Operation Rah-e-Nijat (South Waziristan)

[iPhone]

and u think ttp will give this to them ? who broke peace agreements time and time again ? who assassinated peaceful tribal elders ? suicide bombed markets ? who dynamited schools ? who threatened people against playing cricket and music ? who banned women from going shopping ? stopped polio vaccinations ? who extorted money from minorities ? still after all this your blaming only the pak military and keeping silent on ttp ur a sick person !

actually you and the other members shouldn't have wasted a second of their time on this ttp terrorist. He's a known ttp mouthpiece who probably brainwashes UK's muslim youth into terrorism.

 

[deathfromabove]

Watch this pic closely. This is from a wall on suicide training facility in Makeen, South Waziristan. The paintings are designed to present Jannat and the young minds are made to see them over and over to program them. There are many other pics as well where they have shown "hoorain","bagh" and "doodh ki nehrain".But this one is the most stunning one. The house in Jannat is shown as "Pakhtunkhwa Rest House". This name for NWFP is only used by ANP!!! No Muslim especially if they are real Mujahideen would ever use this name !!!!!

 

[AgNoStiC MuSliM]

No Muslim especially if they are real Mujahideen would ever use this name !!!!!

Well unfortunately for your theory, Muslims, both terrorists and in the ANP and its allies, use the name 'Pakhtunkhwa'.

Stop hiding from the fact that these acts are committed by Pakistanis and Muslims. You can call the acts 'un-Islamic' if you like (which they are), but the identity of these people is not in doubt.

IMO the reason the terrorists are using the term Pakhtunkhwa is so that they can try and use ethnic nationalism as an additional motivating factor in brainwashing these young souls.

Their narrative then becomes more than just 'fighting for Islam and against injustice against Muslims', it is also 'a fight against those who persecute and massacre the Pakhtun'.

 

[TaimiKhan]

Watch this pic closely. This is from a wall on suicide training facility in Makeen, South Waziristan. The paintings are designed to present Jannat and the young minds are made to see them over and over to program them. There are many other pics as well where they have shown "hoorain","bagh" and "doodh ki nehrain".But this one is the most stunning one. The house in Jannat is shown as "Pakhtunkhwa Rest House". This name for NWFP is only used by ANP!!! No Muslim especially if they are real Mujahideen would ever use this name !!!!!

Just a clarification, Pakhtunkhwa name is not used by ANP only, many other Pushtun people with no link to ANP also use and favor this name. In tribal areas also you will see this name on a lot of cars & transport vehicles where ANP has no power or following.

Using the name Pakhtunkwa is a psychological thing used for brain washing the suicide bombers as in their training the element of being a Pastun is exploited to give a sense of superiority.

So better the link to ANP is removed as these guys have taken the brunt of the casualties any political party has taken so far and some of their leaders are the bravest of all the other political leaders but off course after the army leadership.

And plzzzz don't think i am a die hard fan of theirs , my favorite political party is Army

 

[AgNoStiC MuSliM]

So better the link to ANP is removed as these guys have taken the brunt of the casualties any political party has taken so far and some of their leaders are the bravest of all the other political leaders but off course after the army leadership.

I agree - hats off to them.

I would not mind seeing the ANP emerging as a national party either - perhaps a union of the ANP-MQM and Sheikh Rashid's Party in the Punjab.

 

[PAFAce]

Why is the name Pakhtunkhwa so controversial? What is the reason behind its use? As far as I can work out, it simply means Land of the Pashtun. It certainly represents the area much better than North West Frontier Province. If we can have Punjab, Sindh, Balochistan and now Gilgit-Baltistan, then why not Pakhtunkhwa?

Also, this point about the Taliban using Pashtun nationalism for recruitment has been brought up by Graham Fuller, ex Chief of the CIA. The alienation of the Pashtun in Afghanistan by the ISAF has helped to increase the chances of Pashtun youth falling into the hands of the Taliban, and thus has made it that much more difficult for the ISAF to win the "hearts and minds". In Pakistan, the situation is not as bad, much of our Army is Pashtun, and so are many of our politicians, however, anti-West sentiments amongst the Pashtuns have not been helped by this isolation of the majority population in Afghanistan. The terrorists are simply trying to exploit this. To them, it doesn't matter whether its religious fundamentalism, nationalism, crime, isolation, hunger, poverty, foreign influence or whatever else the motivating factor is, they will take as many people as possible to fight and destroy Pakistan and its Forces.

