FATA Situation

[AgNoStiC MuSliM]

"We certainly had traced him (Zawahiri) at one place, but we missed the chance. So he's moving in Mohmand and, of course, sometimes in Kunar, mostly in Kunar and Paktia," Malik told reporters in Islamabad.

err.. lets not forget this part of Rehman's statement - 'mostly Kunar and Paktia' - both of which are in Afghanistan.

That would indicate that NATO and Afghan forces are just as lax in apprehending him, perhaps more, given their surveillance capabilities.

 

[ejaz007]

Tribal lashkar kills six Taliban in Kurram

* Torches 5 houses of tribesmen in Bajaur

PARACHINAR/SWAT/KHAR: A tribal lashkar has gunned down six Taliban in fresh clashes in various parts of Kurram Agency, official sources said on Tuesday.

The fighting continued for the 27th day in Bagazai, Inzari, Tapay Makam, Sadda, Khar Kalay, Balish Khel, Sangeena, Karman, Para Chamkani, Pewaar, Tari Mengal, Maqbal and Kanj Alizai. Online reported that eight people had been killed while 11 others had sustained serious injuries.

Meanwhile, the tribal lashkar torched five houses to punish tribesmen for providing refuge to Taliban at Salarzai tehsil of Bajaur Agency on Tuesday.

The 10,000 strong tribal force torched the houses in Nazki, Ghazai and other areas. Tribal force chief Malak Manasib Khan claimed the force had eliminated Taliban from the tehsil. He said peace had been restored in Salarzai tehsil, adding that the tribal force now controlled over 90 percent areas in the tehsil. He said the displaced people had also begun returning to their homes. staff report/agencies

Daily Times - Leading News Resource of Pakistan

 

[ejaz007]

Several killed in coalition forces operation in S Waziristan
Updated at: 1035 PST, Wednesday, September 03, 2008

WANA: Several people have been killed during coalition forces operation in Angorada area of South Waiziristan on Wednesday morning.

According to Geo News correspondent Mushtaq Yousufzai, four helicopters of coalition forces landed in Angaorada in the wee hours of Wednesday and started search operation.

Coalition troops killed nine people of a family of local tribesman Taj Muhammad. They further searched two more houses and killed four persons in one house and one person in another house. Five women and four children also included among the dead.

At least fifteen people have been killed and several injured during operation. Local tribesmen launched protest and chanted anti-American slogans after the incident.

The bodies and injured have been shifted to hospital.

Several killed in coalition forces operation in S Waziristan

 

[fatman17]

err.. lets not forget this part of Rehman's statement - 'mostly Kunar and Paktia' - both of which are in Afghanistan.

That would indicate that NATO and Afghan forces are just as lax in apprehending him, perhaps more, given their surveillance capabilities.

no! what Nato and afghan forces lax! never!

 

[RabzonKhan]

Note: about 60% of the supplies needed for NATO in Afghanistan go through Pakistan, the rest comes through Russia and Russian-controlled Central Asian countries.

Elders to protect NATO supplies

September 03, 2008
LANDI KOTAL: Pashtun tribal elders have promised to ensure security for supplies trucked through the Khyber Pass bound for foreign forces in Afghanistan, a government official said on Tuesday. Tahab Khan, a senior government official, said elders had signed an agreement with the authorities on Monday to ensure the safety of supplies. According to transport companies, more than 20 trucks hauling containers have been attacked since June. reuters

 

[RabzonKhan]

Note: about 60% of the supplies needed for NATO in Afghanistan go through Pakistan, the rest comes through Russia and Russian-controlled Central Asian countries.

NATO can be in real trouble if that happens.


Russia may suspend support for NATO operations in Afghanistan

BRUSSELS, September 4 (RIA Novosti) - Russia's NATO envoy has said that Moscow could suspend cooperation with the military alliance on Afghanistan over the recent Georgia crisis.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev signed decrees last week recognizing South Ossetia and Abkhazia as independent states, saying the move was necessary to protect the republics from Georgian acts of aggression following Tbilisi's August 8 military offensive in South Ossetia.

NATO subsequently urged Russia to reverse its decision and respect Georgia's territorial integrity. Moscow blamed Western powers for encouraging Tbilisi's aggression and criticized the alliance for building up forces in the Black Sea and helping Georgia to rebuild its defenses in the conflict zone.

Speaking at a news conference at NATO headquarters in Brussels late on Wednesday, Dmitry Rogozin said "future cooperation [in Afghanistan] will depend on the alliance's position in the 'Caucasus crisis.'

