Terrorist Islamic Republic of Pakistan (TSP): May 8, 2011

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 25 May 2011 01:00

Ok some of the facts as far as we know:
- May 22, 2011, PNS Meharn in Karachi attacked by varying number of miscreants/terrorists.
- Destroyed two upgraded P-3C in first ~30mins actions and caused mayhem for 17 hours on the base.
- Base had 6 US and 11 Chinese personnel on working at that late hour
- China denied and later admitted their personnel were taken hostage for sometime
- Final account said four miscreants killed and two got away putting the total at six.
- Various reports had a much large rnumber.
- Rajiv Lather wondered if there was a hostage swap of the Chinese vs miscreants

There is a gap in the accounts some due to fog of war and some could be due to relcutance to share weakness.

My question is in the melee did some of the miscreants take off with any gear that the personnel were working on?

Is this what the 'source' in Najpappa's article is worrying about? And hence reminded the Indian CMD requirement to respond irregradless of state or non state actors from TSP?

GuruPrabhu · Post by **GuruPrabhu** » 25 May 2011 01:37

ranjbe wrote:People in BRF do use sarcasm sometimes, you know.

Thanks for explaining - I will ask the same BRF members to spot the sarcasm in this:

I do not know either, I am just a poor engineer, not a nuclear physicist. However, I have seen literature which hints at work going on such systems since 1990. Common sense tells me that:
1. This is a very high priority issue for the US. The worse case scenario for the US is an undetected nuclear device/dirty bomb smuggled in to the country.
2. Maybe the problems are insolvable; maybe they have solved them. Maybe the sensors/detectors are on the super-secret stealth HAARP plane which apparently can circle the globe at half the speed of light! Unfortunately, the details will never be known on an open forum such as BRF

You say "common sense" tells you the two points you make. It looked like a serious post to me, so I responded, especially as it followed your earlier post about "sniffers" (which I presume was not sarcasm).

Also that alll good scientists are humble. Please do not make smarmy comments without the slightest bit of knowledge about my age and accomplishments.

I made no comments, "smarmy" or not, that reflected on your age or accomplishments. I simply commented on what seemed like a far-fetched idea. It is quite difficult to detect your sarcasm. Over and out.

jrjrao · Post by **jrjrao** » 25 May 2011 01:50

An astonishngly ack-thoo piece from that new South Asian Paki apologist. What an airhead:

Try to see it my way
BY C. CHRISTINE FAIR

The U.S.'s policy of trying to de-hyphenate its relations with India and Pakistan, which it has pursued since 2000, has floundered on the shoals of reality. The U.S.-Indian nuclear deal has exacerbated Pakistan's concerns about India and angers Pakistanis who feel that U.S. alignment with its existential nemesis while Pakistan is at war with militants is an extreme insult. Pakistanis dismiss the obvious criticisms about the different proliferation histories of the two states.

Similarly, India's role in Afghanistan may be welcomed by some actors in that country, albeit with varying degrees ambivalence. However, it is a major source of anxiety in Pakistan, which fears that India will exploit the space to foment insurgency in Pakistan along the Afghan border as just desserts for Pakistan's far more extensive support of insurgencies and terrorism in India.

If the United States is committed to supporting India's vision of itself as a regional hegemon, Pakistan will work ever more vigorously -- and dangerously -- to undermine India's ability to do so. It will do so even if Pakistan's activities harm Pakistan more than India. Engaging Pakistan could become impossible if the United States accepts India's goals of regional domination. Worryingly, many Pakistani security elites already believe that Washington has acquiesced to this Indian desire to project power. Washington needs to decide whether or not supports a hegemonic India and adjust its regional plans accordingly.

In this mélange of distrust and loathing resides the basic challenge for the United States and Pakistan that can no longer be denied or deferred: Pakistan's existential threat (India) is a key U.S. strategic partner, while American existential threats (Lashkar-e-Taiba, the Afghan Taliban, and other militant groups) are Pakistan's partners. Both need to find a way of sustaining a relationship on the areas of convergence while managing and, over time, mitigating the gross areas of dangerous divergence.

This last bit really pushes the envelope in IndiaPakistan commentariat. Essentially, it says that if Pakistan has to phuck L-e-T, then in turn, the US has to phuck India.

