Pakistan's Descent into Chaos: Terrorist & Drone Attacks

Pintu

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AFP: Rocket attack kills Pakistan soldiers: officials

Rocket attack kills Pakistan soldiers: officials

(AFP) – 4 hours ago

PESHAWAR, Pakistan — Suspected Taliban militants launched a rocket attack killing three Pakistani soldiers and wounding four at a military camp in a remote tribal area on Friday, officials said.

Militants targeted the Landi Noor army camp in Shakai area of South Waziristan, a Taliban and Al-Qaeda stronghold near the Afghan border where the military is said to be planning a ground offensive to flush out extremists.

The rocket strike left three soldiers dead and four wounded, a security official said, requesting anonymity.

Fighter jets pounded suspected militant hideouts in the area but details of casualties were not immediately available, officials and residents said.

Before dawn, a Pakistan drone crashed near Jandola town in South Waziristan.

"The crash was caused by a technical fault and no hostile fire was involved," a senior official said.

Pakistani jets have stepped up bombing of suspected militant hideouts in South Waziristan ahead of an anticipated ground offensive in the region, which the feared Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) has turned into its headquarters.

Pressure is building on the military to take action against an escalation of militant attacks this month, including a humiliating hostage siege at Pakistan's army headquarters near Islamabad.

The government in June ordered an operation into the mountainous South Waziristan stronghold of the Taliban and Al-Qaeda, but so far only air raids and occasional artillery strikes have hit rebel sanctuaries.

Helicopter gunships pounded suspected rebel bases in Bajaur, another tribal area, on Friday killing 10 people, officials said.

"The gunship helicopters raided suspected militant hideouts which left 10 people dead," local administration official Iqbal Khattak said.

Security officials confirmed the attacks but gave no casualty figure.
 

bengalraider

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Pakistani policemen are seen at the site of a suicide bomb attack in Peshawar cantonment area, NWFP, Pakistan, 16 October 2009. A suicide bombing outside a police station in Pakistan's north-western city of Peshawar killed at least 10 people and injured several more on 16 october, officials said. The explosion partially destroyed the station, trapping policemen and other people present in the building at the time of the explosion in the rubble. Eight bodies and 10 injured people have so far been brought to the hospital. Two of the wounded succumbed to injuries here," said Alamgir Shinwari, medical superintendent of the Lady Reading Hospital .
 

bengalraider

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A Pakistani police commando stands guard next to the worshipers offering Friday prayer at a mosque in Lahore, Pakistan, Friday, Oct. 16, 2009. Authorities have beefed up nation-wide security after a recent wave of terrorism, which killed many people in different parts of the country. Pakistan is battling a wave of violence by Islamic extremists in its towns and cities and in the lawless border area with Afghanistan in the northwest.
 

dineshchaturvedi

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Sad to see Pakistan in such state of affairs, I am waiting for the day when they start introspecting. I am not seeing this right now, even today they are blaming India more then anyone else. They are so obsessed with India.
 

peacecracker

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^Yes.So true.Most of them have become radicals and cannot understand the reality.Culture is more important;religion is a personal thing.when will they learn that conspiracy theories zionists are BC.
 

hit&run

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Thousands flee South Waziristan

Thousands are fleeing the Taliban stronghold of south of Waziristan, where Pakistan's army is now locked in a fierce gunbattle with militants in a massive operation that began early on Saturday. Communication lines have been jammed and journalists have little or no access to the region.

Around 40,000 troops have been sent in from three different directions, backed by air power. But they're facing strong resistance.

The latest operation comes after two weeks of terror attacks that killed over 175 people across the country. Experts say around 10,000 militants are based in south Waziristan along with 1500 foreign fighters from Central Asia.

"This is a decisive action and it could go on for about six to eight weeks. The difference between this operation and the previous operation which was undertaken in 2004 and then later, 2008 in South Waziristan is that this time the army is determined to keep the control of that area. The last two operations they pulled out from the area after a massive attack, but the Taliban who had gone to the mountains came back and reoccupied that area," said Zahid Hussain, analyst.

