FATA Situation

[AgNoStiC MuSliM]

"They know that accuracy is less than 5% percent but still they are doning this shamefull act."

Just lucky I guess...

"I think american will also talk with osama after talaban."

Do you know where he is such that he can say hello to an American. I've two in mind- Smith and Wesson. Ever heard of them?

 

[Anwar2]

The US UAV strikes happen with the full knowledge and consent of Pakistan’s political and military leadership. Perhaps after the US election the true extent of the formal and informal agreements will be known.

To most Pakistanis the strikes on Waziristan might as well be happening on another planet, nobody really cares. Slow moving turboprop UAVs are not believed to be as hard to detect as generally advertised, can be easily shot down by standing Combat Air patrols, provided there is a will. Our financial and political compulsions are such that an expression of “helplessness” is the easiest way out.

 

[S-2]

"Slow moving turboprop UAVs are not believed to be as hard to detect as generally advertised, can be easily shot down by standing Combat Air patrols, provided there is a will. Our financial and political compulsions are such that an expression of “helplessness” is the easiest way out."

NOW you're starting to get the picture but, as usual, that's only part of the story. Why would you shoot them down with a CAP? PREDATOR FLIES from your facilities in Pakistan.

 

[ejaz007]

Taliban infiltrating from Afghanistan: IG FC

* Gen Tariq Khan claims Bajaur Agency would be cleared of Taliban by end of November

Daily Times Monitor

LAHORE: Frontier Corps (FC) IG Maj Gen Tariq Khan has alleged that Taliban are infiltrating from Afghanistan into Pakistan to help those battling security forces in Bajaur Agency.

In an interview with BBC Urdu, Khan said he also raised the infiltration issue with NATO, US and Afghan authorities in Afghanistan after which the infiltration had reduced ‘to an extent’. He said about 200 Taliban from Afghanistan entered Bajaur every two or three days to fight the security forces in the initial days of the military operation.

He claimed that Taliban in Bajaur were fighting Pakistani security forces under the leadership of Afghan commander Qari Ziaur Rehman. He said that Chechen, Uzbek, Afghan and Turkmen terrorists were present in Bajaur and were receiving assistance from ‘foreign countries’. He did not name the countries.

He said that security forces had captured about 40km area in Bajaur including Khar, Tank, Khata, Rashkai and Loyesam and claimed that the agency would be cleared of Taliban by the end of November.

The military operation in Bajaur had been given more importance than those in other Tribal Areas because ‘it is an important area in strategic terms and provides easy access to Afghanistan, Mohmand Agency, Dir, Swat and settled areas of the NWFP’. It could be considered the centre of the battle, he added.

Daily Times - Leading News Resource of Pakistan

 

[Neo]

Army: Pakistan troops capture militant stronghold​

Associated Press Writer Munir Ahmad,
Sat Oct 25, 2008

LOI SAM, Pakistan – Pakistan's army captured a key militant stronghold near the Afghan border, a breakthrough in a bloody push against the Taliban and al-Qaida that has claimed 95 civilian lives, the military said Saturday.

Army spokesman Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas said troops on Saturday captured Loi Sam, a town in the Bajur region sitting on a vital intersection connecting the border to three neighboring Pakistani regions.

"Now we have complete control in this area from where miscreants used to go to Afghanistan," Abbas told reporters flown into Bajur on a military helicopter Saturday. "Miscreants have been expelled or killed."

Pakistan's army launched an offensive in Bajur in early August, saying the region had become a "mega-sanctuary" for militants waging an intensifying insurgency on both sides of the frontier.

U.S. officials praised the operation, saying it had helped reduce violence on the Afghan side of the border.

However, there has been no halt to the regular American missile strikes on suspected militants hideouts in other parts of Pakistan's wild frontier region, despite Islamabad's protests the attacks violate its sovereignty.

Commanders had reported stiff resistance near Loi Sam from local Taliban militants reinforced by foreign fighters including some from Afghanistan.

Maj. Gen. Tariq Khan, who commands the paramilitary border force, said it could take authorities six months to a year to gain complete control of Bajur.

The region has been mentioned as a possible hiding place for Osama bin Laden and al-Qaida No. 2 Ayman al-Zawahri, but Khan said troops found no sign of them.