IOW, India==L-e-T.

And which neutral observer would say that India has a declared policy to be a regional "hegemon"? Or that its goal are for "regional domination"? Only nutcase Pakis use such language.

This bimbo is not just empty in her skull -- she is downright evil and dangerous.

Vashishtha · Post by **Vashishtha** » 25 May 2011 01:58

Loool........... sad that we cant buy lobbyist''s against some country that lives on aid.....

Mahendra · Post by **Mahendra** » 25 May 2011 02:13

Looks like 'brain' is a existential threat to Ms UnFair, her readers have to decide whether to use it or not

Prem · Post by **Prem** » 25 May 2011 02:16

What is her Fare ?

RamaY · Post by **RamaY** » 25 May 2011 02:17

This Christine Fair needs to see some light...

If

Pakistan's existential threat (India) is a key U.S. strategic partner, while American existential threats (Lashkar-e-Taiba, the Afghan Taliban, and other militant groups) are Pakistan's partners.

is correct, then why should USA worry about engaging Pakistan? After all Pakis are good at committing suicide.

Engaging Pakistan could become impossible if the United States accepts India's goals of regional domination.

UBanerjee · Post by **UBanerjee** » 25 May 2011 02:22

She really gives away the game there. If her own analysis is true and Pakistan is hand in glove with existential threats to America, why the desperate need for America to engage with Pakistan? In other words, US should shaft strategic ally India in order to appease existential threat Pakistan? In what world does that make any rational calculus at all?

Idiotic.

Seems like the same advice "educated" elite give to Obama admin re Israel- shaft strategic ally in order to appease long term enemy. Confirms my theory that Dems will always lean towards tinpot Islamic states in an effort to look "neutral" and "improve American image". Similar to Euro strategy. Repubs care less about winning Ms. Universe award and are more sensitive to business interests with potential partners.

Amber G. · Post by **Amber G.** » 25 May 2011 02:37

jr^2.. you may like to see the comment page for the Fair piece, you posted.

jrjrao · Post by **jrjrao** » 25 May 2011 02:44

Amber-ji, thank you. I must admit, however, that you were rather harsh in your edit job.

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 25 May 2011 02:49

Good job AmberG!!!

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 25 May 2011 03:09

Chicago Case Puts US support to Pakistan on Trial

....
What puts the US administration in a fix -- and spotlight -- is that the information is coming from the government's own witness. Testimony by the Department of Justice's star prosecution witness David Headley in the trial of his friend Tawahhur Hussain Rana has left no doubt about the complicity of Pakistani intelligence agency ISI in overseeing the Mumbai terrorist attacks in 2008 which killed 170 people, including six Americans.

Headley, who plea bargained with the government to escape death penalty, says he reported to a serving ISI officer named Major Iqbal among others ahead of the Mumbai attack, and a Pakistani Navy frogman helped land terrorists for the attack. He is also providing elaborate details about the ISI's nexus with Lashkar-e-Taiba and other terrorist entities which are formally designated as such by the State Department.

That leaves the Obama administration little wiggle room in avoiding formally designating ISI as a terrorist entity, although informally Washington already considers it a "terrorist support entity," as disclosed in secret cables.

The State Department has been circumspect in addressing information emerging from the Chicago trial, even though it is a DoJ witness who is implicating ISI, and by inference, the Pakistani government (since Islamabad insists that the spy agency is compliant with government directives).

....
But there is growing unease in policy circles about how long Washington can continue to shield Pakistan citing its critical importance in the war on terror, especially in a case where Americans were also killed.

Bruce Riedel, a former CIA analyst now with the Brookings Institution, who has written extensively on Pakistan's ties to terrorism, says the Obama administration simply can't make the call. "I think it remains unlikely Department of State (DoS) will put ISI on the terrorist list. They are just too important," he told ToI.

The Chicago proceedings also animated a Senate Foreign Relations Committee hearing on Tuesday, with at least two Senators wanting Pakistan to be called to account for its sponsorship of terrorism.

