Instability In Pakistan- Merged Thread

[George Wallace]

Reproduced under the Fair Dealing provisions of the Copyright Act from the Globe and Mail:

LINK

CTV NEWS

Five dead after gunmen attack Karachi's international airport

Adil Jawad, The Associated Press
Published Sunday, June 8, 2014 4:15PM EDT
Last Updated Sunday, June 8, 2014 6:20PM EDT

KARACHI, Pakistan -- Gunmen disguised as police guards stormed an airport terminal used for VIPs and cargo in Pakistan's largest city Sunday night, killing at least nine people as explosions echoed into night, officials said.

Meanwhile, suicide bombers in southwestern Pakistan killed 23 Shiite pilgrims returning from Iran in a separate incident, underscoring how fragile security is Pakistan.

The airport attack still was ongoing early Monday in Karachi, a sprawling port city on the southern coast of Pakistan, although officials said all the passengers had been evacuated. Heavy gunfire and at least two large explosions could be heard coming from the terminal at Jinnah International Airport as authorities scrambled to secure the area.

Dr. Seemi Jamali from Jinnah Hospital in Karachi said nine bodies had been brought so far to the hospital from the fighting. She said seven were from the Airport Security Force personnel, one was an employee of the Civil Aviation Authority and another was from the state-run Pakistan International Airlines.

Gunmen attacked the terminal late Sunday, said Shaukat Jamal, a spokesman for the Airport Security Force. A major fire rose from the airport, with the silhouette of jets seen.

Jamal said the Pakistani military had been called in and that police were fighting the attackers.

The attack happened at a terminal not generally used for commercial flights but for special VIP flights and for cargo.

"I was working at my office when I heard big blasts -- several blasts -- and then there were heavy gunshots," Sarmad Hussain, a PIA employee, told The Associated Press after escaping the building. He said he and a colleague jumped out one of the windows to get away, and his colleague broke his leg.

When Hussain came out of the building, he said he saw smoke billowing from the terminal.

Jamal, the ASF official, said army commandos have confined the attackers to a maintenance area, and that they hadn't been able to get onto the tarmac.

Jamal said the police and army commandos were still fighting with the attackers. He said he was not sure how many attackers there were nor whether any of them had been killed.

An official who spoke to journalists near the airport said at least some of the militants were wearing Airport Security Force uniforms and all were strapped with explosives. He said one of them tried to capture a vehicle used by the Civil Aviation Authority and when a guard shot at him, the explosives strapped to his body went off. The official said another attacker also blew up after being shot at by security forces.

He said he had seen the bodies of three attackers and that an additional three or four attackers were believed to be alive. The official described himself as being with one of the country's intelligence agencies but declined to give his name.

The country's military said in a statement that all the passengers had been evacuated and that three gunmen had been killed.
At least two domestic flights have been diverted and all flight operations had been suspended at the airport. A spokesman for the Civil Aviation Authority said the airport would be closed until at least Monday night.

Karachi is Pakistan's largest city and has been the site of frequent militant attacks in the past. It is the country's economic heart and any militant activity targeting the airport likely would strike a heavy blow at foreign investment in the country.

In May 2011, militants waged an 18-hour siege at a naval base in Karachi, killing 10 people in an assault that deeply embarrassed its armed forces.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility for Sunday night's attack. Pakistan's government has been trying to negotiate a peace deal with local Taliban fighters and other militants mostly based in the northwest who have been waging war against the government. But the talks have had little success, raising fears of a backlash of attacks across the country.

Security officials in Karachi had feared that if the talks broke down, their city would be a likely spot for militant groups to strike back as the Pakistani Taliban and their allies increasingly have gained a foothold in the city in recent years.

In the suicide bombing, four bombers targeted Shiite pilgrims staying at a hotel in the town of Tuftan near the Iranian border, said Baluchistan Home Minister Mir Sarfraz Bugti. One bomber was killed by security officials travelling with the pilgrims, but the other three managed to get inside the hotel where they blew themselves up in an attack that also wounded 10 people, he said.

It wasn't immediately clear whether there was a connection between the airport assault and the Baluchistan attack.

Associated Press writer Abdul Sattar in Quetta, Pakistan, contributed to this report.

 

[jollyjacktar]

The Taliban want to control Pakistan and its nuclear weapons.Pakistan will reap what they have sown.

How true.  They deserve each other.

 

[CougarKing]

More violence at another Pakistani airport:

Reuters

Gunmen fire on plane at Pakistan's Peshawar airport
BY JIBRAN AHMAD
PESHAWAR Pakistan Tue Jun 24, 2014 8:28pm EDT

(...FULL ARTICLE AT LINK ABOVE)

 

[CougarKing]

A change in government or coup under way?