Violence and government restrictions have made it virtually impossible to verify accounts of the fighting.

Khan said a total of 1,500 suspected militants and 73 troops have died in the operation so far. He also said 95 civilians had died — the first official estimate of the toll on innocents.

He did not say how they died, but officials have acknowledged artillery and airstrikes devastated many residential areas.

Nearly 200,000 people have fled the fighting, many of them to camps in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

The military launched the Bajur operation after militants attacked troops trying to set up a checkpoint in Loi Sam on Aug. 8.

Reporters driven from Khar, the region's main town, to Loi Sam Saturday got a close-up view of the damage inflicted as the troops, backed by artillery and warplanes, fought their way back.

In one village, devastated residential compounds, some of them connected by militant tunnels, lined both sides of the road.

In Loi Sam itself, hardly a building escaped: Houses, shops and gas stations were badly damaged or destroyed. The only people on the streets were soldiers, several of them firing shells at a supposed militant hide-out.

Khan said militants were still entering the region from Afghanistan, but that the flow had eased thanks to coordinated efforts with foreign troops on the other side.

He said U.S.-led troops had "checked" a group trying to cross into Pakistan Friday night but gave no other details.

Abbas said troops from the paramilitary Frontier Corps, being trained by U.S. special forces, would eventually replace regular army troops in the captured areas.

Khan also said 11 tribal militias, known as lashkars, have joined the government side in Bajur. The militias have been compared to so-called awakening councils who have combated al-Qaida in Iraq.

He denied media reports the government was arming the tribesmen and said the militias would be disbanded once their areas are cleared of militants.

 

[Neo]

Pakistan says 1,500 militants, 73 troops killed in offensive​

Sat Oct 25, 2008

KHAR, Pakistan (AFP) - Pakistani forces have killed 1,500 Al-Qaeda and Taliban militants during a two-month operation in a remote tribal zone, while 73 troops have also been killed, the military said Saturday.

In the offensive launched in early August in the troubled region of Bajaur, bordering Afghanistan, troops also captured a major strategic town at the centre of militant supply routes, it said.

Islamabad has previously hailed its operation in Bajaur as proof that it is responding to US and Afghan demands to take action against extremists in Pakistan's seven semi-autonomous tribal areas.

"More than 1,500 militants have been killed during the operation and security forces have gained major successes," Major General Tariq Khan, head of the paramilitary Frontier Corps (FC), told reporters visiting the region.

"Some 42 army men and 31 FC men embraced martyrdom," Khan told a press conference in Khar, the main town in Bajaur, adding that "172 regular troops were injured while 95 FC men were wounded in the fighting".

He said the key town of Loisam, whose capture by hundreds of militants in early August sparked the operation, "has been captured after stiff resistance".

Security forces have captured more than 300 foreign militants, mainly from Afghanistan, Uzbekistan and Tajikistan, in the operation, he said.

But he added that the operation "could go for several months before the area is completely cleared of militants".

Pakistan's tribal belt became a safe haven for hundreds of Al-Qaeda and Taliban extremists who fled the US-led toppling of Afghanistan's hardline Taliban regime in late 2001 and have since set up training camps.

Many militants had gathered in Bajaur in recent months after being driven out of other Pakistani tribal regions, especially North and South Waziristan hundreds of kilometres (miles) to the south.

While Pakistani forces have been concentrating on Bajaur, most of a recent spate of suspected US missile attacks on Pakistan have focused on Waziristan.

The US strikes have been in areas dominated by Taliban leaders who Pakistani security officials say are not involved in fighting with the Pakistani military.

 

[pkpatriotic]

32 killed in US missile strikes
Al-Qaeda splinter group leader Abu Akasha believed dead
By Mushtaq Yusufzai
Saturday, November 01, 2008

PESHAWAR: Seventeen people were killed and several others injured in two missile attacks by US drones in North and South Waziristan agencies on Friday evening. However, private television channels put the death toll in the two Waziristan attacks at 32.

Eight people were killed in the first missile strike in Mirali, North Waziristan Agency (NWA), and nine others in another attack on Wana, the adjacent South Waziristan Agency (SWA).