For India, which is watching closely, the real concern is the Taliban in Punjab.

In Islamabad, there is a tense, uneasy calm with concerns of more terror strikes.

Since 2001, the army's three attempts to dislodge Taliban fighters from South Waziristan have ended in truces that left the Taliban in control. This time the military has said there will be no deals.

Pak offensive: Thousands flee South Waziristan
 

bengalraider

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Pakistan Army troops prepare to leave for patrolling during a curfew in Bannu, a town on the edge of Pakistan's lawless tribal belt Waziristan, Saturday, Oct. 17, 2009. More than 30,000 Pakistani soldiers launched a much-awaited ground offensive in an al-Qaida and Taliban stronghold of South Waziristan along the Afghan border, officials told The Associated Press - the nuclear-armed U.S. ally's toughest test yet against militants aiming to topple the state.
 

indianwarrior

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DAWN.COM | Pakistan | The great denial
By Nadeem F. Paracha
Thursday, 15 Oct, 2009


In Pakistan, the audacious has become the norm. The terrorist attack in Lahore today – along with the many that have taken place in the last many years in this unfortunate country – may seem something out of ordinary anywhere else in the world, but not in Pakistan.

Pakistan it seems stopped being part of the ‘normal’ world a long time ago. Nothing’s impossible here when it comes to faith-driven terrorism. Now everyday the terrorists manage to mock and dodge the government and the state, almost at will. Nobody and nothing’s safe.

One can go on criticizing the state’s many intelligence agencies and the government for exhibiting utter ignorance and helplessness in anticipating terrorist acts that have been repeated over and over again using almost exactly the same ways and techniques and impacting the same venerable areas and spots, but I’d rather take a more self-critical view of the whole damn nightmare.

What is it that makes these terrorists so sure and confident about themselves?
It’s simple. We do!

It is the sheer hesitancy that we show towards fully realizing the grave dangers these terrorists hold, and a weird, inexplicable sense and understanding of reality that most Pakistanis look to be suffering from, that gives these terrorists the psychological edge and opening; providing them as convoluted a justification to commit acts of barbarism in the fine name of God, as is our own habit of ending up actually recognizing their many deeds as being either a sympathetic socio-political outcome, or, of course, a wild conspiracy by our many (largely imagined) enemies lingering on our borders.

The TV channels and drawing-rooms will be abuzz for a day or two discussing the mayhem, but very few Pakistanis actually take the time they get during the lull periods to reflect as to what has happened to their country and its people.

Instead, these lull periods are spent going right back to flexing our pulpy rhetorical muscles and sharpening of our non-existent teeth against our ‘enemies.’

Amazingly, as politicians, TV talk show hosts, clerics, the chattering classes and journalists all get together for a collective show of inspired morning and bemoaning against our ‘corrupt politicians’ and ‘government of beggars,’ we so conveniently forget that at the moment nothing’s as bad or more troublesome an issue in this country as terrorism.

But it is not general apathy or distracted energies of the people that the extremists are feeding on; it is a collective case of denial on the part of an increasing number of Pakistanis that is strengthening these extremists.

First of all, it is a fact that violence-prone extremism was ironically the creation of the CIA, with patronage provided by Arab petro-dollars and the local intelligence agencies such as the ISI. There is not an iota of doubt about the history of these agencies using the concept of jihad as a calling card to gather fighters for the so-called ‘Afghan jihad’ in the 1980s. A string of radical Islamic scholars were used along with the state-owned media and madressahs to fervently indoctrinate a huge number of young Muslims.

