Pakistan Tells US to Halt Strikes



"Mr. Ambassador, we demand you stop these strikes immediately...wink, wink...nudge, nudge."

Bomb kills 9 anti-militant tribesmen in Pakistan

KHAR, Pakistan – A suicide bomber attacked a gathering of anti-militant Pakistani tribesmen Thursday, killing nine and wounding 45 in a northwestern region where the military has clashed with insurgents for months, officials said.

The attack in the Batmalai area of the Bajur tribal region was the latest to target tribal militias that have sprung up — with government backing — to take on al-Qaida and Taliban fighters nested along the Afghan border.

Pakistan launched an offensive in Bajur three months ago to dismantle what it said was a virtual Taliban mini-state that is a source of militants flowing into Afghanistan.

The Salarzai tribesmen were preparing to stage an assault on local militant hide-outs when the blast occurred, said Iqbal Khattak, a government official. Malik Rahimullah, a tribal elder, said the bomb exploded as soon as armed contingents began to move.

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The army claims to have killed some 1,500 insurgents in its offensive. At least 73 troops and 95 civilians have also died, it says. Lack of security and government restrictions make verifying accounts of the fighting impossible.

U.S. officials praise the operation in Bajur, saying it has reduced violence on the other side of the border. The U.S. has long been concerned that pockets of Pakistan's northwest are sanctuaries for militants involved in attacks on American and NATO forces in Afghanistan.

Militants have responded to the military offensives — as well as stepped-up U.S. missile strikes in parts Pakistan's border zone — with a wave of suicide attacks that are adding to concern about the U.S.-allied country's stability.

The militants also have gone after the tribal militias, including beheading some of the elders involved.


(Associated Press/Yahoo News)

Pakistan police losing terrorism fight

BADABER, Pakistan – Brothers Mushtaq and Ishaq Ali left the police force a month ago, terrified of dying as their colleagues had — beheaded by militants on a rutted village road before a shocked crowd.

They went straight to the local Urdu-language newspaper to announce their resignation. They were too poor to pay for a personal ad, so the editor of The Daily Moon, Rasheed Iqbal, published a news story instead. He has run dozens like it.

"They just want to get the word out to the Taliban that they are not with the police anymore so they won't kill them," said Iqbal. "They know that no one can protect them, and especially not their fellow policemen."

Outgunned and out-financed, police in volatile northwestern Pakistan are fighting a losing battle against insurgents, dozens of interviews by The Associated Press show. They are dying in large numbers, and many survivors are leaving the force.

The number of terrorist attacks against police has gone up from 113 in 2005 to 1,820 last year, according to National Police Bureau. The death toll for policemen in that time has increased from nine to 575. In the northwestern area alone, 127 policemen have died so far this year in suicide bombings and assassinations, and another 260 have been wounded.

The crisis means the police cannot do the nuts-and-bolts work needed to stave off an insurgency fueled by the Taliban and al-Qaida. While the military can pound mountain hideouts, analysts and local officials say it is the police who should hunt down insurgents, win over the people, and restore order.

"The only way to save Pakistan is to think of extremism and insurgency in North West Frontier Province as a law enforcement issue," said Hassan Abbas, a South Asia expert at Harvard University's Belfer Center Project for Science. "Rather than buying more F-16s, Pakistan should invest in modernizing its police."

In the Swat Valley, militants have turned a once-idyllic mountain getaway into a nightmare of bombings and beheadings despite a six-month military operation to root them out. About 300 policemen have fled the force already.

On a recent evening in Mardan, Akhtar Ali Shah had just slipped out of his deputy police inspector's uniform to head home. In an escort vehicle, a half-dozen of his guards had inched outside the giant white gates of the police station for a routine security check.

The bomb exploded minutes later. Through a cloud of dust and dirt, Shah saw five of his six guards lying dead near the blood-smeared gate. The head of the suicide bomber rested nearby.

"We are the ones who are getting killed by the terrorists that we are facing," Shah said later.