"We are not satisfied either with NATO's words or actions," he said.
Russia has already suspended all peacekeeping operations with NATO for at least six months and has frozen its participation in NATO's Partnership for Peace program.

Rogozin said that Moscow so far had decided to continue supporting NATO operations in Afghanistan only because Russia was concerned by the worsening military and political situation in the Central Asian country amid an ongoing rise in extremism and drug production.

Moscow had earlier agreed to allow non-lethal goods for NATO troops in Afghanistan to pass through Russian territory.

Since the Taliban regime was overthrown in the 2001 U.S.-led campaign, Afghanistan has become the world's leading producer of heroin.

Afghanistan's opium production increased from 6,100 tons in 2006 to 8,200 tons in 2007, according to the UN. The narcotics trade has become an acute problem for Russia and the Central Asian republics due to a continual flow of illegal drugs from Afghanistan.

"We do not see any success [in NATO operations] but only a degradation of the situation in Afghanistan, and that is why Russia decided to maintain its cooperation with NATO in this area," he said.

NATO's International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) has about 53,000 troops operating in the country under a UN mandate to help give security support to the Afghan government and stop the flow of drugs from the country.

However, despite international efforts, the Taliban, ousted from power after a U.S.-led military operation in 2001, have been stepping up their activities in recent months. The radical Islamic movement has vowed to increase suicide and other attacks in order to undermine the authority of the current Afghan administration.

 

[Munir]

To the transport of fuel, arms and soldiers is problematic from Russia and Pakistan... NATO will not be happy with that. The conclusions that Afghanistan is corrupt and world leader in heroin producing is correct. Why not bombing it back to the stone age? As fas as everyone can judge, Karzai fails to do anything besides pointing others...

 

[ejaz007]

US air strike kills six in NWA
Friday, September 05, 2008

By Malik Mumtaz & Mushtaq Yusufzai

MIRAMSHAH/ PESHAWAR: Six more people, including two suspected Arab nationals and four Dawar tribal militants, were killed and four others injured in yet another missile strike by a US Predator on Achar Khel village near Miramshah in the North Waziristan Agency (NWA) on Thursday.

Official and tribal sources told The News that a US spy plane was seen flying over the area during the aerial attack on the village.According to the sources, the plane, which had been hovering over the border tribal villages for the past several days, fired a Hellfire missile that razed to the ground the house of local tribesman Farman Dawar at Achar Khel village, about 25 kilometres west of Miramshah.

Sources close to tribal militants, led by Maulana Hafiz Gul Bahadur, told The News that two among the dead were identified as Arab guests who had come to Farman’s house for Iftar dinner, while the remaining four persons killed in the air strike were local Dawar tribesmen.

They said four people injured in the missile attack were also Dawar tribesmen and were shifted to a hospital in Miramshah. According to the sources, the US Predator fired a Hellfire missile on an unoccupied school building on Wednesday in the same Achar Khel village near Mohammad Khel, which did not cause any human loss.

It merits a mention here that eight people, including some suspected Arab nationals, were killed and several others injured when a US Predator had fired two Hellfire missiles on Tapi village in North Waziristan on Sunday last.

Meanwhile, taking a strong note of continuous air strikes by the US planes on Pakistani villages, pro-government militant commander Maulana Hafiz Gul Bahadur on Thursday condemned the air strikes in his native North Waziristan Agency and vowed to avenge the killing of his people.

In a statement, the militant commander particularly mentioned US air strikes on Tapi village in North Waziristan. Ahmadullah Ahmadi, a spokesman for Hafiz Gul Bahadur, later called The News from an undisclosed location and said they considered Pakistani security forces equally responsible for the killing of innocent tribesmen in the US air strikes.

“We consider it an attack from Pakistan rather than from the Unites States,” Ahmadi said, adding that a meeting of Taliban Shura had been convened at a secret place to devise further line of action.

It may be mentioned here that militant groups of both the tribal regions — South and North Waziristan — had joined hands against their opponents and signed an agreement in which they promised to fight together if they were attacked in either tribal region.

Both the militant groups, one led by Hafiz Gul Bahadur operating in North Waziristan and another led by Maulvi Nazeer in South Waziristan, are considered as pro-government. Ahmadi said their Shura would discuss the continuing missile attacks on various areas of North Waziristan in which several people had been killed while the Pakistan government had been keeping mum on all these air strikes on its territory.