 

[air marshal]

5 more terrorists killed in Operation Rah e Nijat

ISLAMABAD, Dec 10 (APP): Five more terrorists were killed and another was apprehended while a soldier embraced Shahadat and another got injured in the on going operation Rah e Nijat in South Waziristan. According to the details of last 24 hours released by ISPR on Thursday, security forces carried out sanitization at Partigai near Ahmadwam and Kazha Kats, in Jandola sector.

Security forces cleared 30 compounds in area around Abdullah Nur Kaskai, Bangiwala and Aka Khel Pungai.

In Shakai Sector, Notables and administration of area assured complete cooperation and support to security forces for ongoing operation against the terrorists.

Security forces cleared Nanu and destroyed terrorists houses at Barwand including the house of terrorists commander Wali ur Rehman.

During encounter a soldier embraced Shahadat and another was injured at Khassadar Ridge, while five terrorists were killed near Kaniguram.

On expiry of deadline given to terrorists, Jirga destroyed the house of local terrorists commander Shabeeb Khan in Shakkai.

In Razmak Sector, security forces carried out search operation at village Marobi Raghozai near Makeen, Tara Tiza and recovered one ammunition factory along with huge cache of arms ammunition.

Security forces conducted clearance operation near Pash Ziarat and found a terrorists tunnel (50 feet long) and 10 bunkers besides apprehending a suspect near Mana.

As far as Operation Rah e Rast is concerned, the security forces conducted search operation at Azad Banda near Sakhra and recovered 10 liters of poisonous chemical along with 6 Kgs explosives.

Security forces apprehended 3 suspects at Pabbi, Dandai Sar near Fatehpur and Tilligram while a terrorist voluntarily surrendered himself to security forces at Roria near Gulibagh.

So far 20,976 Cash Cards have been issued to displaced families of Wazirsitan.

 

[air marshal]

589 terrorists killed in operation Rah e Nijat

ISLAMABAD, Dec 9 (APP): A total of 589 terrorists have been killed while 79 security forces personnel have embraced shahadat in operation Rah e Nijat so far, Inter Service Public Relations (ISPR) said, on Wednesday. According to a press release, huge cache of arms and ammunition have been recovered from different hideouts of fleeing terrorists, since start of Operation Rah e Nijat on October 16.

It included 49 anti aircraft machine guns of 12.7 mm caliber, 15 Machine guns of 14.5 mm caliber, 38 RPG 7, 16 heavy machine guns, 592 rifles all types, 45 small machine guns, three artillery guns of various types, one Russian made missile launcher, 32 Pistols, five recoils rifles along with these truck load of ammunition, 203886 bullets of 12.7 mm anti aircraft machine gun, 9000 rounds of 14.5 mm machine gun, 830 rockets of RPG 7, 11 Russian made missiles, 106 rockets of recoiles rifles and 140 Rockets of SPG 9.

Providing details of the last 24 hours of Operation Rah e Nijat in South Waziristan, the ISPR said that a number of IEDs were recovered and destroyed during sanitization of Aka Khel Pungai near Ahmedwam and Abdullah Noor Kaskai near Kotkai at Jandola sector.
Meanwhile, at Shakai sector, the security forces apprehended 5 suspects at Miachan Baba and Shaka. Similarly, at Razmak Sector, the forces cleared 25 compounds at Tara Tiza Alghad and Mairobi Raghzai, where huge cache of arms and ammunition were recovered.
The terrorists fired 1 rocket at Razmak Camp which was effectively responded, however, no loss reported, informed the ISPR.

Security forces have also cleared Ghujre, two kilometer north of Pash Ziarat, where tunnels and underground living bunkers were discovered and destroyed.