Al-Qaida-linked militants ferry truckloads of explosives from the tribal regions through Mardan to targets deep within Pakistan, often slipping past scores of police checkpoints. But Shah said his men lack the technical expertise, training or equipment to hunt down big-name terrorists or even identify would-be suicide bombers.

His voice laced with frustration, Shah held up his small black cell phone.

"These people are among us. Look here: Our technical capabilities are so weak that we don't even have the ability to listen or to trace these phone calls," he said. "How are we supposed to know who it is that is coming here to kill us and when?"

Most of Pakistan's 383,000 police are poorly paid constables. Malik Naveed Khan, who heads the force of 55,000 in the North West Frontier Province, said he has one policeman for every 364 miles of some of the most dangerous terrain in the world.

"Insurgents can see when I go someplace and wait for me to return and kill me," he said. "It isn't my own death that I fear, but every time there is an attack, it demoralizes the whole police force."

Khan said his men fight with World War II-vintage, single-shot weapons against the rapid-fire Kalashnikov rifles carried by the militants. The police go out on patrol without bulletproof vests or helmets. And of Khan's 18 armored personnel carriers, six are 1960s-era Soviet models that break down so often he now sends a mechanic along with the police.

A Pakistani constable makes about $80 a month, compared with about $170 for a Taliban foot soldier, Khan said.

Even in death, militants do better than the Pakistani police. Militant groups pay more than $20,000 to the families of suicide bombers, compared with $6,000 given to a policeman's survivor, Khan said.

"Where is their money coming from?" he asked.

He said he believes a lot of it comes from the flourishing opium trade next door in Afghanistan, donations from devout Muslims and extortion of wealthy Muslims in the Middle East.

Most police stations in Pakistan don't even have cameras to photograph the crime scene or criminals. There were two functioning forensic laboratories in Pakistan in 2001, and since then four more have been approved — a start, but far short of the 50 or so police say they need. Khan said Pakistani police also lack enough explosives-sniffing dogs to check the truckloads coming from the tribal region.

The Pakistani government recognizes the need to train, develop and equip local police, said Sherry Rahman, information minister. But she added that Pakistan has little money for such investment and needs help from the international community.

Most U.S. aid to Pakistan goes to the military, not the police. Washington gave $731 million for military spending last year and $862 million the year before, according to a September report issued by the Pakistan Policy Working Group, an independent, nonpartisan group. By contrast, the U.S. gave $4.9 million for law enforcement and the judicial system last year.

The crisis among the police is also hobbling the courts, said Imtiaz, a deputy jail superintendent who wanted to use only one name because he feared reprisals from militants and his bosses.

Interviewed at a central jail in northwest Pakistan, the jailer said he has been threatened repeatedly by militants who found his phone number. Late-night calls warn him to treat jailed insurgents with a kind hand.

He told of an insurgent caught by police and imprisoned for an attack on a girls' school. At the only anti-terrorist court in town, the judge — who had also been threatened — heard the case, listened to the militant's confession and then acquitted him, Imtiaz said.

"No one believes the police can protect them," Imtiaz said with a laugh. "I am part of the police, and I know they can't protect me."

The police are trying to fight back with citizen councils and the beginnings of an elite force of 7,500 men who will be given a good salary and trained in investigative skills, profiling and weaponry training, said Khan, the provincial police chief. The first 2,000 men are being trained.

About a half-dozen civilian forces, fashioned along the lines of Iraq's Awakening Councils, have also been enticed into taking up arms against the militants in return for more development. Some of the councils, which call themselves Peace Committees, number more than 300 villagers.

"The people of this area have learned as children how to fire a rifle, how to handle a gun," Khan said. "Everyone has a gun, whether licensed or unlicensed. They don't need to be shown how to use them."

In Badaber, a dusty village barely six miles from the provincial capital of Peshawar, a civilian force patrols the streets at night. Abdul Hafeez, who runs a gas station in Badaber, said even government or army trucks must now get permission from villagers blocking the road to pass at night.

The job of the patrols, he said, is to keep out the militants, the military — and the police.