Two CIA-operated pilotless spy planes first fired two Hellfire missiles on a car at Esori village near Mirali subdivision and killed four people inside the vehicle and same number standing outside.

Security officials based in Miramshah, the headquarters of NWA, told The News by telephone that 20 people, including tribal and Arab militants, had been killed in the attack by the pilotless US aircraft.

The officials said a senior al-Qaeda commander, Abu Akasha al-Iraqi, was said to be the prime target of the US drone attack. They claimed that Akasha, along with his close aides, had been killed in the missile hit. However, sources among the militants claimed that only four militants had lost their lives. They included an Arab and three tribals hailing from Dawar tribe.

The sources said two US spy planes that had been flying over Mirali and adjoining villages since Friday morning fired two Hellfire missiles at around 8:30 pm on a car as soon as it stopped near the main gate of the house of Amanullah Dawar.

Amanullah Dawar is reported to have close contacts with Abu Akasha and would often receive foreign guests in his house. “Only the car had been destroyed in the attack while the house of Amanullah remained safe,” a militant commander told this scribe soon after the attack on the village.

He admitted that Abu Akasha had been living in the area for the past several years, along with his family, and was widely considered as spiritual figure rather than a militant commander. According to the sources, the 45-year old Arab commander had parted ways with the mainstream al-Qaeda three years back and formed his own militant organisation “Jaishul Mehdi”.

“He was not happy with al-Qaeda people and often complained that the network had been hijacked by the Egyptians. He then formed his own militant organisation, comprising his own countrymen and Uzbeks, Turkmen and Chechens,” said the sources.

He was living with his Iraqi wife and children, including three sons. His elder son, Abu Bakar, died two years ago, along with senior al-Qaeda commander, Abu Hamza al-Muhajir at Anghar village near Miramshah in a US drone attack.

The sources close to the Arab commander said his 20-year-old son was fluent in English, Pushto, Urdu and Persian languages. “He was not as much active in Jihad these days but people of his organisation were taking part in Jihad against the US-led forces in Afghanistan,” said the sources close to Abu Akasha.

In SWA, nine people, including Ahmadzai Wazir and suspected Arab militants, were killed and several others injured in another missile attack by three US Predators at Dhog village near Wana, on Friday evening.

Official and tribal sources told this scribe that three US spy planes were seen hovering over the tribal region during the missile attack. They said the planes fired three Hellfire missiles on the house of one Haroon Wazir, a spokesman for Maulvi Nazeer, the leader of the pro-government tribal militants operating in SWA.

A senior militant commander on condition of anonymity told The News from Wana that the dead included six Arabs. He was of the opinion that some important foreign guests used to visit the house.

“We lost some of our very senior people in this attack. It’s a great loss to us,” remarked a militant commander of Maulvi Nazeer group.Tribal sources said the house targeted by the US planes was about one-and-a-half kilometre from the Army base in Wana.

In both the cases, the security forces remained silent and did not bother to take note of the continuous flights and subsequent attacks by the US spy planes on the Pakistani soil.Tribal sources also said that two US fighter planes were seen flying several kilometres deep inside the Pakistani tribal areas on Friday.

“Yes, they violated our airspace several times on Friday. Our job was to report to the higher authorities based in Islamabad and Peshawar and we have already done that,” said an official based in Miramshah.

 

[peter chamberlin]

WE KNOW THEIR PLANS
By: Peter Chamberlin
The following warning about a “potential explosion region-wide” in the Middle East, occurring by February 15, 2009, predates Biden’s and Colin Powell’s identical warning.
ZBIGNIEW BRZEZINSKI: “The political awakening that is happening worldwide is a major challenge for America, because it means that the world is much more restless. It`s stirring. It has aspirations which are not easily satisfied. And if America is to lead, it has to relate itself somehow to these new, lively, intense political aspirations, which make our age so different from even the recent past. But the challenge that we face is rooted much more in the immediate problem, which we have partially created — namely, we are the number one superpower today in the world. We are the only superpower. But our leadership is being tested in the Middle East, and some of the things that we have done in the Middle East are contributing to a potential explosion region-wide. And if that explosion gets out of hand, we may end up being bogged down for many years to come in a conflict that will be profoundly damaging to our capacity to exercise our power, to address the problems implicit in this global awakening, and we may face a world in which much of the world turns away from us, seeks its own equilibrium, but probably slides into a growing chaos.
So I think we`re at a very critical stage, and I am personally very worried as to what might conceivably happen in the next 20 months.” [This prediction was made June 15, 2007, about events happening by February 15.]
As a principle advisor to Obama (Son advises McCain), Zbig will be in position to influence war policy in the oil region, where he plans to be a key player in the finishing of the war on terror which he has bragged to being instrumental in starting:
“Indeed, it was July 3, 1979 that President
Carter signed the first directive for secret aid to the opponents of the
pro-Soviet regime in Kabul. And that very day, I wrote a note to the
president in which I explained to him that in my opinion this aid was going
to induce a Soviet military intervention.”

