of the organization framed its manifesto and agenda in unmistakable terms. His networking and experience in Afghanistan meant that on top of his battleground experience, he had no dearth of resources or religious motivation.

Formative Years

Besides geopolitical, economic and religious factors, Sufi Mohammad's personality and orientation also played a crucial role in the formation of TNSM. He decided to quit JI in 1981, while issuing a decree declaring that religious political parties and "politics of votes" were unlawful and contrary to Islamic principles. As to his "educational" activities, he remained associated with a seminary in Lal Qila in Dir. In terms of sectarian linkages, he was an ardent believer in the Wahhabi school of thought and had remained associated with Saudi-sponsored groups from the Afghan theater of 1980-88.

TNSM's first major action was its strident demand for the introduction of Sharia law in Malakand Division (which, before the implementation of the 2002 devolution plan, included the present day districts of Malakand, Swat and Chitral), expressed at a gathering in Timergara in Dir on May 9, 1994. It was not a mere slogan—much thinking and planning had gone into the project. The demand, in fact, was an ultimatum. Within a couple of weeks, TNSM took control of the area, including government offices and a local airport, through sheer force and announced the imposition of Sharia law. The group's call to arms drew large numbers of experienced Afghan fighters from nearby Peshawar city and Bajaur Agency. The movement almost spun out of control (The Herald, February, 1999). Embarrassed by this turn of events, the Pakistani government acted belatedly and foolishly, leading to the deaths of around 40 people, including a member of the provincial assembly and more than a dozen paramilitary troops, before some semblance of normality was returned to the area.

Peace was only restored after a deal that served as a clear victory for TNSM—Sufi Mohammad handed himself over to the military and the federal government who had agreed to accept TNSM's major demand, which was the enforcement of Sharia. Sufi Mohammad remained in government custody for only a short period of time, and by November 1994 senior government functionaries sent him official letters addressed to "Honorable Maulana Sufi Mohammad bin Hasan Mahmud," updating him about government directives to enforce Sharia law and requesting his cooperation. Immediate official instructions were then issued to establish religious courts. TNSM's supporters, meanwhile, happily started driving on the wrong side of the road claiming to defy the traffic rules introduced by Great Britain a century ago. Men were also told to grow beards. In short, Talibanization began to take place. The political leadership of the country did not see where all this might lead and missed a golden opportunity to end the problem at its outset.

Malakand suffered in the process greatly. Already a conservative area, the roots of extremism became entrenched. For instance, in the case of women—already bound tight by traditions and coerced to stay within their homes or behind their veils—their space became even more restricted. During electoral campaigns, the female candidates (to fill the special seats reserved for women) were compelled to affix their husband's photograph onto registration papers instead of their own. Subsequently, husbands of elected women even began attending official activities.

Beginning of the End?

After this episode, Islamabad hoped that the movement would fizzle out on its own. For the time being, however, other emerging religious militant groups took center stage in the media and TNSM was no longer in the national news. For Pakistan's military and intelligence agencies, supporting the insurgency in Indian-controlled Kashmir and logistic upkeep of Taliban forces in Afghanistan were their primary objectives and they looked the other way when it came to the local agendas of extremist outfits that they were supporting. TNSM sustained its support base during this period, while strengthening its intimate relationship with the Taliban in Afghanistan. In an August 1998 speech in Peshawar, Sufi Mohammed declared that those opposing the imposition of Sharia in Pakistan were wajib-ul-qatl (worthy of death), and he threatened to attack Americans in Pakistan unless the United States apologized for missile strikes in Afghanistan (Jane's Intelligence Review, January, 1999). Some supporters of Sufi Mohammad became disgruntled, however, since little development work had been done in the area since 1994. To curb such trends, TNSM again raised its profile in April 2001, but the governor of the NWFP at the time snubbed them by arguing: "The real issue in Malakand is not the implementation of Sharia, but of non-custom paid vehicles, unlawful deforestation and avoidance of taxes" (Daily Mashriq, May 3, 2001). Indeed, religion was not the only defining factor in this power matrix since many criminals benefited financially by supporting TNSM.

It was only after the September 11 terrorist attacks in the United States and the subsequent American campaign in Afghanistan that the government of Pakistan began to focus on TNSM. Sufi Mohammad by then was openly recruiting people to go to Afghanistan to fight U.S.-led forces. Soon he managed to cross into Afghanistan with approximately 7,000-8,000 volunteers to support the bewildered Taliban (Dawn, July 29, 2004; Daily Times, November 1). When a majority of his soldiers had been either killed or captured, he returned home only to be arrested by government forces. He was ultimately convicted on April 24, 2002, along with his 30 companions, to seven years of imprisonment for inciting people to go to Afghanistan and for violating state restrictions. The organization was no longer a legitimate entity and was banned by President General Pervez Musharraf in January 2002. Some of its members drifted toward another extremist outfit—Tehrik-e-Taliban (Movement of the Taliban)—which had operated from Orakzai Agency since 1998.

TNSM: Alive and Kicking

In the absence of Sufi Mohammad, his son-in-law Maulana Fazalullah became the leader of the organization. He is also known as "Maulana Radio" due to his expertise in launching illegal FM radio stations for propaganda purposes. Maulana Liaqatullah, who was killed during the October 30 Bajaur seminary strike, and Maulana Faqir Mohammad have been the other important players in TNSM during the last couple of years. Both were based in Bajaur Agency and commanded training camps for the Taliban. The organization remained dormant for a few years in the aftermath of the Taliban's downfall (Terrorism Focus, May 17). Yet, after the October 8, 2005 deadly earthquake in the northern parts of Pakistan, TNSM re-energized itself and effectively propagated that the natural calamity was visited upon them because they were becoming irreligious. The recommended remedy in their view was simple—living by the strict Sharia code. Striking when the iron was hot, they successfully campaigned for the destruction of television sets and video players. Due to the lack of education in the region, the message resonated with the locals and TNSM received a new lease of life.

JI, according to most estimates, is still ahead in terms of public support in the area, but that may not continue for long. TNSM is fast transforming itself from a fringe group to a mainstream organization, at least in the Bajaur area. This black turbaned brigade has even attracted some former military servicemen to its cadres as well. It is noteworthy that even while negotiating with government officials in recent weeks, TNSM leaders continue to emphasize that "Mullah Omar and Osama bin Laden are their heroes" (Daily Times, October 29).

Conclusion

TNSM's extremist ideological roots, violent behavior since the mid-1990s, collaboration with criminal elements and terrorist tactics were sufficient warning signals for Pakistan's government to curb its activities effectively and pursue criminal cases against its top leaders (The News, October 18, 2004; Daily Times, May 15, 2005). This did not occur, however, and the pursuant mayhem was predictable. The recent targeted killings of TNSM leaders are unlikely to resolve the crisis. The religious seminaries that put a premium on bigotry and propagate hatred should be closed down. Equally important is the establishment of modern schools as an alternative to their more radical ideology. The "Enlightened Moderation" of Musharraf is failing because he is using it merely as a slogan and little is being done on the ground. Sufi Mohammad, who will be a free man again in December 2008, must be nodding with approval from his prison cell.

http://www.jamestown.org/terrorism/news/article.php?articleid=2370222

candypreet

12-02-2006, 05:35 AM

keith

12-02-2006, 05:41 AM

good post, I hope you dont miind if I copy it into myy thread

http://www.wincoast.com/forum/showthread.php?t=13772

By all means. The website is a good source of info for terror and asia.

Petronas

12-04-2006, 03:38 PM

Muslims demand rape law reverse
December 02, 2006

ONLY 10 days after Pakistan's military-led Government reformed the country's medieval rape and adultery laws, Islamabad appeared poised for a major backflip on the issue yesterday in an effort to pacify Islamic fundamentalists who have signed a fatwa against the historic changes. Hardline Pakistani religious leaders have labelled the reforms "un-Islamic, immoral and unconstitutional" and evidence of "Western values infiltrating society".

In response, Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz has authorised the Pakistan Muslim League to negotiate with religious scholars and leaders of the powerful Islamic opposition alliance, the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA), over changes to the rape bill.

The reforms to the rape laws were acclaimed by women's rights groups in Pakistan and around the world as an overdue change to a system that has long been regarded as an affront to civil liberties.

But as much as it won global plaudits, and the firm backing of President Pervez Musharraf, the bill evoked fury among the Islamic fundamentalist parties that are supportive of the Taliban in Afghanistan, and are seen as a growing threat to the Pakistani Government in elections scheduled for next year.

The MMA, which has strong representation in the central parliament and controls the legislatures in two key provinces, has threatened to lead a mass movement to depose the Government, sparking a serious rethink on the rape laws.

Negotiations over the bill follow two days of fury in mosques across the country, with Muslim priests leading attacks on the changes, denouncing them for their "Western values" and attacking those who supported the reforms.

Under the changes, complaints of rape and adultery will be dealt with under the country's civil penal code rather than under an obscure Islamic sharia ruling imposed in 1979 that demands that four male witnesses testify before a rape charge can be proved.

Reports said yesterday that as part of the attempt to curb the gathering campaign against the rape law changes, police and paramilitary forces had ringed the headquarters of the fundamentalist Jamaat-e-Islami party in the Punjab capital of Lahore, where thousands of protesters led by the MMA were gathering to demonstrate against the changes to the legislation.

A leader of the group said: "The MMA remains absolutely committed to stop these changes, and if necessary to bring about a change in the Government."

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,20857109-2703,00.html

Petronas

12-08-2006, 11:31 AM

Another missile found in capital
Friday, December 08, 2006

Law enforcement agencies found a missile in Sector F-11/1 on Thursday. District administration officials and law enforcement agencies cordoned off the area after a shepherd spotted the missile and informed the area police. The Bomb Disposal Squad was also summoned and they shifted the missile to Rawalpindi after taking necessary protective measures. This is the third time in the last two months that missiles have been found in the capital. Security agencies found missiles outside the National Assembly building on October 6 and located more missiles outside the headquarters of an intelligence agency a day later. Shalimar Police SHO Mohammad Hussain Lasi said the missile found on Thursday was dormant and could have been set off in the 1988 Ojri Camp explosions.

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2006\12\08\story_8-12-2006_pg1_4

Petronas

12-20-2006, 12:11 AM

Terror Charges Dropped Against Alleged U.K. Terror Plot Mastermind
December 13, 2006 9:34 AM

An anti-terrorism court in Pakistan has dropped all terrorism-related charges against the British citizen who, U.S. authorities say, is the mastermind behind the U.K. terror plot to bomb a series of airplanes this summer. Rashid Rauf still faces charges of fraud and possession of a fake passport, both of which will be pursued in a normal court. Rauf will remain in custody for the time being, and the government of Pakistan does have the right to appeal today's ruling.

Rauf's lawyer told the Agence France-Presse today that the prosecution had claimed Rauf was in possession of 29 bottles of the chemical hydrogen peroxide, which was meant to be used to blow up the passenger jets. "But they failed to produce any evidence to support the allegations," the lawyer, Hasmat Habib, said. "This chemical is also used to heal wounds."

At the time of his arrest in Pakistan this summer, U.S. authorities described Rauf as the ringleader who was essentially running the plot by remote control from Pakistan. Authorities say they were able to track his phone calls back to London and wire transfers of money for the suicide bombers' plane tickets.

Pakistani authorities arrested Rauf in cooperation with British authorities. They said he was found near the border with Afghanistan and had direct ties to al Qaeda.

http://blogs.abcnews.com/theblotter/2006/12/terror_charges_.html

Petronas

12-25-2006, 01:19 PM

Al-Qaeda's Sanctuary
Thursday, December 21, 2006

THREE MONTHS ago the Pakistani government struck a deal with pro-Taliban leaders in the district of North Waziristan, bordering Afghanistan: It agreed to abandon military operations, withdraw the army and release prisoners in exchange for promises that the militants would cease cross-border attacks and disarm the foreign terrorists in their midst. That the extremists would not respect the accord, and that attacks on U.S. forces in Afghanistan would increase rather than decline, obviously seemed likely at the time. Yet President Bush, ever indulgent of Pakistan's autocratic ruler, Gen. Pervez Musharraf, accepted his promises. "When the president looks me in the eye and says the tribal deal is intended to reject the Talibanization of the people, and that there won't be a Taliban and won't be al-Qaeda, I believe him," Mr. Bush declared when he met Gen. Musharraf at the White House on Sept. 22.