Hafeez said he had told the police a day in advance about rumors that militants were planning to blow up an electrical tower in Badaber. The next day, they did. The police did nothing.

"No, no, no — no one will go to the police," he said. "The police can't do anything. They can't stop these Taliban even when they know they are going to attack."


news.yahoo.com

The US has named 4 former ISI chiefs, including Hamid Gul, as international terrorists. We should designate the whole ISI as a terror organization. Pakistan is really pushing its luck. I could care less about wat they want. Bomb the camps inside the tribal areas, and if they get in the way, lite 'em up.

The pak's should pull the police out of the area and have military only in the region. Make the military responsible for what goes on in that region. Then if they can't or won't do what is necessary. The US should bomb the **** out of them.

excerpt...


The current Western presence [in Afghanistan] is the most benign intrusion in Afghan history, and the rationale of building stability remains a logical one - but this war has become something of a sideshow in South Asia. The far more serious problem is Pakistan, a flimsy state with illogical borders, nuclear weapons and a mortal religious enmity toward India, its neighbor to the south. Pakistan is where bin Laden now lives, if he lives. The Bush Administration chose to coddle Pakistan's military leadership, which promised to help in the fight against al-Qaeda - but it hasn't helped much, although there are signs that the fragile new government of President Asif Ali Zardari may be more cooperative. Still, the Pakistani intelligence service helped create the Taliban and other Islamic extremist groups - including the terrorists who attacked Mumbai - as a way of keeping India at bay, and Pakistan continues to protect the Afghan Taliban in Quetta.


news.yahoo.com/s/time/20081211/wl_time/08599186573000

Sooner or later, the ISI will be designated as a "Terrorist Org." that label will be deserved too. Maybe the whole country will be called a "State sponsor of terror." Zadari does not wield the power there, and he is unable to reign in the ISI, the army Corps commanders, and whoever else is helping the T-ban/AQ. Mullah Omar is in Quetta. Thats wat Karzai says, thats wats been said over and over. They are protecting him. Maybe there is some way to get to him. Who cares wat the P-stani's say. Damned if we do or don't. Better find a new logistics route, coz until one is found, our hands are kind of tied.

Obama has said if the Paki's do not close the camps, engage and destroy AQ/T-ban there, the US would. Wat else can this guy do? He has a full plate coz the previous Admin. f-'d things up so badly. All those fat rats on Wall St., thier millions in bonuses, the loose as a goose regulations [were there any?] and 2 wars. 1 that was built on deception and LIES. Yup, they had the fear machine running on overdrive, while Dubya's rich pals raped and pillaged the economy. Give the new CINC the respect he deserves. If the US public started rioting and hanging these bankers, brokers, and execs from litepoles, I would say they are RIGHT.

quote:

Originally posted by RHYNO506:
the PAK'S are playing both sides of the fence. if DUBYA says he would send troops in, then do it! im sure there are camps running full swing on that border. LETS KILL THEM ALL. AIR, PARATROOPERS, OR AIR ASSAULT...JUST KILL THESE PIGS. PAKISTAN IS 2 FACED.

That was me 2 yrs ago. Last I read there were 156 camps or so running full swing in W. P-stan. This happened while Bush was best buddies with that dog Musharraff, and I wonder "How the f-ck can he let that happen?!" The only way an insurgency can survive and thrive is they have a "sponsor", a "safehaven" and thier opponents lack of will to DENY them those things. P-stani claims of "soveriegnty" are a joke. They have ceded half thier country to a foreign entity. So, I say bombs away m-ther f-er!! Thats the way to get a stable A-stan. PAKISTAN is the problem.

U.S. Delivers Helicopters to Support Pakistani Military

(Source: U.S Department of Defense; issued June 11, 2009)

WASHINGTON --- The United States delivered four Mi-17 cargo helicopters to the Pakistani army yesterday to support Pakistan’s counterinsurgency as well as humanitarian efforts, officials at the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad announced.

