linkSub-Inspector dies in suicide blast near ILMI
Updated at: 0100 PST, Sunday, October 25, 2009
ISLAMABAD: A suicide bomber late on Saturday night exploded himself near Islamabad-Lahore Motorway Interchange (ILMI), killing a Sub-Inspector of motorway police, Geo news reported.
...
ISLAMABAD: Intelligence agencies of the country have issued a security warning against a possible wave of terrorist attacks across the country. The report says the President, Assembly buildings and offices of law enforcement agencies are on the target-list of the terrorists. It also says that NWFP Minister of Information Mian Iftikhar Hussain and other leaders of ANP are also on terrorists’ hit-list. Offices of Lahore police, clubs and grid stations could also be targeted. According to the report, the terrorists may hijack a bus of KRL and use it for carrying out violent activities.
"Nay-sayers" meaning? These are the senators who tried to avoid having India-centric riders placed on aid to Pakistan?Amber G. wrote:Sorry if already posted:
US Congress imposes 'India-centric' riders on aid to Pak
FYI the 29 Nay sayers in US senate are;
Alexander (R-TN)
Barrasso (R-WY) Bennett (R-UT) Brownback (R-KS) Bunning (R-KY) Burr (R-NC) Chambliss (R-GA) Coburn (R-OK)
Cochran (R-MS) Corker (R-TN) Crapo (R-ID) DeMint (R-SC) Enzi (R-WY) Feingold (D-WI) Graham (R-SC) Grassley (R-IA)
Inhofe (R-OK)Isakson (R-GA)Johanns (R-NE) Kyl (R-AZ) LeMieux (R-FL) McConnell (R-KY) Risch (R-ID) Roberts (R-KS)
Sessions (R-AL) Shelby (R-AL) Thune (R-SD) Vitter (R-LA) Wicker (R-MS)
“Reliable sources have reported that due to the pressure of the ongoing operation, there have been large-scale desertions amongst the rank of terrorists groups . It has been also reported that the terrorists are shaving and trimming their beards to escape from the area,” Abbas said.
Talibs will re-group, but as usual TSPA will declare victory in a couple of weeks after "successful" operation of clearing the area of "miscreants".manjgu wrote:and the battle for kotkai is being paraded as something equal to battle of stalingrad.. kotkai in my assessment must be a derelict village with not more than 30-40 mud houses and 300-400 camels and goats !! hail the PA for its magnificent achivement..
A Sharma wrote:Pakistani policemen beat Kashmiri nationalists
pgbhat wrote:May be the momeen take a break during kufr weekend.SSridhar wrote:A new day and a new set of targets. What do you think are the targets to be attacked today ? Jacobabad anyone ?
Waziristan is the latest palestine.Access denied
Sunday, 25 Oct, 2009
ONE hopes that the appeal of the International Committee of the Red Cross to the Pakistan government to allow it access to the conflict zone will not fall on deaf ears.
Although one understands the gravity of the situation in an area where a war is being fought and its implications for the security of the local population and aid workers, it must be remembered that Pakistan is a signatory to the Geneva Conventions that constitute what is called humanitarian law. The government is obliged to observe some basic principles, such as proportionality in the means and methods of warfare while exercising discrimination between non-combatants and combatants. If this is done it will, according to the ICRC, minimise the impact of the war on civilians who are innocent victims caught in the crossfire. Doubts have been expressed on this score. As a result the number of detainees and injured and displaced people has been increasing phenomenally. They need humanitarian assistance. Unfortunately, they are not receiving it. Hence the ICRC’s appeal.
According to one estimate, 60,000 people have been displaced in South Waziristan in the latest surge in fighting, while 80,000 are reported to have left their homes earlier. There are no independent sources to ascertain the accuracy of the figures.
What is certain is that this has created a massive humanitarian crisis that needs to be addressed immediately. The army has chosen to keep aid workers out of the war-affected region partly on grounds of the security of the aid workers themselves and partly to enable the defence forces to conduct the war with a free hand. But one cannot overlook the legal obligations of the state which cannot absolve itself of its humanitarian responsibility even though the militants — essentially non-state actors — have been ruthless. It is important that the ICRC, which is independent and neutral, be allowed access to the war zone with as much security as possible. Its working should be facilitated so that the IDPs can be provided relief, the injured given medical treatment and the conditions of the detainees monitored to re-establish family links and prevent abuse.
The pakistan army seems to have a fetish for claiming large scale desertions by any force that opposes it. In the 71 war, the number of desertions in the Indian army as per the pak army figures was close to 100,000. It is said that the figures quoted by Radio Pakistan were so ludicrous, that if you added up the number of dead, injured and deserters, that number would be more than the total strength of the Indian army.pgbhat wrote:Terrorists shaving beards to flee SWA: ISPR“Reliable sources have reported that due to the pressure of the ongoing operation, there have been large-scale desertions amongst the rank of terrorists groups .
) with isolated houses in the middle of nowhere.He he...the ungli from the SDRE really seems to have hit home...harbans wrote:India is obviously expressing concern like everyone else is but the Pakiness in exposed in the response:
India should stop opportunistic propaganda: Pakistan
An ungli was indeep spotttedResponding to a question on Rao's comments, Foreign Office spokesman Abdul Basit said, ...
.... Instead of finger pointing, India ...
"One group was already playing with at the Jangi ground when the other group reached there and claimed they would play there. This led to a big argument and fighting broke out.
And a little surprising to me that almost all are republicans.Amber G. wrote:^^^ Yes. As the story said the vote was 68-29, those are 29.
Time to eat humble pie
Sunday, October 25, 2009
Gibran Peshimam
Amidst unrelenting suicide attacks, audacious assaults on the armed forces, Operation Rah-e-Nijaat in full flow and the NRO question reaching a zenith, talking about the alarming situation in Balochistan may seem a bit trivial and off-topic.
This has always been the case, hasn't it? Something always comes along pushing the issue of Pakistan's perpetually troubled province into the fringes. If it's not the secession of East Pakistan, then its Zia's coup; if it's not the Afghan Jihad, then it's political subterfuge. Today, it's the war on terror.
Well, it has been a mistake each time.
If there's one thing that history has shown, it is that Balochistan is a problem that just will not go away despite being continuously being pushed into the background. All those supposedly 'more urgent' issues have passed and have been resolved in their own twisted ways. Yet when the dust settled, Balochistan remained. Festered, worsened.
Balochistan is Pakistan's original sin. And that readily-ignored sin has now taken a not-so-ignorable turn.
Today that luxury of 'we'll-get-back-to-this-later' approach may no longer be available because the province is the limelight again for two fresh reasons. One involves the US' concern regarding the activities of the Quetta Shura and refuge for the Taliban leadership, and, more recently, Iran's concern at the activities of Jundallah, and the attacks being launched against it from Balochistan.
To accompany the already discomforting murmurs regarding the possibility of the US expanding its targeting of Taliban leaders into northern Balochistan ("beyond FATA" as they would call it), there are now voices in Iran calling for the chasing of Jundallah across the border into parts of Pakistani Balochistan following a high-level suicide hit recently. This matter is serious, and will only become more serious with time.
This is over and above the now traditional spectre of Balochistan's most long-standing issue – its own indigenous nationalist movement. You now a have troika of unique, mutually exclusive problems that will give the best in the policy business nightmares.
Chess with Kasparov would be an easier and potentially less humiliating task.
How does the government appease the US, whose money it needs, Iran, whose gas and regional friendship it needs, as well as the nationalists, whose antagonism will render it unable to do much about either Iran's or the US' concerns to begin with?
If you think that the military and border security is overstretched dealing with the NWFP-Afghanistan border on the west, the India-Pakistan border on the East, and along the Line of Control in Kashmir, imagine what will happen if you try to secure the rugged borders and unsympathetic heartland of your country's largest province as well – that too amidst unprecedented hostility on the part of vast majority of the local population. The NWFP situation is nothing compared to the task of Balochistan.
The pressure is on Pakistan to act now in its largest province. So what do we do?
This is how it stands: Iran has beef with the Jundallah, who they say are supported by the US and Israel (some say they are supported by Saudi Arabia as well) with the help of Pakistan. The US' problem is with the Taliban are supported by anti-US groups, including Iran. Pakistan, meanwhile, complains that the Baloch nationalists are supported by outside forces. The three groups' agendas are not congruous with one another.
For starters, any attempt to conflate the issues of traditional nationalist angst, quasi-ethnic/religious irredentism (or what is perceived irredentism) and religious militancy will be a big mistake.
Another surefire thing is that the authorities cannot tackle each and every issue separately. They do not have the military capacity given the currently stretched resources, the political option given the Gordian Knot in terms of agendas, or the credibility/ability to do it diplomatically.
The truth is that, though the three are mutually exclusive, the policy regarding one will have to be strongly based on the policy regarding the other two. There is one sustainable way out, which can, in fact, work well for Pakistan in the long run. But this will require one thing that our administrations have historically lacked: Humility.
Pakistan now more than ever has to first come to terms with the fact that the nationalist movement that it has vilified for so long with barbs of traitor is in fact a legitimate movement born out of legitimate concerns. The sooner the government is able to abandon its age old policy regarding the Baloch movement, the better.
Whether or not it is funded by foreign organisations is not the issue. Its basic premise is and was legitimate. Foreign infiltration only came in after the brutal suppression of Baloch rights in the past.
Remember that the Pakistani state, after all, has no say in huge swaths of Balochistan thanks in no small part to the estrangement of the Baloch over the years. If the Baloch were on board in the first place, infiltrating the harsh terrain of Balochistan by foreign actors would have been a lot less possible over the years. It is with this understanding that the current situation needs to be tackled. Get back to the root cause.
How it will be done is a subject that is too vast to state in mere columns. It is a subject worth a thesis-sized discourse. It will have to involve a whole lot more than a hollow Balochistan package – that is for sure. It will require drastic concessions; a major change in rigid archetypes. It will require ditching non-representative leadership for short-term gains.
Those who argue that we will lose Balochistan in this effort should realise that at the moment, the centre does not 'have' Balochistan to begin with. In fact, keeping the province in its current political state will be only hurt the country further by allowing outside operatives to continue to infiltrate as well as marking a huge bulls-eye for neighbouring forces.
Give Balochistan to the Baloch and you secure Pakistan. As it stands, there may be no other option.
Time to eat humble pie.
The writer is city editor, The News, Karachi. Email: gibran.peshimam@ gmail.com
Money market players and experts observed that devaluation against regional currencies was a clear sign of poor performance of economy, even poorer than Bangladesh which was not considered a competitor of Pakistan in the recent past.
‘To get 100 Indian rupees, we have to pay Rs185 to Rs190,’ said a currency market player on Saturday.
Bangladesh taka is ~68 to a dollar and PKR is 83 to a dollar.The US is a massive economy which gives weight to its currency dollar but the Bangladeshi Takka is also gaining against Pakistani rupee which is a serious question of economic stability of our country,’ said Abid Saleem, an analyst at a brokerage house.
Karachi, Oct 25 (IANS) Two Pakistani policemen, having a smoke on a police station rooftop, casually stubbed the cigarette in a bottle containing highly inflammable chemicals for making explosives - causing a blast.
The explosion on the roof of Risala police station Saturday afternoon was caused by two policemen who were smoking on the roof, officials of the bomb disposal squad (BDS) told The News.
Potassium nitrate, which is a chemical component in explosives and is inflammable, was stored in a container on the rooftop. The chemical is also known as saltpetre.
The team found that there were two bottles of potassium nitrate on the rooftop, each carrying 100 grams of the explosive material.
'One of the two policemen put a burning cigarette in the bottle carrying saltpetre. This caused a huge explosion, injuring both men,' an official was quoted as saying.
The bottles had been sent to the Risala police by the BDS for testing purposes, after a large quantity of potassium nitrate had been discovered near the courts.
'Some 15 to 20 kg of potassium nitrate was recovered last year near City Courts premises. Except for some 200 grams, the rest was disposed of.
'Instead of sending the samples to the lab, the Risala police dumped these two bottles on the roof of their building,' the official said.
The official went on to say that his assessment was that 'the chemical was ignited by cigarette. Most probably, one of the guards put the burning end of the cigarette in the container, and this caused the explosion.'
The explosion caused panic in the area with the people fearing it to be a terror attack.
Pakistan has been hit by a string of terror strikes as the army continued its assault against the Taliban fighters in South Waziristan.
Over 170 people have been killed in the latest wave of militant violence, which started with a suicide bombing at the offices of the UN World Food Programme in Islamabad Oct 5. Five employees of the agency were killed.
The most audacious attack came on Oct 10 when 10 terrorists in military uniform laid siege to the Pakistan Army's General Headquarters in Rawalpindi. At least 19 people, including nine raiders, died in the 22-hour standoff. One militant was arrested.
On Oct 15, gunmen wearing suicide vests stormed two police academies and the offices of Pakistan's Federal Investigation Agency in the eastern city of Lahore. A car bomber struck a police station in the northwestern town of Kohat. At least 38 people including 11 insurgents were killed in a single day.
A twin suicide bombing Oct 20 at the International Islamic University here killed seven people.
On Oct 22, Brigadier Moinuddin Ahmed, who was the head of the UN peacekeeping mission in Sudan, was gunned down along with another soldier in Islamabad.
A day later, 25 people were killed and 27 injured in a series of blasts across Pakistan. Eighteen people died in a landmine explosion in Mohmand Agency while seven were killed when a suicide bomber struck at an air force base in Attock district. Eight people were injured in a bombing outside a restaurant in Peshawar.
More advice..give Sindh to Sindhis, POK to India, Pashtoo land to Pashtoos and so on..what is left is Pakjab.chetak wrote:More humble pie for a nation already on a steady diet of such pie?
http://thenews.jang.com.pk/daily_detail.asp?id=205041
Time to eat humble pie
Give Balochistan to the Baloch and you secure Pakistan. As it stands, there may be no other option.
Time to eat humble pie.
Q&A: Mohamed Nasheed, the President of the Maldives
Jyoti Malhotra / New Delhi October 25, 2009, 0:00 IST …………………….
Is it true that the Maldives has a serious issue with Islamic fundamentalists?
Yes, we have a serious issue with Islamist radicals, we know that many are being trained by the Al Qaeda in the northern reaches of Pakistan.
How do you know?
Because several Maldivians have been arrested by Pakistani authorities after they crossed into Pakistan from India. The recruitment of Islamist radicals takes place in the Maldives and their channel of movement is all the way up to Pakistan.
Are you saying that the Maldivians are being trained by the Al Qaeda in Pakistan, in Waziristan?
Yes, they are getting trained there by the Al Qaeda to fight the war in Afghanistan.
Business Standard
http://news.xinhuanet.com/english/2009- ... 323505.htmISLAMABAD, Oct. 25 (Xinhua) -- Education Minister of Pakistan's Balochistan province Shafiq Ahmed was shot dead Sunday in Quetta, the provincial capital, according to local TV reports.
The Geo TV quoted police and witnesses as saying that Ahmed was killed when gunmen opened fire on him as he came out of his car outside the main gate of his home.
The gunmen fled after the attack.
No group claimed responsibility for the attack.
The slain minister belongs to the ruling Pakistan People's Party.
28 Republicans and 1 Democrat!!Rudradev wrote:"Nay-sayers" meaning? These are the senators who tried to avoid having India-centric riders placed on aid to Pakistan?Amber G. wrote:Sorry if already posted:
US Congress imposes 'India-centric' riders on aid to Pak
FYI the 29 Nay sayers in US senate are;
Alexander (R-TN)
Barrasso (R-WY) Bennett (R-UT) Brownback (R-KS) Bunning (R-KY) Burr (R-NC) Chambliss (R-GA) Coburn (R-OK)
Cochran (R-MS) Corker (R-TN) Crapo (R-ID) DeMint (R-SC) Enzi (R-WY) Feingold (D-WI) Graham (R-SC) Grassley (R-IA)
Inhofe (R-OK)Isakson (R-GA)Johanns (R-NE) Kyl (R-AZ) LeMieux (R-FL) McConnell (R-KY) Risch (R-ID) Roberts (R-KS)
Sessions (R-AL) Shelby (R-AL) Thune (R-SD) Vitter (R-LA) Wicker (R-MS)
hulaku wrote:Pakistan's provincial education minister shot dead
Anybody from CaliforniaAkshut wrote:
28 Republicans and 1 Democrat!!
Whats up with Republicans w.r.t. India-centric conditions?
Avinash R wrote:Eat grass for survival
The writer is a retired brigadier of the Pakistan Army.
The war that began in 1975 through Bhutto’s espousing of Afghan student leaders has now entered its final phase and a ‘do or die’ situation. Its bloodiest chapters will be fought in South Waziristan and Punjab with the US keen to open a face-saving front in Balochistan. This is where the true test of Pakistan’s sovereignty will lie.
Especially if there is no difference between FATA and the rest of Pakistan. On the other hand, maybe the folks in FATA should not be called tribals, but Islamists?Because deep down, there is the assumption created and nurtured by the belief that Africa is tribal and therefore unable to get out of the cycle of violence, dictatorship, corruption and further violence.
x-posting from Indo-US threadAcharya wrote:Anybody from CaliforniaAkshut wrote:
28 Republicans and 1 Democrat!!
Whats up with Republicans w.r.t. India-centric conditions?
Mort Walker wrote:
This has more to do with voting on party lines and against anything the ruling party (Democrats) propose. The India specific rider amendment was proposed by a Democrat. The Republicans smell blood and through a campaign of media, organized tea party protests and the public's genuine distrust of the Obama administration will try to win back a majority in the Senate. There are 49 Republican senators and 28 voted against this amendment. Those that did are the most rabid EJ racists out there. If it wasn't for this glaring fact, the Republicans are far better than Democrats as far as NRIs are concerned.
I found the Hurriyat leaders sober. One leader told me that they had vibes from Delhi that something positive would emerge. They are looking forward to talks with Prime Minister Manmohan Singh. There is an effort to have a consensus among the different parties, including the Hurriyat, before the prime minister’s arrival. Chief Minister Omar Abdullah wants New Delhi to talk to all political parties but has also emphasised that India should have a dialogue with Pakistan to resolve the Kashmir problem.
It was an interesting talk which I heard when I was sitting with the Hurriyat leaders. A young Pakistani American told them that what had surprised him after the span of three years since his last visit was that Kashmir was ‘being assimilated by India quickly’. They were embarrassed but did not want to reply to him in my presence.
Born in Kashmir, this young man is a member of a think tank in Washington. He told them that free state elections, watched by a large number of Americans on televisions, had made a great impression. He said they were beginning to believe that the problem was ‘more or less over’.
http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/daw ... ul--szh-01