He accused the Pakistani rulers of selling Dr Aafia to the US for sake of dollars and now they wanted to sell the people of tribal regions to earn money. Ahmadi said the government had betrayed the tribesmen and was silent on repeated aggression on its soil by the US and Nato forces. The spokesman claimed that the Taliban were capable of giving response to such aggression but were exercising restraint in the best interest of the country. He said the Taliban would not tolerate further attacks and would retaliate if the tribesmen were targeted in the future.

US air strike kills six in NWA

 

[batmannow]

Sunday September 7, 2:16 AM
At least 16 dead in northwest Pakistan bomb attack: police

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AFP) - At least 16 people were killed and around 80 injured Saturday when a suicide attacker rammed his bomb-laden vehicle into a security checkpost in the northwestern city of Peshawar.
Police officials said the incident happened after officers had signalled the attacker to stop.
"Sixteen were killed and more than 80 people wounded," police officer Mohammad Ashraf told AFP.
"An explosive-laden vehicle blew up near the security checkpost. The force of the blast destroyed a nearby market, bringing the building down," he said.

An AFP correspondent at the city's Lady Reading hospital said more than a dozen bodies and scores of injured had been brought there.

Police said several people remained buried under debris from buildings rocked by the blast. Pictures broadcast from the area showed a scene of devastation, with the checkpost flattened.
Eyewitness Ibrahim Khan said people were thrown into the air by the force of the explosion.
"It brought down a market and three other buildings adjoining it," he said, bleeding profusely from his left shoulder.
He said he was facing away from the market when he heard the blast, but he had been hit by shrapnel.

"Some blunt things pierced into my shoulder and I fell on the ground," he added.
Police in Peshawar, the capital of North West Frontier Province, said they had sent teams to the area which is near the tribal town of Darra Adamkhel -- where security forces carried out operations recently against Taliban rebels.

A security official said the attack could be part of a backlash against the military's intensified campaign in the tribal areas to root out Taliban-linked militants hiding in the lawless rugged region.
Provincial police spokesman Riaz Khan described Saturday's attack as "an act of terrorism."

Pakistan has been hit by a rising tide of Islamic militancy in the past year. The latest explosion happened on the same day as the country's lawmakers elected Asif Ali Zardari to succeed former president Pervez Musharraf.
Musharraf had been a key ally of the United States in its efforts to combat militancy on the Pakistani border with Afghanistan, a region Washington says is being used as a launching pad for rebel attacks on coalition forces.

But Pakistan's fragile coalition government has been struggling to tackle the violence that has seen nearly 1,200 people killed in bombings and suicide attacks across the country in the past year.
The unrest has also been attributed to a backlash by militants angered over Musharraf's support for Washington.

The interior ministry last month announced that it was banning the main militant group behind the violence, Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, which has threatened more suicide attacks.

 

[daringbani]

Agno owing to the Govt operation plan in the wake of assassination of BB by Baitullah Mehsud men, many of his men had already started going into hidding soon after the incident.

some of them had also been reported to join some controversial groups to escap raids and arrests.

BTW there is no support for so-called TTP

what i see, FATA situation is not between pakistan, america and Taliban. The other stakeholders are which are against the pipe line plan which was expected b/w pakistan and turkmanistan......... these may be those which are overtly our friends but they are not.

 

[Spring Onion]

what i see, FATA situation is not between pakistan, america and Taliban. The other stakeholders are which are against the pipe line plan which was expected b/w pakistan and turkmanistan......... these may be those which are overtly our friends but they are not.

Again these friends include U of SA also

Now as India got the nuke deal they can do away with TAP which was to be extened to India.

So they want us to be starved by creating food shortage as well as denying you all sources of energy for our vital sectors.

At the same time engaging our army internaly against their funded terrorists Baitullah and his men so that they can have the cake in Afghanistan.

 

[RabzonKhan]

Government writ restored in parts of Khar

September 08, 2008. KHAR: The government’s writ has been restored in parts of Khar tehsil following a military operation in Bajaur Agency, officials said on Sunday.

The government has taken control of Khar Bazaar, Yousaf Abad, Tind Mor, Mir Ali Qila and Haji Abad, the political administration said. Locals expressed their pleasure at the Taliban being driven out of the area.

Security forces targeted suspected militant hideouts in Mamoond, Charmang and other parts of the agency.

Tribesmen regained control of the Salrzai tehsil after expelling Taliban militants from the area and torching their hideouts.

Meanwhile, militants torched a post office in Loyesam on Saturday.

An unannounced curfew remained in place in Jarmola Kilay, Haji Lawang and other parts of Bajaur Agency for the third consecutive day, causing inconvenience to the public. Meanwhile, residents said many houses had been robbed after their occupants left for safer places following the military operation against the Taliban. staff report

 

[IceCold]

Missiles targeted commander Haqqani’s house, madarssah in N Waziristan​

Updated at: 1110 PST, Monday, September 08, 2008
MIRANSHAH: Seven guided missiles have been fired from US spy planes in Miranshah and adjoining areas in North Waziristan in which several people feared dead.

According to sources, the guided missiles targeted the madarssah and house of Afghan commander Jalaluddin Haqqani in Miranshah.

Commander Haqqani was surfaced during war against Russia in Afghanistan and his guerrilla activities gave tough time to Russian forces during wartime.

Missiles targeted commander Haqqani’s house, madarssah in N Waziristan - GEO.tv

 

[IceCold]

So is Haqqani a pro government or a pro tailban leader?

 

[ejaz007]

100 militants killed in Bajaur clashes
Friday, September 12, 2008
Arabs, Uzbeks among the dead


ISLAMABAD: Security forces killed up to 100 militants in fierce clashes near the Afghan border in Bajaur Agency on Thursday, a security official said.

"Eighty to 100 militants were killed in Bajaur today. Most of them are foreigners," the official said on condition of anonymity. He said the nationality of the foreigners was being ascertained. He said two soldiers were also killed in the fighting.

Mushtaq Yusufzai adds from Peshawar: PAF jet fighters and Army's gunship helicopters on Thursday continued pounding suspected militant hideouts in the restive Bajaur Agency, killing dozens of suspected militants, including foreigners, and destroying a big market housing a militant centre in Inayat Killay.

There were also reports that 80 militants were killed in the daylong bombing by planes and mortar and artillery shelling by the security forces.Military authorities said the FC and the Pakistan Army succeeded in retaking Rashakai, Tang Khatta and a strategically important location, Loisam, from the militants, thus cutting supply line to the militants from the rest of the country.

They said fresh clashes started on Thursday when the militants hiding in the roadside maize fields opened fire on the troops. The soldiers were moving towards Loisam from Khar and Siddiqabad.

The troops, when came under fire, called for air support and sources said two jet fighters and a similar number of gunship helicopters quickly reached the scene. Military officials said they had received confirmed reports that several Arab and Uzbek fighters were fighting alongside the tribal militants affiliated with Baitullah Mehsud-led defunct Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) against the security forces.

Major Murad, a spokesman for the Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) based in Rawalpindi, told The News that more than 12 militants, including Arabs and Uzbeks, were killed in Tang Khatta village near Loisam.

He said they had received reports that dozens of militants were killed in the bombing and mortar and artillery shelling, adding that they had learnt from militant intercepts that several foreigners were injured in the aerial bombing by jet fighters and gunship choppers.

Major Murad said a number of Arabs and Uzbeks were also killed in the fighting with the security forces on Wednesday near Rashakai and Tang Khatta villages.Military authorities said the troops faced tough resistance near Tang Khatta, Rashkai and Loisam areas where an Afghan Taliban commander, Qari Ziaur Rahman, was leading the foreign fighters against the troops.

Residents of Salarzai subdivision, where the tribesmen had raised a 'Lashkar' that burnt militants' houses, recovered three bodies which they claimed were of the security personnel gunned down by suspected militants.

Abdullah, a self-purported spokesman for Afghan Taliban commander Qari Ziaur Rahman, phoned The News from an undisclosed location and claimed that their fighters were still in control of Rashkai, Tang Khatta and Loisam areas.

He claimed that seven civilians, including women and children, were killed when a mortar shell hit a mud-house near Tang Khatta.Tribal sources told The News that two fighter jets bombed the Gole Market at Inayat Killay bazaar, where the militants had reportedly set up their centre for holding meetings. The market was levelled to the ground.

The residents said there were 200 shops in the market, including bargain centres, cloth and mobile phone shops in the markets.Meanwhile, the people complained that continuous curfew for the past eight days in most parts of the troubled region was causing them acute hardships.

"The markets have been closed for the past several days, causing food shortage in the area. The government and particularly the military authorities should take note of the problems being faced by the tribesmen," remarked Mohammad Ikramullah, a resident of Siddiqabad village near Khar.


100 militants killed in Bajaur clashes