Regarding relief activities, it said that 20,321 cash cards have been issued to displaced families of Wazirsitan so far Meanwhile, during Operation Rah e Rast in Swat Malakand, two terrorists voluntarily surrendered themselves at Salhand and Chamtalai post. And security forces apprehended 10 suspects at Saidu Sharif, Fizaghat, Bishbanr, Mingora and Jijal Kandao near Fatehpur, the press release concluded.

 

[All-Green]

Why is the name Pakhtunkhwa so controversial? What is the reason behind its use? As far as I can work out, it simply means Land of the Pashtun. It certainly represents the area much better than North West Frontier Province. If we can have Punjab, Sindh, Balochistan and now Gilgit-Baltistan, then why not Pakhtunkhwa?

Also, this point about the Taliban using Pashtun nationalism for recruitment has been brought up by Graham Fuller, ex Chief of the CIA. The alienation of the Pashtun in Afghanistan by the ISAF has helped to increase the chances of Pashtun youth falling into the hands of the Taliban, and thus has made it that much more difficult for the ISAF to win the "hearts and minds". In Pakistan, the situation is not as bad, much of our Army is Pashtun, and so are many of our politicians, however, anti-West sentiments amongst the Pashtuns have not been helped by this isolation of the majority population in Afghanistan. The terrorists are simply trying to exploit this. To them, it doesn't matter whether its religious fundamentalism, nationalism, crime, isolation, hunger, poverty, foreign influence or whatever else the motivating factor is, they will take as many people as possible to fight and destroy Pakistan and its Forces.

In past the major ethnic groups were used against eachother and so TTP wanted to go down the same road...clever people...
There is a reason that initially civilian targets in Punjab were being ignored by the TTP whereas all sorts of violence was being perpetrated in NWFP.
First due to presence of MMA they had a provincial government covering up for them unlike in Punjab where such actions would have been met with severity...the motive of MMA which comprises of the most selfish Political Mullahs in the history of Islam was to become the political god of Pakistan in a post Talibanized Pakistan...
The purpose of this Pashtun centric violence was to twist the mindset of the Pashtuns and to show that they are suffering at unseen hands due to the compromises made by the center whereas the Punjabis are enjoying the show...
Many Pashtuns started thinking that if the GOP does not care then we should just accept TTP...all in all it was a clever plan by TTP...either by hook or crook they would win support of some groups and alienate the other groups from mainstream Pakistan...eitherway in the long run this would have lead to an unprecedented disaster for GOP.
It has always been a trait of many parties and groups which pin their misfortunes onto some other group...by same observation the TTP wanted to manipulate people of NWFP and Punjab against eachother...So always TTP spokesmen spoke as if they were representing Pashtuns...this was not out of any love for Pashtuns but out of malice in order to make this a very serious conflict...even many in ANP were desperate and started crying that our people (Pashtun) are dying and we cannot do anything, we have to talk and bring back peace...

However even after the peace agreement the TTP went overboard and there was no option left but to act and i thank god that TTP attacked Buner and showed its true colours...otherwise who knows...

So the same ethnically charged propaganda was used before Swat operation and during it, the TTP was not ready for PAkistan Army because they were convinced the center would not risk a military operation due to a potential risk of civil war...this was because TTP believed the Pashtuns saw commonality with TTP...i think the operations proved just what the Pashtun Pakistanis think of TTP!
Now it is clear to the TTP that if Pakistan engages them decisively then the people will side with their Army and will not believe this pro Pashtun nonsense which TTP wants to project.

The fact that the Qaeda/TTP nexus has been going after civilian targets in Lahore quite ruthlessly in past year or so shows that they are now convinced that they cannot succeed in igniting the flames of a civil war...now they are openly targeting all ethnicities...

There are confused people in every segment of society but a majority now realizes that TTP is a threat to all Pakistanis and that in itself is a big thing.

 

[TaimiKhan]

PESHAWAR: Security forces on Thursday arrested eight militants from Shahokhel area of district Hangu and seized weapons and explosives.