More dangerous was the way droplets of this aggressive strain started to trickle down to shape the sociology and politics of Pakistanis who are not extremists. That’s why, for example, today, if you mention names like Musharraf, Zardari. Altaf Hussain or Nawaz Sharif, one won’t be surprised to see a number of Pakistanis leap into to action, getting into an animated mode, criticising and lambasting corrupt politicians and power-hungry generals. However, the moment you try to discuss a recent episode of suicide bombing, most Pakistanis can then be seen suddenly going into a shell, trying to avoid the topic.

The majority will not condone suicide bombings and terrorism, but they will not condemn it either – or at least the way it should be condemned. No wonder, according to a recent survey, most Pakistanis actually believe terrorism is a secondary problem in their country – rather obnoxious a delusion indeed.

And that’s dangerous. Some Pakistanis would avoid discussing the issue altogether, actually believing that maybe criticising the ‘holy warriors’ (no matter how violent they may be), is like criticising Islam, while some would gladly become navel-gazing apologists of such acts, pointing their finger at the every ready list of imagined enemies who want to ‘destabilise Pakistan.’

Whom should we blame, seems to be the question on their mind. The thinking is that blaming the extremists is perhaps equal to agreeing with Zardari and the US. It is this narrow, egocentric mentality, coupled with echoes of years and years of indoctrination of a contradictory and xenophobic strain of Islam that has left a bulk of Pakistanis apathetically suffering from and subdued by matters such as extremism and terrorism.

What Musharraf represented or what this present government is all about in the form of the establishment comes with a historical and visible baggage. It is thus a target that can be clearly seen, pinpointed and attacked, whereas extremism remains an elusive enemy. Some would even go to the extent of negating its very existence, in spite of the ubiquitous sights of blood, bodies and limbs quivering on blackened streets. So, it is not general apathy or distracted energies of the people that the extremists are feeding on; it is a collective case of denial on the part of an increasing number of Pakistanis that is strengthening the extremists. A denial made worse by the animated apologists found babbling and foaming incoherent and unsubstantiated drivel across the many TV screens and channels of the nation.

Though it is true the terrorists are not overwhelmingly popular with the masses, it is also true that most Pakistanis have yet to perceive the extremists as the kind of enemy that they really are. With ready-made explanations like RAW, CIA and that ‘fellow Muslims are being subjected to state atrocities in the north’ spiel being their best answers to the madness of extremism and terrorism, it is highly unlikely to expect Pakistanis to tackle the issue anytime soon – in spite the fact that maybe it’s already too late.
 

indianwarrior

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Everything that can go wrong is going wrong with my life right now and I honestly do not notice/read/watch much these days except for what’s going on around me, but there is one news item that kinda caught my eye. The Taliban in Orakzai Agency have razed 11 houses belonging to the local Sikh community after they refused to pay jizya (a tax that early Islamic rulers demanded from their non-Muslim subjects to live in Muslim countries).



It reminded me of a conversation I had approximately 8 years ago with a ten-year-old boy. I was working as a research assistant to a professor working on Madressahs along Pakistan Afghan border and I was assisting him in the field research. I used to take field notes, record the proceedings of focus group discussions and community debates and made sure that everything is stored and recorded in chronological order. As we had to speak with a lot of kids, we made sure that we take, along with us, a lot of sweets and some cheap toys from Karachi for madressah students and it helped tremendously in breaking the ice. Zar Wali was that ten-year-old boy I mentioned earlier; he grew quite fond of me and would always tag along asking me a million questions about the camera I was using, my ancient recording equipment and a laptop that weighed just a little less than the CPU of a desktop.

One afternoon after a meeting with administrators of two madressahs, I was writing my observations and Zar Wali was sitting by me when we had this conversation, here is a brief part of that conversation.