The Reagan Administration called the counter-offensive that flowed out of this provocation the “war on terrorism.” It is the same war we continue to fight today, now being fought where it all began. The US has been driving the suffering people in the Hindu Kush Mountains back and forth across the imaginary border line, like wandering herds of mountain sheep, since then. America’s turning the region into a battlefield in 1979 has been to both nations’ torment.

In the recent Rand think tank study “Counterinsurgency in Afghanistan” By: Seth G. Jones, the blame for the faltering war was placed completely on Pakistan’s secret service (ISI), claiming that the government agency provided intelligence, aid and comfort to the Taliban fighting in Afghanistan at training at camps in Pakistan. Many of these camps, which were originally built for the CIA to train the anti-Soviet “mujahedeen,” are targeted by US Predator drones, practically on a daily basis.

These bombings are destabilizing the area and increasing anti-American hostility, amplifying the anti-government tensions that are rapidly turning our loyal ally into a “failed state.” These Predator missile attacks kill mostly civilians, as do the frequent car-bombings (attributed to “al Qaida linked groups”) which repeatedly hit the same area around Wana in South Waziristan, targeting the same individuals. With both groups rotating their attacks upon the same tribal leadership, this multiplies the odds that this is where that “potential explosion region-wide” will be produced.

The American media ignores this anomaly, of US forces and “al Qaida” constantly targeting the same individuals, which has been consistent in all the desired war theaters, since the great war began. In the area around Wana, US Predators have been hitting the same leadership of the local Taliban who have negotiated with the Pakistani government and fought to expel foreign fighters allied with the “al Qaida.” The Nov. 2 bombing that killed eight Frontier Corps soldiers, struck those government outposts which had provided aid to those Taliban leaders in that fight. This comes after a Predator attack upon this same group of leaders on Oct. 31.

The press does not care to ask why Predators are attacking in Wana, instead of supporting the war Pakistan is waging around Bajaur and in the Swat Valley against the same fighters that the CIA drones are allegedly targeting. The CIA is obviously preparing the next battlefield for American forces to enter, but what is the objective?

The following Google map I have created might help explain why the US is trying to create a break-out in Pakistan, around the town of Wana: Google Maps

<iframe width="425" height="350" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" src="http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?hl=en&amp;gl=us&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;oe=UTF8&amp;msa=0&amp;msid=102377860447919283465.0004502d7eaab5e63d74e&amp;ll=33.081036,71.050901&amp;spn=2.12194,3.578028&amp;output=embed&amp;s=AARTsJripqhlIufUqhpDWd6P25ri8MryDQ"></iframe><br /><small><a href="http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?hl=en&amp;gl=us&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;oe=UTF8&amp;msa=0&amp;msid=102377860447919283465.0004502d7eaab5e63d74e&amp;ll=33.081036,71.050901&amp;spn=2.12194,3.578028&amp;source=embed" style="color:#0000FF;text-align:left">View Larger Map</a></small>

The blue line in the border. The three pins on the lower left represent Wana, Adam Warzuk (site of several Predator attacks and car-bombings) and the border outpost of Angoor Adda, location of the Sept. 3 assault by US special operations forces that resulted in 20 killed, Sept. 17 Pak forces fire on 2 US choppers,
Oct 29, US-led Nato forces on Tuesday fired around 11 artillery shells.

To the right of relatively-low altitude Wana are three marker pins for the Khusab, Chasma and Isa Khel nuclear sites; northeast from there across the plains is the main nuclear site at Rawalpindi.