As senior administration officials now acknowledge, Gen. Musharraf's assurances were empty -- as they have been many times before. According to multiple independent reports, Waziristan has been thoroughly Talibanized, and the fundamentalists are spreading their influence through adjacent border districts. Cross-border attacks and the deaths of American soldiers that they cause are up significantly. Al-Qaeda is reliably reported to be operating training camps in North Waziristan with the help of scores of foreign militants who are schooling recruits in suicide bombing and the use of improvised explosive devices. According to a stunning report in the current edition of Newsweek, they are also preparing Western citizens who could carry out major terrorist attacks in Britain or the United States.

Director of National Intelligence John D. Negroponte grossly understated the case last week when he told The Post that "tribal authorities are not living up to the deal" struck by Gen. Musharraf and that the Taliban cross-border activity "causes serious problems." Considering the grave threat to U.S. soldiers and the homeland itself posed by the Pakistani sanctuary, the intelligence chief sounded positively laconic. "Sooner or later the government will have to reckon with it," he said, before quickly offering excuses for Gen. Musharraf, who, he said, "has a domestic political balancing act to perform."

In fact the situation in Pakistan's border areas is starting to look a lot like eastern Afghanistan before Sept. 11, 2001. President Bush and Mr. Negroponte ought to be asking themselves if they are repeating history by tolerating the situation. They need not do so: The United States has provided Gen. Musharraf strategic cover and billions of dollars in military and economic aid since 2001. In return it should have the right to demand that he abandon his separate peace. Action must be taken against Taliban and al-Qaeda forces in Pakistan before spring, when another major offensive against U.S. and NATO forces can be expected unless the enemy bases and supply lines are disrupted.

As for Gen. Musharraf's political problems, these could be addressed if he stopped allying himself with Pakistan's own Muslim fundamentalists and rehabilitated the secular democratic political parties that he has repressed since his 1999 coup. He could also abolish the colonial governing system in the tribal areas, under which secular political parties are banned and mullahs empowered, and allow representative government. By tolerating the general's empty promises and excuses, the Bush administration is putting its mission in Afghanistan and homeland security into unacceptable jeopardy.

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/12/20/AR2006122001619_pf.html

Petronas

12-26-2006, 07:42 PM

Pakistan airport blast kills one
Tuesday, 26 December 2006, 04:54 GMT

One person has been killed in an explosion outside the airport in Peshawar, the capital of Pakistan's North West Frontier Province (NWFP). Two other people were hurt when a bomb exploded in a car parked near the airport's entrance, the police said. The airport was crowded with a number of flights arriving from and departing for the Middle East, the police said. There have been a number of bomb attacks in Peshawar recently - one left six people dead.

Tuesday's blast shattered the windows of several cars, reports say. "It was act of terrorism. We are investigating," senior police officer Malik Saad told Reuters news agency. Nobody has yet claimed responsibility for the explosion. ...

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/6209389.stm

NYer

01-12-2007, 08:46 AM

Negroponte: AQ Bigs in Pakistan. (http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070112/ts_nm/security_usa_threats_qaeda_dc)

http://www.rantburg.com/images/surprise.jpg

candypreet

01-12-2007, 12:26 PM

Negroponte: AQ Bigs in Pakistan. (http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20070112/ts_nm/security_usa_threats_qaeda_dc)

http://www.rantburg.com/images/surprise.jpg

good post

NYer

01-14-2007, 09:58 AM

Sharif, Benazir Need Not Apply (http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticleNew.asp?xfile=data/subcontinent/2007/January/subcontinent_January483.xml&section=subcontinent&col=)

President General Pervez Musharraf has said the fomer premiers Nawaz Sharif and Ms Benazir Bhutto would not be allowed to return and take part in elections; there would be no deal with any of them nor would there be any seat adjustments outside the components of the ruling coalition.

He said the elections would be held on schedule, these would be fair and transparent and all political parties would be allowed to take part freely.

Vancouver

01-15-2007, 10:26 PM

Pakistan has attacked a "military camp" near the Afghan border. It seems the Pak army announced it to the wire services. No links yet.

Update:
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) -- Pakistan's army destroyed three suspected al Qaeda hideouts near the Afghan border on Tuesday morning, killing several militants, including foreigners, an army spokesman said.

Maj. Gen. Shaukat Sultan said the army carried out this operation in the South Waziristan tribal region after receiving confirmed intelligence reports that between 25 to 30 al Qaeda facilitators were hiding there.

"We believed several of them were killed, but we don't have a body count," he said.

candypreet

01-16-2007, 02:26 AM

Petronas

01-26-2007, 03:32 PM

From Pakistan, with jihad
Published: January 23, 2007

To learn why a resurgent Taliban is fighting American and NATO troops to a military draw in Afghanistan, you have to go to the frontier region on both sides of the Pakistan- Afghanistan border.

Our colleague, Carlotta Gall, did just that last month and what she learned led to a physical assault on her by Pakistani intelligence officials and five hours in custody for her photographer, Akhtar Soomro. The Pakistani agents broke into her hotel room and copied her notes and computer files. They then tracked down and questioned everyone she had interviewed in Quetta, a border city.

We now know why. Gall's reporting has determined that Quetta is an important rear base for the Taliban, and that the Pakistani authorities are encouraging and perhaps sponsoring the cross-border insurgency. That is a role that Pakistan's president, General Pervez Musharraf, denies. But residents of the border area, opposition figures and Western diplomats point to specific cases of Pakistani involvement. Americans need to know more about this collusion and to demand better answers from Musharraf.

There are many reasons that things are now going badly for the U.S.-backed Afghan government. America shortchanged Afghanistan's security in its rush to invade Iraq. European allies have inexcusably failed to provide NATO with enough soldiers to carry out the expanded Afghan security mission it took on last year and have imposed hobbling restrictions on the activities of those they did send. The government of the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, is rife with corruption, and the regional warlord allies it depends on to control outlying areas are even more thieving as well as shockingly brutal.

These problems all need to be addressed. But the positive results will be limited as long as Afghanistan's much more populous and powerful neighbor, Pakistan, provides rear support and sanctuary for the Taliban insurgency. It is simply impossible to believe that this support takes place without the approval of the Pakistani military, the country's dominant institution for a half-century.

Pakistan is now the third-largest recipient of American foreign aid. Yet more than five years after the Sept. 11th attacks, the Bush administration has still not been able to secure Pakistan's active and consistent support against the Taliban. The very least Washington should be demanding of Musharraf is that he enforce an immediate halt on Pakistani military support for the Taliban insurgents who are crossing the border and killing American troops.

http://www.iht.com/articles/2007/01/23/news/edpak.php

Petronas

01-27-2007, 02:04 PM

Bombing Kills 10, Wounds 35 in Pakistan
January 27, 2007 12:19 PM EST

PESHAWAR, Pakistan - A bomb exploded near a Shiite Muslim mosque in this northwestern Pakistani city late Saturday, killing at least 10 people, including the city police chief, police said. Most of the victims were police and municipal officials who were clearing the route for a procession of Shiites in a crowded old quarter of Peshawar, said police officer Aziz Khan. The procession had yet to begin. This weekend marks the start of the festival of Ashoura, when Shiites mourn the 7th century death of the prophet Muhammad's grandson, Imam Hussein. In the past the festival has been a target for sectarian attacks. Rab Nawaz, a policeman at the scene, said it was not clear if the explosion was a suicide attack.

The blast went off in a bazaar near the mosque that was the starting point for the procession. It caused a power outage that left the city center in darkness, complicating rescue efforts.

Ten bodies and 35 wounded people were brought to Peshawar's Lady Reading Hospital, Khan said. The city's police chief, Malik Saab, was among the dead, said provincial police chief Sharif Virk.

http://enews.earthlink.net/article/int?guid=20070127/45badc50_3421_13345200701271409972550

Petronas

01-30-2007, 08:35 PM

Six held in Pakistani bomb blitz
January 31, 2007

REELING from a third major suicide bombing in as many days, Pakistani security authorities claim to have foiled plans for further attacks after arresting six alleged bomb plotters with direct links to a prominent Taliban leader. The wave of suicide attacks, including one on the five-star Marriott hotel in the capital, Islamabad, has caused widespread fear in Pakistan, with concern it could herald a dangerous new phase in the struggle with jihadi militants.

The six alleged intending suicide bombers were reported last night to have been picked up in the turbulent Waziristan region in the North West Frontier Province, and reports said they planned to carry out attacks across the country. The six, who are now under intense interrogation in Islamabad, are said to have been found with suicide bomb vests packed with lethal explosives. The suspects were found with a computer disk showing Islamic militants cutting the throats of two alleged government spies in the North West Frontier Province. The images add to the growing fear that Pakistan is becoming more of a target for militants.

Pakistani authorities say the intending bombers arrested yesterday are linked to a prominent Taliban commander, Baitullah Masud, who is believed to operate in South Waziristan and is closely allied to al-Qa'ida militants in the area. A security source in Islamabad said: "The link between the spate of suicide bombings and the Taliban now seems pretty clear, and the arrest of the six is a significant development. The intelligence suggests the Taliban, having trained perhaps hundreds of suicide bombers, are now going to give priority to targets in Pakistan as part of a wider strategy."

Earlier in the day it was disclosed that in the latest attack by the suicide bombers a major police checkpoint in the important North West Frontier Province town of Dera Ismail Khan was blown up. In addition to the bomber, two other people, including a policeman, were killed, and seven were injured. At the same time, in an attack in nearby Bannu, at least 12 people were injured when rockets fired by militants hit a Shia mosque.

The attacks - particularly those in the North West Frontier Province - appear to have a strong religious dimension, coming at a time when Pakistan's Shia minority commemorates the 7th-century martyrdom of the Prophet Mohammad's grandson, Imam.

But analysts in Islamabad believe religion is just one part of a complex set of circumstances that makes the Taliban intent on avenging assaults on them and al-Qa'ida by Pakistani security forces inWaziristan. Heavy security measures were reported to be in place in the southern commercial city of Karachi, with senior officials claiming intelligence indicated at least three or four suicide bombers were in the port city waiting to strike, possibly against mosques. An extra 15,000 police and paramilitary personnel have been deployed in the city to deal with the threat.

Meanwhile, with growing alarm in Islamabad about the extent to which the worsening conflict in Afghanistan is spilling across into Pakistan, beleaguered Afghan President Hamid Karzai last night renewed his call for talks with the Taliban and other groups battling his Government for control of the country.

"While we are fighting with honour and dignity against an enemy who wants our destruction and wants us to bleed, once again we want to open a way for negotiations," Mr Karzai said in Kabul. Given the extent to which Pakistan has been unnerved by the spate of suicide bombings, it seems likely that in his effort to talk to the Taliban, the Afghan President will have the backing of Islamabad.

http://www.theaustralian.news.com.au/story/0,20867,21145769-2703,00.html

Petronas

01-30-2007, 09:40 PM

How does Mushi know that, if the ISI has no connections to Al Qaeda?

Al Qaeda divided; Laden and Zawahri are operating separately now, says Musharraf
Thursday January 25, 05:48 PM

If Pakistan President Pervez Musharraf is to be believed, Al Qaeda chief Osama Bin Laden and his deputy Ayman Al-Zawahri had developed differences and were operating separately now. According to him, various reports in the recent past have indicated this. He further claimed that Laden and Al-Zawahri were hiding in Afghanistan.

In a bid to reject the recent allegations that the Taliban leader Mulla Omar was hiding somewhere in Quetta, the Pakistani President said that the Taliban were being supported by Jalaluddin Haqqani and Mulla Dadullah, who were also in Afghanistan. "Therefore the Afghan government should capture them instead of accusing Pakistan of harbouring terrorists," the Daily Times quoted him as saying in an interview with Al-Arabia television.