"I don't know how we can just ignore that. The United States should confront Pakistan's support to terrorists," said Senator Ben Cardin, referring to the testimony from Headley implicating ISI, which one witness, CIA analyst Paul Pillar said could not be differentiated from the Pakistan military. "That is an issue that will come to consideration of US Congress," Cardin warned.

But three witnesses who testified at the hearing all seemed to agree that Washington could not call Pakistan to heel despite its sponsorship of terrorism because of larger political and geo-strategic compulsions.

"Pakistan is both an arsonist and a fireman. It continues to support terrorists," said Georgetown University's Christine Fair, citing the long history of U.S indulgence towards its ally in the matter. "The ISI has enormous clout...service-to-service channel is important," explained former CIA analyst Paul Pillar. "We have to do business with them even though we cannot trust them."

I think time is ripe for India to cut off the ISI and present a fait accompli to DC.

Cosmo_R · Post by **Cosmo_R** » 25 May 2011 03:19

@Ramana ^^^: "I think time is ripe for India to cut off the ISI and present a fait accompli to DC."

I don't follow....can you be more explicit?

Rajiv Lather · Post by **Rajiv Lather** » 25 May 2011 03:54

ok one last speculation - did the militants manage to free/save Mulla Omar from the clutches of ISI with this attack ?

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 25 May 2011 04:02

K.P. Nayar of Telegraph writes

Danger Signals

DANGER SIGNALS
- Are critical military installations in Pakistan safe and secure?
Diplomacy - K.P. NAYAR

The daring attack on Karachi’s Mehran naval air base has suddenly revived interest in a forgotten claim made in a West Point journal that Pakistan’s nuclear facilities have been targeted thrice by terrorists. The claim made two years ago gave specific dates, locations and other details of those attacks. The first such attack was on a nuclear missile storage facility at Sargodha on November 1, 2007, the second raid was on Pakistan’s nuclear air base at Kamra on December 10, 2007 while the third and most serious attack was when militants blew up entry points to armament complexes long believed to be assembly centres for Pakistan’s nuclear bombs at the sprawling cantonment in Wah on August 20, 2008.

This is a claim that conjures up precisely the dreaded images that have long been painted of some mullah, in the type of the Taliban’s Mohammed Omar, laying his hands on Islamabad’s nuclear assets. Yet, in 2009, these detailed assertions — made in a journal which has a highly specialized and, therefore, limited readership — spread little alarm because they went largely unnoticed. The journal goes by the un-alluring name of CTC Sentinel. The abbreviation CTC stands for “Combating Terrorism Center at West Point.”

But that precisely is the reason to take this claim with a high degree of seriousness, more so now that the security perimeter of the Mehran naval air base has been penetrated with seeming impunity. West Point is one of the world’s most renowned military academies. The best testimony to its excellence is the popular saying at West Point that “much of the history we teach was made by people we taught.”

West Point’s Combating Terrorism Center is currently led by a distinguished team which includes General John Abizaid, the longest-serving commander of US Central Command, from where military engagement of Pakistan is fine-tuned, and Michael Sheehan, who served in the White House under two presidents, George Herbert Walker Bush and Bill Clinton. In the Clinton presidency, Sheehan was the president’s counter-terrorism pointman. It is highly unlikely that a journal from West Point would publish claims as serious as attacks on Pakistan’s nuclear facilities without some verification.

The article in CTC Sentinel concludes that “the risk of the transfer of nuclear weapons, weapons components or nuclear expertise to terrorists in Pakistan is genuine. Moreover, knowledge that such a transfer has occurred may not become evident until the aftermath of a nuclear 9/11 in Pakistan or elsewhere in the world.”

A source in Washington with access to highly restricted intelligence at that time told this columnist that the United States of America was satisfied that all the three incidents occurred, but could not conclude with any reasonable degree of certainty that these were attempts by the Taliban, al Qaida or any similar outfit to gain control of nuclear weapons or even nuclear material. However, it is possible to piece together evidence that the Americans did not leave anything to chance. Khalid Kidwai, head of the Pakistan army’s strategic plans division — which oversees nuclear weapons operations, commonly known to nuclear experts by its acronym, SPD — assured Pakistani journalists soon afterwards (without referring to any attacks, of course) that the US put up $10 million to augment safety arrangements around Pakistani nuclear establishments.