Zar Wali (ZW): Will you see me if I come to Karachi.
Me: Sure, do you plan to come to Karachi?
ZW: May be I will get a job there when I finish with the madressah.
Me: (although I knew about the curriculum, I just wanted to know what he thinks about his education and asked.) So what is it that you study at the madressah that will get you a job in Karachi?
ZW: I only memorize Quran and learn to use some light weapon, but you know that already, you ask everyone the same question.
Me: So you don’t study Mathematics or Science, right?
ZW: Of course not. They are the teachings of infidels.
Me: Really? Who told you that?
ZW: My teacher at the madressah, who else?
Me: Do you know that there is a branch of mathematics called Algebra and it owes a lot to a Muslim scientist called Ibn-e-Musa al-Khwarizmi? He was a mathematician and a Muslim.
ZW: I don’t know, I just know that my teacher says that it is for infidels only.
Me: So what will you do when you graduate from the madressah?
ZW: I will go for jihad.
Me: Where?
ZW: I don’t know? Afghanistan or Kashmir.
Me: If you have Islamic governments in both, Afghanistan and Kashmir, then what will you do, you can’t fight jihad all your life?
ZW: I don’t know, I guess they will send me to fight somewhere else.
Me: Ok, suppose you have conquered the whole world and everyone is living under Muslim rule, then what? You have no money making skills and you will not be able to land a job. What will you do then, should you not learn something other than learning to use light weapons?
ZW: No, I will continue with jihad.
Me: (Exasperated) But who will you fight against?
ZW: Men who do not keep beards and women who do not observe purdah.
Me: I do not observe purdah; will you kill me as well?
ZW: If I am told, yes, I will do it.



I was laughing when I asked this question and was expecting a vehement head shake with a “No, I will never kill you” kind of response. Imagine how I felt when the little boy who told me, repeatedly, that I am best girl in the world apart from his mother because I gave him a plastic scooter would feel no compunction in killing me if instructed. I did not take the extent of his indoctrination that seriously in 2001 but now, this conversation keeps haunting me. Every time a school got blown, every time a man was beheaded or a girl was flogged, Zar Wali comes back to haunt me and ask me, “What were we all doing when they were training our children to become terror mongers and killers.
 

NSG_Blackcats

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Twin blasts rock Islamabad university​

ISLAMABAD: Two bomb blasts tore through a university building in Pakistan's capital Islamabad on Tuesday, police said. "It was a bomb blast. It was inside the Islamic university building," said police official Mohammad Afzal from the emergency response department.

"There was another one a few minutes later," Afzal told AFP referring to the Islamic International University, on Islamabad's eastern flank. Students from around the world attend the campus. Most take Islamic studies. Pakistan has been rocked by a series of bomb attacks by Taliban militants in the past two weeks and the army is involved in a major offensive against insurgents in South Waziristan.

Link
 

indian_blues

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5 killed in twin suicide blasts in Pak university

Two suicide bombers blew themselves up near-simultaneously at a prestigious Islamic university in the Pakistani capital on Tuesday, killing at least five people and injuring over 40, the latest in a series of deadly terror attacks that have rocked the country.

The blasts occurred at the male and female campuses of the International Islamic University, considered one of the world's leading centres for studies in Islamic law, thought and history.

The first suicide bomber blew himself up at the cafeteria in the women's campus, killing a student and an employee of the university, witnesses said. They said they had seen parts of the bomber's body stuck to the ceiling of the cafeteria.

The second bomber struck about five minutes later in the Shariah block of the male campus while a lecture was underway. Witnesses said three persons were killed in this explosion.

The two blasts also left over 40 people injured.

Wasim Khwaja, a doctor at the state-run Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences, said the hospital had received two legs and a head. It is believed they belonged to one of the suicide attackers.

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

Pakistan seriously slipping into chaos, where it is going to take them?
 

bengalraider

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Pakistani paramilitary soldiers man a check post as they check for possible infiltrations of Talibans disguised as refugees coming from lawless South Waziristan tribal area, at provincial borders of Punjab and militancy-hit North-West Frontier Province (NWFP), at Bhakkar Pakistan on 20 October 2009. Security has been intensified across the country after Pakistani Army began ground offensive against Taliban and al-Qaeda insurgents in the Pakistan's lawless South Waziristan tribal region along the Afghan border.