He further said that the Taliban was solely Afghanistan's problem and rumours that the Al Qaeda leadership is in Pakistan are "a distortion of facts". "A perception is being created that the Taliban is more of Pakistan's problem than Afghanistan, which is not true. Pakistan could help Afghanistan by taking action against Pakistan-based religious parties who were providing funds to the Taliban," he added.

In the interview, the President also said that the Pakistani government would closely monitor Afghan refugee camps set up near the Pak-Afghan border, but, he added, "the Afghan government should also take practical measures in this respect". Claiming that he was against terrorism, he said that Pakistan had taken several measures against terrorism and the world community acknowledged Pakistan's efforts.

http://in.news.yahoo.com/070125/139/6biai.html

Petronas

01-31-2007, 02:24 PM

Musharraf's Inability to Control Pakistani Air Force is a Sign of Weakness
January 30, 2007 07:28 PM

A new article on Adnkronos International by Syed Saleem Shahzad provides a glimpse of Pakistani president Pervez Musharraf's weakness. After last week's bomb blasts in Islamabad and Peshawar, Musharraf asked Pakistan's air force to carry out a strike on Islamabad's largest madrassa. Two of the Pakistani Taliban's leading ideologues, Ghazi Abdul Rasheed and Maulana Abdul Aziz, are holed up there.

Shahzad reports:

[S]ources told AKI that Musharraf reportedly told a gathering of senior officials at a meeting in Rawalpindi: "I don’t want them in federal capital. If you are unable to arrest them . . . shoot them." Those attending reportedly disagreed categorically with the idea of an air strike in the capital city, and pointed out that the students of the influential clerics have already staged a powerful protest in the past few days against the demolition of two mosques in Islamabad and they are a force to be reckoned with.

In other words, Musharraf asked the air force to carry out a strike in Pakistan's capital city, and they refused to do so. According to a senior U.S. military intelligence source that I spoke with, the reason Musharraf asked the air force to carry out the strike is because Pakistan's army had already refused to raid the mosque. The source said that this further demonstrates the problem with Pakistan's security services: they are too close to the fundamentalists, such that Musharraf cannot exert full control over his military.

http://counterterrorismblog.org/2007/01/musharrafs_inability_to_contro.php

Vancouver

02-05-2007, 08:40 AM

6 Sunnis of an anti-Shiite group, arrested with weapons.
http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/16978406/from/RS.2/

Petronas

02-05-2007, 04:00 PM

Christian woman arrested in Pakistan on blasphemy charge
3 February 2007

Police arrested a Christian woman in Pakistan’s central Punjab province for allegedly making a blasphemous statement about the Prophet Mohammed (PBUH) outside a mosque, reports said on Saturday.

“We can’t allow people to desecrate the name of Holy Prophet,” police officer Reza Shah in the Changa Manga area, situated more than 70 kilometres south of Punjab capital Lahore, told the English- language Dawn newspaper. A local resident backed by two witnesses last month levelled the charge against 40-year-old Martha Bibi, who along with her husband runs a business dealing in building materials.

“The complaint lodged against her (Martha) is true,” Shah said, adding that: “Had we not arrested her, the people would have killed her.”

According to Martha’s husband, the complainant and his wife conspired against Martha when she sought payment for construction material she had sold for the construction of a local mosque.

Dawn said Martha’s family went into hiding after the incident while her relatives accused the police of “playing the judge and the jury.”

http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticleNew.asp?xfile=data/subcontinent/2007/February/subcontinent_February96.xml&section=subcontinent&col=

Ono

02-05-2007, 09:30 PM

“Had we not arrested her, the people would have killed her."

....and that WOULDN'T be a desecration? :mad_12:

Vancouver

02-06-2007, 01:40 PM

Vancouver

02-06-2007, 03:10 PM

Car or truck bomber blows himself up at Islamabad/Rawalpindi airport after being stopped by security.
http://edition.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/asiapcf/02/06/pakistan.airport.blast/index.html
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,250516,00.html
A second person involved, captured. From GeoNews:

ISLAMABAD: A suicide bomber blew himself up after opening fire at the Islamabad International airport Tuesday, killing himself and injuring three security officials, report said.

An accomplice of the attacker has been detained by the police, who opened fire at security officials before the other detonated himself up.

According to details, the attackers were heading towards the airport in a taxi and opened firing when security staffers tried to stop them, which injured three airport security officials.

One of the attackers suddenly blew himself up while the other two including the taxi driver have been arrested by law enforcement agencies.

It was learnt that countrywide airports have been put on high alert while Islamabad airport has been completely sealed soon after the incident.

Vancouver

02-11-2007, 10:39 PM

American artillery in Afghanistan is shelling Taliban targets in Waziristan.
http://www.cbsnews.com/stories/2007/02/11/world/main2458459.shtml

Petronas

02-16-2007, 11:41 AM

Three suicide bombers arrested in Karachi
Friday, February 16, 2007, Muharam 27, 1428 A.H.

KARACHI: CID police on Friday arrested three suspected suicide bombers and recovered bombs, explosives and weapons. According to police sources, CID Civil Lines raided a house in Gulistan-i-Johar on a tip-off and after a shootout arrested three accused Shahid alias Kashif, Farhan alias Nasir and Ghani Subhan and recovered suicide jackets and other weapons including hand grenades. Six other suspects managed to escape.

During the initial interrogation the suspects disclosed their plans including attacks on foreigners, police and other government officials. They belonged to Qari Zafar group that carried out several terror attacks in Pakistan. The suspects had earlier planned to attack an Ideas 2006 exhibition as well as Ashura processions, police said. According to police, foreign terrorists in South Waziristan trained them all. They accused would be presented in the court tomorrow.

http://thenews.com.pk/updates.asp#17951

Petronas

02-16-2007, 12:31 PM

Ban on beard-shaving extended across Bajaur
Thursday, February 15, 2007

KHAR: The ban on shaving of men’s beards has been extended across Bajaur Agency and violators will have to pay a Rs 5,000 fine, Ghulam Khan, president of the barbers association, said on Wednesday. “It has been unanimously decided that there will be a ban on shaving beards all over Bajaur Agency,” Ghulam Khan told reporters in Khar, regional headquarters of Bajaur Agency. The ban on shaving men’s beards was imposed following distribution of pamphlets from an unidentified militant group on Sunday that the practice was “un-Islamic”. “No excuse will be accepted for violating the ban and violators will have to pay a Rs 5,000 fine,” Ghulam Khan said, adding that the political administration had been informed about the barbers’ decision. “We have to take the threat seriously because no one can guarantee our security if we ignore the warning,” the chief barber added. Meanwhile, some youths have decided to secretly hire a barber to shave their beards every week. “The barber will come to a secret place and shave our beards because we don’t want to grow it,” the youths told Daily Times.

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2007\02\15\story_15-2-2007_pg1_8

Petronas

02-17-2007, 12:43 PM

Pak suicide bomber kills 15
Saturday, February 17, 2007

A suicide bomber in Pakistan killed 15 people, including a judge, in a courtroom in the city of Quetta on Saturday, the latest in a series of suicide blasts to have sent shudders through the country. Intelligence officials have attributed other attacks to sectarian Sunni militants linked to al Qaeda and groups operating from tribal areas, regarded as hotbeds of support for the Taliban.

Police made a string of arrests this week, including two suicide bomb teams caught in southern Pakistan. The bomb in Quetta exploded while a lower court was in session. A senior judge and six lawyers were among those killed, police in the capital of Baluchistan province said. According to our reports a man entered the room and blew himself up. A head has been found," Baluchistan province Chief Minister Jam Mohammad Yousuf said. "It could be a continuation of what is happening in other parts of the country." At least 25 people were injured and police chief Rahu Khan Brohi told Reuters six of them were in a critical condition.

The suicide attacks started after an army air strike on a militant base in South Waziristan tribal region in mid-January. Including the death toll from Quetta, nearly 45 people have been killed in bomb attacks since then, as militants have sought to destabilize President Pervez Musharraf's government and weaken his resolve to confront the Taliban, al Qaeda and their allies.

ARRESTS TARGET AL QAEDA ALLY
Police arrested two suicide bomb teams in southern Sindh province on Friday, and identified them as factions of Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, a Sunni Muslim sectarian militant group that has established ties with al Qaeda. One team of three militants was captured after a gunfight in the southern city of Karachi, and another team of three was caught in the evening boarding a train at Sukkur, 515 km (321 miles) northeast of the port city. "We found explosives, splinters, circuits and jackets used in suicide bombings, as well as Jihadi literature on them," district police officer Mazhar Nawaz, told Reuters from Sukkur. Police said the militants arrested in Karachi and Sukkur had been planning attacks on Pakistan's Muslim Shi'ite minority at the end of the holy month of Muharram, which falls in the first week of March. On Thursday , police arrested two members of Laskar-e-Jhangvi in Rawalpindi, the garrison town next door to Islamabad.

Road blocks had been set up in Islamabad, and police were stopping and questioning drivers of small cars, taxis and trucks. Foreign embassies have told their staff to limit their travel in the capital. Officials in Quetta were unsure who carried out Saturday's blast. "Initially we suspect nationalist extremists, as well as Afghan Taliban could be behind the attack," Razak Bugti, a spokesman for the Baluchistan government, said. Television footage from the wrecked courthouse showed people and police walking through pools of blood, collecting belongings. Body parts and torn clothes could be seen all around. Pakistan has been under mounting pressure from the United States and Afghanistan to tackle Taliban sanctuaries on its territory. Taliban leaders are widely believed to be operating from in and around Quetta, capital of the restive province of Baluchistan, though Pakistan consistently denies their presence. Baluchistan is also beset with unrest due to ethnic Baluch militants, who are fighting for greater autonomy.

http://www.zeenews.com/znnew/articles.asp?rep=2&aid=354823&sid=WOR

Petronas

02-18-2007, 03:31 PM

Ammunition seized in Dera Bugti
Sunday, February 18, 2007

QUETTA: The Bhambore Rifles, a wing of the Balochistan Frontier Corps, seized a large quantity of ammunition from Dera Bugti’s Dasht Guran area on Saturday, according to an FC press release. The release said that the ammunition had been buried for use in acts of sabotage by miscreants. The seized ammunition included five shells of 82mm mortars along with four fuses, six shells of RPG-7 mortars along with three fuses, 24 fuses of landmines, 2.5 kilogrammes of explosives, 700 rounds of Kalashnikovs and cables used in making bombs.

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2007\02\18\story_18-2-2007_pg7_26

Petronas

02-18-2007, 03:33 PM

Islamabad on red alert
Sunday, February 18, 2007

ISLAMABAD: The capital has been put on red alert after a suicide attack in a civil court in Quetta on Saturday, leaving 15 dead and over 30 injured. Daily Times has learnt that over 1,500 Punjab police officials have been called in and positioned at all entry and exit points of the city and have been directed to petrol the city with the city police.

Over 40 temporary check posts have been set up at different places, each manned by six policemen equipped with sophisticated weapons. Police have been asked to take action against anyone refusing to prove his/her identity or presenting vehicle documents. Over 400 Punjab police officials along with the Frontier Constabulary have been deployed at diplomats’ houses outside the diplomatic enclave. Security around the houses of European diplomats has particularly been enhanced and they have been asked not to leave the city without informing police. Patrolling of the diplomatic enclave has also been intensified. Police are closely monitoring Afghan slums, seminaries, mosques and Imambarghas. Security has also been tightened in and around railway stations, bus stands and other public places.

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2007\02\18\story_18-2-2007_pg7_25

Petronas

02-21-2007, 02:36 PM

Alleged US spy found beheaded in Pakistan
20/02/2007 - 07:23:49

Suspected Islamic militants beheaded an Afghan refugee they accused of spying for the US, a Pakistani intelligence official said today. The man’s body, with its severed head and limbs, was found yesterday near Ghulam Khan, a town in North Waziristan close to the Afghan border.

