By ISHTIAQ MAHSUD, Associated Press Writer

DERA ISMAIL KHAN, Pakistan - A suspected U.S. missile strike killed three people late Saturday in a town near the Afghan border, the latest in a series of attacks in a region where top al-Qaida leaders are believed to be living, two intelligence officials said.

Two unmanned drones were seen above Miran Shah in north Waziristan minutes before missiles hit a factory in the town, they said, based on reports from informants in the town.

The pair said three people were killed, but no other information was immediately available. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media. U.S. officials were not immediately available for comment.

Al-Qaida and Taliban fighters have established bases throughout Pakistan's semiautonomous tribal regions, where they are said to plan attacks on U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan as well as violence in Pakistan.

Under U.S. pressure, Pakistan has carried out military offensives against insurgents while also trying to woo various tribes to turn against extremists. But in recent weeks, the U.S. has signaled its impatience with Pakistani efforts.

The U.S. is suspected in at least 11 missile strikes on the Pakistan side of the Afghan border since mid-August, killing more than 100 people, most of them alleged militants, according to an Associated Press count based on Pakistan intelligence numbers.

Read the rest:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20081011/ap_on_re_as/as_pakistan
;_ylt=AmgYR4qRCW8nFA1IsNqqJoWs0NUE

It was the second killing this week in Bajaur of tribal elders, who have established an armed force to support the government's military campaign against Al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters in the area.

"This morning locals reported bodies of four tribal elders were lying on roadside," local administration official Mohammad Jamil told AFP, adding that the bodies showed extensive signs of torture.

A security official who declined to be named said the beheadings had been done by Al-Qaeda and Taliban militants to scare the local population away from supporting the army operations.

Four other pro-government elders were beheaded and their bodies found on Thursday.

The army says more than 1,000 rebel fighters have been killed since it launched an offensive in Bajaur in early August, including Al-Qaeda's operational commander in the region, Egyptian Abu Saeed Al-Masri.

Pakistan's tribal zone has been wracked by violence since thousands of Taliban and Al-Qaeda rebels sneaked into the country after the US-led invasion of Afghanistan in late 2001.

Petraeus also came out unambiguously in his talk at Heritage for opening communications with America’s adversaries, a position McCain is attacking Obama for endorsing. Citing his Iraq experience, Petraeus said, “You have to talk to enemies.” He added that it was necessary to have a particular goal for discussion and to perform advance work to understand the motivations of his interlocutors.

All that was the subject of one of the most contentious tussles between McCain and Obama in the first presidential debate, with Obama contending that his intent to negotiate with foreign adversaries without “precondition” did not mean that he would neglect diplomatic “preparation.”

McCain, apparently perceiving an opportunity for attack, Tuesday again used Obama’s comments to attack his judgment. “Sen. Obama, without precondition, wants to sit down and negotiate with them, without preconditions,” McCain said, referring to Iran.

Yet Petraeus emphasized throughout his lecture that reaching out to insurgent groups — some “with our blood on their hands,” he said — was necessary to the ultimate goal of turning them against irreconcilable enemies like Al Qaeda in Iraq.

Crooks and Liars points out that Petraeus also wants to negotiate with the Taliban.

So, John McCain, you're saying that Barack Obama is naive and has it all wrong?  Then you must also agree that General Petraeus is naive and has it all wrong, as well.

Only Walnuts knows what's best!  Give me a break.

Dear Sen. McCain:

Barack Obama obviously doesn't have your military experience. And he's not dumb enough to pose for pictures in a tank. But why do you continue to mock his warnings to Pakistan about harboring al-Qaeda terrorists?

You say that a leader shouldn't "telegraph" their intentions, that he or she should keep it a secret. If Pakistan is being mean to us, are you going to whisper "Cut it out! Stop it!" in the Pakistani leader's ear?

Here's a snippet from the official CNN transcript of the second presidential debate:

Question: Should the United States respect Pakistani sovereignty and not pursue al Qaeda terrorists who maintain bases there, or should we ignore their borders and pursue our enemies like we did in Cambodia during the Vietnam War?

Obama: "I do believe that we have to change our policies with Pakistan. We can't coddle, as we did, a dictator, give him billions of dollars and then he's making peace treaties with the Taliban and militants.

What I've said is we're going to encourage democracy in Pakistan, expand our nonmilitary aid to Pakistan so that they have more of a stake in working with us, but insisting that they go after these militants.

And if we have Osama bin Laden in our sights and the Pakistani government is unable or unwilling to take them out, then I think that we have to act and we will take them out. We will kill bin Laden; we will crush Al Qaeda. That has to be our biggest national security priority."


****************************************


McCain: "You know, my hero is a guy named Teddy Roosevelt. Teddy Roosevelt used to say walk softly -- talk softly, but carry a big stick. Sen. Obama likes to talk loudly.

In fact, he said he wants to announce that he's going to attack Pakistan. Remarkable... When you announce that you're going to launch an attack into another country, it's pretty obvious that you have the effect that it had in Pakistan: It turns public opinion against us."

Sen. McCain, Pakistani public opinion was SO not pro-America before 9/11, which is why they were harboring the Taliban in the first place. And in the early days, it seemed like the only American who seemed pissed at how the Taliban treated women was Jay Leno's wife, Mavis.

Also, everytime you call Obama trigger happy, he's gonna come back at ya with the "Bomb, Bomb, Bomb, Iran!" song you sang to the tune of the Beach Boys (channeling Ronald Reagan's joke about bombing the Soviet Union). Head down this road during the third debate and you're destined to lose the same debate points you lost in the first two.

Obama: "Nobody called for the invasion of Pakistan. Sen. McCain continues to repeat this.

What I said was the same thing that the audience here today heard me say, which is, if Pakistan is unable or unwilling to hunt down bin Laden and take him out, then we should... Now, Sen. McCain suggests that somehow, you know, I'm green behind the ears and, you know, I'm just spouting off, and he's somber and responsible.

