PNS Mehran Terrorism, Communication Gape, Gift, Comments on News & Much More

PNS Mehran Terrorism, Communication Gape, Gift, Comments on News & Much More

Pakistan Neuclear – Dr Qadeer Khan in 11th Hour 27th May 2010 P4

Dunya Research Cell : Punjab Police and Terrorism

More than 60 were wounded with people trapped under rubble of collapsed buildings when a car packed with up to 600 kilograms (1,300 pounds) of explosives struck an investigations unit in Pakistan’s second largest city.

There were scenes of panic as volunteers and rescue workers dug with bare hands under the collapsed two-storey building and a severely damaged Muslim seminary, searching for survivors and fearing the death toll could rise.

Pakistan pointed the finger at Taliban-linked militants out to destabilise the nuclear-armed country of 167 million and a wave of similar attacks has killed more than 130 people in the cosmopolitan city over the last year.

More than 3,000 people have been killed in suicide and bomb attacks across Pakistan since July 2007, a campaign blamed on Islamist militants opposed to the government’s alliance with the United States in the war on Al-Qaeda.

“It was around 8:15 (0315 GMT) when I heard a deafening blast which shook my house,” said Nasim-ur-Rehman who lives about 1.5 kilometres (one mile) from the scene of attack in the upmarket neighbourhood Model Town.

“When I rushed out I saw thick smoke billowing out,” he added.

The blast gouged a huge crater out of the ground, crumpled roofs and littered the streets with tree branches. Bulldozers and other heavy-lifting machinery worked to clear away the mounds of rubble, witnesses said.

Flying glass wounded passers-by. A woman and her daughter were among the dead in the city of eight million, and civilians who were wounded were mostly office workers or parents returning after dropping their children at school.

“It was a police special investigation unit that was targeted. A vehicle packed with explosives hit the building. The building was used to interrogate suspected terrorists,” Lahore city police chief Pervez Rathore told AFP.

Khusro Pervez, the top administration official in Lahore, said 11 people were killed and 60 wounded.

“I fear the death toll may rise. We believe there are still people trapped under the rubble,” he said.

Police said 30 to 50 people were in the building, used by police and intelligence agents, at the time of attack, which blew out a crater three metres (10 feet) deep and four to six metres wide.

“The blast also severely damaged a nearby religious school and houses. All schools have been closed in the area in order to avoid further losses or to prevent the possibility of another attack,” said Rathore.

Interior Minister Rehman Malik blamed “hired killers who want to destabilise Pakistan” and pointed the finger at the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) faction holed up in the northwest of the country along the border with Afghanistan.

“In almost every blast there has been TTP involvement and they themselves have also claimed responsibility for attacks,” he added.

“The ammunition and weapons are coming from Afghanistan,” he alleged.

Ambulances raced to the area and the city’s Jinnah Hospital declared a state of emergency as casualties were rushed into wards and rescue workers used seismic sensors to search for survivors under the rubble.

Monday’s bombing in Lahore follows a recent decline in Islamist militant attacks in Pakistan after a significant hike in bloodshed in late 2009.

Pakistani officials had linked the reduction to the suspected death — still not confirmed — of TTP leader Hakimullah Mehsud and military offensives that have disrupted militant networks.

The military claims to have made big gains against Taliban and Al-Qaeda strongholds over the past year, launching major offensives in the northwestern district of Swat and the tribal region of South Waziristan.

Washington says militants use Pakistan’s semi-autonomous tribal belt to plot and stage attacks in Afghanistan, where more than 120,000 NATO and US troops are helping Afghan forces battle the Taliban militia.

Pakistani officials have contradicted each other on whether the suspect is Adam Gadahn, 31, who has appeared in videos threatening the West. Two intelligence officers and a senior government official identified the detained man Sunday as Gadahn. However, a different official Monday said the suspect was an American, but not Gadahn.

“We are trying to work out who he is,” said the official, who like all Pakistani intelligence agents does not allow his name to be used. “He is an American, but he is not Adam.”

The suspect was arrested recently in Pakistan’s largest city, Karachi, the officials said.

Pakistan is under intense U.S. pressure to arrest al-Qaida and Taliban leaders living on its soil.

Last month, the country arrested the Afghan Taliban No. 2 commander, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, in Karachi. Unnamed officials have also claimed to have detained other leaders in the movement. News of the arrests has been murky, coming primarily through Pakistani and Afghan officials speaking anonymously. None have been presented before a court or charged.