A note found with the body identified the dead man as Nek Amal, from Zozak village in Afghanistan’s neighbouring Khost province. It said Amal was “a spy of America”, the official said. Afghan refugees from Khost living in Ghulam Khan identified Amal’s body and transported it to Khost for burial, he said.

Scores of people, including tribal elders and some clerics, have been killed by suspected militants in recent years in the border region for alleged collusion with Pakistani authorities or spying for the US. Many have occurred in North Waziristan, where Taliban and al Qaida militants are believed to have found refuge among sympathetic tribesmen since the US-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001.

http://breakingnews.iol.ie/news/story.asp?j=210922442&p=zyx9z3y48

Petronas

02-21-2007, 07:46 PM

Female Pakistani minister shot dead for 'breaking Islamic dress code'
February 20, 2007

A Pakistani minister and woman’s activist has been shot dead by an Islamic extremist for refusing to wear the veil. Zilla Huma Usman, the minister for social welfare in Punjab province and an ally of President Pervez Musharraf, was killed as she was about to deliver a speech to dozens of party activists, by a “fanatic”, who believed that she was dressed inappropriately and that women should not be involved in politics, officials said. Mrs Usman, 35, was wearing the shalwar kameez worn by many professional women in Pakistan, but did not cover her head.

The attack happened in Gujranwala, 120 miles southeast of Islamabad, where the minister’s office is based. As Ms Usman, 35, stepped out of her car – where she was greeted by her co-workers throwing rose petals - the attacker pulled out a pistol and fired a single shot at close range, hitting her in the head. She was airlifted to hospital in the provincial capital Lahore, but died soon afterwards.

The gunman, Mohammad Sarwar, was overpowered by the minister’s driver and arrested by police. A stone mason in his mid 40s, he is not thought to belong to any radical group but is known for his fanaticism. He was previously held in 2002 in connection with the killing and mutilation of four prostitutes, but was never convicted due to lack of evidence.

Mr Sarwar appeared relaxed and calm when he told a television channel that he had carried out God’s order to kill women who sinned. “I have no regrets. I just obeyed Allah’s commandment,” he said, adding that Islam did not allow women to hold positions of leadership. “I will kill all those women who do not follow the right path, if I am freed again,” he said.

“He is basically a fanatic,” Raja Basharat, the Punjab Law Minister, said. “He is against the involvement of women in politics and government affairs.” A police statement added: “He considers it contrary to the teachings of Allah for a woman to become a minister or a ruler. That’s why he committed this action.”

“He killed her because she was not observing the Islamic code of dress. She was also campaigning for emancipation of women,” said Nazir Ahmad, a local officer.

Ms Usman, a married mother of two sons, joined the pro-Musharraf Pakistan Muslim League after being elected in 2002. A strong supporter of the President’s policy of “enlightened moderation” - designed to tackle extremism - she was appointed to her current post in December last year according to her government biography. In April 2005, she encouraged the holding of a mini-marathon involving female competitors in Gujranwala – an event which led to riots after police intervened to stop armed Islamic activists from disrupting the race. She also ran a small fashion business from her base in the town.

Shaukat Aziz, the Prime Minister, paid tribute to the minister, describing her as a “committed and dedicated politician”. “During her short span as minister, she took several steps for the welfare of the people of Punjab,” he said. Zobaida Jalal, the federal Minister for Social Welfare, added that Ms Usman’s death was an “unbearable loss to the cause of women rights and their empowerment”.

General Musharraf, whose support for the US-led war on terror has caused consternation among Pakistan's hardline elements, has promised to address women’s rights as part of his more moderate agenda.

But analysts said that the murder of the female minister highlighted the failure of his government in curbing Islamic extremism. The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan in a recent report said that violence against women had increased alarmingly, with some of the incidents incited by Mullahs opposed to women’s emancipation.

Islamists also campaigned against the Women Protection Bill which was recently passed by parliament, which seeks to provide protection to women who have suffered discrimination under Islamic Sharia laws.

Women make up just over 20 per cent of the lower house of parliament, according to the country’s main human rights group, and there are three women ministers in the cabinet of the federal government. But widespread discrimination against females continues to be a problem in what remains a male-dominated society, particularly in the countryside, where most Pakistanis live.

http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article1414137.ece

Petronas

02-25-2007, 08:03 PM

Biking militants die when bomb explodes prematurely
1003 GMT (1803 HKT), February 24, 2007

CHEECHA WATNI, Pakistan (AP) -- Three Islamic militants died in eastern Pakistan when a powerful bomb they were transporting by bicycle accidentally exploded Saturday near a bustling cattle market, police said.

Mohammed Shakil, a police inspector at the scene, told The Associated Press one of the men riding a bicycle had strapped explosives to his body that exploded prematurely, killing himself and the two others in Cheecha Watni, a town about 100 kilometers (60 miles) east of Multan, a city in Punjab province. Shakil said the slain men were students of a local seminary and had links with Sipah-e-Sahaba -- a Sunni militant group outlawed by the government in 2001 in an effort to purge Pakistan of extremism.

Local police chief Mohammed Bashir said the cattle market with hundreds of customers may have been the target, or police who had gathered for a funeral service at the home of an officer recently killed in a gunbattle with militants.

The severed head of one of the militants was found in a nearby field, Shakil said. Police collected the suspects' remains for DNA testing.

Militants have vowed to avenge the killing of their comrades by Pakistani forces in the country's deeply conservative tribal areas, where Pakistan has deployed about 80,000 soldiers to flush out Taliban and al Qaeda fighters.

Police and security agencies have been on maximum alert following the January 26 suicide attack outside a five star hotel in Islamabad that killed a guard. A suicide bomber killed 15 people -- including a judge -- when he blew himself up inside a courtroom in a southwestern city of Quetta on February 17.

http://edition.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/asiapcf/02/24/pakistan.bomb.ap/

Ono

02-25-2007, 09:15 PM

:) ...

candypreet

02-26-2007, 01:48 AM

Pakistan meeting of Muslim FMs urges diplomacy on Iran

http://www.turkishpress.com/news.asp?id=164280

candypreet

03-03-2007, 12:34 AM

Pakistan remains the transit route for Afghan opium to world markets
Malaysia Sun
Friday 2nd March, 2007
(ANI)

http://story.malaysiasun.com/index.php/ct/9/cid/b8de8e630faf3631/id/231508/cs/1/
Washington, Mar 2 : Pakistan is the main transit route for the Afghan opium to the world markets. This has been disclosed by the US State Department's 2006 International Narcotics Control Strategy Report issued her last evening.

It said that the production and trafficking of opium and its derivatives continue to be a major challenge to Afghanistan's political and economic development and threatens regional stability.

"To a very significant extent, when it comes to opiates, Pakistan is part of the massive Afghan opium production/refining system," the Daily Times quoted the report as saying.

It said that most of the processed opium was trafficked through Pakistan and that Pakistani traffickers in the "remote and lawless" Balochistan and North West Frontier provinces provide financing to Afghan poppy farmers and supply a conduit for the refined opiates en route to Turkey, Iran, Russia and Eastern Europe.

Efforts to strengthen law enforcement in Afghanistan simply might shift the bulk of the trafficking operations across the porous border into Pakistan. In response to this threat, the Pakistan government has increased its personnel in the Anti-Narcotics Force and the Balochistan Frontier Corps, reported the Daily Times.

Besides, Pakistan has also forged agreements with the Afghan government to share operational and long-term intelligence regarding drug trafficking activities along their common border and participate in a "hammer and anvil" military operation in co-ordination with the Afghan army.

The US State Department report further said that despite a 48 percent decrease in hectares under poppy cultivation from 2004 to 2005, Afghanistan still produces nearly 90 percent of the world's opium poppy supply. Much of the crop is refined into heroin and morphine at drug labs inside the country. The report estimates that at 2.8 billion dollars, the opium trade accounts for one-third of Afghanistan's GDP.

"Afghanistan's huge drug trade severely impacts efforts to rebuild the economy, develop a strong democratic government based on the rule of law, and threatens regional stability," said the report and indicated that much of Afghanistan's processed opium is trafficked through Pakistan.

Petronas

03-12-2007, 12:38 PM

Where to post this? Pakistan, Germany or Bosnia? Jihad knows no borders...

Bosnian citizen arrested in Pakistan on terrorism charges
Banja Luka, 13:47

The Bosnian citizen Nihad C. (29) was arrested in Pakistan in late January over suspected links to Al-Qaeda, the BiH media quote German magazine Der Spiegel. Nihad C. was arrested by Pakistan's intelligence service ISI in Ravaldpindi on suspicion of having attended al-Qadea's terror camp.

The Bosnian citizen lived in Pforzheim, south-west Germany. The man was known to the German authorities for having contacts with Islamists in Germany and Bosnia, Der Spiegel said. The magazine claimed Nihad C has links to Micheal N, a German convert to Islam who was also arrested by Pakistan's secret services over suspected terror contacts.

http://www.makfax.com.mk/look/agencija/article.tpl?IdLanguage=1&IdPublication=2&NrArticle=58366&NrIssue=293&NrSection=20

candypreet

03-13-2007, 01:56 AM

JF-17s arrive in Pakistan
Tuesday March 13, 2007 (0915 PST)

http://www.paktribune.com/news/index.shtml?171729

candypreet

03-13-2007, 02:02 AM

Pakistan says no logistic support for U.S. in case of war against Iran

http://english.people.com.cn/200703/12/eng20070312_356708.html

Petronas

03-30-2007, 09:49 PM

Pakistani Militants Overwhelm Village Near Volatile Afghan Border
28 March 2007

A large force of well-armed militants has overwhelmed a Pakistani village near the country's volatile border with Afghanistan. The militants killed at least one security official and kidnapped a local school principal. From Islamabad, VOA Correspondent Benjamin Sand reports officials are concerned that local and foreign militants are gaining control over parts of Pakistan's remote tribal areas. Local residents say as many as 500 militants launched the pre-dawn raid in the town of Tank, in Pakistan's North West Frontier Province.

The attackers launched mortars and rocket-propelled grenades at a local police station and kidnapped a school principal before leaving the town. Major General Wahid Arshad, a military spokesman, says the overnight battle lasted several hours, and both sides suffered casualties. "There was fighting between the police and these people," he said. "They attacked the police station, they also burned a couple of banks and the national savings center." He says the attack was apparently a response to clashes outside a local boy's school earlier this week, which left at least two suspected militants dead.

Arshad and other Pakistani officials say the militants, who are apparently Pakistanis themselves, were trying to recruit children as suicide bombers when the police intervened.

Officials say security forces have regained control of the town, and are actively pursuing the militants in the surrounding countryside. There is no word on the principal's condition. The Associated Press quotes an unnamed militant as saying the educator is being questioned to see if he alerted police about the militants' recruiting efforts.

The violence is fueling growing concerns Islamist militants have taken the upper hand in the fight to gain control over Pakistan's rugged tribal areas. Hundreds of Taleban and al-Qaida militants are also believed to be hiding out in the isolated region, which runs along the Afghan border.

Both U.S. and Afghan officials say Taleban insurgents have been massing inside Pakistan, and could be about to launch a major new offensive into Afghanistan. Pakistan has deployed about 80,000 troops in the area in an effort to contain militant activity there, but the activity shows little sign of abating.

http://www.voanews.com/english/2007-03-28-voa18.cfm

candypreet

03-31-2007, 04:21 AM

Pak tests short-range N-capable missile

http://content.msn.co.in/News/International/InternationalAP_310307_1115.htm

Petronas

04-01-2007, 01:16 AM

Tribesmen attack Qaeda bunkers
Sunday, April 01, 2007

WANA: Local tribesmen attacked foreign Al Qaeda militants hiding in bunkers in ongoing clashes that killed five people in South Waziristan on Saturday, bringing the total death toll since fighting began on March 19 to 177, officials and residents said.

Pro-government tribesmen launched an assault overnight on bunkers occupied by the militants as part of efforts to drive them from the tribal agency bordering Afghanistan, they said. They seized seven bunkers dug into a mountain from where Uzbek militants and their Chechen and Arab allies could launch attacks on the main town of Wana, they said.