Sen. McCain, this is the guy who sang, "Bomb, bomb, bomb Iran," who called for the annihilation of North Korea. That I don't think is an example of "speaking softly."

As for the unpleasant issue of using military force within the borders of a "friendly" nation, both Sen. McCain and Sen. Obama need to study the Jennifer Garner precedent set in 2007.

In the action suspense thriller, "The Kingdom," Garner and Jamie Foxx lead a commando team that goes deep into the "friendly" nation of Saudi Arabia.

Garner takes on some of the world's meanest terrorists and still looks fantastic on the red carpet at night.

According to People magazine, Ms. Garner is a "witty, clever" advocate for Obama. Perhaps she could also help beef up his national security street cred.

MIRANSHAH, Pakistan: A US missile strike targeting a high-level meeting of Al-Qaeda and Taliban commanders in a Pakistani tribal area missed most of them by just minutes, security officials said Friday. Two missiles hit the house of Pakistani Taliban leader Hafiz Sahar Gul in the North Waziristan district bordering Afghanistan on Thursday night, killing nine people including six Arab militants, the officials said.

"There was a meeting of around 30 foreign Al-Qaeda and local Taliban commanders in the house of Hafiz Sahar Gul but the majority of them left the building 10 minutes before the missile struck," a security official told AFP on condition of anonymity. "The six Arabs who were killed are all believed to be lower-level operatives."

 
Pakistani soldiers stand alert with their weapons at an observation post in North Waziristan, along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border.  Suspected US missile strikes in the Pakistani tribal areas bordering Afghanistan have killed bith terrorists and civilians.(AFP/File/Aamir Qureshi)

Officials did not immediately give the identities of the targeted militants. But they said that they were not Al-Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden or his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahri.

Residents said the other three people killed in the strike in the remote village of Tapi were women and children, but there was no official confirmation.

Read the rest:
http://www.dailystar.com.lb/article.as
p?edition_id=10&categ_id=2&articl
e_id=96671

Seven years after the Bush administration launched “Operation Enduring Freedom” with the relentless bombing of Afghanistan, US intelligence agencies have concluded that the situation in the devastated country is on “a downward spiral,” and that prospects are poor for stabilizing the US-backed government and militarily defeating the growing armed resistance.

These are the conclusions drawn by a classified draft National Intelligence Estimate (NIE) that is in the final stages of preparation, according to US officials cited Wednesday in the New York Times.

According to the Times account, the report, which represents the consensus view of 16 separate US intelligence agencies, concludes that “the breakdown in central authority in Afghanistan has been accelerated by rampant corruption within the government of President Hamid Karzai and by an increase in violence by militants who have launched increasingly sophisticated attacks from havens in Pakistan.”

The report, which essentially warns that Washington is in danger of losing its war in Afghanistan, is not to be released in final form until after the US November elections.

While the US and its NATO allies have beefed up their occupation forces by some 20,000 troops over the last 18 months, the same period has seen a 50 percent increase in the number of armed attacks carried out by Afghan resistance fighters, whose ranks have been swelled by civilians seeking revenge for the deaths of relatives killed in stepped-up American air strikes and house-to-house raids.

On Tuesday, villagers in the southern province of Helmand reported that a US air strike claimed the lives of 40 civilians. In one demolished house, a couple and their eight children perished. The villagers reported that there were no Taliban fighters in the area when the bombs struck.

“There are confirmed reports of civilian casualties; however, it is unknown at this time how many,” a terse statement from the US-led occupation forces read.

The Pentagon found itself compelled to acknowledge on Wednesday that it indeed slaughtered dozens of civilians—most of them children—in an August 22 air strike on the village of Azizabad in Afghanistan’s western Herat province. The US military, which initially denied that any civilians had been killed, now admits to killing 33 unarmed men, women and children along with 22 “anti-coalition militants.” Afghan officials have continued to insist that 90 civilians—the majority of them women and children—died in the attack.

Hostility to the US puppet regime headed by Karzai has grown as the country’s economy has continued to deteriorate. Most recent figures put the national unemployment rate at 40 percent, and it is estimated that nearly half the population are unable to get enough food to meet minimal nutritional requirements.

According to US estimates, government forces control less than a third of the country, and many believe that to be an overestimate. Meanwhile, the Taliban and other forces opposing the US-led occupation have established control over increasingly large swaths of the country, installing their own mayors, courts and police forces.

At the same time, official corruption is rampant. As the NIE confirms, the heroin trade accounts for fully half of the country’s gross domestic product.

NATO officials announced this week that they had reached an agreement with the Afghan regime to use the foreign occupation forces to suppress the drug trade, which according to Pentagon estimates earns $60 million a year for the Taliban. Germany, Spain and other NATO countries have opposed such a move, believing that it will only stir up further popular opposition to the occupation.

The problem is compounded by the fact that government officials are probably making considerably more from narcotics trafficking. Last week, the New York Times published an article citing multiple official sources linking the Afghan president’s brother, Ahmed Wali Karzai, to heroin trafficking.

The paper cited American narcotics investigators who reported that “senior officials at the DEA [Drug Enforcement Administration] and the office of the Director of National Intelligence complained to them that the White House favored a hands-off approach toward Ahmed Wali Karzai because of the political delicacy of the matter.”

The dismal assessment drafted by the US intelligence agency found confirmation from senior military commanders this week.

Admiral Michael Mullens, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told Pentagon reporters Thursday that the situation in Afghanistan has been headed in “the wrong direction” for the last two years.

“The trends across the board are not going in the right direction,” Mullen said. “It will be tougher next year unless we get at all these challenges.”

Also on Thursday, the top US military commander in Afghanistan, General David McKiernan, told the French news agency AFP that “ultimately the solution here in this country will be a political solution, not a military one.”

The intelligence estimate from Washington and the statements from the US commanders echo recent assessments provided by a British military commander and the British ambassador in Afghanistan.