The source in Washington confirmed that there was some suspicion within the US administration then that the attacks on nuclear sites may have been linked to the troubles of General Pervez Musharraf. In March 2007, lawyers in Pakistan began their campaign against Musharraf for removing from office the chief justice of the supreme court, Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry. The dismissal of Justice Chaudhry triggered Musharraf’s downhill slide from power and the view in some quarters in Washington was that the attacks on nuclear sites, which did not cause any serious damage, were officially sponsored.

Musharraf had all along manipulated the Americans with the scare that he was the bulwark against a hardline Islamic takeover of Pakistan. What better evidence of the seriousness of an extremist threat than actions suggesting that militants not only knew the location of Islamabad’s nuclear assets but were even prepared to risk going for it? It was speculated at that time, according to this source, that the attack in Wah had gone too far into planning to be stopped, although Musharraf reluctantly resigned on August 18, 2008, two days prior to that attack.

But in between came the crisis over Islamabad’s Lal Masjid, where an attempt was made to run a parallel state. The firm discipline with which the army dealt with that crisis made the US give Musharraf a little more rope.

The author of the article in the West Point journal is Shaun Gregory, who heads the Pakistan security research unit, which he set up in 2007 at the University of Bradford in the United Kingdom. Many Indians in New Delhi’s strategic community would remember him as a visiting fellow at the Institute for Defence Studies and Analyses during the critical year of 2001, when 9/11 changed the world.

Gregory’s passion is said to be Pakistan, where he spent time at Islamabad’s International Strategic Studies Institute. According to the University of Bradford, Gregory is working on a book called Pakistan: Securing the Insecure State, to be published by Routledge. The journal which published his claims about the attack on Pakistan’s nuclear facilities carries the usual disclaimer by West Point that the views expressed are those of the author and not those of the US government.

Gregory wrote to a blog in The New York Times soon after his West Point disclosures that he could not confirm that “the attacks themselves were on the nuclear weapons or weapons components but (only that they were) on bases known to have nuclear weapons or a role in the nuclear programme.”

His article concludes that “it remains imperative that Pakistan is pressured and supported above all by the US to continue to improve the safety and security of its nuclear weapons and to ensure the fidelity of those civilian and military personnel with access to, or knowledge of, nuclear weapons. The challenge to Pakistan’s nuclear weapons from Pakistani Taliban groups and from al Qaida constitutes a real and present danger....More steps must be taken before the threat is neutralized and Pakistan’s nuclear weapons no longer pose an existential danger to the rest of the world.”

Before Sunday’s brazen attack in Karachi, this may have been enough. Indeed, when John Kerry, chairman of the US senate’s foreign relations committee, was in Pakistan last week, he dramatically offered to give in writing in his blood that the Americans were not seeking to gain control of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons. No one has asked Kerry yet whether he wants to donate his blood to better causes, now that a gaping hole has been created in Pakistan’s wall of security for ultra-sensitive defence installations.

Islamabad has been awash with conspiracy theories in the last two days that an attack purported to be authored by al Qaida was in the works as an excuse to defang a nuclear Pakistan. It is inevitable that such conspiracy theories will feed into the ever-present desire among sections in the army general headquarters in Rawalpindi to put off any rapprochement that Prime Minister Manmohan Singh desires.

The supreme irony in all this, as the West Point journal article points out, is that “when Pakistan was developing its nuclear weapons infrastructure in the 1970s and 1980s, its principal concern was the risk that India would overrun its nuclear facilities” if there was a ground war and “the facilities were placed close to the long India-Pakistan border. As a result, Pakistan, with a few exceptions, chose to locate much of its nuclear weapons infrastructure to the north and west of the country.”

Now the Pakistanis are finding that these facilities are too close to Taliban and al Qaida strongholds for any comfort. Gregory warns that the “Pakistani Taliban and al Qaida are more than capable of launching terrorist attacks in these areas.” Such attacks may, hopefully, not target any nuclear installation, but the attack on Mehran may well be the end of any illusions about the security of critical military installations anywhere in Pakistan.

Muppalla I was looking for his views. Its along what I thought is the issue.