According to DSP Hangu Farid Khan Khatak, the militants belonged to Orakzai Agency.

Security forces have shifted militants to an unknown area and started investigation.

Security forces have already taken over the Shahokhel area and arrested dozens of militants and destroyed their hideouts a few weeks ago.

Shahokhel is near Orakzai agency, which is a militant stronghold.

 

[fatman17]

Top Al-Qaeda leader killed in drone strike: report

(AFP)

WASHINGTON — A top Al-Qaeda leader was killed in a drone missile strike in northwest Pakistan, NBC News reported late Thursday, citing unnamed US officials.

The officials did not identify the person killed, but did tell NBC that it was not Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden.

The attack took place in the past days, NBC said, without giving a date.

The officials told the US network that the killing followed an increase in operations targeting Al-Qaeda leaders over the past weeks.

Northwest Pakistan has seen a surge in US strikes, which fan anti-Americanism in the nuclear-armed Muslim country, since US President Barack Obama took office and put the country on the front line of the war on Al-Qaeda.

Islamabad is under increasing Western pressure to not only target Taliban groups attacking Pakistan, but also Al-Qaeda-linked fighters and the militants who cross over the border and target foreign troops in Afghanistan.

Since August 2008, at least 65 such strikes have killed around 625 people, although it is difficult to confirm the precise identity of many of the victims given that the remote region is largely closed to outsiders.

2009 AFP.

 

[fatman17]

U.S. Military Joins CIA’s Drone War in Pakistan

By Noah Shachtman December 10, 2009


The headquarters for the American military’s air war in Central Asia and the Middle East is located in a converted medical warehouse on an undisclosed base in a country the U.S. Air Force would rather not name. The lights are turned down low, so the troops can clearly see the giant screen at the far end of the in this cavernous, classified facility.

On that glowing screen is a digital map of Afghanistan, showing the position of every U.S. Air Force drone, every fighter jet, every bomber and every tanker aircraft with a teal dot. Most of the dots are positioned near the hotspots of the Afghanistan war — places like Kandahar, Helmand and Nangarhar provinces. But there are three dots, representing Air Force unmanned aerial vehicles, that aren’t above Afghanistan at all. These dots have moved to the east of the Afghan border; these drones are flying missions over Pakistan.

Over the past year and a half, the United States has stepped up drone strikes against militants in Pakistan — killing as many as a thousand people, by some estimates. Press accounts have largely credited the Central Intelligence Agency with running these missions. Government officials have refused to speak in public about drone attacks, just as they routinely rebuff any attempt to probe into the CIA’s operations. “I’m not going to comment on any particular tactic or technology,” Secretary of State Hillary Clinton recently told a group of Pakistani journalists.

But the U.S. Air Force also plays an important role in the drone missions over Pakistan, according to current and former American military officials, and judging from what I saw at that undisclosed location. The military supplies the aircraft. It monitors the flights in and out of Pakistan. And, on occasion, Air Force pilots remotely fly their own drone missions over Pakistan. On that digital map are the far end of the warehouse, there’s a note reminding troops exactly how much notice they must give before U.S. military planes enter Pakistani airspace.

U.S. military drones began flying over Pakistan soon after the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001. “I dealt with the Pakistani air chief from the beginning,” says a former senior military officer. “At times, we operated a bit out of Pakistan.”

Today, those missions have become a regular occurrence. The U.S. Air Force has a fleet of Predator and heavily-armed Reaper drones, stationed at Kandahar and Jalalabad Air Fields in Afghanistan. All of these robotic aircraft are allowed to venture occasionally into Pakistani airspace to pursue militants. The government in Islamabad just has to be notified first. Some of the Predators also fly into Pakistan on operations in conjunction with or in support of Islamabad’s military.

These missions are remotely flown by U.S. Air Force pilots at Creech Air Force Base, Nevada; the footage is shared with the Pakistani government, including at joint coordination centers on the border.