Brigadier Mark Carleton-Smith, the outgoing commander of British forces in Afghanistan, told the press last weekend, “We’re not going to win this war,” and that the best that could be hoped for was “reducing it to a manageable level of insurgency that’s not a strategic threat.”

Meanwhile, the French publication Le Canard enchaîné quoted a memo recording a discussion between the British ambassador to Afghanistan, Sir Sherard Cowper-Coles, and a French official last month in which Cowper-Coles insisted that the US-NATO military presence in the country “is part of the problem, not the solution.”

According to the document, the British ambassador described a corrupt and bankrupt Afghan regime that survived only thanks to the foreign occupation forces. The only way out of the crisis, he affirmed, was by replacing Karzai’s regime with an “acceptable dictator.”

British officials have apparently concluded that the US-initiated war in Afghanistan is unwinnable, and American military commanders, their forces stretched to the breaking point by the deployment of 152,000 troops in the occupation of Iraq together with the 33,000 in Afghanistan itself, appear largely in agreement.

There is no indication, however, that Washington is about to concede defeat in this seven-year-old war. Justified as a retaliation for the September 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, the war is part of a drive to establish US hegemony over the oil-rich regions of Central Asia that were opened up in the wake of the Soviet Union’s dissolution. This remains a key strategic objective of the American ruling elite.

According to a report in the Washington Post Thursday, the Bush administration has responded to the NIE by ordering a major reassessment of US strategy and tactics in Afghanistan, an initiative that may well lead to a substantial escalation of the US intervention there.

According to the Post, given the upcoming election and the subsequent change in administrations, “senior officials have expressed worry that the situation in Afghanistan and Pakistan is so tenuous that it may fall apart while a new set of US policymakers settles in.”

Under consideration is a significant increase in the number of troops as well as stepped-up intervention into western Pakistan, where already, as the Post points out, “Military Special Operations forces and operatives [are] now conducting regular secret incursions.”

The Post notes that an escalation of the dirty colonial war being waged by American forces in Afghanistan would enjoy bipartisan support.

“Presidential candidates Barack Obama and John McCain are unlikely to question a major new US commitment; both have called for an increase in US troops,” the Post writes. “And unlike Iraq, where lawmakers have argued for years over funding and troop levels, there is bipartisan backing for doing more, and doing it quickly, in Afghanistan.”

In short, the November election will provide no means for the American people to express their overwhelming hostility to the ongoing wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Instead, it appears increasingly likely that an escalation prepared by the Bush administration on the eve of the vote will be continued by the next administration, no matter whether Obama or McCain is victorious at the polls.

As I am a person who fully believes that talking should last long and hard BEFORE you commit young men and women to the fighting - I find it totally ironic that you have a guy who is running for president of the USA who believes that war is the only option in treating those who disagree with you.

Now, after a summit between those who have influence, comes to an end and that those who would be seen as an enemy are included in those talks - without preconditions I may add, you have those who are in government saying things that are totally opposite to the one man who would carry on the war - without talks!

Now it should be known to anyone who reads this blog that I don't like John McCain. I don't like him because of one simple reason - he likes people to die. I don't!

If, and if this should happen, a war is unavoidable it has to be fought - that is the part, unavoidable. But before you come to that you must talk, talk and talk again. But John McCain believes that the awesome power of the US is paramount and it must be seen to work. Well John - it isn't about how much power you have, it is about how you use that power.

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said the United States would be prepared to reconcile with the Taliban if the Afghan government pursued talks to end the seven-year conflict in that country.

See that? Robert Gates agrees that you can, through diplomacy, come to an agreement with those you wanted to kill.

The Taleban are not stupid - they know that the election in the US seems to be going Obama's way - and he has said, time and again, that he will commit troops to Afghanistan. Not just a few troops - a ot of troops and the Taleban know that they have to do a few things before they have to fight the extended US troops deployment - 1. disenfranchise themselves from Al-Q, which they have. 2. talk to the Afghan government about putting their arms away and living in peace.

We may not LIKE the Taleban - but that is not up to us to like them or agree with them - as long as they agree to live within the laws of Afghanistan. That's it!

Obama wants to talk - McCain wants to fight - fight when it's right, not when it's not.

Please, vote for Obama and the world will be a safer place.

Now is the time to disavow the American empire at whose altar we've knelt all these years. America is distracted by the financial crisis and the presidential election. Bush, Cheney and the neo-con war party would have dearly liked to bomb Iran. The opportunity for them to do so, if it ever existed, has gone. Iranian defiance (as opposed to our defeatism) has been vindicated. If we break loose from America's embrace and renegotiate our terms of friendship with it America will gnash its teeth. Economic pain it can also inflict but how much worse can our economic situation get? How much deeper can we plunge?

By Ayaz Amir
Friday, 10 October 2008.

The News International.

WWW.AHMEDQURAISHI.COM

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan—There is no end to the ironies which afflict our increasingly caught-in-a-bind republic. George Bush, sure to be commemorated as one of the greatest disasters to reside in the White House, may be about to depart into the pages of history or into well-deserved oblivion. But in one country on the face of the earth his policies will live on: Pakistan which in the 61 years of its existence has yet to learn to think for itself.

There may be second thoughts in the United States itself about the way the Washington-led coalition circus is stuck in Afghanistan and making no headway there despite seven years of toil, effort, sweat and money. The commander of British forces in Afghanistan may have brought himself to say that military means alone could not solve the Afghan problem. But among what passes for the Pakistani leadership there is nothing resembling second thoughts.

President Asif Zardari, democracy's ultimate gift to this confused and now increasingly demoralized land, lets no opportunity go by without insisting that the so-called war on terror – a nomenclature we have adopted with a zeal not even to be found in Washington – is not just America's war but ours too. Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani parrots much the same theme. The army too is sold on the same song.

Each act of terrorism – and such are the wages of this conflict that after seven years of being hooked to Washington's war chariot terrorism instead of being licked is on the rise in Pakistan---is used to bolster the contention that this is now our war. No questions are asked as to how we got into this mess in the first place.