Baradar’s detention and the other reported arrests have been seen as a sign that Pakistan, which has been criticized in the past as an untrustworthy ally in the fight against al-Qaida and the Taliban, was cooperating more fully with Washington.

Pakistani agents and those from the CIA work closely on some operations in Pakistan, but it was not clear if any Americans were involved in the recent operation in Karachi or the questioning of the suspect. In the past, Pakistan has quietly handed over some al-Qaida suspects arrested on its soil to the United States.

The arrest of an American militant in Pakistan, even if it turns out not to be Gadahn, would be another example of U.S. citizens traveling abroad to join al-Qaida and the Taliban. Security analyst say such militants, while small in number, are especially dangerous because of their ability to travel the world easier on a Western passport.

In December, Pakistan police arrested five young U.S. Muslims who they allege were trying to link up with militant groups.

Gadahn, the first American to face treason charges in more than 50 years, has appeared in more than half a dozen al-Qaida videos, taunting the West and calling for its destruction. The video that surfaced Sunday showed him urging American Muslims to attack their own country.

He has been on the FBI’s most wanted list since 2004 and there is a $1 million reward for information leading to his arrest. He was charged with treason in 2006 and faces the death penalty if convicted. He was also charged with two counts of providing material support to a designated foreign terrorist organization.

“… designed to disrupt the use of Afghanistan as a terrorist base of operations, and to attack the military capability of the Taliban regime … we will make it more difficult for the terror network to train new recruits and coordinate their evil plans. Initially, the terrorists may burrow deeper into caves and other entrenched hiding places … At the same time, the oppressed people of Afghanistan will know the generosity of America and our allies. As we strike military targets, we will also drop food, medicine and supplies to the starving and suffering men and women and children of Afghanistan …”

During the 2008 presidential campaign, candidate Obama promised to immediately withdraw troops from Iraq in order to bolster the forces in Afghanistan in order to defeat the Taliban and al-Qaeda. “It’s time to refocus our attention on the war we have to win in Afghanistan.” I believe that this tactic was taken by the Obama team in order to placate the anti-Iraq contingent in the American electorate, while not leaving himself vulnerable to the “soft on defense” hawkish critics on the other side. As a campaign tactic, this approach proved to be successful. In reality, this may prove to be one of the greatest miscalculations President Obama could make.

After the historic election of President Obama, many historians and others placed this event in the context of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr.’s “Dream.” Some mistakenly saw this election as the fulfillment of that “Dream”; others mistakenly compared candidate Obama’s “race neutral” approach with Dr. King’s vision. Some even likened Obama’s oratory skills with that of Dr. King’s.

Today, critics are asking the question, “Is the Obama administration’s approach to the problems in Afghanistan/Pakistan going to be their Vietnam?” As America faces its most difficult economic challenges in recent history, compare President Obama’s Afghanistan/Pakistan with President Johnson’s Vietnam. Is the Obama administration making the same mistakes based on arrogance, hubris and a misplaced sense of empire that led us into Vietnam? Here’s what the Reverend Dr. King had to say about US involvement in Vietnam in his speech “Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence”:

“There is at the outset a very obvious and almost facile connection between the war in Vietnam and the struggle I, and others, have been waging in America. A few years ago there was a shining moment in that struggle. It seemed as if there was a real promise of hope for the poor – both black and white – through the poverty program. There were experiments, hopes, new beginnings. Then came the buildup in Vietnam and I watched the program broken and eviscerated as if it were some idle political plaything of a society gone mad on war, and I knew that America would never invest the necessary funds or energies in rehabilitation of its poor so long as adventures like Vietnam continued to draw men and skills and money like some demonic destructive suction tube. So I was increasingly compelled to see the war as an enemy of the poor and to attack it as such.”

Today, President Obama is planning to send an additional 4,000 troops and other support personnel into Afghanistan. Like his predecessor, President Obama says, “If the Afghanistan government falls to the Taliban or allows al-Qaida to go unchallenged, that country will again be a base for terrorists.” The additional 4,000 troops will bring the total US force up to 30,000 by the end of 2009.