The helicopters, delivered at the request of the Pakistani government, will increase capabilities in current operations against militant extremists, officials said. They’ll also support efforts to care for thousands of Pakistanis displaced from their homes by the fighting.

The United States is in the process of identifying additional Mi-17s that may be made available to Pakistan in the future, officials said. The U.S. military has several of the Russian-built medium-weight, single-rotor helicopters in its inventory, primarily for training purposes, Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman told reporters today.

Whitman called the helicopter delivery an example of the support the United States is ready to provide the Pakistanis, as requested. “We stand ready to help Pakistan in any way we can to fight the internal threat that exists there,” he said.

Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, commander of U.S. Central Command, said today he’s “very proud” of indirect support the United States has been able to provide Pakistan, including training assistance as well as the helicopter delivery.

Petraeus praised the speed in which the delivery was made. “Within two or three weeks of [the] request from them for helicopter support, we wheeled four Mi-17s just refurbished out of the back of a Colt [military aircraft] yesterday,” he said.

Meanwhile, the United States is exploring other, longer-term means of supporting Pakistan, including the Pakistani Counterinsurgency Capabilities Fund, Whitman said. The Defense Department has requested $700 million for the fund as part of the fiscal 2010 budget.

Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates supports the program, which he told Congress will complement State Department efforts already under way or being planned, while enabling U.S. Central Command to help Pakistan increase its counterinsurgency capabilities.

Gates called these efforts “a vital element of the president’s new Afghanistan-Pakistan strategy.” (ends)

Fifty Militants Dead in Pak Fighting

June 20, 2009
Associated Press

[excerpt]

CHUPRIAL, Pakistan - Pakistani troops backed by jet fighters and artillery have killed about 50 militants in a volatile northwestern tribal region near Afghanistan where the country's top Taliban leader is believed to be entrenched with thousands of his fighters, officials said Saturday.

They were the first known militant casualties in South Waziristan - where Pakistan Taliban head Baitullah Mehsud and al-Qaida figures are believed to be hiding - since the military started pounding the area with artillery about a week ago. Mehsud is blamed for a series of suicide attacks that have killed more than 100 people since late May.

Although the army has not announced a formal start of full-scale operations in South Waziristan - an offensive that Washington has been pressing Pakistan to undertake - officials said troops are already occupying strategic positions in the region.

The operation, seen as a test of nuclear-armed Pakistan's resolve against an insurgency that has expanded in the past two years, could be a turning point in its sometimes halfhearted fight against militancy. It also could help the war effort in Afghanistan, because the tribal belt has long harbored militants who launch cross-border attacks.

..//..

"This area is the center of gravity for the terrorists," said Maj. Gen. Sajjad Ghani, who is in control of efforts to clear Taliban from a 3,860-square-mile (10,000-square-kilometer) area in the northern Swat valley.

"As of now, there are only pockets of resistance left. The terrorists are on the run. Command and control is disarray. They are unable to organize an integrated response," he said.

U.S. drone attacks militants in Pakistan; 14 dead

Reuters
35 mins ago - July 7, 2009

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (Reuters) – A U.S. drone fired a missile into a Pakistani Taliban stronghold near the Afghan border on Tuesday, killing at least 14 militants, intelligence officials and residents said.

The United States, grappling with an intensifying Afghan insurgency, began stepping up attacks by pilotless drone aircraft on northwestern Pakistani militant enclaves a year ago despite the complaints of its ally, Pakistan.

The latest attack was in the South Waziristan region, in a stronghold of Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud, the officials and residents said.

"Fourteen militants have been killed and several wounded in the attack that targeted an important compound of Baitullah Mehsud," said Jan Mohammad Mehsud, a resident of the area.

One intelligence agency official said that four or five foreigners were among the 14 people killed, but he had no further information about their identities.

Another intelligence official said that up to 17 people were killed. About 70 militants were killed in a similar strike in the same area last month.

The drone attacks have come as Pakistani troops are slowly preparing for an offensive against Mehsud, carrying out air strikes to soften up targets while soldiers have been sealing off roads into his area.