If this is our war then General Pervez Musharraf should still be president of Pakistan. There should be no reason to hate him because his outstanding legacy, the thing for which he will always be remembered, was how he jumped into America's lap post-Sep 11, giving birth to the legend – to which Pakistan's confused English-speaking liberati still subscribe – that Pakistan was saved. That if Pakistan had hesitated and not swung so decisively to America's side it would have been made a Tora Bora of, and bombed into the stone age. It was this mental cowardice – and the ambition of benefiting from America's largesse – which set Pakistan on the path leading eventually to the nightmare our army and people now face in the tribal areas.

This is brilliant firefighting. First set things on fire, create conditions which give rise to extremism and militancy, and then announce that extremism represents the greatest threat to national security and must be eliminated.

Most Pakistanis have no taste for the Taliban brand of Islam: the Sharia, or somebody's mutilated understanding of Sharia, imposed at gunpoint. Why is it then that among ordinary Pakistanis (as opposed to the English-spouting liberati) there is not much support for the 'war on terror'? Because most Pakistanis, despite revulsion against the Kalashnikov, consider this to be America's war, and consider the Pakistani leadership and the Pakistan army as playing America's game.

A Dawn editorial (and this was yesterday) has these pearls of wisdom to offer: "What is at stake is our future. Pakistan cannot be allowed to become a theocratic state, for that would nullify (Jinnah's)…values." A fine sentiment – but which misses the point completely. Our role as American ally, or American satellite which is nearer the truth, is what has led to the rise of Talibanism in the tribal areas. Talibanism is not the disease itself. It is a reaction to, or a consequence of, our decision to blindly side with America in Sept 2001.

There was no Al Qaeda or militant Islam in Iraq prior to the American invasion. The American occupation gave birth to a resistance which, as was only to be expected in a Muslim country, acquired an Islamic colouring and spoke in an Islamic idiom. To each his own beliefs and iconography. Christian soldiers in western armies still make the sign of the cross, or at least some of them would do. So nothing amazing if in moments of stress or danger a Muslim, whether warrior or not, and even if not devout in the faith, should invoke Allah's name or seek inspiration from Ali. And this has nothing to do with being a Shia or a Sunni.

Should we expect the Taliban to quote Marx or Guevara? If they are up in arms against a foreign power and what they take to be its local collaborators they will use the idiom which comes most naturally to them: the language of Islam even if their interpretation of Islam may leave something to be desired.

So what are government and General Headquarters trying to sell? In 1988 (Feb 29) Lt. Gen. Hamid Gul, then ISI head, gave an in-camera briefing to parliament. His purpose was to sell and extol the virtues of the then Afghan jihad whose leading spearman, in defiance of common sense, Pakistan had chosen to become. Ten years later another in-camera briefing of parliament seeks to justify and sell another holy war, the 'war on terror'.

This war is tearing Pakistan apart. It is kindling fires all over the country. Tribesmen who guarded our western marches all these years have turned bitter and hostile. The army was a symbol of respect and authority. More than 100,000 troops are now deployed in that inhospitable terrain and the situation far from improving gets more difficult by the day. At the height of the Kashmir insurgency a couple of thousand guerrilla fighters at the most tied down 4-500,000 Indian troops. But ignoring the lessons of Kashmir the army thinks it will get the better of the Taliban insurgency who have more fighters than the Kashmiris ever had.

The army's Achilles' heel is its American connection and as long as that remains there is no winning this war or pacifying the tribal areas. This doesn't mean going to war with America, as the liberati tend to distort the argument. It means repudiating the written and unwritten agreements concluded with America in 2001, including the five year military-cum-economic aid package concluded at the time. What good has this package done us? What peaks of economic glory have we scaled with its help?

So now is the time to disavow the American empire at whose altar we've knelt all these years. America is distracted by the financial crisis and the presidential election. Bush, Cheney and the neo-con war party would have dearly liked to bomb Iran. The opportunity for them to do so, if it ever existed, has gone. Iranian defiance (as opposed to our cravenness) has been vindicated. If we break loose from America's embrace and renegotiate our terms of friendship with it America will gnash its teeth. Economic pain it can also inflict but how much worse can our economic situation get? How much deeper can we plunge?

Who knows in the very act of breaking the mental shackles which bind us to the US we might discover the freedom and self-respect we have always fantasized about but never achieved. It's quite possible that the moment we announce our dissociation from America's war aims the fever of extremism from Swat to Waziristan will subside. It won't immediately disappear but it will become amenable to treatment.

But to move towards any kind of national salvation we will need leaders whose minds are free. Musharraf looked more his own man than the present leadership and that's saying a lot. Zardari says the world is a safer place because of Bush. Mental kowtowing can't be carried much further than this.

About the in-camera session I am not supposed to say anything although heaven knows no mighty secrets were divulged. The question-answer session the next morning was largely wasted because the kind of pointed and informed questions that should have been asked were not asked. As the principal opposition party it was up to the PML-N to do most of the probing but living up to its reputation as the Permanent Walkout or Naraaz (angry) Party, it announced that the briefing not being comprehensive enough its members would not ask questions, a puzzling standpoint to say the least.

An hour or so into the question-answer session which was being handled by the director-general military operations (now promoted as the DG ISI), the army chief, with a slightly bemused expression on his face, went away. Had he other matters to attend to or had he had enough for the day?

This is an edited version of the original column published by The News International, Pakistan’s largest English-language daily newspaper. Mr. Amir can be reached at chakwal@comsats.net.pk

Courtesy and Thanks: Asia Times

The Taliban are escalating the conflict in Pakistan's cities, aiming to strike before the US and its partners can dig in for the all-out war that all quarters - the Western ruling establishments, Afghan government, Pakistani ruling military and political establishment and the two US presidential candidates - tacitly agree must be waged against the Taliban and al-Qaeda inside Pakistan.