Kanishka · Post by **Kanishka** » 25 May 2011 04:25

More example of Lievenism!

http://www.ft.com/intl/cms/s/0/f1c18c96 ... z1NJZfLLsu

How American folly could destroy Pakistan
By Anatol Lieven

The latest attack, on a naval base in Karachi on Monday, was so daring it only increased fears that Pakistan itself may be collapsing.
This is still a long way from being the case, unless the US takes a hand in Pakistan’s destruction.{Pakistan is doing it fine and needs no help from anyone}

Washington must not get carried away by killing bin Laden{Whose side is he on?}. The only figure worth the risks of another raid would be bin Laden’s deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri. Killing the Afghan Taliban leadership is madness, given that Washington must talk to them about a settlement. Instead, the US should reassure a thoroughly rattled and hostile Pakistani population, in part by cutting back on drone strikes. The danger is that a future US raid leads to a US-Pakistani fight, or a Pakistani mutiny. Then Washington, grotesquely, might contribute to the destruction of the Pakistani state it is trying to save, and a historic triumph for Islamist extremism. Pakistan’s tragedy would then become one for the entire world {It already is}.

ramana · Post by **ramana** » 25 May 2011 04:28

Its the old Blunt project that Lie(v)in is trying to save.

The danger is that a future US raid leads to a US-Pakistani fight, or a Pakistani mutiny. Then Washington, grotesquely, might contribute to the destruction of the Pakistani state it is trying to save, and a historic triumph for Islamist extremism. Pakistan’s tragedy would then become one for the entire world.

VinodTK · Post by **VinodTK** » 25 May 2011 05:23

Surprising to read such (below) stuff in the Dawn.com
Sky Wars: Pakistan, India and China

However, because of the policies and goals and economic and military capacities, this is not an equal relationship. China gets the satisfaction of strategic policy encirclement of India by being Pakistan’s ‘all-weather friend’. All Pakistan gets is a guarantee of no veto against it in the United Nations. China doesn’t do grants, aid and budgetary support – the three perennial shopping items in Pakistan’s basket. The best it does is investment and that’s purely profit-centric, Beijing managing to recoup any money it ‘gives away’ in this shape to Pakistan. The 50 Thunder jets is the perfect ingredient of this unequal but functional relationship: Pakistan restores some of its India-centric edge in the sky while China actually gets money from Pakistan to install strategic air restraints over India towards the side of India where Beijing is not itself present! Hence the Indian concern at the Thunder deal between Islamabad and Beijing.
:
The Sino-Pak annual trade by comparison is puny despite some strides in recent years. It has increased from $1.9bn in 2002 to $6.9bn in 2011. The two have vowed to ramp this up to $15bn by 2014. China, which has surpassed the EU as Pakistan’s second-largest trading partner, exported goods worth $5.5bn to Pakistan in 2010 and imported $1.3bn worth of products. This means Pakistan is a net exporter of money to China! And yet Pakistan crows about a relationship that is ‘deeper than the oceans and higher than the mountains’. The reality is that Pakistan sells itself cheap for this grossly unequal relationship for merely a veto shield at the UN.

The real story is not that China is providing Pakistan a clutch of fighter planes or that India has problems with China squeezing it a bit in the western sector – after all India’s own fighter jet acquisition spree more than neutralises any strategic edge Beijing or Islamabad can sculpt from this deal. The story is in what has been left unsaid: why can’t Pakistan invest $1.25bn to be paid for the planes in its tanking economy to revive it and with the profits generated buy whatever planes it wants? After all Pakistan can’t afford to go to war with India anytime soon as it only has six days of oil reserves and can’t push the fight more than six days and neither does China want Delhi and Islamabad to actually fight a war. So while Pakistan has an as-yet unnecessary edge in the sky what about the situation on the ground? Where will the money come from to cut the burgeoning poverty, unemployment and illiteracy?

shiv · Post by **shiv** » 25 May 2011 05:38

ramana wrote:
shravan wrote:China Admits Its Technicians Were Held in Pakistan Base Attack
http://www.nytimes.com/2011/05/25/world ... china.html
Rajiv Lather, your speculation could be right!!!!

Absolutely!