President Obama is also ratcheting up the rhetoric and activity in Pakistan. There’s a significant increase in ground forces, Predator drones and air attacks. In his announcement on March 27th, President Obama referred to the border region of Afghanistan/Pakistan as, “the most dangerous place in the world….This is not simply an American problem – far from it. It is, instead, an international security challenge of the highest order. Terrorist attacks in London and Bali were tied to al-Qaida and its allies in Pakistan, as were attacks in North Africa and the Middle East, in Islamabad and Kabul. If there is a major attack on an Asian, European, or African city, it, too, is likely to have ties to al-Qaida’s leadership in Pakistan. The safety of people around the world is at stake.

President Obama and his advisors should learn from history, some ancient some modern, and not repeat it. This is a region of the world that has never been defeated militarily. It is where empires go to die. The Greeks, Indians, Persians, Mongolians, British, and Russians have tried to hold Afghanistan but never succeeded.

Under the pretext of responding to the September 11, 2001 attacks in America, the United and States and Great Britain invaded Afghanistan on October 7, 2001. They dubbed this invasion Operation Enduring Freedom. President Bush 41’ told the American people that the US strikes were,

“…designed to disrupt the use of Afghanistan as a terrorist base of operations, and to attack the military capability of the Taliban regime…we will make it more difficult for the terror network to train new recruits and coordinate their evil plans. Initially, the terrorists may burrow deeper into caves and other entrenched hiding places…At the same time, the oppressed people of Afghanistan will know the generosity of America and our allies. As we strike military targets, we will also drop food, medicine and supplies to the starving and suffering men and women and children of Afghanistan… ”

During the 2008 presidential campaign, candidate Obama promised to immediately withdraw troops from Iraq in order to bolster the forces in Afghanistan in order to defeat the Taliban and Al Qaeda. “It’s time to refocus our attention on the war we have to win in Afghanistan.” I believe that this tactic was taken by the Obama team in order to placate the anti-Iraq contingent in the American electorate while not leaving himself vulnerable to the “soft on defense” hawkish critics on the other side. As a campaign tactic this approach proved to be successful. In reality, this may prove to be one of the greatest miscalculations President Obama could make.

After the historic election of President Obama, many historians and others placed this event in the context of the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.’s “Dream”. Some mistakenly saw this election as the fulfillment of that Dream”; others mistakenly compared candidate Obama’s “race neutral” approach with Dr. King’s vision. Some even likened Obama’s oratory skills with that of Dr. King’s.

Today critics are asking the question “is the Obama administration’s approach to the problems in Afghanistan/Pakistan going to be their Vietnam?” As America faces its most difficult economic challenges in recent history, compare President Obama’s Afghanistan/Pakistan with President Johnson’s Vietnam. Is the Obama administration making the same mistakes based on arrogance, hubris, and a misplaced sense of empire that led us into Vietnam? Here’s what the Rev. Dr. King had to say about US involvement in Vietnam in his speech Beyond Vietnam: A Time to Break Silence,

“There is at the outset a very obvious and almost facile connection between the war in Vietnam and the struggle I, and others, have been waging in America. A few years ago there was a shining moment in that struggle. It seemed as if there was a real promise of hope for the poor — both black and white — through the poverty program. There were experiments, hopes, new beginnings. Then came the buildup in Vietnam and I watched the program broken and eviscerated as if it were some idle political plaything of a society gone mad on war, and I knew that America would never invest the necessary funds or energies in rehabilitation of its poor so long as adventures like Vietnam continued to draw men and skills and money like some demonic destructive suction tube. So I was increasingly compelled to see the war as an enemy of the poor and to attack it as such.”

Today, President Obama is planning to send an additional 4,000 troops and other support personnel into Afghanistan. Like his predecessor, President Obama says, “If the Afghanistan government falls to the Taliban or allows al-Qaida to go unchallenged, that country will again be a base for terrorists.” The additional 4,000 troops will bring the total US force up to 30,000 by the end of 2009.

President Obama is also ratcheting up the rhetoric and activity in Pakistan. There’s a significant increase in ground forces, Predator drones and air attacks. In his announcement on March 27th, President Obama referred to the border region of Afghanistan/Pakistan as,

“the most dangerous place in the world….This is not simply an American problem – far from it. It is, instead, an international security challenge of the highest order. Terrorist attacks in London and Bali were tied to al-Qaida and its allies in Pakistan, as were attacks in North Africa and the Middle East, in Islamabad and Kabul. If there is a major attack on an Asian, European, or African city, it, too, is likely to have ties to al-Qaida’s leadership in Pakistan. The safety of people around the world is at stake.”