The Taliban's pre-emptive strategy continued on Thursday when a bomb - disguised as a delivery of sweets - destroyed the headquarters of Pakistan's Anti-Terrorist Force in Islamabad. The blast occurred during a special session of parliament at which the director of the Inter-Services Intelligence, Lieutenant General
Ahmed Shuja Pasha, was briefing lawmakers on Pakistan's strategy in the "war on terror".

The package of sweets was allegedly sent by Waliur Rehman, a commander of Jaish-i-Islami Pakistan, a militant outfit which is attached to the umbrella organization Pakistan Tehrik-i-Taliban led by Baitullah Mehsud. Waliur Rahman works out of Pakistan's Bajaur agency - a tribal area situated near the border with the Afghan provinces of Kunar and Nooristan. The Pakistan Army is presently conducting a powerful military operation in Bajaur.

A letter recovered from gift basket read, "If Pakistan does not separate itself from the American crusade on Muslims, these sort of attacks shall continue."

According to reports, a vehicle with two occupants entered the Anti-Terrorist headquarters and asked guards to to deliver the package of candies to a top policeman's office. Interestingly, the police official had already given instructions for an employee to carrying the sweets inside for him. Within minutes, the bomb exploded.

Apart from a few guards, nobody was in the office. Some guards were injured, but the whole Anti-Terrorist Force building, where many jihadis have been detained and interrogated, was reduced to rubble.

The bombing comes just as Pakistan has decided to expand its partnership with the US in the "war on terror". Army officials were in the process of bringing parliamentarians on board before the country enters into a major battle against the militants. Similar letters have been sent to members of parliament, warning that if the policy of supporting US forces in the region is not abandoned, the entire country will face dire consequences.

Additionally, shopkeepers in the cultural capital of the country, Lahore, received letters, widely distributed in the markets under an organized campaign, instructing them to abide by Islamic norms and remove all "vulgar" movies from their shelves.

Last week, in a special briefing session of a Senate committee, Pakistani Secretary of Defense Kamran Rasool briefed lawmakers on the recent dynamics of Pakistani support for the "war on terror". Rasool openly admitted that Pakistan does not have any option but to follow US dictates, whatever they may be, because the country would collapse within three days if US financial assistance was withdrawn. His statement was widely criticized by the media and opposition parties.

Despite sparring over Pakistan in their second televised debate on Tuesday night, the two US presidential candidates ended up saying the same thing, though in somewhat different ways. While Democrat hopeful Senator Barack Obama said the US should only take action inside Pakistan if the government there was unable, or unwilling, to do so, Republican Senator John McCain was more conciliatory, recommending that the US use soft language with Pakistan, but carry a big stick.

This presidential posturing suggests that the focus of war in South Asia will eventually shift to Pakistan from Afghanistan and that before launching any final strategy, Pakistan's leaders must make adequate arrangements.

The main American asset in the North-West Frontier Province is Asfanyar Wali Khan, the leader of the Awami National Party which governs the province. Asfanyar has made Islamabad his home after a failed suicide attack on his life last week in his town. He is not the only one taking security precautions. Official premises in the present "Red Zone" - the president's quarters, prime minister's house, parliament, supreme court and the diplomatic enclave - are to be secured in a highly protected "Green City". This new complex will reportedly be separated from the rest of Islamabad by an enormous wall.

All this is in preparation for Pakistan's emergence as the main theater of the "war on terror". This comes as the long winter begins and war goes cold in neighboring Afghanistan.

The war in Pakistan
The recent thread of events seems to start from a huge training program which the US has called an essential component in fighting the militancy in Pakistan. US Admiral Mike Mullen told the Los Angeles Times that American forces have secured bases north of Islamabad to train Pakistani soldiers. However, sources have told Asia Times Online that the situation on the ground reveals much more than a training program.

Hasanpur, a small town situated along the Ghazi Brotha Canal six kilometers from Tarbella Ghazi, is the center of activity. Sources in Pakistani security agencies told Asia Times Online that the airstrip in Hasanpur has been upgraded to war readiness in the last few weeks and new hangars have been built for military aircraft. Underground shelters, bunkers and tunnels have also been constructed. Following the arrival of American "training advisory groups", British military personnel were flown in and have reportedly taken over management of the facility.

Sources claim that the logistical capabilities of the US and British personnel, and extraordinary measures they have taken to upgrade the airstrip, suggest something far more advanced than a simple training site.

The security sources also maintain that new installations in the Hasanpur mountains are geared for direct participation in military operations. At the least, they are said to be capable of conducting independent drone operations from the high-altitude Hasanpur area.

As earlier reported, (See The gloves are off in Pakistan, Asia Times Online, September 23, 2008), US preparations are also underway at Tarbella, the brigade headquarters of Pakistan's Special Operation Task Force approximately 20km from Islamabad. In September, 300 American officials landed at this facility, with the official designation as a "training advisory group", according to documents viewed by Asia Times Online.

The report was widely reproduced in the Pakistani press and discussed in parliamentary committees. The main concern of the parliamentarians was that US activity so close to a Pakistani nuclear facility could jeopardize Pakistan's nuclear assets.

Supposedly, the frenzied US military preparations have an aspect of "October Surprise" - a longstanding term for unexpected twists that can help or hinder candidates in the month before US presidential elections.

For example, there is now an increased focus on attacks in areas where al-Qaeda leaders could potentially be spotted, arrested or killed. Rather than destroying Taliban sanctuaries or attacking the Pakistan Tehrik-i-Taliban center in South Waziristan, all focus has been on Bajaur - where a huge battle continues, causing the displacement of 500,000 residents.

Although the Pakistani military has failed to control the ground in Bajaur, preparations are now being made to assault North Waziristan, where most high-profile al-Qaeda leaders are believed to have shifted. Any al-Qaeda "successes" by US or Western forces would likely be used to the advantage of Republican candidate McCain.