Here is a natural corridor from the Afghan military bases around Khost, all the way to the Pakistani capital, which is the location of most nukes. Is the CIA setting-up the battlefield for President Obama to “finish the fight against al Qaeda and the Taliban, secure all nuclear weapons and materials from terrorists and rogue states”? Or is the agency determined to destabilize this part of Pakistan for reasons that are less dramatic?

It has been suggested that the surge into Pakistan is Bush trying to claim a few al Qaida “trophies” before he leaves office? The US has been claiming a lot of heads for Bush’s wall in the recent wave of drone attacks. Here we have the ultimate cover story, as the CIA/Mossad creation, alleged al Qaida “Azzam al-Ameriki” (a.k.a. Adam Gadahn) is one of the CIA targets in Wana. Is he being used to provide a phantom target for the Predators? Is the real story here that the CIA is destabilizing Pakistan because of the war on terror, or are they doing it in order to create the war on terror?

If we had a real news media in this country people like me wouldn’t have to speculate about the truth thousands of miles away in Pakistan, there would be honest reporters on the ground there.

Why do al Qaida and CIA fight the same enemies?

Why do both secret organizations, both sides in the same war, want to foment an Islamic democratic revolution in Pakistan and destroy the world order?


peter.chamberlin@yahoo.com

 

[RescueRanger]

WE KNOW THEIR PLANS
By: Peter Chamberlin
The following warning about a “potential explosion region-wide” in the Middle East, occurring by February 15, 2009, predates Biden’s and Colin Powell’s identical warning.
ZBIGNIEW BRZEZINSKI: “The political awakening that is happening worldwide is a major challenge for America, because it means that the world is much more restless. It`s stirring. It has aspirations which are not easily satisfied. And if America is to lead, it has to relate itself somehow to these new, lively, intense political aspirations, which make our age so different from even the recent past. But the challenge that we face is rooted much more in the immediate problem, which we have partially created — namely, we are the number one superpower today in the world. We are the only superpower. But our leadership is being tested in the Middle East, and some of the things that we have done in the Middle East are contributing to a potential explosion region-wide. And if that explosion gets out of hand, we may end up being bogged down for many years to come in a conflict that will be profoundly damaging to our capacity to exercise our power, to address the problems implicit in this global awakening, and we may face a world in which much of the world turns away from us, seeks its own equilibrium, but probably slides into a growing chaos.
So I think we`re at a very critical stage, and I am personally very worried as to what might conceivably happen in the next 20 months.” [This prediction was made June 15, 2007, about events happening by February 15.]
As a principle advisor to Obama (Son advises McCain), Zbig will be in position to influence war policy in the oil region, where he plans to be a key player in the finishing of the war on terror which he has bragged to being instrumental in starting:
“Indeed, it was July 3, 1979 that President
Carter signed the first directive for secret aid to the opponents of the
pro-Soviet regime in Kabul. And that very day, I wrote a note to the
president in which I explained to him that in my opinion this aid was going
to induce a Soviet military intervention.”

The Reagan Administration called the counter-offensive that flowed out of this provocation the “war on terrorism.” It is the same war we continue to fight today, now being fought where it all began. The US has been driving the suffering people in the Hindu Kush Mountains back and forth across the imaginary border line, like wandering herds of mountain sheep, since then. America’s turning the region into a battlefield in 1979 has been to both nations’ torment.

In the recent Rand think tank study “Counterinsurgency in Afghanistan” By: Seth G. Jones, the blame for the faltering war was placed completely on Pakistan’s secret service (ISI), claiming that the government agency provided intelligence, aid and comfort to the Taliban fighting in Afghanistan at training at camps in Pakistan. Many of these camps, which were originally built for the CIA to train the anti-Soviet “mujahedeen,” are targeted by US Predator drones, practically on a daily basis.

These bombings are destabilizing the area and increasing anti-American hostility, amplifying the anti-government tensions that are rapidly turning our loyal ally into a “failed state.” These Predator missile attacks kill mostly civilians, as do the frequent car-bombings (attributed to “al Qaida linked groups”) which repeatedly hit the same area around Wana in South Waziristan, targeting the same individuals. With both groups rotating their attacks upon the same tribal leadership, this multiplies the odds that this is where that “potential explosion region-wide” will be produced.