“The foreign militants fled. They suffered casualties but details were not available,” a security official told AFP, requesting anonymity. He said a pro-government tribal commander was wounded in the fighting which continued until Saturday morning.

Foreign militants also shelled Pakistani army soldiers in the area, killing two, another security official said. Troops from an army base in the area responded with artillery fire targeting foreign militants on the outskirts of Wana, he said.

Two children were killed late Friday when a mortar shell fired by Uzbeks landed in their home in Shen Warsak town and the body of a tribal fighter was found in the area on Saturday, residents said.

Interior Minister Aftab Ahmed Khan Sherpao said more than 50 people had been killed on Friday during clashes between Islamist militants and local Pashtun tribesmen. Witnesses said the estimate was on the high side, but even by their reckoning the fighting has taken a heavy toll.

A resident of Shin Warsak, the village where fighting is concentrated, said he saw the bodies of 21 dead foreigners. “Sporadic heavy fire continued throughout the night, but it has become more intense now in Shin Warsak,” Noor Ali, another resident, told Reuters.

The clashes began after the Uzbek militants tried to assassinate a pro-government tribal leader earlier this month, and flared again on Wednesday after attempts to broker a truce broke down.

Officials have said the onslaught by local tribesmen against foreign Al Qaeda militants could curb cross-border attacks by the rebels in Afghanistan. The Pakistani government “is not intervening” in the clashes, a top security official told AFP. “We hope this onslaught against foreign militants will help reduce cross-border activity. The foreigners were involved in this cross-border activity,” the official said. “This is a decisive battle for us.”

The Al Qaeda militants numbering around 500 were effectively under siege as all roads to the areas where they are dug in are controlled by tribal commander Mullah Nazir, who is said to have around 1,500 men, residents said.

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2007\04\01\story_1-4-2007_pg1_3

Casey

04-06-2007, 02:18 PM

Lal Masjid to set up ‘Shariat court’ today

Govt says use of force last option; HR activists protest ‘anti-vice’ patrols
ISLAMABAD: An announcement about the enforcement of Islamic Shariah will be made at the ‘Enforcement of Shariah and Azmat-e-Jihad’ conference being held here today (Friday) at Lal Masjid.

A Shariat court comprising 10 muftis will be set up in this regard. The court will take decisions against those found involved in running brothels and following illegal practices. The Enforcement of Shariat and Azmat-e-Jihad conference will continue till Asar prayers. Noted Ulema will address the conference.

A three-day Aitkaf has started in the central Lal Masjid and it will conclude on April 7. Thousands of people from across the country have reached Lal Masjid. Maulana Abdul Aziz, the prayer leader of Lal Masjid, said that an announcement about the enforcement of Shariah would be made in the conference and a Shariat court comprising 10 muftis would be set up.

The court would caution that no one should operate brothels in Islamabad or Rawalpindi. If people did not refrain from pursuing un-Islamic practices, the students of Lal Masjid would take notice of it on their own.

Meanwhile, the federal government has described the use of force in the Jamia Hafsa and Lal Masjid issues as the last option. Sources told Online news agency that Home Secretary Kamal Shah reviewed the whole situation at a high-level meeting on Thursday. Kamal said the government has directed the Islamabad district administration to continue to pursue the dialogue process with the Lal Masjid and Jamia Hafsa administration.

The Islamabad administration briefed him about the ongoing negotiations with the administration of Jamia Hafsa and Lal Masjid. The meeting decided that the use of force against the students of Jamia Hafsa would be the last option. The government will try its utmost not to allow the students of Jamia Hafsa to take law into their own hands.

The meeting also decided to arrest the elements who are found involved in stopping or forcing the owners of video shops or CDs shops to shut their businesses. Sources said the National Crisis Management Cell set up in the Interior Ministry is persistently monitoring the matters related to Lal Masjid and Jamia Hafsa.

Reports on a day-to-day basis are being sent to President Pervez Musharraf, Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz and Interior Minister Aftab Ahmed Khan Sherpao in this respect. Meanwhile, hundreds of human rights activists rallied on Thursday to urge the government to act against the students of Jamia Hafsa who have launched “anti-vice” patrols in the Islamabad.

Around 600 protesters chanted slogans calling upon the authorities to “curb the rise of extremist forces in the country that are promoting intolerance and violence,” an AFP photographer witnessed.

The protest came a week after Burqa-clad girls from the Jamia Hafsa abducted a local woman accused of running a brothel. They released the women and her two relatives two days later, after making her read out a confession.

Male students from Lal Masjid, meanwhile, have formed Taliban-style “Vice and Virtue” squads urging owners of DVD and music shops to shut their business. The students were “harassing and terrorising ordinary citizens in the name of Islam” and must be stopped, said a joint statement by the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan and a dozen non-governmental organisations. It also urged people to “rise against these extremist religious bigoted forces and secure the future of the present and future generations.”

http://thenews.jang.com.pk/top_story_detail.asp?Id=6945

NYer

04-20-2007, 04:32 PM

Suffer the little children. (http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=D8OKGBA80&show_article=1&catnum=-1)

The boy with the knife looks barely 12. In a high-pitched voice, he denounces the bound, blindfolded man before him as an American spy. Then he hacks off the captive's head to cries of "God is great!" and hoists it in triumph by the hair.

A video circulating in Pakistan records the grisly death of Ghulam Nabi, a Pakistani militant accused of betraying a top Taliban official who was killed in a December airstrike in Afghanistan.

An Associated Press reporter confirmed Nabi's identity by visiting his family in Kili Faqiran, their remote village in southwestern Pakistan.

The video, which was obtained by AP Television News in the border city of Peshawar on Tuesday, appears authentic and is unprecedented in jihadist propaganda because of the youth of the executioner.

And they say alligators eat their young ...

candypreet

04-21-2007, 09:56 AM

NYer

06-12-2007, 10:10 AM

Mush may not make it through the summer. (http://www.nysun.com/article/56333)

Over the past month, the military regime in Islamabad has faced a rising threat of violent jihadis in its capital, as well as the struggle between the president and the suspended chief justice of the country, Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry. The twin challenges have led some analysts in the American intelligence community to begin questioning whether Pakistan's military, traditionally General Musharraf's most reliable ally, will support the current regime for much longer.

keith

06-20-2007, 08:43 AM

Pakistani Official Hints Musharraf To Quit Army Post

By CAROL GIACOMO, REUTERS

Pakistani Foreign Minister Khursheed Mehmood Kasuri strongly suggested on June 18 that President Pervez Musharraf would give up his post as army chief by year’s end as political opponents have demanded and the nuclear-armed country’s constitution requires.

Musharraf, a general who took power in a 1999 coup and who also holds the title of army chief, is facing growing turmoil and opposition to his rule since his March 9 decision to suspend the country’s chief justice.

He has been viewed as reluctant to give up his army post by the end of the year as required by the constitution, a move that would signal the country’s return to civilian rule.

Musharraf "has said he will not violate the constitution," Kasuri told Reuters in an interview. "The constitution allows him to wear it (his army uniform) until the end of the year ... I cannot put words in his mouth but he has said, not one, but 1,000 times, that he will abide by the constitution."

Pressed on whether Americans should conclude from his remarks that the president will definitely vacate his army post, Kasuri said: "I will repeat what I said. President Musharraf has said umpteen times that he will abide by the constitution so I think you have a response there."

Controversially, Musharraf aims to be re-elected, probably while still army chief, by legislative assemblies before they are dissolved in November for a general election around the turn of the year.

Analysts believe Musharraf’s attempt to oust the chief justice, Iftikhar Chaudhry, is motivated by fear Chaudhry would allow constitutional challenges to his re-election plans.

Widespread allegations of rigging accompanied the last elections in 2002.

MANY MEETINGS

Kasuri arrived in Washington for an intensive round of 40 meetings over three days -- including talks with Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and Defense Secretary Robert Gates -- as political turmoil continued to roil Pakistan.
Kasuri played down his trip as routine consultations between key allies.
But it follows immediately after trips to Islamabad last week and over the weekend by three key U.S. officials -- Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte, Assistant Secretary of State Richard Boucher and Adm. William Fallon, chief of the U.S. Central Command.

Many critics have accused the administration of sticking too closely to Musharraf because he has been a key ally in the war against radical Islamists, and of failing to aggressively push for Pakistan’s return to civilian democracy.

But Rice, before meeting with Kasuri, told reporters: "We have been second to none in continuing to press for openness in Pakistan, for the rights of opposition in Pakistan and for free and fair elections."

She praised Musharraf as a "good ally in the war on terror" and as making important reforms related to education and women.

In the interview, Kasuri rejected suggestions the political protests were a serious challenge for Musharraf, citing as proof the fact that Pakistan’s stock market last week set a record, a sign of confidence in the economy.

Kasuri declined to say if Musharraf erred in suspending the chief justice but stressed that Musharraf has vowed to "abide by the judgment of the supreme court" which is investigating the case.

Pakistan’s elections will be "free and fair" and observed by international monitors, Kasuri said.

The minister said he could not confirm U.S. charges that Iran is arming Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan because he doesn’t know details and doesn’t want to say anything that could affect Pakistan’s neighborly relationship with Tehran.

Cross-border incursions by the Taliban militants have long been a bone of contention between Pakistan and Afghanistan, both U.S. allies.

http://www.defensenews.com/story.php?F=2842369&C=asiapac

keith

06-22-2007, 06:23 AM

Enough murder, enough mayhem. Tribes vow to fight Talibanisation

Call to arms from moderates abandoned by Islamabad on the chaotic Afghan frontier

Declan Walsh in Lakki Marwat and Charsadda
Thursday June 21, 2007
The Guardian

"In the name of Allah, lend me your ears!" Anwar Kamal, a political veteran of Pakistan's tribal areas, stood in a field before his constituents - 300 angry men from the Marwat tribe brandishing assault rifles, shotguns and, in a few cases, red roses pinned behind their ears.

In the sweltering heat an assistant fanned Mr Kamal, a parliamentarian and former minister, as tribesmen squatted at his feet. The Taliban had gone too far, he said. In recent months 11 people had been kidnapped from Marwat territory, and the tribe's honour had been impugned. Something had to be done.

Mr Kamal slowly raised his voice. If the hostages were not released in a week, he said, jabbing the air, then the Marwatis would raise a fighting force, invade the Taliban territory and "teach them a lesson". The tribesmen roared in approval. "Now is the time for action!" he cried.

Tense times call for tough talk in Pakistan's North-West Frontier Province, where a firestorm of ideologically driven violence and intimidation - described as "Talibanisation" - is blazing across the province. Citing justification from the Qur'an extremists have torched CD and DVD shops, attacked barbers who shave beards, and forced the closure of at least four girls' schools.

Suicide bombings, once unheard of in Pakistan, have become commonplace. Suspected "collaborators" are punished - they can be abducted, beheaded and dumped on the roadside with a note attached saying "American spy".

The trouble stems from Waziristan, a mountainous tribal area along the Afghan border. There, armed Islamists have marginalised the central government to impose their harsh brand of Islamic rule. Sharia courts sentence criminals to be stoned to death; fighters slip across the Afghan border to attack Nato troops. Waziristan is also home to about 2,000 foreign al-Qaida fighters, mostly Uzbeks but also Arabs, and Chechens who fled Afghanistan in 2001.

Some of them, the US fears, are using this giant base to plot terrorist attacks around the world. The government has sent 80,000 soldiers to the tribal belt to quell the violence. But, according to Art Keller, a retired CIA official who visited Waziristan last year, most are simply "hunkering in their bases".

Now the Taliban's ideas are spilling over the tribal area's borders and across the North-West Frontier Province. In Tank, a town in the "settled area" just outside Waziristan, the Taliban raided the home of a senior government official this month killing 13 of his relatives.

Further north, in Lakki Marwat, Talibanisation has brought kidnappings. Last month a mobile phone company paid £40,000 to free five employees; last week two government doctors were abducted on accusations of working for a British aid agency. "They are starting to play hell with us," said Mr Kamal at last week's grand jirga, just 10 miles from the border with Waziristan.