Mehsud, an al Qaeda ally, is accused of orchestrating a campaign of bombings in Pakistan, including the 2007 assassination of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto.

Pakistan arrests Swat Taliban leaders

Associated Press
Sept 9, 2009

ISLAMABAD – Pakistan arrested the spokesman for the Taliban in the Swat Valley and four other senior commanders, the military said Friday, in the latest of several victories against militants in the country's northwestern region close to Afghanistan.

The arrests are a coup for the military, which had been criticized for failing to capture or kill any top Taliban leaders in a four-month offensive in the Swat Valley that cleared the insurgents from most of the one-time tourist haven.

The army announced the arrests on the eighth anniversary of the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks in the United States. Drawing attention to that fact, the military released photos of the two highest-ranking detainees — spokesman Muslim Khan and commander Mahmood Khan — in custody with the date printed in bold underneath.

The Swat offensive has somewhat reassured the West that Pakistan is committed to fighting militants hiding out in its rugged northwest who are blamed for plotting and carrying out attacks on U.S. and NATO forces in neighboring Afghanistan.

An army statement said the two Khans and commanders Fazle Ghaffar, Abdul Rehman and Sartaj Ali were arrested in the suburbs of Mingora, the Swat Valley's main city. It did not say when. The Khans had bounties of 10 million rupees ($121,000) on their heads, the army said.

Interior Minister Rehman Malik urged other commanders to surrender.

"This has been our policy from day one when we started the operation that there will be no negotiations with the terrorists," Malik said. "They have no other option. Either they get killed or get arrested."

The detainees were being interrogated and security forces were conducting operations based on information they had given, the army said.

Muslim Khan, 54, was an eloquent defender of militant Islam and frequently called local and foreign media to claim responsibility for attacks and threaten more. The white-bearded spokesman was also a very senior figure in the organization.

In an interview with The Associated Press in April, he said Osama bin Laden was welcome to stay in the valley.

Since the offensive, Khan — who lived for several years in the United States where he worked as house painter — had rarely been quoted by the media.

The army launched its offensive in the scenic valley in May after the Taliban seized control of the region following a two-year reign of terror in which they burned girls' schools and beheaded opponents.

Prior to the operations, the government struck a peace deal with the militants that allowed them to implement Islamic law there, but it quickly collapsed after the militants used it to advance into the neighboring Buner region, just 60 miles (100 kilometers) from the capital, Islamabad.

The military claims to have killed more than 1,800 insurgents in the offensive, which caused up to 2 million people to flee the valley and surrounding regions.

Most of the refugees have now returned, but the failure to capture the Taliban leadership had been a cause of concern for them. With clashes between the army and militants still breaking out in parts of the valley and occasional attacks by the Taliban, no one was willing to answer Friday when asked by an Associated Press reporter for their reaction to the arrests.

The Taliban's top commander in Swat, Maulana Fazlullah, is still on the run, though in July the army claimed to have wounded him in an airstrike. There were also unconfirmed reports in June that another senior commander, Shah Doran, had been killed.

While it is clear Pakistan still faces a major militant threat, there have been positive developments recently.

Opinion surveys show the public has turned from militancy and is supportive of the military action in Swat — a shift attributed to anger at the militants for reneging on the peace deal and a video of them flogging a woman in public they had accused of adultery.

Last month, the head of the Pakistani Taliban, Baitullah Meshsud, was killed in a CIA missile strike close to the Afghan border. Pakistan considered him its No. 1 internal threat. Several weeks later, authorities announced they had arrested that group's spokesman, Maulvi Umar.


http:// news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090911/ap_on_re_as/as_pakistan

Pak's Army Bares Teeth in US Aid Flap

October 15, 2009
Associated Press

ISLAMABAD - Just last week, Pakistan's foreign minister was playing down his army's objections to a multibillion dollar U.S. aid bill. Days later, after a session with the army chief, he was back in Washington urging U.S. lawmakers to address the very concerns he had dismissed.