The American media ignores this anomaly, of US forces and “al Qaida” constantly targeting the same individuals, which has been consistent in all the desired war theaters, since the great war began. In the area around Wana, US Predators have been hitting the same leadership of the local Taliban who have negotiated with the Pakistani government and fought to expel foreign fighters allied with the “al Qaida.” The Nov. 2 bombing that killed eight Frontier Corps soldiers, struck those government outposts which had provided aid to those Taliban leaders in that fight. This comes after a Predator attack upon this same group of leaders on Oct. 31.

The press does not care to ask why Predators are attacking in Wana, instead of supporting the war Pakistan is waging around Bajaur and in the Swat Valley against the same fighters that the CIA drones are allegedly targeting. The CIA is obviously preparing the next battlefield for American forces to enter, but what is the objective?

The following Google map I have created might help explain why the US is trying to create a break-out in Pakistan, around the town of Wana: Google Maps

<iframe width="425" height="350" frameborder="0" scrolling="no" marginheight="0" marginwidth="0" src="http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?hl=en&amp;gl=us&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;oe=UTF8&amp;msa=0&amp;msid=102377860447919283465.0004502d7eaab5e63d74e&amp;ll=33.081036,71.050901&amp;spn=2.12194,3.578028&amp;output=embed&amp;s=AARTsJripqhlIufUqhpDWd6P25ri8MryDQ"></iframe><br /><small><a href="http://maps.google.com/maps/ms?hl=en&amp;gl=us&amp;ie=UTF8&amp;oe=UTF8&amp;msa=0&amp;msid=102377860447919283465.0004502d7eaab5e63d74e&amp;ll=33.081036,71.050901&amp;spn=2.12194,3.578028&amp;source=embed" style="color:#0000FF;text-align:left">View Larger Map</a></small>

The blue line in the border. The three pins on the lower left represent Wana, Adam Warzuk (site of several Predator attacks and car-bombings) and the border outpost of Angoor Adda, location of the Sept. 3 assault by US special operations forces that resulted in 20 killed, Sept. 17 Pak forces fire on 2 US choppers,
Oct 29, US-led Nato forces on Tuesday fired around 11 artillery shells.

To the right of relatively-low altitude Wana are three marker pins for the Khusab, Chasma and Isa Khel nuclear sites; northeast from there across the plains is the main nuclear site at Rawalpindi.

Here is a natural corridor from the Afghan military bases around Khost, all the way to the Pakistani capital, which is the location of most nukes. Is the CIA setting-up the battlefield for President Obama to “finish the fight against al Qaeda and the Taliban, secure all nuclear weapons and materials from terrorists and rogue states”? Or is the agency determined to destabilize this part of Pakistan for reasons that are less dramatic?

It has been suggested that the surge into Pakistan is Bush trying to claim a few al Qaida “trophies” before he leaves office? The US has been claiming a lot of heads for Bush’s wall in the recent wave of drone attacks. Here we have the ultimate cover story, as the CIA/Mossad creation, alleged al Qaida “Azzam al-Ameriki” (a.k.a. Adam Gadahn) is one of the CIA targets in Wana. Is he being used to provide a phantom target for the Predators? Is the real story here that the CIA is destabilizing Pakistan because of the war on terror, or are they doing it in order to create the war on terror?

If we had a real news media in this country people like me wouldn’t have to speculate about the truth thousands of miles away in Pakistan, there would be honest reporters on the ground there.

Why do al Qaida and CIA fight the same enemies?

Why do both secret organizations, both sides in the same war, want to foment an Islamic democratic revolution in Pakistan and destroy the world order?


peter.chamberlin@yahoo.com

Thank you very much for posting, very interesting reading and quite indepth.

 

[S-2]

"To the right of relatively-low altitude Wana are three marker pins for the Khusab, Chasma and Isa Khel nuclear sites; northeast from there across the plains is the main nuclear site at Rawalpindi.

Here is a natural corridor from the Afghan military bases around Khost, all the way to the Pakistani capital, which is the location of most nukes. Is the CIA setting-up the battlefield for President Obama to &#8220;finish the fight against al Qaeda and the Taliban, secure all nuclear weapons and materials from terrorists and rogue states&#8221;? Or is the agency determined to destabilize this part of Pakistan for reasons that are less dramatic?"