Sniffer dogs search for explosives outside a bombed restaurant of the International Islamic University Campus in Islamabad, Pakistan 20 October 2009. Two explosions almost simultaneously rocked the University and its three to four thousand students. Hospital sources report that 2 people died and 13 others were injured during the attack so far. The suspect was brought to an undisclosed location for interrogation

Pakistani paramilitary soldiers detain suspects who crossed into Pakistan from Afghanistan, at Chaman railway station in Chaman, Pakistan, 20 October 2009. Security has been intensified across the country after Pakistani Army began ground offensive against Taliban and al-Qaeda insurgents in the Pakistan's lawless South Waziristan tribal region along the Afghan border
 

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http://www.nytimes.com/2009/10/22/world/asia/22pstan.html

Schools Across Pakistan Are Closed in Wake of Attack

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By SALMAN MASOOD
Published: October 21, 2009


ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Schools all over Pakistan were shut down Wednesday, a day after two suicide attackers struck an Islamic university in Islamabad, the capital, setting off a wave of shock and panic across the country.

The suicide attacks on Tuesday ripped through the campus of the International Islamic University, killing at least six people, including three female students. The attacks marked a new escalation in the tactics of the Taliban, which claimed responsibility.

Schools in the northern Swat Valley had been singled out in the past by the Taliban, but a suicide bombing aimed at female students was a first and sent shudders through the student community.

While many blamed the Taliban, some people also directed their anger toward the government for failing to provide security to citizens. Students at the International Islamic University staged a protest against the government on Wednesday.

Several talk shows criticized government ministers for using elaborate security details while citizens were left at the mercy of suicide bombers.

Interior Minister Rehman Malik, who has come under renewed pressure to resign, defended the school closings, saying the precaution was taken to prevent any more attacks.

The measure closed all schools and colleges indefinitely in Punjab, the most populous and prosperous of the country’s four provinces. Hostels were vacated and students were forced to go to their homes. Schools in southern Sindh Province were closed until Sunday.

Many private schools and those administered by the armed forces were also closed down for a week. The attacks came as the Pakistani military continued to face heavy resistance in its assault on the rugged tribal region of South Waziristan, where the Taliban have carved out a virtual mini-state.

On Wednesday fighting was centered around the town of Kotkai, the hometown of the leader of the Pakistani Taliban, Hakimullah Mehsud, and a Taliban commander, Qari Hussain.

Before the operation began Saturday, scores were killed in a wave of suicide attacks at crowded markets, security installations and United Nations offices, in what was seen as an attempt to deter the military from taking on the campaign. The suicide attack on Tuesday was seen as the first blowback.

Some argued that the school closings were unwarranted. Jameel Yousaf, a security expert based in Karachi, Pakistan, while talking to Geo TV, criticized the closings, saying they would spread more panic. “Would you erect barriers in every street now?” he asked.
 

RPK

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BBC NEWS | South Asia | Pakistan brigadier among two dead

A Pakistani army brigadier and his driver have died in a shooting incident in the capital, Islamabad, police say.

They were travelling in an army vehicle when it was attacked by gunmen. It is not clear who was responsible.

The attack comes as the Pakistani army continues its drive against Taliban bases in South Waziristan, near the border with Afghanistan.

A wave of attacks on Pakistani cities has killed more than 180 people during the month of October alone.

Brigadier Moeenuddin and his driver Asghar have been killed in the attack which took place in the posh G-11 sector of Islamabad, the BBC's M Ilyas Khan reports from Islamabad.

At least one soldier has been injured in the attack.

According to reports, the vehicle was riddled with bullets, its tyres punched out and windscreen shattered as army and police commandos cordoned off the area.

Police say two men, both 18 to 20 years old, carried out the attack.

This is the second attack in Islamabad in the last three days.

On Tuesday, four people died and at least 18 were wounded in twin blasts at the International Islamic University.
 

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