It appears that they managed to do in PNS Mehran what they failed to do in Mumbai - i.e exchange hostages for freedom. The attackers were almost certainly given safe passage by their pious birathers.

shiv · Post by **shiv** » 25 May 2011 05:51

Rajiv Lather wrote:ok one last speculation - did the militants manage to free/save Mulla Omar from the clutches of ISI with this attack ?

Good point. I did think it was odd that the two happy news items appeared together. Maybe there is a link.

Airavat · Post by **Airavat** » 25 May 2011 06:05

14 killed in Peshawar bombing:

A suicide car bomber struck a police facility in an army cantonment in Pakistan's main northwest city early Wednesday, police said. At least 14 people were wounded in the latest attack in Pakistan since the U.S. raid that killed Osama bin Laden. The bomber's target appeared to be a building belonging to the police's criminal investigation department, but Pakistani army facilities also are nearby, said Liaquat Ali Khan, a senior police official in the area. The building collapsed after the early morning blast, and authorities were searching for bodies or survivors in the rubble, he said.

Xinhua claims 15 injured:

According to the report, the blast took place at about 4:40 a.m local time at a CID (Center of Investigation Department) police station on the University road of the city.

Manny · Post by **Manny** » 25 May 2011 06:11

I posted on Fair's article siding with Ms Fair... in how India too can assuage Porkistan like she would like!

Sushupti · Post by **Sushupti** » 25 May 2011 06:15

Mystery surrounds number of Naval base attackers

http://dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?pa ... 2011_pg1_2

Sushupti · Post by **Sushupti** » 25 May 2011 06:18

EDITORIAL: Back to the barracks

Interestingly, while Interior Minister Rehman Malik claimed that two terrorists managed to escape from the naval base, according to an FIR registered under the Explosives and Terrorism Act in Shahrah-e-Faisal Police Station, six to eight terrorists escaped.

It is still not clear why it took almost 16 hours to clear the naval airbase when a possible hostage situation has been denied.

http://dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?pa ... 2011_pg3_1

ManjaM · Post by **ManjaM** » 25 May 2011 06:21

South Asian nuclear safety in fallible hands: US expert

In a webcast lecture made available late Friday, Scott D Sagan said that if developed countries with competent civilian controls can make errors it was safe to assume that countries with “less vigorous civilian controls, less professionalised militaries” will behave in dangerous ways.

Sagan explains Pakistan’s nuclear safety dilemma thus: “The civilians are at the wheel. The military is at the accelerator and somebody is pulling the brakes.” This is neither “a rationally controlled operation nor proper nuclear signalling”. As witnessed during Kargil, he said, some of this signalling gave off vulnerabilities.

Overall, he noted, Pakistan has a vulnerability-invulnerability problem. “Pakistanis keep their weapons in storage on military bases, and not in the high state of alert,” he said. “They know that those weapons are vulnerable in the event of an attack by India or the US.”
If Pakistan is worried either for signalling or defence purposes, they feel “compelled to take their weapons out of the base, put them with their missiles on their launchers and move them to the countryside”, he said. “That makes them less vulnerable to an attack by an enemy state but more vulnerable to terrorist seizure by an outside group or an insider group collaborating with the terrorist groups. In Sagan’s opinion there is no solution to the vulnerability- invulnerability paradox.

So its a South Asian thing now.

SwamyG · Post by **SwamyG** » 25 May 2011 06:28

O'Bama must be discussing J&K with UQueenstan.

Muppalla · Post by **Muppalla** » 25 May 2011 06:36

It seems that Karachi attack is about nukes and nukes only. It is not another Talib attack. The news coming from MMS team is serious. They just talked mostly about Nukes and terrorists getting them as a reaction to Karachi attack. Even the post martem analysis is pointing to similar discussions. This dirty bomb is now open discussion.

Muppalla · Post by **Muppalla** » 25 May 2011 06:40

Now that JDAM is becoming more and more of a serious threat to India and non-state actors are increasing, India needs to have a Pak specific doctrine. India should make it clear that incase of JDAM, irrespective of who did it, India will wipe out all Pakijabis as a first reaction with no invetigations and it will be real knee-jerk reaction from India. That will start reduction in non-state actors.