Wow. Though I see it's impressed Rescue Ranger, I'd give it an "A" only in the techno-thriller sub-plot category. More "hidden hand" agendas to steal your nukes?

Get real and put this crap on the fiction shelf.

 

[fatman17]

The US UAV strikes happen with the full knowledge and consent of Pakistan’s political and military leadership. Perhaps after the US election the true extent of the formal and informal agreements will be known.

To most Pakistanis the strikes on Waziristan might as well be happening on another planet, nobody really cares. Slow moving turboprop UAVs are not believed to be as hard to detect as generally advertised, can be easily shot down by standing Combat Air patrols, provided there is a will. Our financial and political compulsions are such that an expression of “helplessness” is the easiest way out.

check the 29 killed in air-strike post for your answer.

 

[Always Neutral]

US is killling just innocent civilians.

They want to terroris the local populations and want to show the drama of their toys noting else.

They dont have courage to fight with talaban gurrillas on ground.

This is the reaction of defeat they are facing in Afghanistan.

How do you know they were innocent sitting safely in the Saudi ?

Its the otherway the Taliban does not have the courage to fight and are cowards who show their lack of manhood by be-heading women and girls.

Come back to this forum when USA gets actually defeated on the ground and not in that infertile brain of yours.

BTW i see you avoid my question below which I repeat in capitals so that your myopic eye sight may register it.

WHAT ARE U DOING IN THE SAFETY OF THE SAUDI ARABIA INSTEAD OF FIGHTING WITH YOUR BROTHER TALIBANIS IN PAKISTAN AND AFGHANISTAN ?

Regards

 

[Neo]

Pakistan air strikes killed top militants, says Petraeus​

BAGRAM AIR BASE, Nov 6: US missile strikes in the tribal areas in recent months have killed three of the top 20 extremist leaders there, causing a blow to insurgents threatening Pakistan’s very existence, a top US general said on Thursday.

Gen David H. Petraeus, the new chief of US Central Command, said controversial air strikes launched into Pakistan’s tribal areas in the last three months were a topic of conversation with every Pakistani leader he met this week. Pakistani leaders have criticised the missile strikes as a violation of their sovereignty.

“Certainly there does have to be a better explanation of the blows that have been struck in recent weeks and months,” Petraeus told The Associated Press in an interview. “It is hugely important that three of 20 extremist leaders have been killed in recent months.”

Petraeus did not identify the extremist leaders he said died in the US strikes.

There have been more than 17 reported air strikes since August in the tribal areas.

Speaking at the sprawling Bagram military base north of Kabul, Petraeus described the insurgents on both sides as a “mutual enemy”, who in the case of Pakistan represent “an existential threat, and they recognise it as such”.

“When I was in Islamabad, in Peshawar, I was very impressed by the determination of Pakistani leaders indeed to take steps to deal with what they see as a threat to their very existence posed by the extremists in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas and in some other areas of their country,” Petraeus said.

Petraeus, who became US Central Command chief on Oct 31, has been credited for turning the tide of violence in Iraq, and many expect Afghanistan will see some of the same tactics, such as co-opting local tribal leaders to resist the Taliban.

While acknowledging that the security situation in Afghanistan had deteriorated in the last year, Petraeus said Afghanistan’s government is looking at new initiatives to engage Afghan tribes in the fight against insurgents, a similar tactic to the one that helped bring down the levels of violence in Sunni areas in Iraq.

“That discussion is bubbling up, if you will, and I think that there are some very thoughtful approaches that are being looked at as options,” Petraeus said without disclosing any details of the initiatives under discussion.—AP

 

[eva syed]

why we are killing our own innocent people.

 

[RabzonKhan]

Fortunately, things changed after the exit of President Pervez Musharraf from the scene and his policy of mollifying the MMA because it helped him stay in power through the 17th Amendment. With the PPP in power in Islamabad and an apolitical army chief in the person of General Ashfaq Pervaiz Kayani heading the army, the scene has changed for the better and the pressure on the Taliban has started to build up.

My thoughts exactly!