In addition, some of the Predators and Reapers are placed under the operational control of the CIA, which uses them to conduct their own strike and surveillance missions. Some of those drones take off from Jalalabad, others from within Pakistan itself, at a remote base called Shamshi. According to the New York Times, those aircraft are operated out of CIA headquarters in Langley, Virginia.

The private security firm Blackwater, now known as “Xe,” provides local security for the robotic aircraft, and helps assemble the drones’ arrays of Hellfire missiles and 500-pound bombs. Those munitions are then unleashed during strikes on suspected militants, targeted by a combination of informants’ tips, radio intercepts and overhead surveillance. Al Qaeda claims that cheap, battery-sized infrared beacons are handed out to local agents, who then use them to signal for drones to attack.

From what I can tell, these CIA missions comprise the bulk of the drone flights over Pakistan. And the military has, at times, encouraged the notion that operating the unmanned aircraft was the spy agency’s job. “The overwhelming bulk of all activity in Afghanistan since the first U.S. forces went in have been basically under the control of the Central Command,” then-Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld told reporters in 2002. “An exception has been the armed Predators, which are CIA-operated.”

But while the CIA’s drone flights are kept largely compartmentalized from the U.S. military’s efforts in Afghanistan, there is overlap between the two. The Air Force has a total of 39 “orbits,” or air patrols, currently operating in Central Asia and the Middle East. The CIA draws its Predators and Reapers from this pool of military drones. “There are 39 orbits, that’s it. No wink, wink,” a military officer says.

No matter who controls the mission, some airmen at the undisclosed base’s warehouse-turned-war-room are aware of every flight, at least in general terms. The officers there at the Combined Air & Space Operations Center, or CAOC, need to have a basic idea of where every aircraft is, to keep them from crashing into one another in mid-air. That’s simple air traffic control, just like in the civilian world.

Because the drones can fire missiles and bombs from miles away, there needs to be an added layer of monitoring. “You have to know where every bomb went, and where every bomb is supposed to go,” a former senior military official says. “No one is just gonna allow the expenditure of ordnance out of the wild blue yonder.” It’s one of the many ways in which the air wars in Afghanistan and Pakistan are linked.

Ironically, these two connected air campaigns are almost mirror images of one another. On one side of the border, there’s an influx of tens of thousands of U.S. troops; on the other, American boots on the ground have been largely forbidden, except for a handful of trainers from special forces. So instead, America uses a fleet of robotic aircraft, to avoid the prohibition against flesh-and-blood troops.

In Afghanistan, airstrikes have been strictly limited, to minimize casualties. In Pakistan — if news accounts about those assaults are even remotely accurate — the attacks are far, far more deadly. According to an analysis of public reports by the New America Foundation, 82 U.S. drone attacks in Pakistan since 2006 “have killed between 750 and 1,000 people.” Up to 320 of those may have been civilians. The Long War Journal, examining the same records, calculates that 447 people have been killed in 42 reported drone strikes during the first nine months of 2009. The website estimates that only 10 percent of those deaths have been innocents.

But since the Pakistani government bans reporters and aid organizations from the tribal lands, where the majority of drone strikes have been reported, no one can say for sure how many have really been killed by the unmanned attackers.

The drone strikes in Pakistan have been widely credited with taking out senior leaders of both the Pakistani Taliban and Al Qaeda. But they’ve also come under increasing criticism, as a secret extension of the war in Central Asia fought under uncertain authority and with questionable morality.

It wasn’t long ago that the United States condemned Israel for its “targeted killings” of Palestinian terrorists. Now, the U.S. pursues a similar tactic in its campaign against Al Qaeda. “The things we were complaining about from Israel a few years ago we now embrace,” Georgetown University Law Center professor Gary Solis recently told the New Yorker. A week before the 9/11 attacks, then-CIA chief George Tenet argued that it would be “a terrible mistake” for “the Director of Central Intelligence to fire a weapon” like the Predator. Seven years later, current CIA director Leon Panetta says the drones are “the only game in town in terms of confronting or trying to disrupt the Al Qaeda leadership.”

Recently, President Obama authorized a widening of the drone war in Pakistan. “Even more operations targeting terrorism safe havens,” one American official tells the New York Times. “More people, more places, more operations.”