The most worrying aspect is how deeply Talibanisation has penetrated into previously serene parts. Charsadda, 12 miles north of Peshawar, is the home town of Abdul Ghaffar Khan, a Pashtun nationalist nicknamed the "Frontier Gandhi" in the 1930s for his peaceful opposition to British rule.

But this year the Charsadda's DVD shop owners found notes outside their doors, signed by the Taliban and ordering them to shut down. When they refused, bombs blasted through three shops, sending the movies up in flames. Then on April 28 a suicide bomber struck a political rally where the interior minister, Aftab Khan Sherpao, who hails from the town, was speaking. About 28 people were killed.

"Who are these Taliban? We just don't know," said Farman Khan, manager of one of the largest DVD stores. "This has always been a tolerant city. We had no religious tensions before."

Analysts said a Taliban takeover, such as happened in Afghanistan in the mid-1990s, is unlikely in the province. The extremists are supported by a small minority of the province's ethnic Pashtun residents, and blame has fallen on the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal (MMA) - a coalition of hardline religious parties that has ruled the province since 2002 and which openly supports Islamist militancy - for allowing Talibanisation to take root.

"The demagoguery of these religious elements has gone too far. The common man is not safe," said Memood Shah, former security head for the tribal areas.

The permissive environment has given radical hotheads a foothold. In the picturesque Swat Valley, north-east of Peshawar, Maulvi Fazlullah, a firebrand young cleric who rides a white horse, uses his private FM radio station to preach against polio vaccinations and girls' schooling. "A woman has been asked to remain behind the four walls of the house. Men have been given preference by God," he said in one interview.

But the province's beleaguered moderates are kicking back. Girls' enrolment at school has increased 77% since 2002, according to official figures. The MMA government, perceived to be incompetent and corrupt, has haemorrhaged support and is expected to receive a drubbing at the next election.

In Charsadda the DVD shops are open again, lending Jackie Chan, Schwarzenegger and Bollywood movies for 8p a night. "It's a good business. Only God knows when it is my time to die," shrugged Mr Khan.

But the strife here is earning little attention in Islamabad, where President General Pervez Musharraf is engaged in a fight for his political survival over the chief justice crisis, and where his government appears lamentably incapable of tackling Talibanisation even on its own doorstep.

Burka-clad militants from Lal Masjid, a radical mosque just a few streets from Gen Musharraf's office, have kidnapped prostitutes, attacked police and issued fatwas against journalists in recent months. But the local police seem unable, or unwilling, to stop them.

Lal Masjid also has links to the wider pattern of destabilisation. Its chief cleric recently boasted of having 10,000 suicide bombers at his disposal. One of the main suspects in the recent Charsadda suicide attack, Hafiz Said ur Rehman, is a former student of Lal Masjid. "He spent four years there. It was free of cost and he absolutely enjoyed it," said his father, speaking in the courtyard of a mosque.

Critics accuse Gen Musharraf of playing a double game, citing his electoral alliance with the MMA in the province of Baluchistan. "He tells us that he is fighting the terrorist but he is sleeping in the same bed as the clerics in Quetta. Why are you people turning a blind eye to those things?" said Asfandyar Wali Khan, of the liberal Awami National party.

But in remote, barely governed places such as Lakki Marwat, the strict Pashtun code of conduct - known as Pashtunwali and focused on honour and revenge - is paramount. Here, opportunistic bandits had joined forces with the Taliban, said Mr Kamal. "Due to poverty we have always had criminals; now they are in the garb of Taliban," he said, citing rumours of gunmen donning fake beards to increase the fear factor.

Mr Kamal summoned two Taliban representatives to last week's jirga and met them afterwards in a hot, cramped room. The militants, young men with black turbans and Chinese pistols, looked uncomfortable.

"We fight for Islam, not for money," said Shafiullah, who boasted of fighting "jihad" against foreign soldiers in Afghanistan.

Mr Kamal warned them to release the remaining hostages or face dire consequences. The threat carried considerable weight; in 2004 the former provincial minister led a tribal army that sacked a neighbouring village and killed 70 people. Then, as now, the issue was kidnapping.

Faced with the Taliban, gun law was better than no law, he said: "If the government refuses to act, then it's high time we secured ourselves."

http://www.guardian.co.uk/afghanistan/story/0,,2107606,00.html

Vancouver

07-03-2007, 09:03 AM

Two policemen and a soldier have been killed in a shootout at the Wahhabi cult compound called the Lal Masjid.
http://edition.cnn.com/2007/WORLD/asiapcf/07/03/mosque.shooting.ap/index.html

Alli

07-03-2007, 10:12 AM

Trooper dies, students wounded in Pakistan mosque raid

By Kamran Haider
Reuters
Tuesday, July 3, 2007; 7:27 AM

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - A Pakistani paramilitary trooper was shot dead and seven students were wounded during clashes at a mosque run by a Taliban-style movement in Islamabad on Tuesday.

The clashes began when around 150 students attacked a security picket at a government office near the capital's Lal Masjid, or Red Mosque, snatched weapons and took four government officials hostage, according to police.

"I can confirm that one of our troopers has been killed in the firing from inside the mosque," Masha Allah, a senior paramilitary official, told reporters.

A Reuters correspondent saw seven students with gunshot wounds being taken to hospital.

more (http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2007/07/03/AR2007070300625.html)

NYer

07-03-2007, 11:50 AM

One Pakistani paramilitary Ranger was killed by gunfire from inside the mosque in fighting at Lal Masjid, or the Red Mosque. While Islamabad’s deputy commissioner Chaudhry Muhammad Ali said there was no plan to raid the mosque, Interior Minister Aftab Sherpao said that police were “provoked into retaliation” by the students who started the gunfire. The Pakistani government forces fired teargas into the mosque and adjoining madrassa.

http://dailybriefings.threatswatch.org/2007/07/bloodshed-at-islamabads-red-mo/

NYer

07-05-2007, 09:52 AM

Another Lion of Islam is nabbed fleeing the Red Mosque in a Burqa. (http://gatewaypundit.blogspot.com/2007/07/explosions-and-gunfire-at-al-qaeda.html)

http://bp0.blogger.com/_L6pDyjqqsvY/RozmhgX8M4I/AAAAAAAAFi0/DkMU7PcGKpo/s400/unveiled.jpg

Ledeen has more: (http://corner.nationalreview.com/post/?q=YWE3OGJmNDUwMDMxYTk5ZGI5NmNjYTNkMDZjZjg5ODE=)

... Just look at this guy, a typical blowhard inciting his followers to martyrdom, who cross dresses and tries to sneak out the alley, leaving his followers to their doom.

NYer

07-06-2007, 04:32 PM

Bill Roggio: Pakistan may capitulate to the Red Mosque. (http://billroggio.com/archives/2007/07/pakistan_may_capitul.php)

You think the attempt on Perv's life had anything to with this?

Petronas

07-08-2007, 01:17 AM

Pakistan (Country threat level - 5): Media reports issued on 6 July 2007 indicate that militants opened fire on the aircraft of President Pervez Musharraf as it took off from a military airfield in Rawalpindi. Although a military official denies that the incident took place, an intelligence officer claims that there was an attack and that it constituted an assassination attempt against Musharraf. Security forces have arrested at least two people who are thought to have been involved in the shooting; there were two large guns mounted to the roof of a house located next to the airport that may have been used in the alleged attack. Some media reports also indicate that a rocket may have been fired at the aircraft.

http://www.asigroup.com/HOTSPOTS.asp

Petronas

07-08-2007, 01:33 PM

2 Uzbek bombers on the prowl, NWFP police on maximum alert
Sunday, July 08, 2007

PESHAWAR: The Frontier police was put on maximum alert following warnings by security agencies of possible suicide attacks on important government installations, senior officials and politicians, official sources told Daily Times on Saturday. “Two Uzbeks with explosive-laden belts are planning suicide attacks,” the officials quoted security agencies as informing the government. However, the security agencies have not yet been able to identify the bombers’ targets.

Security was increased around government offices in general and offices of law enforcement agencies in particular in Peshawar and no private car was allowed to park in parking areas of several government buildings.

“The bomber who hit the military convoy in Bannu on Wednesday, killing six soldiers, was Uzbek. The attack on another army convoy in Dir district on Friday in which four soldiers including a major and a lieutenant were killed was conducted by a timed device,” the official said, asking not to be named. The warning comes following NWFP Governor Ali Jan Orakzai’s demand from the tribesmen to identify Wednesday’s bomber. “Under the law and tribal tradition, the tribal people are under obligation to maintain law and order in the area,” the governor told a jirga of clerics and elders from Bannu at Governor’s House.

According to a communiqué, the governor expressed anger at the attack on the military convoy in Bannu. He asked the jirga members not to shelter foreigners. “Law and order is deteriorating in North Waziristan and the Utmanzai elders have to critically review the ongoing situation and find a solution,” he said.

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2007\07\08\story_8-7-2007_pg7_21

NYer

07-10-2007, 08:42 AM

Assault on the Red Mosque Begins. (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/6286500.stm)

Troops in Pakistan's city of Islamabad have stormed the Red Mosque, after talks with radicals broke down. "It is a final push to clear the place of armed militants," said military spokesman Major General Waheed Arshad.

NYer

07-10-2007, 12:33 PM

Abdul Rashid Ghazi is now at room temperature. (http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/6288704.stm) Virgins inbound.

Petronas

07-10-2007, 08:18 PM

They'll be even more concerned when the same starts happening in mosques in Western Europe - its only a question of time.

Fighting bothers EU
Wednesday, July 11, 2007

BRUSSELS: The EU is ‘gravely concerned’ about fighting between government forces and militants in Pakistan, fearing it may spill over into Afghanistan, EU foreign policy chief Javier Solana said Tuesday. “We are concerned because the frontier between Afghanistan and Pakistan is fundamental for peacekeeping operations in Afghanistan, where many European countries have deployed troops,” Solana said. Australian Foreign Minister Alexander Downs said his country is concerned with extremism in Pakistan but backs President Musharraf’s efforts to overcome the menace.

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2007\07\11\story_11-7-2007_pg1_3

Petronas

07-12-2007, 03:53 PM

Eight killed in Pakistan blasts after mosque raid
12 July 2007

PESHAWAR, Pakistan - A suicide blast and a separate roadside bombing killed eight people in Pakistan on Thursday, officials said, as a deadly army raid on militants in an Islamabad mosque sparked Islamist anger. Five people, including three police, were killed and several others wounded outside a religious centre in the Himalayan tourist town of Mingora by the bomb, local administration chief Syed Mohammed Javed told AFP by telephone.

The policemen were clearing traffic at Mingora town 130 kilometres (80 miles) northwest of Islamabad, when a bomb exploded in a white car, Javed said, adding that it was unclear whether the car’s occupant died. Mingora is in Swat district, a stronghold of Tehrik Nifaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi, a banned extremist group with close ties to the clerics of Islamabad’s Red Mosque.

In the other attack, a suicide bomber blew himself up, killing three people and wounding three more, in Miranshah, the main town in North Waziristan, a troubled tribal region bordering Afghanistan, a local security official said. The man set off explosives strapped to his body in the office of the local administration chief when a junior worker stopped him from entering, killing the office worker and another person instantly and wounding three others. One of the wounded men died later in hospital, officials said.

Islamist protests broke out in several parts of Pakistan Thursday after an army raid on the pro-Taleban Red mosque this week left at least 86 people dead -- 75 compound occupants, mainly militants, and 11 soldiers.

http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticleNew.asp?xfile=data/subcontinent/2007/July/subcontinent_July514.xml&section=subcontinent

candypreet

07-15-2007, 01:18 PM

Musharraf may put off polls: Bhutto

Sunday, July 15, 2007
17:54 IST

Blog this story
http://content.msn.co.in/News/International/InternationalPTI_150707_1754.htm

London: Former Pakistan Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto apprehended that President Pervez Musharraf might use the Lal Masjid incident as a pretext to postpone elections.