Editorial: Bajaur: attacking the jirgas

November 08, 2008

The Salarzai tribe that had begun to oppose the Taliban in Bajaur has been attacked near the town of Khar, the headquarters of Bajaur tribal agency. Their jirga was attacked by a suicide bomber who rushed into the gathering of elders and exploded himself on Wednesday. In all 22 elders were killed, including the leaders and commanders of the lashkar (militia) that they had put together to fight and expel the Taliban and their affiliated “foreigners” from the area. Forty-five members of the 300-strong council of elders were wounded.

An organisation of obscure origin has claimed the deed. This is a pattern and tells us how the Taliban and their patron Al Qaeda have come under pressure lately from the jirgas and reacted. In March, they had to massacre a jirga in Darra Adam Khel and last month they repeated the deed on a jirga in Orakzai agency, killing over a hundred elders. This is stage two of the strategy employed by the terrorists. They began by killing the maliks and single individuals of influence in the Tribal Areas to replace the traditional system of self-governance. Stage two is now upon us and is more problematic.

The jirga remains the apex of the system of authority among the tribes. When the maliks were being killed, the jirgas remained silent, linking the killings to “injustice” in Afghanistan. But as the Taliban began to impose their rule over them with punishments serving as instruments of fear, public reaction to them began to change. The problem was that the state at that time was not around to reassure them that they would be supported if they defied the terrorist regime. But now in Bajaur, for the first time, the Taliban and their “foreigners” are getting hurt in their confrontation with the Pakistan army, as is apparent from the suing for peace by Baitullah Mehsud, their “caliph” in South Waziristan. So now the tribes and jirgas are beginning to reassert themselves.

The Salarzai showed patience when their economy was being demolished and their schools were being pulled down by the Taliban. But after the army began operations in Bajaur, the Salarzai began to express their true response to the Taliban, something that has not happened elsewhere in the Tribal Areas, either because the military operations there have been fitful or have not succeeded. Therefore the attack on the Salarzai jirga clearly shows a new trend in the adventure story of the Taliban-Al Qaeda combine: they are becoming unpopular among the tribesmen and trying to cow them down by attacking their jirgas.

But the jirga killings are simply going to damage the Taliban’s cause further. Nowhere was the popular reaction against the “foreign” terrorists more intense than in the Malakand division (Swat, Dir, etc). But the people there were “softened” in favour of the Taliban by the MMA government in Peshawar which ruled in the area, just as it did not encourage the people of FATA to rise against the terrorists. Thus when the elections rolled around, the Swatis clearly indicted the MMA government for not looking after them. They also began to condemn the government when the military operations inflicted a lot of damage on them without eliminating the terrorists. So the fear factor came in and their message was: leave us to the mercies of the Taliban.

Fortunately, things changed after the exit of President Pervez Musharraf from the scene and his policy of mollifying the MMA because it helped him stay in power through the 17th Amendment. With the PPP in power in Islamabad and an apolitical army chief in the person of General Ashfaq Pervaiz Kayani heading the army, the scene has changed for the better and the pressure on the Taliban has started to build up. This must be kept up and, more importantly, other tribal agencies should be brought under military operations.

South Waziristan, where the last military operation in May this year discovered the “suicide academy” where suicide-bombers were trained for the whole of Pakistan, is back in the hands of Baitullah Mehsud whose second marriage was celebrated by subservient tribesmen on the occasion of last Eid to show that he was still the “caliph”. Kurram Agency is also a place gradually going out of the territorial jurisdiction of Pakistan. Since Peshawar failed to re-establish the traffic on the road going to Parachinar, the agency’s economy has become connected to Afghanistan. If you want to send food and medicines to Parachinar, you have to first smuggle them to Afghanistan. Since the Pakistani state could not come to the help of the besieged tribes there, their co-tribals from Afghanistan are coming in to defend them. This is not a situation which Islamabad can take for very long.

Attacking the jirgas is a sign of weakness in the Taliban “movement”. More and more tribesmen are going to turn against them as their elders are exterminated. More citizens’ militias will be formed against the Taliban; but the terrorists will be rolled back only if the Pakistan army goes in and helps its own people to defend themselves. This is the war that Pakistan has to fight, and from it hangs the prospect of what will happen in the region in the coming weeks and months. *