The about-face shows the delicate dance between Pakistan's fragile civilian government and the powerful military, less than two years after the army formally gave up control of the country.

The proposed aid package would provide Pakistan with $1.5 billion a year over five years to spend mainly on economic and social programs. The overall goal is to alleviate poverty, thus lessening the allure of the Taliban and other militant groups threatening Pakistan and the U.S. war effort in neighboring Afghanistan.

Pakistan's military objects to language that links money for counterterrorism assistance to meeting various conditions. The legislation also requires the U.S. secretary of state to report to Congress every six months on whether Pakistan's government maintains effective control over the military, including its budgets, the chain of command and top promotions.

On Wednesday, Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi said he would return home from Washington satisfied that the aid package does not hurt his country's sovereignty. He said he had been given U.S. assurances that would "allay the fears of Pakistan."

U.S. lawmakers, however, have no plans to change the bill, which awaits President Barack Obama's signature into law.

..//..

The language of that statement may not satisfy critics in Pakistan.

Opposition lawmaker Ayaz Amir said if the proposal's wording does not change - a process that could require sending it back to Congress - it could deepen the rift between the army and the government.

Stephen Fakan, the U.S. consul-general in the southern city of Karachi, stressed the positive impact of the package on Pakistan, where U.S. motives are always viewed in suspicion after years of American support for military dictators.

"It's a sign of friendship. It's turning a page in the histories of both countries," Fakan told reporters in comments televised nationally Wednesday.

Analysts say the army's unusual public statement last week raising "serious concern" over the bill was intended as a message to the Pakistani and U.S. governments about the limits of civilian control in a country that has spent about half its 62-year history under military rule.

[end of excerpt, click link above for full article]

Pakistan sets its sights on Taliban sanctuary

ISLAMABAD – The Pakistani military is setting its sights on the Taliban's remote sanctuary after nearly two weeks of big bombings across the country, as hundreds flee the Afghan border region each day before what promises to be the army's riskiest offensive yet.

With the first snows of winter less than two months away, the army has limited time to mount a major ground attack. The U.S. is racing to send in night vision goggles and other equipment. The Pakistani military insists it's sealing off supply and escape routes, forcing the militants to rely on goat paths.

The army has tried three times since 2001 to dislodge Taliban fighters from their stronghold in South Waziristan, part of the lawless tribal area along the border. All three previous attempts ended in negotiated truces that left the Taliban in control.

This time, however, military spokesman Gen. Athar Abbas said there will be no negotiations for fear any deals would be seen as a failure and could jeopardize gains won last spring when Pakistani soldiers wrested control of the Swat Valley, elsewhere in the northwest.

"If we fail, everything is rolled back," Abbas said.

Failure would also deal a humiliating blow to government security forces. A series of assaults against government installations, including the army's general headquarters, has shown the Taliban along the mountainous border and their allies in the heart of the country are bolstering an alliance capable of challenging the Pakistani state.

The U.S. says the results of the South Waziristan campaign will also help determine the success of the faltering American war effort in Afghanistan. Militants use the Waziristan region as a base from which to launch attacks across the border — and beyond.

"This region is at the heart of the struggle against al-Qaida, the Taliban, and other global jihadi movements. It is a lawless sanctuary for extremists and would-be militants of every shape, size, and color," said Evan Kohlmann, whose U.S.-based NEFA Foundation follows terrorist groups.

"It is perhaps the only place on earth where a mujahedeen commander from Uzbekistan can plausibly establish a hardened base of operations, staffed primarily by like-minded fighters of Turkish, Chinese, Danish, and German extraction," Kohlmann said. "Most of the jihad training camps frequented by foreign nationals and featured in al-Qaida and Taliban terror propaganda videos are located in either North or South Waziristan."

Foreigners require special permission to enter tribal areas. Many Pakistani journalists from other parts of the country are at risk in areas controlled by militants.

Abbas said the assault will be limited to slain Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud's holdings — a swath of territory that stretches roughly 3,310 kilometers (1,275 square miles). That portion covers about half of South Waziristan, which itself is slightly larger than Delaware.