The battle for 'October Surprise'
Lieutenant General Pasha told the recent session of parliament that Bajuar agency has been cleared of all militants and that state policy on the area will be established in coming weeks. Sources in the security agencies, however, maintain that so far Pakistan has only used fighter aircraft to bomb the militants. The army, according to sources, was not deployed on the ground because it is not prepared to take casualties. Until the army gains control of the ground, military operations in Bajaur will remain in limbo.

But the Pakistan Army is convinced, without any substantial proof, that it has displaced al-Qaeda leaders from Bajaur and that they have fled to North Waziristan.

Now, with American elections scheduled next month, the Pakistan Army will go to North Waziristan for the battle of "October Surprise". Fresh contingents of the army have been mobilized and action appears to be expected next week.

Sources said that the main target of the operation is Dr Ayman Al-Zawahiri. However, NATO allegedly favors the operation in North Waziristan because, like Bajaur, it is a nest of Afghan resistance, mainly of pro-Pakistan Jalaluddin Haqqani, a legendary Afghan mujahideen leader who has run the most effective militant network against NATO forces in Afghanistan.

Militants' winter offensive
Militants have their eyes set on November when they aim to spin the web of world events according to their will. Sources privy to their plans refused to reveal the details of global operations, but categorically refer to an extremely hot winter for Pakistan. Asia Times Online has learned on good authority that militants have planned attacks which would exceed this January's suicide attacks - which outnumbered those in war-torn Iraq.

As a source involved in the upcoming winter offensive told Asia Times Online: "Let October pass, then comes the mujahadeen's turn and then these mercenaries who bow down either for money or American might [will] have to decide whether we are more powerful or their American masters, and hence would have to decide whether they are with the American crusade in the name of war on terror, or with the global Muslim resistance against Western occupation forces."

Syed Saleem Shahzad is Asia Times Online's Pakistan Bureau Chief. He can be reached at saleem_shahzad2002@yahoo.com

http://www.bbc.co.uk/urdu/pakistan/story/2008/10/081010_rama_pir_mandar_rh.shtml

DRcongo and rwanda, taliban peace, thailand riots, iaea denied, russia starts withdrawal, turkey vs pkk, cyprus, bush and economics, emo, piracy, bad editing at the end

'Starving men do not fart!'

Pakistan is a quite nation today, we are a starved nation, metaphorically and literally. Some are deprived of 2 proper meals a day, others are deprived of their right to justice, some (like our president) are deprived of common sense, others dont get laid enough(so they blog!) so on and so forth...

However, we're not here to talk about how our economy's constipated, or how our president wants to squeeze Sarah Palin's knockers, we're here to talk about absolutely nothing!

The Dark fuckin' knight my friends, is a work of art! Ive always found batman to be the best of the superheroes, hes cooler, and he fights the big dogs running the system rather than the everyday sandman or radioactive baldie. Even though Prince Cinema's hall has more spots of pan than a memon's intestines, and the assholes started the movie with the las ketchup song (faulty audio), that didnt stop me from enjoying the movie. Heath ledger's joker was so crazy, the poor man ended up killing himself! :S

Some fucker stole my car and ruined my eid, but i got it back (minus my CNG kit) and im feelin' nutty again... :D

"Biryani khayein..... is say pehlay kay aap ki biryani khayee jayay!

*A public service message by student's biryani*

Islamabad, Pakistan - A suicide bomber struck the headquarters of the Anti-terrorism Squad of the Islamabad police force Thursday afternoon, just as lawmakers were preparing to convene 15 miles away to discuss growing militancy in the country.

The incident added to the rise in bomb attacks that Pakistan has seen over the past year, not only in its troubled northwestern region but also on high-profile targets in major cities like Islamabad, the capital.

 
Pakistani tribesmen dance as they gather for a 2005 meeting in South Waziristan. A suicide bomber killed at least 15 people when he blew himself up at a meeting of anti-Taliban tribal leaders close to the Afghan border.(AFP/File/Farooq Naeem)

"The message [from Thursday's attack] couldn't have been clearer," says Hassan Askari Rizvi, former professor of Pakistan Studies at Columbia University.

The militants, he continues, "want to show that they have the capacity to hit Pakistani institutions – even those ones trusted with the responsibility of protecting the rest."

Suicide bomb attacks have spiked in Pakistan, from two in 2002 to a record 56 in 2007, according to the Institute for Conflict Management, based in New Delhi. As of August of this year, the country had seen 25 suicide-bomb attacks, ICM reports.

In a grim indicator of the rise in attacks, according to Pakistan's intelligence agency, this year Pakistan has overtaken Iraq in suicide-bomb deaths.

It counted 28 suicide bombings in Pakistan that killed more than 471 people in the first eight months of this year. By comparison Iraq saw...

Read the rest:
http://news.yahoo.com/s/csm/20081010/wl_
csm/opakboom;_ylt=AuHXAjM_3yg5TMhGJYRK95Ws0NUE

KABUL, Oct. 9 (Xinhua) -- Taliban militants ambushed NATO convoy Wednesday night in southern Afghan province of Uruzgan leaving at least seven civilians killed and two more wounded, an official said on Thursday.

Assadullah Hamadam, the provincial governor told Xinhua that a group of Taliban rebels attacked and fired rockets on the NATO convoy patrolling in Shahid Ihasaa district of Uruzgan.

"Some rockets hit one civilian house in the area killing seven people around including women and children ," Hamadam said.

He added that two more civilians were wounded in the incident.

However, the governor failed to tell if there is any casualty on NATO forces.

Taliban militants, who have carried out several similar attacks against interests of government and international troops but inflicting civilians casualties, have yet to make any comments.

Conflicts and spiraling insurgency have claimed the lives of over 4,000 people with around 1500 civilians, so far this year in the war-torn country.