President Obama and his advisors should learn from history, some ancient some modern, and not repeat it. This is a region of the world that has never been defeated militarily. It is where empires go to die. The Greeks, Indians, Persians, Mongolians, British, and Russians have tried to hold Afghanistan but never succeeded.

According to historians, Alexander the Great in 330 B.C. lost more men and more animals crossing the Hindu Kush than all his subsequent campaigns in central Asia. In 1839 the British invaded Afghanistan; in 1841 after an Afghan revolt, 4,500 British troops withdrew. According to a description published in the North American Review in 1842,

On the 6th of January, 1842, the Caboul forces commenced their retreat through the dismal pass, destined to be their grave. On the third day they were attacked by the mountaineers from all points, and a fearful slaughter ensued…

In most recent history, the Russians invaded Afghanistan. The initial deployment of the Soviet 40th Army began in Afghanistan on August 7, 1978. After nine years of fighting a US, Saudi Arabia, and Pakistani backed mujahideen resistance, the Soviet troop withdrawal began on May 15, 1988 and ended on February 15, 1989.

Since 2001, in spite of President Bush and now President Obama’s noble speeches and military tactics, the US and its allies have not “disrupt(ed) the use of Afghanistan as a terrorist base of operations”. The US has not been able to successfully “attack the military capability of the Taliban regime”.

What the US has done is lose 1147 coalition forces; US Air Force data shows that Munitions dropped in Afghanistan have risen 1,100 percent, from 2004 to 2007, tonnage figures jumped from 163 tons to 1,956 tons. According to the United Nations, bombs have killed over 2000 Afghan civilians in 2008, up 40% from 2007. The Associated Press reports the direct correlation between the rise in Afghan civilian deaths and anti-American sentiment.

In terms of dollars, according to recently released pentagon reports, the price tag for running the war in Afghanistan/Pakistan will outstrip the cost of the conflict in Iraq next year. America can not afford this folly. As the Rev. Dr. King would say; then came the buildup in Afghanistan/Pakistan and I watched the program broken and eviscerated as if it were some idle political plaything of a society gone mad on war…

The US and its allies could “disrupt the use of Afghanistan as a terrorist base of operations, and attack the military capability of the Taliban regime…” if more of this effort and money were spent on winning the hearts and minds of the Afghan and Pakistani people through real humanitarian assistance such as water, food, medicine, blankets, and building supplies.

The problem with this solution is that those who fuel and promote the military industrial complex in America do not profit from the sale of humanitarian assistance. They profit from war. This is why, if America is not smart, Afghanistan/Pakistan will once again be where empires go to die.

This organization has been crucial in bringing regional stability. Its contribution in the 1980s against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan could not be denied, and it operated cooperatively with multiple US agencies for a decade or more.

After Sept. 11, 2001, the American campaign against the Taliban in Afghanistan could not have materialized without the willful support of Pakistan and its security organizations, including the ISI. Scores of key Al Qaeda and Taliban figures were either killed or handed over to the United States through the ISI’s help.

Supporting the United States in Afghanistan and elsewhere while combating extremism, Pakistan has incurred colossal human loss in terms of deaths of its citizens and security officials.

Recurring suicide attacks on Pakistan’s security officials in Rawalpindi and Islamabad and target killing of its members in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas and elsewhere illustrate the frustration and damage Pakistan has caused to the militants and terrorists.

Allegations of the ISI’s cadres operating in connivance with the Taliban or Al-Qaeda and portrayals of the agency as an autonomous body are not based on fact. The ISI operates under complete control of the civilian government, and American authorities are convinced of the credibility of this institution following the return of Pakistan to full democracy.

Nadeem H. Kiani
Press attache
Embassy of Pakistan
Washington

Islamabad is under intense pressure from Washington, other western nations and Kabul to eliminate Taliban and Al-Qaeda havens in the tribal belt, from where fighters are said to stage attacks on foreign forces in Afghanistan.

But experts say Pakistan’s desire to please the United States, a vital political and military ally, has run up against its own strategic interests in the region and its loyalty to Pashtuns, the predominant ethnicity among the Taliban.

“Pakistan’s Taliban policy has suffered from indecisiveness, inconsistency and ambiguity,” political analyst Hasan Askari told AFP.