The chief of Pakistan People's Party (PPP) warned that if it happened the consequences would be ''very negative'' for the country.

The Pakistan Army stormed the Lal Masjid in central Islamabad on July 10 to flush out militants holed up inside it after talks with the mosque's radical deputy head Abdul Rashid Ghazi failed to resolve the week-long stand-off.

The Army operation left Ghazi and 90 other militants dead.

''People say the Red Mosque issue was propped up as a pretext to postpone the elections. If that happens, the consequences will be very negative for Pakistan,'' said Bhutto.

''Many people in Pakistan think that the militants were first propped up by some forces and then sacrificed by them. But I don't want to be cynical.

''I would rather say the regime had to act as there was no alternative left because we are talking about people who had admitted having suicide bombers in their midst,'' she said.

Bhutto said that some policemen had also been kidnapped by militants, but government did not file a case.

''The Musharraf government bent over backwards to please the militants. And even till the last minute, members of the Cabinet were trying to give safe passage to those who had killed members of the armed forces and law enforcement.

''Now it is the tip of the iceberg and it is to be seen whether the government will sustain the hardline policy towards militants and militancy or start bending over backwards to make amends and try to pacify them.''

Calling for a post-mortem into the Red Mosque incident, self-exiled Bhutto sought to know how on a government land ''two so-called political madrassas were built which were in fact the military headquarters of militant groups that seemed to have ties with al-Qaida''.

Bhutto was apparently referring to the madrassas run by the Lal Masjid - Jamia Hafsa, the girls' madrassa in the mosque's premises, and nearby Jamia Faridia for boys.

The radical students of these madrassas along with the mosque's clerics have indulged in moral policing in Islamabad and demanded imposition of Sharia law.

© Copyright 2006 PTI. All rights reserved.

Petronas

07-15-2007, 01:22 PM

Suicide bomber kills 23 FC troops
Sunday, July 15, 2007

MIRANSHAH/PESHAWAR: At least 23 paramilitary troops died and 27 others injured when a suicide bomber rammed an explosives-packed car into their convoy on Saturday in one of the deadliest attacks on the security forces in North Waziristan this year. Army troops came under attack in Bannu and Dir districts also in which a paramilitary soldier was killed by masked gunmen near Essa check-post on the Miranshah-Bannu road.

“The FC lost 23 jawans in the terrorist attack,” ISPR Director General Maj Gen Waheed Arshad told Daily Times on the phone from Islamabad as former FATA security chief Brig (r) Mehmood Shah called the attack a “price” for the September peace agreement with militants. A senior administration official said the attack took place 20 kilometres southeast of Miranshah when a FC convoy was heading towards Miranshah from the Razmak area. The deadly suicide attack was followed by another incident in which militants fired two rockets at troops in Lower Dir district, police official Muhammad Asghar said, adding that the police had detained 45 suspects including two security guards of the Malakand University in Chakdara where the troops were camping temporarily.

Bannu DPO Dar Ali Khattak said that three soldiers were wounded when a military convoy heading for Miranshah was hit by an explosive device planted on the roadside. Sources told Daily Times that the security forces arrested a local resident Minhas near the scene of the incident with two hand grenades.

Miranshah residents told Daily Times that the non-local population had begun leaving North Waziristan for their hometowns fearing a military operation in the area.

Abdullah Farhad, a purported spokesman for the Taliban in North Waziristan, said the militants would consider the last year’s peace deal with the government over if the security forces were not withdrawn from the area by July 15 (Sunday).

Meanwhile, paramilitary troops defused a bomb and two rockets near Karamkot and the Miranshah-Ghulam Khan road.

In a separate incident, the Peshawar police discovered two anti-tank mines weighing 4-5 kilogrammes hooked up to a timer in a car abandoned in front of a bank in the East Cantt police precincts. It was safely dismantled. Also, a FC personnel was killed and three others injured in an ambush in the Balida area of Quetta. The troops were busy in relief activities when they were attacked.

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2007\07\15\story_15-7-2007_pg1_1

Petronas

07-15-2007, 01:38 PM

Pakistan: Operation likely in tribal areas
Tank/Peshawar
13 July

The Pakistan army started deploying troops in the southern districts of the country's North West Frontier Province (NWFP), adjoining the tribal region of Waziristan, amid reports that an operation to curb militancy and extremism was imminent. Sources told the Pakistani daily Dawn on Thursday that 12,000 troops, backed by artillery units, were moved to the districts of Tank and Dera Ismail Khan from the city of Okara.

Troops took over the building of a vocational college in Tank city and were stationed in paramilitary forts in the remote district. Security forces were also being deployed in Lakki Marwat and Bannu districts, considered to be hotbed of militancy. Troops have also been stationed in the northern Swat and Lower Dir districts. Security officials said that two army divisions were being deployed in the NWFP and tribal areas.

Local Taliban in the area have expressed resentment over the troops’ redeployment in North Waziristan. They asked the government to pull troops back by July 15 and threatened that if it was not done, they would not abide by last year's controversial peace deal between the Pakistani government and militants. Militants’ spokesman Abdullah Farhad accused the government of violating the peace agreement signed on September 5, 2006, under which it had to withdraw all troops from North Waziristan.

Sources said that soldiers reinforced their positions around Miran Shah town, the headquarters of the North Waziristan tribal area, and started checking vehicles and looking for heavy arms.

http://www.adnkronos.com/AKI/English/Security/?id=1.0.1102853457

Petronas

07-16-2007, 12:09 AM

45 dead and 108 injured in suicide bombings in Swat and DI Khan: Religious extremists carry out revenge attacks
Monday, July 16, 2007

PESHAWAR: Up to 45 people were killed and over a hundred injured in suicide bombings targeting security forces in NWFP on Sunday in apparent revenge attacks by extremists for the Lal Masjid operation.

Eleven security personnel and six civilians were killed and 47 others injured in Matta, Swat, when suicide bombers smashed two cars packed with explosives into an army convoy, officials said. And 25 people were killed and 61 injured when a suicide bomber blew himself up in the Dera Ismail Khan Police Lines on Sunday, police said.

On Saturday, a similar attack on an army convoy in North Waziristan killed 23 paramilitary soldiers. The latest attacks mean some 100 people, mostly from the security forces, have been killed in attacks since July 3, when troops laid siege to Lal Masjid in Islamabad. Some 75 militants were killed when commandos stormed the mosque compound. Extremist clerics, including Maulana Fazlullah in Swat, denounced the operation and called for revenge attacks on security forces. Many of the militants at the mosque and madrassa students were believed to have been from the NWFP.

Interior Minister Aftab Ahmed Sherpao said the two attacks could be a militant response to the Lal Masjid assault. Sunday’s first attack occurred between 7:00am and 7:40am, when two cars packed with explosives rammed into a convoy of several vehicles passing through Matta bazaar in Mingora, Swat. In addition, a landmine also hit the convoy, Swat District Coordination Officer (DCO) Syed Muhammad Javed told Daily Times.

“Among the dead, 11 are army jawans, six civilians, including a child, and two suicide bombers,” said the DCO, adding that among the injured, 41 were from the army, two from the Frontier Corps (FC), two from the police, and two were civilians. The blast destroyed some nearby houses and damaged a market. The dead were identified as Hawaldar Nasir, Hawaldar Ijaz, Lance Naik Azam, Lance Naik Adil Mehmud, Lance Naik Ghulam Muhammad, and Jawans Abdul Latif, Akmal, Muzaffar Ali, Salman, Masood Jan and Said Manan, said the DCO.
No one claimed responsibility for the attack. “Some people have been taken into custody and the police are investigating,” Javed said. He said the injured were shifted to hospitals in Peshawar, Mardan and Rawalpindi in helicopters. Asked if the government would now conduct an operation against militants in Swat, Major General Waheed Arshad, director general of ISPR, said: “We’ll see what we can do. There is no such move at the moment.”

Eyewitnesses said the security forces opened fire after the attack to keep locals away from the blast scene, but there was no crossfire between the assailants and the security forces. However, Gen Arshad said there was no firing at the blast site.

At about 4:15pm, a suicide bomber blew himself up at DI Khan Police Lines as candidates took police entrance exams. Police official Safiullah told Daily Times that a total of 26 people were killed, including 12 policemen and the suicide bomber, and 61 others were wounded. Dera Ismail Khan District Nazim Haji Abdul Rauf said it was not clear how the bomber entered the police lines, whose entrance was guarded by policemen. Police officer Mohammed Aslam told AP that more than 150 people were on the premises when the bomber struck. He said the suicide bomber’s head and suicide vest had been found.

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2007\07\16\story_16-7-2007_pg1_1

Petronas

07-16-2007, 12:11 AM

Afghan failure may lead to regime change in Pakistan: UK generals
Monday, July 16, 2007

LAHORE: Britain’s most senior generals have warned that the military campaign in Afghanistan is facing a catastrophic failure, a development that could lead to an Islamist government seizing power in Pakistan, reports The Observer. ...

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2007\07\16\story_16-7-2007_pg1_8

Alli

07-17-2007, 01:05 PM

MSNBC Breaking News: Pakistan TV reports at least four dead after large explosion in Islamabad

NYer

07-17-2007, 03:57 PM

Bomber ... Twelve Dead (http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,289631,00.html)

A homicide bomber blew himself up in the Pakistani capital Tuesday as hundreds gathered for a rally featuring the country's suspended chief justice, police said. At least 12 people were killed in the explosion, one of at least two deadly attacks in the volatile country.

Ono

07-20-2007, 04:13 AM

Suicide blasts kill 36 as Pakistan chaos worsens
Published in: Brisbane Times
July 19, 2007
http://www.siteinstitute.org/images/hr.gif

Two suicide car bombings, one of them targeting Chinese workers, killed at least 36 people in Pakistan on Thursday, fuelling a sense of crisis after a government raid on an Islamabad mosque.

Authorities said they suspected the blasts were part of a wave of attacks, sparked by the siege and storming of the pro-Taliban Red Mosque earlier this month, that has left more than 180 people dead.
In the southwestern industrial town of Hub, a suicide car bomber blew himself up as a convoy of Chinese citizens and local security forces passed, killing at least 30 Pakistanis but no Chinese nationals, officials said.

Source: http://news.brisbanetimes.com.au/suicide-blasts-kill-34-as-pakistan-chaos-worsens/20071919-oma.html (http://news.brisbanetimes.com.au/suicide-blasts-kill-34-as-pakistan-chaos-worsens/20071919-oma.html)

http://www.siteinstitute.org/bin/articles.cgi?ID=news296307&Category=news&Subcategory=0&Current=1

NYer

07-26-2007, 09:05 AM

Action (http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2007/07/26/story_26-7-2007_pg1_4)

http://www.ndtv.com/convergence/images/fullimage/ver1/m/mappakistan.jpg

Reaction (http://www.ndtv.com/convergence/ndtv/story.aspx?id=NEWEN20070020236)

Heating up in Wazoostan...

NYer

07-27-2007, 11:32 AM

Islamists retake the Red Mosque. (http://victorycaucus.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=27825&Itemid=168)

Petronas

07-28-2007, 02:04 AM

a foreign intelligence agency had given $600 to the accused for carrying out terrorist activitiesWhich one?

Six ‘terrorists’ arrested
Saturday, July 28, 2007

PESHAWAR: Three people were arrested in Peshawar on Friday for their alleged involvement in bomb blasts in the NWFP, and three people allegedly involved in a suicide bombing and an attack on a police check post in Matta (Swat) were arrested from Lahore.

Peshawar City Police Officer Abdul Majeed Marwat told a news conference at the Peshawar police lines that police intercepted a car at Gulbahar and arrested three brothers – Imtiaz, Ayaz and Bahadar – of Wali Abad. He said police also recovered two kilograms of explosives from the vehicle.
According to Marwat, the arrested people were involved in the bombings at CDs shops in the province. He said a foreign intelligence agency had given $600 to the accused for carrying out terrorist activities. He said they were also involved in a bomb blast at the Peshawar bus terminal on April 17. During investigations, he said, the accused have confessed to their involvement in a bomb blast near the Peshawar High Court on May 29. However, Marwat said, the accused were not involved in the recent suicide bombings and also had no links with jihadis.