Source: http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2008-10/09/content_10171701.htm

On Nov. 19, 2007, this column predicted either Pervez Musharraf or Benazir Bhutto would be assassinated [she was killed five weeks later] and warned in clear words: “This is not about Musharraf anymore. This is about clipping the wings of a strong Pakistani military, denying space for China in Pakistan, squashing the ISI, stirring ethnic unrest, and neutralizing Pakistan’s nuclear program. The first shot in this plan was fired in Pakistan’s Balochistan province in 2004. The last bullet will be toppling Musharraf, sidelining the military and installing a pliant government in Islamabad. Musharraf shares the blame for letting things come this far. But he is also trying to punch holes in Washington’s game plan. He needs to be supported.” Less than a year later, it is stunning how we never saw the signs. Patriot Pakistanis are worried about their homeland. I have no faith in Islamabad. Is anyone listening in Rawalpindi? [Ahmed Quraishi, Aug. 31, 2008.]

By AHMED QURAISHI

Monday, 19 November 2007.

WWW.AHMEDQURAISHI.COM

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan—On the evening of Tuesday, 26 September, 2006, Pakistani strongman Pervez Musharraf walked into the studio of Comedy Central’s ‘Daily Show’ with Jon Stewart, the first sitting president anywhere to dare do this political satire show.

Stewart offered his guest some tea and cookies and played the perfect host by asking, “Is it good?” before springing a surprise: “Where's Osama bin Laden?"

"I don't know," Musharraf replied, as the audience enjoyed the rare sight of a strong leader apparently cornered. "You know where he is?” Musharraf snapped back, “You lead on, we'll follow you."

What Gen. Musharraf didn’t know then is that he really was being cornered. Some of the smiles that greeted him in Washington and back home gave no hint of the betrayal that awaited him.

As he completed the remaining part of his U.S. visit, his allies in Washington and elsewhere, as all evidence suggests now, were plotting his downfall. They had decided to take a page from the book of successful ‘color revolutions’ where western governments covertly used money, private media, student unions, NGOs and international pressure to stage coups, basically overthrowing individuals not fitting well with Washington’s agenda.

This recipe proved its success in former Yugoslavia, and more recently in Georgia, Ukraine and Kazakhstan.

In Pakistan, the target is a Pakistani president who refuses to play ball with the United States on Afghanistan, China, and Dr. A.Q. Khan.

To get rid of him, an impressive operation is underway:

• A carefully crafted media blitzkrieg launched early this year assailing the Pakistani president from all sides, questioning his power, his role in Washington’s war on terror and predicting his downfall.
• Money pumped into the country to pay for organized dissent.
• Willing activists assigned to mobilize and organize accessible social groups.
• A campaign waged on Internet where tens of mailing lists and ‘news agencies’ have sprung up from nowhere, all demonizing Musharraf and the Pakistani military.
• European- and American-funded Pakistani NGOs taking a temporary leave from their real jobs to work as a makeshift anti-government mobilization machine.
• U.S. government agencies directly funding some private Pakistani television networks; the channels go into an open anti-government mode, cashing in on some manufactured and other real public grievances regarding inflation and corruption.
• Some of Musharraf’s shady and corrupt political allies feed this campaign, hoping to stay in power under a weakened president.
• All this groundwork completed and chips in place when the judicial crisis breaks out in March 2007. Even Pakistani politicians surprised at a well-greased and well-organized lawyers campaign, complete with flyers, rented cars and buses, excellent event-management and media outreach.
• Currently, students are being recruited and organized into a street movement. The work is ongoing and urban Pakistani students are being cultivated, especially using popular Internet Web sites and ‘online hangouts’. The people behind this effort are mostly unknown and faceless, limiting themselves to organizing sporadic, small student gatherings in Lahore and Islamabad, complete with banners, placards and little babies with arm bands for maximum media effect. No major student association has announced yet that it is behind these student protests, which is a very interesting fact glossed over by most journalists covering this story. Only a few students from affluent schools have responded so far and it’s not because the Pakistani government’s countermeasures are effective. They’re not. The reason is that social activism attracts people from affluent backgrounds, closely reflecting a uniquely Pakistani phenomenon where local NGOs are mostly founded and run by rich, westernized Pakistanis.

All of this may appear to be spur-of-the-moment and Musharraf-specific. But it all really began almost three years ago, when, out of the blue and recycling old political arguments, Mr. Akbar Bugti launched an armed rebellion against the Pakistani state, surprising security analysts by using rockets and other military equipment that shouldn’t normally be available to a smalltime village thug. Since then, Islamabad sits on a pile of evidence that links Mr. Bugti’s campaign to money and ammunition and logistical support from Afghanistan, directly aided by the Indians and the Karzai administration, with the Americans turning a blind eye.

For reasons not clear to our analysts yet, Islamabad has kept quiet on Washington’s involvement with anti-Pakistan elements in Afghanistan. But Pakistan did send an indirect public message to the Americans recently.

“We have indications of Indian involvement with anti-state elements in Pakistan,” declared the spokesman of the Pakistan Foreign Office in a regular briefing in October. The statement was terse and direct and the spokesman, Ms. Tasnim Aslam, quickly moved on to other issues.

This is how a Pakistani official explained Ms. Aslam’s statement: “What she was really saying is this: We know what the Indians are doing. They’ve sold the Americans on the idea that [the Indians] are an authority on Pakistan and can be helpful in Afghanistan. The Americans have bought the idea and are in on the plan, giving the Indians a free hand in Afghanistan. What the Americans don’t know is that we, too, know the Indians very well. Better still, we know Afghanistan very well. You can’t beat us at our own game.”

Mr. Bugti’s armed rebellion coincided with the Gwadar project entering its final stages. No coincidence here. Mr. Bugti’s real job was to scare the Chinese away and scuttle Chinese President Hu Jintao’s planned visit to Gwadar a few months later to formally launch the port city.

Gwadar is the pinnacle of Sino-Pakistani strategic cooperation. It’s a modern port city that is supposed to link Central Asia, western China, and Pakistan with markets in Mideast and Africa. It’s supposed to have roads stretching all the way to China. It’s no coincidence either that China has also earmarked millions of dollars to renovate the Karakoram Highway linking northern Pakistan to western China.