Muppalla · Post by **Muppalla** » 25 May 2011 06:42

ramana wrote:I think the source above is the highest official in charge of the matters.Note the frequent refrence to Indian response to such action by state or non state acots in TSP.

BTW, Nanjappa is redeeming Rediff by his coverage of the PM's Africa visit. His last article too is a keeper.

I think MMS and C company are really troubled about this PNS Mehran incident and the noteworthy thing is the 'dog that didnt bark" (US) yet.

When is MMS back due from Africa?

Could be Shiv Shankar Menon. Otherwise who else? As I said earlier, India is serious about potential JDAM attack in the next six months.

Sushupti · Post by **Sushupti** » 25 May 2011 06:42

Martyred Lieutenant Yasir Abbas laid to rest

Shaheed is a term that is not new for Pakistanis since the ongoing war on terror in the country had showered this honour on a number of country’s officers, cadets and personnel of the armed forces. However, despite the numerous sacrifices on our part, what we get in return is suicide attacks on citizens and now on the country’s armed forces. T
:
While talking to Daily Times, Yasir’s father, Jaffar Abbas, said that he hoped his son’s martyrdom would not go waste and that it would be a harbinger of peace and happiness in the country.

http://dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?pa ... 011_pg13_6

SSridhar · Post by **SSridhar** » 25 May 2011 06:50

shiv wrote:
Rajiv Lather wrote:ok one last speculation - did the militants manage to free/save Mulla Omar from the clutches of ISI with this attack ?
Good point. I did think it was odd that the two happy news items appeared together. Maybe there is a link.

Especially when we knew that the ISI had moved some Quetta shura leaders to Karachi.

shaardula · Post by **shaardula** » 25 May 2011 06:52

fair article my comment

wtf is the author dragging india in for? pakistan is not the only country in the world with a border problem. india herself has a border problem with china. and bangladesh also separated from india while watchful of india, is not known to have gone the pakistan way - what does that tell you?

what has pakistan's border problem with india got to do with proliferating nuclear weapons? harboring terrorists of all stripes including OBL? with state sponsored terrorism? flirting with militant obscurantism?

on the one hand pakistan talks about cashmere and on the other hand it actively and openly undermines the sovereignty of afghanistan. how is that justified? what business does pakistan have in meddling with the internal affairs of afghanistan and in forcing their women to the most barbaric of norms known to modern man?

what has any of this got to do with pakistan's border problem with india?

the author's line is basically a plagiarized version of hafiz saeed's notes. i shudder to think this person is a professor and is responsible for framing the world view of impressionable earnest minds. and that too in USofA. if all that a 'professor' is going to do is regurgitate the bile of a known terrorist, why not give the pulpit to the real mccoy himself, why the elaborate scam of a tenure track professor/south asia expert?

Airavat · Post by **Airavat** » 25 May 2011 07:09

Chinese Foreign Office says it had not heard of Pakistan's proposal for China to help it build a naval port at Gwadar

shravan · Post by **shravan** » 25 May 2011 07:13

Blast at CID police station in Peshawar; 2 killed 19 injured

Explosion followed exchange of fire between police and militants.

Senior provincial minister claimed that the car was carrying 300 kilogram of explosives which hit the police station building.

arun · Post by **arun** » 25 May 2011 07:19

Recollect this news story from a fortnight ago:

Snubbed by IPL, Afridi & co. head to Lankan League

Now Sri Lanka delivers its own snub to the Islamic Republic of Pakistan:

Sri Lanka turn down PCB request to tour Pakistan

Pranav · Post by **Pranav** » 25 May 2011 07:32

folks, BRF-lingo (such as "Ack-thoo", "cashmere") seems rather out of place for comments on a mainstream site such as foreignpolicy.com .

ranjbe · Post by **ranjbe** » 25 May 2011 07:35

jrjrao wrote: Try to see it my way
BY C. CHRISTINE FAIR
The U.S.'s policy of trying to de-hyphenate its relations with India and Pakistan, which it has pursued since 2000, has floundered on the shoals of reality. The U.S.-Indian nuclear deal has exacerbated Pakistan's concerns about India and angers Pakistanis who feel that U.S. alignment with its existential nemesis while Pakistan is at war with militants is an extreme insult. Pakistanis dismiss the obvious criticisms about the different proliferation histories of the two states.

Similarly, India's role in Afghanistan may be welcomed by some actors in that country, albeit with varying degrees ambivalence. However, it is a major source of anxiety in Pakistan, which fears that India will exploit the space to foment insurgency in Pakistan along the Afghan border as just desserts for Pakistan's far more extensive support of insurgencies and terrorism in India.

If the United States is committed to supporting India's vision of itself as a regional hegemon, Pakistan will work ever more vigorously -- and dangerously -- to undermine India's ability to do so. It will do so even if Pakistan's activities harm Pakistan more than India. Engaging Pakistan could become impossible if the United States accepts India's goals of regional domination. Worryingly, many Pakistani security elites already believe that Washington has acquiesced to this Indian desire to project power. Washington needs to decide whether or not supports a hegemonic India and adjust its regional plans accordingly.

.

Christine Fair had claimed that when Obama came in, she was in the running for the post of Asst. Secretary, South Asia. However, India's disapproval squashed that idea. Ignore her. She is a middle-aged, untenured assistant professor with not very bright prospects (perhaps she will replace Robin Raphael in distributing USAID in Pakistan).
Just to clarify things, for the young man who claimed that he does not understand my sarcasm/humor, the sentence in brackets is indeed sarcasm/humor.
As for Lord Anatol of Livonia, the events of the last few weeks has shown that Pakistan is not "just like India", as claimed in his book. He is scurrying around, protecting his rear end.

shiv · Post by **shiv** » 25 May 2011 07:39

Pranav wrote:folks, BRF-lingo (such as "Ack-thoo", "cashmere") seems rather out of place for comments on a mainstream site such as foreignpolicy.com .

Pranav - my "public school" education in India makes me agree with you because my English is oh so good. But it occurs to me that if I had studied in Eton, Harrow or even Rugby I would not have any qualms about using my own language and expressions in communicating with others and would be contemptuous of anyone who tried to tell me there was anything the matter with the language I use. I believe there is fractal recursivity at work here. I personally have no problems with Indians using Indian expressions.

VikramS · Post by **VikramS** » 25 May 2011 07:39

shardmulla:

A small request

Even if you prefer not to use caps, run it through the spell check to fix them. It becomes harder to read without caps. Further your comment is likely to get less mind-share if it does not follow basic English rules.

Thanks

pgbhat · Post by **pgbhat** » 25 May 2011 07:40

'New kind of militant' behind Pakistan Karachi attack

Military formation: One injured sailor told an official that the attackers "moved and dressed like us". The militants moved in tactical military formation and spoke in military parlance. They spoke between themselves in Urdu, as well as a foreign language.

Clothing and equipment: The militants wore combat fatigues, according to officials - and had night vision goggles, carrying rocket propelled grenades [RPGs]. "It takes months of training for ease with the goggles, and years to be expert," one official told me.

Tactics and a plan: One witness said that even though the militants had clear sight of them, "they ignored us... Instead, they just aimed RPGs at the two Orions [planes] parked on the tarmac." They were clearly under instructions to destroy military hardware. They also changed tactics easily and broke away in groups, which clearly had different aims.

Crack shots: "They were excellent shots - as good as any we have," said one security official involved in the operation. They used their night vision goggles to maximum effect, witnesses say - and that was an advantage they had until the SSG-N team arrived at the scene. When the gun battle began, one security official said, it was clear that these men could "hold their own" in a firefight. The fact that they had M16 carbines and sniper rifles also set them apart.

"A small young man with a light beard who later dropped his M16 for two Uzi submachine guns. He was particularly deadly - he killed one soldier with a single shot at over 600 yards."

They appeared to be going for the barracks housing the Chinese engineers. Another firefight broke out until another detachment of naval marines got to the Chinese barracks. The militants, when they realised what was happening, opened fire on the armoured vehicles the Chinese engineers were being taken away in.

Officials dismiss the explanation that the attack was in retaliation for Osama Bin Laden's death. "This took months of planning - the only parallel I can think of is Mumbai (Bombay)," one said.