“Pakistan’s choices will become tougher in the future because its efforts to control the Taliban do not enjoy support throughout society. A good number of ordinary people see India as more of a threat than the Taliban.”

The extremist Taliban movement emerged in the mid-1990s from Islamic schools along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border and — with Islamabad’s support — eventually seized power in Kabul in 1996.

At the time, Pakistan’s security establishment wanted a pro-Islamabad regime in Kabul that would give the country a foothold in Afghanistan, and much-needed strategic depth in the region to use against its nuclear-armed rival India.

President Pervez Musharraf disowned the regime following the September 11, 2001 attacks in the United States — carried out by Al-Qaeda which was being harboured by the Taliban.

However, he allowed thousands of Taliban to enter his country’s northwest tribal belt after their ouster in a US-led invasion in late 2001.

“Pakistan did not want to sever all of its links with the Taliban movement, as doing so would have Pakistan totally out of the regional power game in Afghanistan,” defence analyst Riffat Hussain told AFP.

Fugitive Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar is still widely believed to be hiding in the lawless tribal areas.

“Tens of thousands of Taliban poured into Pakistan’s northwest and southwest but security forces were under strict orders only to arrest Al-Qaeda members,” a senior security official with knowledge of counter-terrorism policy told AFP.

Hussain, head of strategic studies at Quaid-e-Azam University in Islamabad, said former military ruler Musharraf, who resigned last year, had two reasons for tolerating the militants’ presence on Pakistani soil.

“Musharraf personally believed that there were many good Taliban who should be co-opted in the post-Taliban power dispensation in Afghanistan,” Hussain said.

Islamabad also wanted an “insurance policy” against the US-backed government of Afghan President Hamid Karzai, which it viewed as hostile, he added.

Another security official said that barring the Taliban from Pakistani soil would have angered ethnic Pashtuns at home, saying: “Antagonising them completely is against our long-term national interest.”

But putting up with the Taliban was a risky policy, and security officials say it has backfired, as the extremists formed alliances with other militant groups and started attacking Pakistani targets.

Those militant groups — such as that of renegade warlord Baitullah Mehsud, believed to have masterminded the assassination of Pakistani former premier Benazir Bhutto — are now allied with the Al-Qaeda network.

“For years Pakistan targeted Al-Qaeda and tolerated the Taliban, but this policy has failed and resulted in making the Taliban a strong force not just in Afghanistan, but in many parts of Pakistan,” a top security official told AFP.

Musharraf’s successor Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani now must review Pakistan’s role in the US-led “war on terror,” which may mean a rethink on the Taliban.

“Pakistan will be asked to become the anvil for the hammer of American special forces operations in the tribal areas,” Hussain said, predicting that Islamabad could be asked to stage joint anti-militant operations with the US.

Askari agreed, but said Islamabad would ask Washington to put a stop to attacks on militant targets in the border zone by unmanned CIA aircraft because “they create credibility problems” for the Pakistani government.

“Pakistan faces a double challenge — controlling the Taliban in the tribal areas and containing militant groups based in mainland Pakistan,” Askari said.

“Unless there is a simultaneous development of internal stability in Afghanistan and Pakistan, the problem may not be addressed.” – AFP

The attack on the outskirts of the city of Peshawar was the first since Pakistan launched a massive military operation late last month in the rugged Khyber tribal region bordering Afgahanistan to clear militants from the area.

That offensive was mounted after a series of spectacular attacks on depots in and around Peshawar in which hundreds of vehicles used to ferry supplies to NATO and US forces in Afghanistan were torched.

“The militants fired six rockets on a NATO terminal during the night. One truck was hit and it caught fire, while three other vehicles suffered minor damage,” senior police officer Fida Mohammad told AFP.

Police and paramilitary soldiers tracked down the attackers and a brief gun battle ensued, he said. After about 30 minutes, the militants fled.

There were no reports of any casualties, the officer said.

Authorities were forced to close the highway linking Peshawar to the Afghan border town of Torkham for several days at the height of the army offensive in the Khyber area. It was reopened during daylight hours on January 5.

The bulk of the supplies and equipment required by NATO and US-led forces battling the Taliban insurgency are transported to Afghanistan via the Khyber Pass.

But the Peshawar-Torkham Road passes through the heart of Pakistan’s lawless tribal zone, where extremists sought refuge after Afghanistan’s hardline Taliban regime was ousted in a US-led invasion at the end of 2001.