It’s not clear if the U.S. military will join the CIA in this expanded campaign.


...and our Int-Minister is claiming that NO drones are operating from our soil !!!

 

[TalibanSwatter]

And plzzzz don't think i am a die hard fan of theirs , my favorite political party is Army

I'm disappointed to hear that considering the military establishment has been the primary culprit in terms of creating the Jihadi Frankenstein in the 80s, and nurturing its massive growth during the 90s.


Professor Ishtiaq Ahmed has recently published this note during his research at the Institute of South Asian Studies, National University of Singapore. (excerpt)

A general who did not want to be named made a clean breast of the Pakistan military and ISI’s culpability in creating the Islamist monster that was now striking terror within Pakistan. He said, ‘The Americans wanted us to produce Islamic warriors that could be deployed in the Afghanistan jihad. We obliged without thinking out the consequences such brainwashing would carry for our own society. We trained them to become jihadists. We trained them to kill. We sent them into Afghanistan and in the Indian-administered Kashmir. Now, they have unleashed their terror on our own people. They are killing our soldiers and will stop at nothing to impose their brutal ideology on us. I recently saw a video in which the throat of a man was being split open with a long knife, while some bearded men in the background were shouting “Allah-o-Akbar”.
-----------------------------

What the country needs is a professional military that will completely dissociate itself from politics and will leave the minus-x formulas to the politicians.

 

[TaimiKhan]

I'm disappointed to hear that considering the military establishment has been the primary culprit in terms of creating the Jihadi Frankenstein in the 80s, and nurturing its massive growth during the 90s.


Professor Ishtiaq Ahmed has recently published this note during his research at the Institute of South Asian Studies, National University of Singapore. (excerpt)

A general who did not want to be named made a clean breast of the Pakistan military and ISI’s culpability in creating the Islamist monster that was now striking terror within Pakistan. He said, ‘The Americans wanted us to produce Islamic warriors that could be deployed in the Afghanistan jihad. We obliged without thinking out the consequences such brainwashing would carry for our own society. We trained them to become jihadists. We trained them to kill. We sent them into Afghanistan and in the Indian-administered Kashmir. Now, they have unleashed their terror on our own people. They are killing our soldiers and will stop at nothing to impose their brutal ideology on us. I recently saw a video in which the throat of a man was being split open with a long knife, while some bearded men in the background were shouting “Allah-o-Akbar”.
-----------------------------

What the country needs is a professional military that will completely dissociate itself from politics and will leave the minus-x formulas to the politicians.

I have not said that i like them because of what was done by Zia or during that time or that they made this monster, i myself regret it and hope that if given a chance to go in the past, first thing i will do is undo this whole thing. But it was not just military which was involved and created this monster, other players and events of that time made us make this mistake which we regret now. Anyway this is a very very long discussion to be done.

I only like Army for the good things that come with it as i don't see a single good coming out of the political parties when they come into power.

And its just a statement, we all know Army is not a political party nor it has any role to play in it.

 

[TaimiKhan]

KIRKUK: US intelligence shows militants linked to al Qaeda and other groups have been fleeing South Waziristan in the face of a Pakistani military offensive, Defense Secretary Robert Gates said on Friday.

'We see some evidence in the intelligence that they (Pakistani forces) are forcing al Qaeda and some of the other terrorists out of South Waziristan and they're fleeing, and some of them are talking about going back into Afghanistan,' Gates told US troops during a visit to the northern Iraqi city of Kirkuk.

'They've kind of stirred up the nest there, and I think that's a good thing.'

Gates praised what he called 'significant military operations (by Pakistan) that have only increased in size and tempo' in recent months.

'The Paks, I think, are doing a good job of putting pressure on their side of the border and we're obviously going to do an even better job of putting pressure on the Afghan side the border,' Gates said, referring to US President Barack Obama's decision to deploy 30,000 more troops to Afghanistan.

The Pakistani army is battling militants linked to al Qaeda in South Waziristan. Militants have hit back with attacks in Pakistani cities.