Some reports in the American media, however, have accused Pakistan and China of building a naval base in the guise of a commercial seaport directly overlooking international oil shipping lanes. The Indians and some other regional actors are also not comfortable with this project because they see it as commercial competition.

What Mr. Bugti’s regional and international supporters never expected is Pakistan moving firmly and strongly to nip his rebellion in the bud. Even Mr. Bugti himself probably never expected the Pakistani state to react in the way it did to his betrayal of the homeland. He was killed in a military operation where scores of his mercenaries surrendered to Pakistan army soldiers.

U.S. intelligence and their Indian advisors could not cultivate an immediate replacement for Mr. Bugti. So they moved to Plan B. They supported Abdullah Mehsud, a Pakistani Taliban fighter held for five years in Guantanamo Bay, and then handed over back to the Afghan government, only to return to his homeland, Pakistan, to kidnap two Chinese engineers working in Balochistan, one of whom was eventually killed during a rescue operation by the Pakistani government.

Islamabad could not tolerate this shadowy figure that was creating a following among ordinary Pakistanis masquerading as a Taliban while in reality toeing a vague agenda. He was rightly eliminated earlier this year by Pakistani security forces while secretly returning from Afghanistan after meeting his handlers there. Again, no surprises here.

SMELLING A RAT

This is where Pakistani political and military officials finally started smelling a rat. All of this was an indication of a bigger problem. There were growing indications that, ever since Islamabad joined Washington’s regional plans, Pakistan was gradually turning into a ‘besieged-nation’, heavily targeted by the American media while being subjected to strategic sabotage and espionage from Afghanistan.

Afghanistan, under America’s watch, has turned into a vast staging ground for sophisticated psychological and military operations to destabilize neighboring Pakistan.

During the past three years, the heat has gradually been turned up against Pakistan and its military along Pakistan’s western regions:

• A shadowy group called the BLA, a Cold War relic, rose from the dead to restart a separatist war in southwestern Pakistan.
• Bugti’s death was a blow to neo-BLA, but the shadowy group’s backers didn’t repent. His grandson, Brahmdagh Bugti, is currently enjoying a safe shelter in the Afghan capital, Kabul, where he continues to operate and remote-control his assets in Pakistan.
• Saboteurs trained in Afghanistan have been inserted into Pakistan to aggravate extremist passions here, especially after the Red Mosque operation.
• Chinese citizens continue to be targeted by individuals pretending to be Islamists, when no known Islamic group has claimed responsibility.
• A succession of ‘religious rebels’ with suspicious foreign links have suddenly emerged in Pakistan over the past months claiming to be ‘Pakistani Taliban’. Some of the names include Abdul Rashid Ghazi, Baitullah Mehsud, and now the Maulana of Swat. Some of them have used and are using encrypted communication equipment far superior to what Pakistani military owns.
• Money and weapons have been fed into the religious movements and al Qaeda remnants in the tribal areas.

Exploiting the situation, assets within the Pakistani media started promoting the idea that the Pakistani military was killing its own people. The rest of the unsuspecting media quickly picked up this message. Some botched American and Pakistani military operations against Al Qaeda that caused civilian deaths accidentally fed this media campaign.

This was the perfect timing for the launch of Military, Inc.: Inside Pakistan’s Military Economy, a book authored by Dr. Ayesha Siddiqa Agha, a columnist for a Pakistani English-language paper and a correspondent for ‘Jane’s Defence Weekly’, a private intelligence service founded by experts close to the British intelligence.

TARGET: PAK MILITARY

The book was launched in Pakistan in early 2007 by Oxford Press. And, contrary to most reports, it is openly available in Islamabad’s biggest bookshops. The book portrays the Pakistani military as an institution that is eating up whatever little resources Pakistan has.

Pakistani military’s successful financial management, creating alternate financial sources to spend on a vast military machine and build a conventional and nuclear near-match with a neighboring adversary five times larger – an impressive record for any nation by any standard – was distorted in the book and reduced to a mere attempt by the military to control the nation’s economy in the same way it was controlling its politics.

The timing was interesting. After all, it was hard to defend a military in the eyes of its own proud people when the chief of the military is ruling the country, the army is fighting insurgents and extremists who claim to be defending Islam, grumpy politicians are out of business, and the military’s side businesses, meant to feed the nation’s military machine, are doing well compared to the shabby state of the nation’s civilian departments.

Dr. Siddiqa and her book are not important. Worse things have been said about Pakistanis before. All of these details are insignificant if detached from the real issue at hand. And the issue is the demonization of the Pakistani military as an integral part of the media siege around Pakistan, with the American media leading the way in this campaign.

Some of the juicy details of this siege around Pakistan include:

• The attempt by several American and British writers – and one Pakistani, Dr. Siddiqa – to pitch junior officers against senior officers in Pakistan Armed Forces by alleging discrimination in the distribution of benefits. Apart from being malicious and unfounded, her argument was carefully designed to generate frustration and demoralize Pakistani soldiers.
• The American media insisting on handing Dr. A. Q. Khan to the United States so that a final conviction against the Pakistani military can be secured.
• Mrs. Benazir Bhutto demanding after returning to Pakistan that the ISI be restructured; and in a press conference during her house arrest in Lahore in November she went as far as asking Pakistan army officers to revolt against the army chief, a damning attempt at destroying a professional army from within.

Some of this appears to be eerily similar to the campaign waged against the Pakistani military in 1999, when, in July that year, an unsigned full page advertisement appeared in major American newspapers with the following headline: “A Modern Rogue Army With Its Finger On The Nuclear Button.”

Until this day, it is not clear who exactly paid for such an expensive newspaper full-page advertisement. But one thing is clear: the agenda behind that advertisement is back in action.

Strangely, just a few days before Mrs. Bhutto’s statements about restructuring ISI and the need for army officers to stage a mutiny against their leadership, the American conservative magazine The Weekly Standard interviewed an American security expert with similar ideas: