Raja wrote:India provides safe haven for Taliban? You have lost your marbles.
Way to use an example of Iran which has become an international pariah. What is the price that it pays for its policies? Is Israel "broken" from it? Good thing that you will never be anywhere near a seat of power.
From sunilUpa's link, some high quality Lahori Logic:sunilUpa wrote:Yep, it is the same.ravi_s wrote:i think Pearl continental is the same hotel which the US had almosy bought for a new embassy in Peshwar... i read a news report somewhere that the sale has been almost concluded..let me try to find out..
so looks somebody is making a statement to US to not venture beyond a lakshman rekha..wonder what made our abduls so pissed...!!!
Suicide bomber attacks Pakistani hotel U.S. was to buy
The hotel is in one of Peshawar's most secure areas, next to the home of the army general who commands the local army corps. Iftikhar denied that there'd been a security failure.
"If in America, the Twin Towers are not safe, the Pentagon is not safe, in Islamabad, the Marriott (hotel) is not safe, how can anyone say there's been a security lapse here?" Iftikhar said.
Writing in The Sunday Times (Jemima Khan’s broken country) on her return from a recent visit to Pakistan, former wife of Tehrik-i-Insaaf’s chief Imran Khan said: ‘Pakistan pulsates with conspiracy theories. One which has made it into the local newspapers is that the Taliban when caught and stripped were revealed to have been ‘intact, not Muslims’, a euphemism for uncircumcised. (Pakistanis are big on euphemisms.) Their beards were stuck on with glue.
‘According to the teacher in the camp, every child has witnessed public beheadings. Eight-year-old Amina explains quietly from behind her teacher how she saw her uncle’s stomach gouged out by the Taliban. Another girl’s mother was shot for not being in purdah. And another was shot at with her family when she was walking outside during the curfew. Seven-year-old Bisma, I’m told, has seen all the male members of her family hanged in what has become known as Bloody Square. She doesn’t speak.
‘She (Iman Ali, a Paki model) tells us that Indians are all ‘cry babies’ and Muslims would do better to be cry babies, too, and that way gain equal levels of sympathy abroad (==). I like her forthrightness. She says things others wouldn’t dare to say here, albeit euphemistically.
Jeremy Page, South Asia Correspondent, and Times Online
The death toll from a suicide attack on a luxury hotel in the northwestern Pakistani city of Peshawar has risen to 16 with at least 57 injured, including a British aid worker.
Officials said that two foreigners were among those killed when suspected Islamic militants stormed the Pearl Continental hotel, which is frequented by aid workers.
It was the latest in a series of attacks on Pakistani cities that officials say are revenge for a military offensive against the Taleban in the northwestern region of Swat.
The militants drove through the main gate of the Pearl Continental Hotel in a pick-up truck, spraying security guards with bullets before ramming their vehicle into the building and detonating it. “It was a suicide attack,” Sefwat Ghayur, the city police chief, said.
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Five more bodies were recovered from the debris early this morning, he added, confirming that the total now stood at 16.
Abdul Ghafoor Afridi, a senor police official in Peshawar, warned that the death toll was expected to rise.
"The number of casualties could rise, as we fear that some people are still trapped under the debris. One portion of the hotel was totally destroyed," he said.
"Three people, including a manager of the hotel, are missing and we fear they are under the debris."
Sahibzada Anis, Unicef's Peshawar district co-ordination officer, said that one of the agency's staff, Perseveranda So, 52, from the Philippines, was killed. A Briton, a Somali and a German who were working for Unicef were wounded.
Alexsander Vorkapic, 44, a Serbian computer specialist who worked for the UNHCR, was also killed, the UN confirmed.
The injured Briton is in hospital but the Foreign Office could not give any information on his condition. A spokesman said: "We can confirm that one British man has been injured. He is in hospital. We are offering consular assistance."
He added: "The UK condemns unreservedly all such acts of indiscriminate terrorism."
Police said that the vehicle had been able to bypass security because it appeared to be delivering hotel supplies. Mr Afridi said that there were at least two attackers, and they were wearing security guard uniforms. Witnesses described a large explosion followed by a fire that gutted the hotel, leaving a deep crater outside the four-storey building in the high-security Khyber Road area.
Television footage showed ambulances and police cars outside the hotel, which is popular with politicians, officials and business people, as well as foreign aid workers, journalists and diplomats. US officials said that the State Department had planned to buy or lease offices in the hotel for a new American consulate.
Police estimated that more than 1,100lb (500kg) of explosive material was used in the bomb. Rows of balconies appeared to have been ripped off the face of the hotel. A clutch of UN vehicles were among dozens of charred cars parked outside.
Hotel guests stumbled among twisted metal, with rubble strewn among the manicured lawns overlooking the historic Bala Hisar Fort and the Peshawar golf course.
Ghulam Ahmed, a hotel employee, described the explosion. “I was sitting in the eastern side of the hotel building and suddenly there was a huge blast which tumbled my chair and I fell on the ground. As I rose from the ground I saw flames and smoke,” he said.
The attack echoed a similar suicide bombing on the luxury Marriott Hotel in Islamabad in September last year. Sixty people died in that attack.
Yesterday’s suicide bombing was the seventh deadly attack in Peshawar, capital of North West Frontier Province, in a month and one of more than a dozen that the Taleban have carried out since the Pakistani army launched an offensive in Swat and neighbouring districts in April.
Pakistani troops, backed by two helicopters, came to the help of a pro-government militia fighting the Taleban in a northwestern district yesterday, killing about 25 militants.
Richard Holbrooke, the US envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, said on Monday that public opinion was increasingly on the Pakistani Government’s side.
Raghunath ... here is the article straight from Ms.Khan herself ...raghunath wrote:Pakistani society has endless contradictions: Jemima
Raja Ram wrote: While the intention is there, the vision of what can be is not yet entrenched, as the second struggle for independence of the mind is still work in progress.
Therefore we cannot afford a drift in policy but must act with determination - with clarity of thought and unity of purpose. That is a national agenda not a UPA or NDA one.
The comments on that article are interesting.g.kacha wrote:Raghunath ... here is the article straight from Ms.Khan herself ...raghunath wrote:Pakistani society has endless contradictions: Jemima
Jemima Khan's broken country
dear jamima
Pakistanis still like you and love you , you were our izzat we have great respect for you, come back you have alot of work to do in pakistan friends do not leave friends in need.
khan
khan, islamabad, pakistan
Only in Porki-puki-paddu-baki-stan!!raghunath wrote: ‘According to the teacher in the camp, every child has witnessed public beheadings. Eight-year-old Amina explains quietly from behind her teacher how she saw her uncle’s stomach gouged out by the Taliban. Another girl’s mother was shot for not being in purdah. And another was shot at with her family when she was walking outside during the curfew. Seven-year-old Bisma, I’m told, has seen all the male members of her family hanged in what has become known as Bloody Square. She doesn’t speak.
g.kacha wrote:
Raghunath ... here is the article straight from Ms.Khan herself ...
Jemima Khan's broken country
Has anyone heard of the beards stuck with glue. Another person last week told me about Paki soldiers with big mustache
Pakistan pulsates with conspiracy theories. One, which has made it into the local newspapers, is that the Taliban when caught and stripped were revealed to have been “intact, not Muslims”, a euphemism for uncircumcised. (Pakistanis are big on euphemisms.) Their beards were stuck on with glue. “Foreign elements” (India) are suspected.
g.kacha wrote:here is the article straight from Ms.Khan herself ...
Jemima Khan's broken country
After an hour and a half in the camp we are asked to leave for security reasons. Apparently the Taliban have been infiltrating, trying to recruit supporters.
There’s certainly support for the Taliban in the camps. They represent, for many, an opposing force to an army that “drones” (it's now a verb here) its own people. America’s war on terror, supported by the Pakistani army, is unanimously viewed here as a war on Islam. Newborn twins have been named Sufi Mohammad and Fazlullah after the two militant leaders in Swat.
Acharyaji the beard stuck with glue in this article is the kind of Conspiracy theories that TSP citizens engage in when talking of their Taliban acting like miscreants. TSP has not caught the Talibs with stuck on beard but it is the kind of stories being fed by the rulers to the local population to distinguish between the good, bad and ugly Taliban.Acharya wrote:g.kacha wrote:
Raghunath ... here is the article straight from Ms.Khan herself ...
Jemima Khan's broken countryHas anyone heard of the beards stuck with glue. Another person last week told me about Paki soldiers with big mustache
Pakistan pulsates with conspiracy theories. One, which has made it into the local newspapers, is that the Taliban when caught and stripped were revealed to have been “intact, not Muslims”, a euphemism for uncircumcised. (Pakistanis are big on euphemisms.) Their beards were stuck on with glue. “Foreign elements” (India) are suspected.
Yes, MoS MEA Honorable MP Shashi Tharoor also!Singha wrote:it seems muslim khan the spokesman for part of the caliphate has lived and worked in the US for some years!
I thoroughly disagree with such a position.RajaRam wrote:
Where I differ with you is that the Indian (MMS) policy does only seem like "containment". IF we look at Afghanistan, there is actually a fairly offensive policy in place. It only appears like a passive one. The proof is in even the US agreeing with Islamabad in some ways - granted it could be for other reasons too.
I see two phases to MMS' policy. Pre-election and post-election. Post-election we have seen MEA Krishna being very aggressive, CAS mentioning China is a greater threat, Army chief stating Paki nukes need to be capped and a regional AF chief stating that India can conduct a limited below-nuke-threshold war. ALL this in the span of a month. The number of seats won by the Congress party has impacted the way the policy is conducted - it has clearly become more aggressive.
On the Af-Pak policy issue, I find it hard to believe that India has a problem with the policy. Where India perhaps has an issue is the limited or no role India has been given (specially WRT China and Saudi Arabia) in implementing this policy. IF there is one party that can actually help move along the Af-Pak policy in the right direction, it is India.
So it is as moi thought.....Singha wrote:it seems muslim khan the spokesman for part of the caliphate has lived and worked in the US for some years!
If Baitullah Mahsud is indeed a US asset, and we know that Fazlullah in Swat was also working with Mahsud, why would the US Administration get all worked up at the Taliban having entered Buner, only 60 miles from Islamabad. Let's say that all that was just window-dressing, why would the US push the Pakistanis into a war with Fazlullah, and other friends of Baitullah. Afterall even Fazlullah was then indirectly a US asset. Unless of course, the US was really devious and were willing to sacrifice a pawn for some higher aim, a destabilization of the Pakistan!vsudhir wrote: So it is as moi thought.....
1. The Pakiban including the mehsuds are a US creation. No wonder TSP fervently believes in phoren hands in its baluch and NWFP problems implicating yindia everytime.
2. The Afghan Taliban, Arab taliban (i.e. Al qaida), and LeT types are ISI assets.
4. ISI in turn strikes against US assets in TSP such as the marriot, the peshawar luxury ruin, motorma butt-oh and the like blaming it on the pakiban. How quaint. Why would unkil use its assets to strike its other assets?
Two passengers with names linked to Islamic terrorism were on the Air France flight which crashed with the loss of 228 lives, it has emerged.
What are the chances TSPian momeen were involved?France has received numerous threats from Islamic terrorist groups in recent months, especially since French troops were sent to fight in Afghanistan.
Security chiefs have been particularly worried about airborne suicide attacks similar to the ones on the US on September 11, 2001.
I don't see too much evidence that the barbarity and inhumanity of these people is a result of their lives not being good. There are lots of peoples leading miserable lives but they don't give up their humanity, in general. I would say that the barbarity / inhumanity is the first cause and not the poverty.AbhishekD wrote:
Certainly I am serious. What do you suggest is the solution. Butchering those people. The only solution is political and a creation of living condition that makes their life better.
# Syed Haris Ahmed found guilty of providing material support to terrorism
# Former Georgia Tech student could face 15 years in prison
# Ahmed gave own closing argument to "convey the message of God"
# Ahmed turned to the Internet to find his identity as a Muslim, lawyer said
...Ahmed, a naturalized U.S. citizen who was born in Pakistan, waived his right to a jury trial so he could deliver his own closing argument Thursday.
Not to ignore children plight but simple truth is Paki pigs are brought up on watching the salughter of animals at home. There are many You Tube videos out where you can watch the whole family, newighborhood gathered to watch the throat slitting and blood gushing celbration in IED or EID . No civilized society ever let kids watch this kind of stupid,idiotic events but not Pakis, they enjoy pubically watching the death of living beings. They are stoned ,sick people with dead human feelings when comes to such events.Akshut wrote:‘According to the teacher in the camp, every child has witnessed public beheadings. Eight-year-old Amina explains quietly from behind her teacher how she saw her uncle’s stomach gouged out by the Taliban. Another girl’s mother was shot for not being in purdah. And another was shot at with her family when she was walking outside during the curfew. Seven-year-old Bisma, I’m told, has seen all the male members of her family hanged in what has become known as Bloody Square. She doesn’t speak.
Only in Porki-puki-paddu-baki-stan!!
I see enough evidence to suggest that these people are pawns just because they dont have other livelihood. Anyways that is a seperate discussion. There are lots of people leading miserable life, but they have hope and they dont have a devious administration hell bent upon using them as a pawn for their own interest. People without hope are vulnerable to be attracted towards such an idealogy. I believe that people who have hope and can look forward to a better life will not indulge in hopeless acts such as suicide bombing.
I don't see too much evidence that the barbarity and inhumanity of these people is a result of their lives not being good. There are lots of peoples leading miserable lives but they don't give up their humanity, in general. I would say that the barbarity / inhumanity is the first cause and not the poverty.
Butchering is one solution but it is inhumane and may not end the problem. We can probably get better results by highlighting the barbarism as 'first cause' and implementing severe, measured, and guaranteed retaliatory penalties for acts of barbarism. Despite suicide bombings, most of these people are interested in self-preservation.
from the look of the photographs, i feel that even the construction of the building is not upto mark.Singha wrote:looking at the damage, amirkhan will need to pull it all down and build a new fortress to manage the neo-caliphate ... more like a vietnam era "firebase" well equipped with howitzers and a squadron of A-10s on call to repel 'vietcong' attacks
http://tinyurl.com/lhsy4r
http://tinyurl.com/lo7lur
van was said to have 500kg. not much of flames unlike marriott. maybe the hotel didnt
have much LPG and wood within or the explosive mix was different.
also the number of guests must have been small compared to mariott as peshawar is
way off the tourist circuit these days. only 'essential UN personnel', CIA/FBI types and rich local landlords would be there.
Pakistan appeals for public support on Taliban
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/art ... AD98O2MQ01
By ASIF SHAHZAD – 28 minutes ago
ISLAMABAD (AP) — Pakistani officials moved swiftly Wednesday to use the suicide bombing of a luxury hotel in their campaign to build public support for military offensives against the Taliban, saying the country is at war.
Pakistan Information Minister Qamar Zaman Kaira used the same language: "The whole nation is united and backing the government and army in the fight against terrorists," he said in a statement.
That is an overstatement, at least in the rugged, lawless tribal belt where the Taliban and al-Qaida have carved out a sanctuary of entrenched strongholds with at least tacit blessings from tribal elders.
Still, interviews with people on the streets of Pakistan's three largest cities — Peshawar, Karachi and Lahore — found nothing but contempt for the Taliban.
Obama sends letter to Indian government - Holbrooke
Thu Jun 11, 2009 1:51am IST
http://in.reuters.com/article/topNews/i ... 3020090610
WASHINGTON (Reuters) - U.S. President Barack Obama has sent a letter to the Indian government, the U.S. special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan said on Wednesday without providing details on the contents.
The envoy, Richard Holbrooke, told reporters that U.S. Undersecretary of State William Burns was delivering the "presidential letter" while visiting New Delhi this week.
Holbrooke, who visited Pakistan last week to assess relief efforts to help the estimated 2 million people who have fled a Pakistani offensive against the Taliban, declined to comment on the contents of the letter.
U.S. officials would like to see a reduction in tensions between India and Pakistan in part in the hopes that Islamabad can redeploy troops from its eastern border with India to fight the Taliban on its western border with Afghanistan.
In the first clip there appears to be a gun fire coming from/at the first car. That could be the reason for the guy running fast towards the hotel.
Not just UN, other foreign missions have called it quits too. I wonder if there is a chinki consulate in pissawar.Singha wrote:UN has officially pulled out of Peshaware, citing 2 of its staff killed by the bomb yesterday.
The magnificent performance of the rank and file of the Army fighting the counter-insurgency in Swat is no surprise. Whether in Kashmir in 1947-48, Dir in 1958 and 1976, the Rann of Kutch, occupied Kashmir (Operation Gibraltar) and later in the full-fledged war of 1965, during the 1971 war, in the Balochistan counter-insurgency in 1973-5, Siachen continuously since 1985, in Kargil in 1998 and in FATA since 2004 (and many more small conflicts that would take many more pages), officers and men have kept their commitment.
After hearing about the bomb blast at the PC a friend of mine from Afghanistan called and offered me to come stay at his place in Kabul. According to him, Peshawar wasn't safe enough and so I should shift with my family to Kabul. I was thankful to him for the offer but speechless at the same time because is this what it has come down to? I need my good old Peshawar back!
Haseeb Qazi
Peshawar
Missed one: Alternate-usability: Once the wars are over, the blimps can be used to take bird's eye view shots of LaWhore cricket ground. Easy to track terrorists escaping on foot after a shootout.Price: Pakistan is among 20 countries which possess Blimps, the poor man’s version of drone aircraft costing around $50,000 each, as against the price of regular drones which varies between $4.5 million and $35 million. (Hence, they will not be laughed at!)
Operating Costs: Predator and Global Hawk cost around $5,000 and $26,000 an hour while the less elegant Blimps can keep surveillance and ordnance-guiding equipment aloft for a few hundred dollars an hour. (Smart use of the pocket change the world is doling out. And it will generate many jobs.)
Sustainability: As a result, Blimps, adjusted to hover at appropriate heights, are often used to relay data to and from satellites. Blimps can stay in the air for more than a week, whereas most drones fly for no more than 30 hours at a time. (Pooki blimps will outlast the SDRE drones)
Deployability: They are also easy to deploy, because no airfield is needed. (Every house in LaWhore will have one).
Storage: A Blimp can be stored in the back of a jeep, driven to a suitable location, launched in a couple of hours and winched down again even faster.’ (It will be the new cottage industry)
Shape-shifter-ability: Unlike other aircraft, Blimps do not need to form a precise aerodynamic shape. This means they can lift improbable objects into the sky, such as dangling radar equipment. (Aero-dynamic Design expertise not needed)
Strength: At altitudes of just a few hundred metres, a Blimp carrying 20kg of remote-sensing electronics (including radar and thermal-imaging cameras) can identify, track and provide images of combatants dozens of kilometres away, by day or night. It can also help commanders aim the lasers that guide their missiles.’ (What can I say about this one!)
Un-shootability (Impregnable): Blimps often operate beyond the range of machine-guns and rocket-propelled grenades. Even if they are hit, though, they do not explode because the helium gas that keeps them airborne is not flammable. Moreover, they usually stay aloft even when punctured: the pressure of the helium inside a Blimp is about the same as that of the air outside, so the gas does not rush out. Indeed, towards the end of 2004, when a Blimp broke its tether north of Baghdad and started to drift towards Iran, the American air force had trouble shooting it down.’ (see, the Yanks will not be able to shoot our blimps down. We are impregnable)
Global Acceptability: At least 20 countries use Blimps — both global military powers, such as America, Britain and France, and smaller regional ones, including Ireland, Pakistan, Poland and the United Arab Emirates.’ (We won't be the laughing stock of the world)
Deniability: However, the report does not say why the US does not let Islamabad use its own Blimps inside Pakistani territory instead of sending in the costly drones which also cost the government in Islamabad heavily in domestic political terms. (Don't they know we are masters of all trades and jack of none?)
Questionability: And one more question: If it is true that Pakistan has the Blimps then why does Islamabad keep asking the US for drones?
Dir in 1958 and 1976