The plan is to capture and hold the area where Abbas estimates 10,000 insurgents are headquartered and reinforced with about 1,500 foreign fighters, most of them of Central Asian origin.

"There are Arabs, but the Arabs are basically in the leadership, providing resources and expertise and in the role of trainers," he said in an interview from the heavily fortified garrison town of Rawalpindi, where last weekend insurgents mounted an assault against army headquarters.

The army is preparing for the array of guerrilla tactics the Taliban are likely to employ, including ambushes, suicide attacks and improvised explosive devises.

"We are shaping the environment, isolating the target. We are blocking all entry and exit points, denying them availability of provisions, fuel and ammunition, forcing them to rely on goat tracks to resupply," Abbas said.

Despite sometimes rocky relations with the Pakistani military, the U.S. is trying to rush in equipment that would help with mobility, night fighting and precision bombing, a U.S. Embassy official told The Associated Press.

"If we could deliver things tomorrow, it would be here," said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity because the issue is politically sensitive.

In addition to night vision devices, the Pakistan military has said it is seeking additional Cobra helicopter gunships, heliborne lift capability, laser-guided munitions and intelligence equipment to monitor cell and satellite telephones.

While Abbas was evasive about the timing of the offensive, he told the AP that it will begin with a ground assault against insurgent positions before winter snows block mountain roads.

"We have to come in before the snow," Abbas said. "It will start in the form of a conventional operation to push them out and regain space."

Once the offensive has started, a harsh winter and heavy snows can work to the army's advantage by driving fighters out of their unheated mountain hideouts, he said.

In no mood to wait, truckloads of families are fleeing their homes.

Amnesty International said Friday that its research teams in the area report 90,000 to 150,000 residents have fled South Waziristan since July, when the military began a long-range artillery and aerial bombardment in the region. The group faulted the government for failing to prepare adequate refugee camps.

Although the military has been hitting targets in South Waziristan for the past three months, it waited until two weeks ago to say it would definitely go ahead with a major ground offensive into the region.


http: //news.yahoo. com/s/ap/20091016/ap_on_re_as/as_pakistan

Pak-Taliban Leader's Hometown Captured


October 24, 2009
Associated Press

ISLAMABAD - Officials say Pakistan's army has captured the hometown of the country's Taliban chief in a major offensive.

Elsewhere in the northwest, officials said a suspected U.S. missile strike has killed at least 14 people.

Two army and one intelligence official said Saturday that the military has taken the town of Kotkai in South Waziristan after days of fighting.

They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to media.

Kotkai is strategically important because it lies on the way to the major militant base of Sararogha. It's also the hometown of Pakistani Taliban chief Hakimullah Mehsud.

Government official Mohammad Jamil said the missile strike hit the Bajur, a tribal region farther north.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.

-----------------------------------------------


ISLAMABAD (AP) - Pakistani leaders say the military offensive in a Taliban stronghold along the Afghan border is succeeding and have resolved to press ahead despite a ferocious wave of retaliatory attacks that have killed some 200 people this month.

The government statement came as a spate of bombings in northwest Pakistan on Friday killed 24 people, including 17 headed to a wedding. The onslaught appears aimed at sapping public support for the army's offensive in South Waziristan, a lawless tribal region under the sway of the Taliban and al-Qaida.

Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani declared that "failure is not an option despite the ferocity of these attacks," according to the statement released late Friday after a meeting of top government and military officials.

The army chief, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, told participants that the offensive is moving ahead successfully and is trying to keep civilian casualties to a minimum, according to the statement. Some 155,000 civilians have fled the region, the United Nations says.

Pakistan's civilian government and powerful military are under intense international pressure to root out Islamist militants who are also blamed for rising attacks on U.S. and NATO troops across the frontier in Afghanistan.

The militants have promised to carry out strikes across the country if the offensive in South Waziristan doesn't stop, and the attacks have put many Pakistanis on edge.