In Lahore, intelligence personnel raided a house near Niazi bus stand in Lahore and arrested four suspects. One of the arrested, Aurangzaib, was later released. The rest meanwhile have confessed to their involvement in Swat bombing. They were handed over to Swat district police.

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2007\07\28\story_28-7-2007_pg7_6

NYer

07-30-2007, 06:46 AM

No Power Share with Uniformed Mush - Bhutto. (http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticleNew.asp?xfile=data/subcontinent/2007/July/subcontinent_July1254.xml&section=subcontinent&col=)

http://rantburg.com/images/benazir.jpg

From Rantburg -

Speaking to Britain’s Sky News television from Leeds in northern England, Bhutto said it was likey she would return from exile to stand in Pakistan’s next general election, due by early next year. “I think the chances right now are pretty good. It’s about 90 percent out of 100 for me to stand in those elections,” she said.

... She added: “I don’t want the people of Pakistan to face terror at the hands of the Taliban and their allies in Al-Qaeda and become refugees in foreign lands. I want to try and save my country, if I can,” she said.

In a German magazine interview to be published Monday, Bhutto warned of a looming Islamist revolution mounted from the country’s religious schools, or madrassas. Bhutto said she was planning her return to Pakistan this year to help stabilise the country in the face of the extremist threat. “The Red Mosque was just a warm-up for what will happen if the religious schools are not disarmed,” Bhutto told the news weekly Focus.

NYer

07-31-2007, 06:39 AM

Bhutto accounts reactivated. (http://www.khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticleNew.asp?xfile=data/subcontinent/2007/July/subcontinent_July1295.xml&section=subcontinent&col=)

http://www.urbandigs.com/lets_make_a_deal_1.gif

The Pakistani government has reactivated some of the bank accounts of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto as a confidence-building measure for her possible deal with embattled President Pervez Musharraf, media reports said on Monday.

Once bitter foes, the two leaders reportedly held secret talks in Abu Dhabi on Friday to discuss an accord that could ensure the survival of Musharraf in the most serious challenges he faces since he took over in a military coupe in 1999. Both sides have so far not confirmed the meeting, but local media has consistently cited sources saying it really took place.

Petronas

08-02-2007, 02:34 PM

Terrorists may target MPs: intelligence officials
Thursday, August 02, 2007

ISLAMABAD: Intelligence agencies have warned of terrorist attacks at Parliament House and Parliament Lodges in Islamabad as revenge for the Lal Masjid operation. Daily Times has learnt that intelligence agencies have reported to the Interior Ministry that terrorists could hit parliament while it is in session and several parliamentarians are staying at the lodges. The report says that the terrorists could use an improvised explosive device, suicide attack or car bombing to target parliamentarians. It recommended that security be enhanced in and around Parliament House and the Parliament Lodges. The Interior Ministry has ordered walkthrough gates and cameras installed at the entrance of the Parliament Lodges. The district administration has increased the presence at the lodges, while the Frontier Constabulary is manning the Ministers’ Enclave. Islamabad Deputy Commissioner Chaudhry Mohammad Ali said that “foolproof” security arrangements had been made in the entire city.

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2007\08\02\story_2-8-2007_pg7_8

candypreet

08-03-2007, 02:37 AM

good posts

Petronas

08-07-2007, 08:03 PM

10 killed in Waziristan strike
Wednesday, August 08, 2007

LAHORE: Security forces backed by helicopter gunships killed 10 militants in a strike on two suspected militant compounds in North Waziristan on Tuesday, the military said. Military spokesman Major Gen Waheed Arshad told Dawn News that the operation started at 5:00am when artillery and Cobra helicopters pounded the compounds in Daygan, a village 15 km west of Miranshah. Ten militants were killed and several others injured, he said. “The militants used to regroup and prepare attacks on security forces and take refuge at these compounds,” Gen Arshad said. Militants inside the compound fired back, but they were “wiped out” in the four-hour attack, he added. Hospital officials said that a civilian and his two children were wounded in the attack. Stray shells from artillery fire from troops based at the Miranshah fort destroyed 10 houses, residents said.

In a separate incident, troops shot dead a local tribesman after a bomb exploded near their post in Banda, 4 km south of Miranshah, killing a soldier, security officials said.

Another soldier was killed in a drive-by shooting in North Waziristan, police and intelligence officials said. Also, two gunmen on a motorcycle opened fire on paramilitary forces in a town in NWFP, killing one, police official Israr Khan told AP.

Staff report adds: At least five people were injured in a bomb blast targeting a police post in Bannu at around 8:30pm on Tuesday, police official Sakhiuz Zaman said.

Militants attacked a Frontier Corps check post at Bagh Deri in Khwaza Khela tehsil of Swat district, partially damaging its walls. There were no casualties. Police also defused a 16-kg bomb placed near the check post.

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2007\08\08\story_8-8-2007_pg1_5

Petronas

08-08-2007, 08:01 PM

US outraged over Tanveer’s remarks
Thursday, August 09, 2007

The United States embassy here has reacted strongly to the remarks made by Parliamentary Secretary for Defence Maj (r) Tanveer Hussain Syed against the country in the National Assembly on Tuesday, Online reported. US embassy spokeswoman Elizabeth Colton said in a statement on Wednesday that Syed’s remarks were “outrageous” and “reprehensible”.

Participating in a debate on Pakistan’s foreign policy in the NA, Syed had urged the government to announce jihad against India and the US.

“These statements are outrageous and highly reprehensible. The parliamentarian has leveled allegations that are completely unfounded and irresponsible,” Colton said in a statement. ... Meanwhile, the Foreign Office distanced itself from the statement made by the parliamentary defence secretary in parliament on Tuesday. Foreign Office spokeswoman Tasnim Aslam said that Syed’s remarks were an individual’s views and do not represent the government’s policy. ...

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2007\08\09\story_9-8-2007_pg1_8

NYer

08-09-2007, 11:06 PM

Anti-terrorism tune tops Pak Pop Charts. (http://www.indcjournal.com/archives/003060.php)

It will interesting to see how radical islam responds if this phenom takes off. For that matter i wonder how the Today Show, Katie Couric, Jon Stewart or MTV would react.

Indeed ...

candypreet

08-10-2007, 02:48 AM

Petronas

08-11-2007, 02:40 PM

US worried about nukes post-Musharraf
Saturday, August 11, 2007

A report circulated by CNN on Friday claims that United States military intelligence officials are urgently assessing how secure Pakistan’s nuclear weapons would be if President General Pervez Musharraf were to leave office.

The US has full knowledge about the location of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons, according to the assessment. But the key questions, officials told CNN, are what would happen and who would control the weapons in the hours after any change in government in case General Musharraf were killed or overthrown. The United States is not certain as to who might start controlling nuclear launch codes and weapons if that shift in power were to take place.

Key questions include the identity of those who would gain control of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal in post-Musharraf Pakistan. The US is also said to be pressuring General Musharraf not to declare a state of emergency to deal with growing political opposition. CNN claims three not-to-be-named “US sources” — comprising military and intelligence officials — have independently confirmed details of the intelligence review. The assessment is part of a broader review of the military and security situation in Pakistan. Officials say that Pakistan and its nuclear weapons are always a high intelligence priority for the US. ...

According to the world news giant, there is also a growing understanding on the part of analysts that General Musharraf’s control over the military remains limited to certain top commanders and units, raising worries about whether he can maintain control over the long term. ...

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2007\08\11\story_11-8-2007_pg1_9

Petronas

08-11-2007, 02:41 PM

Gunships pound militant hideouts
Saturday, August 11, 2007

MIRANSHAH: Helicopter gunships pounded militant hideouts in northern Pakistan as the military scoured mountains on Friday for 16 missing soldiers believed kidnapped by Taliban rebels. The army said at least 10 Al Qaeda and Taliban fighters were killed in the air attack on Thursday. The operation also involved ground forces in North Waziristan region.

“The miscreants killed in Thursday’s strike were local militants allied to Taliban and Al Qaeda,” a security official told AFP. ISPR Director General Major General Waheed Arshad said security forces were focused on squeezing out the militants, who include local and foreign fighters. “There is no planned operation going on in North Waziristan but we are responding with greater force against militant attacks on security forces now,” he said. “In previous months there were several attempts made by miscreants against security forces and we would show patience but it is not the case now.”

Arshad said the military was hunting for 16 paramilitary soldiers who went missing on Thursday morning in South Waziristan.

Arshad said the stepped-up action in the border areas was not in reaction to pressure from Washington. “We know Al Qaeda is present in the region, there are Taliban elements and their local supporters and we are acting against them in our own national interest.”

In a separate incident on Friday, gunship helicopters bombed a suspected militant hideout at Boya, west of Miranshah, but there were no immediate reports of casualties, a local security official said. Suspected militants also exchanged gunfire with security forces on Friday in Miranshah after militants attacked a security check post, the officials said, with no immediate reports of casualties.

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2007\08\11\story_11-8-2007_pg1_8

NYer

08-11-2007, 04:31 PM

US worried about nukes post-Musharraf
Saturday, August 11, 2007

Qaeda Camps Emptying Out (http://hotair.com/archives/2007/08/11/intel-jittery-as-al-qaedas-training-camps-empty-out/)

If they're readying for retaliation from more than Perv's troops, then what outrage are they positioned for?

Petronas

08-16-2007, 09:47 PM

15 killed in Waziristan
Friday, August 17, 2007

WANA/MIRANSHAH: Ten militants and three soldiers were killed in an attack on a military convoy in South Waziristan, while two soldiers were killed and four others injured when their vehicle hit a roadside bomb in North Waziristan on Thursday.

“Militants ambushed a military convoy near Chaghmalay, and air support was sought against them. Ten militants were killed and 12 injured while the security forces suffered two casualties,” military spokesman Major General Waheed Arshad told Daily Times.

Arshad said that two soldiers were killed and four others injured in a roadside explosion near Kaka Ziarat in Teti Madakhel, 70 kilometres north of North Waziristan’s Mir Ali town, and the security forces had arrested six persons for carrying out the attack. The attacked convoy was heading to Dhandikach from the Speenwam area near the Pak-Afghan border, he added. The killing of the militants came hours after South Waziristan Political Agent Hussainzada Khan held a meeting with a 21-member Mehsud peace committee for the safe recovery of 15 Frontier Corps personnel taken hostage by the militants last week.

Maulana Mirajuddin, member of the National Assembly from the MMA, said the clash at Chaghmalay could hinder the safe release of the 15 FC personnel. “We discussed the release of the FC personnel and peace with the political agent. However, hours later the militants and security forces clashed and let’s hope this incident does not affect the release of the kidnapped personnel,” he told Daily Times by phone from Tank city.

Residents of Jandola, entry point of South Waziristan, said the Wana-Tank highway was blocked after Mehsud militants stopped traffic to and from Wana. This, they said, may lead to a conflict between the Mehsud and Wazir tribes. Truckloads of tomatoes and apples of the Wazir tribesmen in Wana waited for a long time for security clearance for upcountry transportation as the Mehsud militants blocked the Wana-Tank highway. The highway was later opened for traffic in the afternoon.

Earlier, Wazir elders said they feared a “full-scale war between the Mehsuds and Wazirs if the highway remained blocked and attacks on security forces in Wazir areas by Mehsud militants continued. Maj Gen Arshad said the government would not let the two tribes go to war.

Separately, NWFP Governor Ali Jan Orakzai held a meeting with elders and pro-Taliban clerics in North Waziristan on Thursday, officials and security sources said. It was the governor’s first visit to Miranshah after his return from Kabul where he attended the joint peace jirga of Pakistan and Afghanistan. Orakzai said that the 2006 peace deal with the pro-Taliban militants had “no guarantee mechanism” for implementation.

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2007\08\17\story_17-8-2007_pg1_9