To beat the Taliban well have to send more troops more then said up to now .If we dont want a Nam alot of troops 2hudred thou might do itwith help from others...

Afgan is playing on both sides of the fence also.Lets wait until they get their elections .Nov. 7 and a fair vote.Karzai is known to be corrupt yet nobody does nothing but gives him $$$$let them elect a President that cares for their countrie!!!

Clinton faces Pakistani anger at Predator attacks

ISLAMABAD – U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton came face-to-face Friday with Pakistanis' simmering anger over U.S. aerial drones firing missiles in their country. She drew back slightly from her blunt remarks suggesting Pakistani officials know where terrorists are hiding.

In a series of public appearances on the final day of a three-day visit, Clinton was pressed repeatedly by Pakistani civilians and journalists about the secret U.S. program that uses drones to launch missiles to kill terrorists.

But she refused to discuss the drone strikes along the porous border area with Afghanistan that have killed key terror leaders but also scores of civilians.

Clinton left for Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates on Friday after a Pakistan tour that was rocked from the start by a devastating terrorist bombing in Peshawar that killed 105 people, many of them women and children. Her tour has proceeded tensely, revealing clear signs of strain between the two nations despite months of public insistence that they were on the same wavelength in the war on terror.

What is less apparent is what U.S. officials hope will come from Clinton's tough new comments about Pakistani officials' failure to eliminate al-Qaida as a threat within their borders.

Pakistan's military recently launched a major offensive in the South Waziristan border area to clear out insurgent hideouts. But two earlier army efforts made little progress there — leaving questions about the military's resolve to tackle al-Qaida head-on.

Clinton carefully scaled back her comments from a day earlier suggesting that some Pakistani officials knew where al-Qaida's upper echelon has been hiding and have done little to target them.

When the U.S. gathers evidence that al-Qaida fugitives are hiding in Pakistan, Clinton said Friday during a Pakistani media interview, "We feel like we have to go to the government of Pakistan and say, somewhere these people have to be hidden out."

"We don't know where, and I have no information that they know where, but this is a big government. You know, it's a government on many levels. Somebody, somewhere in Pakistan must know where these people are. And we'd like to know because we view them as really at the core of the terrorist threat that threatens Pakistan, threatens Afghanistan, threatens us, threatens people all over the world," Clinton said.

And during an interview Friday on ABC's "Good Morning America," Clinton demurred when asked if she thought Pakistan was harboring terrorists, saying: "I don't think they are. ... But I think it would be a missed opportunity and a lack of recognition of the full extent of the threat, if they did not realize that any safe haven anywhere for terrorists threatens them, threatens us, and has to be addressed."

A day earlier she was more explicit in her skepticism, telling a Pakistani journalist in Lahore: "I find it hard to believe that nobody in your government knows where they are and couldn't get them if they really wanted to. Maybe that's the case. Maybe they're not gettable. I don't know."

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Asked repeatedly Friday about the U.S. use of drones, a subject which involves highly classified CIA operations and is rarely acknowledged in public by American officials, Clinton said only that "there is a war going on." She added that the Obama administration is committed to helping Pakistan defeat the insurgents.

Clinton said she could not comment on "any particular tactic or technology" used in the war against extremist groups in the area.

The use of the drone aircraft, armed with guided missiles, is credited by U.S. officials with eliminating a growing number of senior terrorist group leaders this year who had used the tribal lands of Pakistan as a haven beyond the reach of U.S. ground forces in Afghanistan.

During an interview with Clinton broadcast live in Pakistan with several prominent female TV anchors, before a predominantly female audience of several hundred, one member of the audience said the Predator attacks amount to "executions without trial" for those killed.

Another asked Clinton how she would define terrorism.

"Is it the killing of people in drone attacks?" she asked. That woman then asked if Clinton considers drone attacks and bombings like the one that killed more than 100 civilians in the city of Peshawar earlier this week to both be acts of terrorism.

"No, I do not," Clinton replied.

Another man told her bluntly: "Please forgive me, but I would like to say we've been fighting your war."


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