Defense News

Military Secures Sensitive Sites in Pakistan Capital; Political Instability Grows
Aug. 19, 2014 - 06:52PM  |  By USMAN ANSARI

ISLAMABAD — The Army has assumed security responsibility of the sensitive “Red Zone” in Pakistan’s capital as opposition forces camped out in the capital enter it demanding the government’s resignation.

Some 55,000 supporters of populist opposition politician Imran Khan’s Movement for Justice Party (PTI), and cleric Tahir ul Qadri’s of the Pakistan People’s Movement (PAT), have been in the capital since the night of Aug.14. Both demand the resignation of the government on unproven vote-rigging allegations in last year’s election, and claims of widespread corruption and mismanagement.

As reports of isolated clashes with the police emerge, and the fear of bloodshed increases, analysts are concerned the military could stage a coup to restore security.

(...EDITED)

 

[CougarKing]

While the world's eyes are focused mainly on Iraq, Syria and Ukraine in the past few weeks, the political crisis in Pakistan continues...

Reuters video: "The Battle for control in Pakistan"

The battle for control in Pakistan
1:04pm EDT - 01:30

Pakistan's prime minister, weakened by weeks of opposition protests calling for him to resign, distances himself from an army move to intervene in the crisis. Deborah Lutterbeck reports.

 

[CougarKing]

A waterborne terror attack? Reminds me of the attack on the USS Cole in 2000.

Defense News

Pakistan Navy Foils Terrorist Attack on Naval Base
Sep. 9, 2014 - 05:40PM  |  By USMAN ANSARI

ISLAMABAD — The Pakistan Navy last night revealed it had foiled a waterborne terrorist attack on a naval facility in Karachi on Sept. 6, killing two of the attackers and apprehending four more. However, a Navy petty officer was killed in the attack, and an officer and six sailors lightly wounded.

The attack on the Pakistan Navy Dockyard is the first time that a naval facility in Pakistan has been attacked by terrorists from the sea.

Though armed with grenades and assault rifles, they could have done considerable damage to any naval assets with the rocket-propelled grenades they were carrying if they had had the opportunity.

According to a Navy spokesman, the interrogation of the apprehended terrorists resulted in the apprehension of a number of accomplices elsewhere, which may explain the delay in reporting the attack.

(...EDITED)

 

[jollyjacktar]

Here's hoping their interrogation was conducted with the utmost vigor and gusto. 

 

[CougarKing]

For those wondering about Pakistani Army's COIN campaign against the Taliban in Waziristan:

Defense News

Pakistani Official: Waziristan Operations Close to Finished
Sep. 9, 2014 - 03:45AM  |  By AARON MEHTA

WASHINGTON — Pakistan’s ambassador to the United States told an audience Tuesday that his country is about a month away from finishing its operations in North Waziristan.

“I am pleased to share that the operations against extremists and terrorists in North Waziristan have been a huge success,” Ambassador Jalil Abbas Jilani said. “We are absolutely confident that in the next four to five weeks we will be able to clear the entire area of all these elements, and this is something that enjoys the overwhelming support of the people of Pakistan.”

Jilani’s comments came during a celebration of Pakistan’s annual Armed Forces Day, held at that nation’s embassy in Washington, DC.

In June, Pakistan began a major military operation, dubbed Operation Zarb-e-Azb, in the North Waziristan region of its country. Located on the border with Afghanistan, North Waziristan has been a haven for insurgent activities.

(...EDITED)

 

[CougarKing]

It seems that these Al Qaeda terrorists who made the attack described 2 posts above actually intended to storm what they thought was a US aircraft carrier, only to find a Pakistani warship in the same anchorage.  :facepalm:

Huffington Post

The first ever attack by the newly-announced Indian Subcontinent branch of Al Qaeda went really, really poorly. The attack launched last Saturday In Pakistan seems to have targeted the wrong ship.

Fighters of the Islamic terror group branch that was unveiled two weeks ago had planned to storm an American aircraft carrier at a Karachi port, but found a Pakistani Navy ship in its place, The Telegraph reports. The attackers suffered heavy casualties as the Pakistani Navy easily overpowered their attempt. Three of the Al Qaeda fighters were killed and seven were arrested according to Pakistani officials. Two Pakistani Naval guards were wounded.

(...SNIPPED)

 

[CougarKing]

Al-Qaeda sympathizers within the Pakistani Navy helped militants in the attack described above:

Reuters

In al Qaeda attack, lines between Pakistan military, militants blur

By Syed Raza Hassan and Katharine Houreld

KARACHI Pakistan/ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Months after Owais Jakhrani was sacked from the Pakistan navy for radical Islamist views, he led an audacious mission to take over a warship and turn its guns on a U.S. naval vessel in the open seas.

The early September dawn raid at a naval base in the southern city of Karachi was thwarted, but not before Jakhrani, two officers and an unidentified fourth assailant snuck past a patrol boat in a dinghy and engaged in an intense firefight on or around the ship.

Four people were killed in the attempt to hijack the warship Zulfiqar, including Jakhrani and two accomplices, who were serving sub-lieutenants, according to police reports seen by Reuters.

Officials are divided about how much support the young man in his mid-20s had from inside the navy. They also stress that Jakhrani and his accomplices were a long way from achieving their aim when they were killed.

But the attack, claimed by al Qaeda's newly created South Asian wing, has highlighted the threat of militant infiltration into Pakistan's nuclear-armed military.

The issue is a sensitive one for Pakistan's armed forces, which have received billions of dollars of U.S. aid since 2001 when they joined Washington's global campaign against al Qaeda.

(...SNIPPED)

 

[CougarKing]

A horrifying attack...

CNN

At least 126, mostly children, slaughtered as Taliban storm Pakistan school
By Sophia Saifi and Greg Botelho, CNN
December 16, 2014 -- Updated 1251 GMT (2051 HKT)

Islamabad, Pakistan (CNN) -- The Taliban stormed a military-run school in northwest Pakistan on Tuesday, gunning down at least 126 people -- most of them children -- in one of the volatile Asian nation's deadliest attacks.

Hours after the attack, Pakistani troops were still exchanging gunfire with the militants inside the Army Public School and Degree College in the violence-plagued city of Peshawar, about 120 kilometers (75 miles) from the country's capital, Islamabad.

Two explosions were also heard.

By around 4 p.m. (6 a.m. ET), the Pakistani military had pushed the attackers back to four blocks of the school, military spokesman Gen. Asim BajwaI tweeted. BajwaI over an hour later said that six assailants had been killed.

It was unclear, by then, how many of the hundreds of students at the co-ed school -- which is for children of army personnel and has a capacity of 1,000 -- were still inside, not to mention how many more were dead or alive. More than 100 people were injured, ministers in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province said.

(...SNIPPED)

The military offensive in the region has spurred deadly retaliations.

Mohammed Khurrassani, a TTP spokesman, told CNN that the latest attack was revenge for the killing of hundreds of innocent tribesmen during repeated army operations in provinces including South Waziristan, North Waziristan and the Khyber Agency.

 

[Colin Parkinson]

The sole purpose of this attack is to kill children and they want to rule a country....

 

[Rifleman62]

ColinP:

The sole purpose of this attack is to kill children and they want to rule a country the World....

 

[Retired AF Guy]

May be the stick that finally breaks the camels back. The Taliban may rue the day they ever carried out this attack.

 

[Edward Campbell]

May be the stick that finally breaks the camels back. The Taliban may rue the day they ever carried out this attack.

Maybe, even hopefully, but, in my opinion, unlikely ... there are too many people in that region, stretching from Morocco on the Atlantic coast of Africa all the way to Indonesia, who will actually approve of steps aimed at returning the world to the 7th century and too many more who, from fear or indifference, will not object. Those "too, too manys" are not a majority, I'm reasonably comfortable with the notion that most Muslims oppose the Taliban and IS** and so on, but they, the "too manys" are enough provide a firm base of support for the Wahhabis and their spawn.

I am 100% certain that I do not understand Africa, the Middle East, and South West Asia ... I doubt there are more than a few hundred Westerners who actually do, and few of them are ever given a voice in Washington or London, Ottawa or Canberra ... not even him:

Bernard Lewis ... University of London,* Royal Armoured Corps,** Princeton, Cornell, etc

_____
*  PhD
** Cpl

 

[The Bread Guy]

Interesting response from the Afghan Taliban franchise (statement attached) ....

An attack has occurred on a school in the city of Peshawar in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province of Pakistan this morning at around 10:00 am local time. Information from the area suggests that so far some 200 people have been killed and wounded in the incident most of whom are said to be children.

The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan expresses its condolences over the incident and mourns with the families of killed children.

The intentional killing of innocent people, women and children goes against the principles of Islam and every Islamic government and movement must adhere to this fundamental essence.

The Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan has always condemned the killing of children and innocent people at every juncture. Messages of condolences were also released a while back regarding the blasts at a playground in Yahya Khel district of Paktika province and a mosque in Nangarhar province and those acts were considered against the principles of Islam.

 

[jollyjacktar]

That's rich,  coming from the likes of those turd tampers.  How many untold innocent people have they butchered?

 

[George Wallace]

Let's see.  In a Region where feuds, "Honour Killings", and retaliation in the name of revenge is common; do you really think it is a good idea to kill family members of members of the nations military?  How big a hornets nest do you want to stir with your stick?

 

[a_majoor]

Coming to grips with groups like the Taliban will be difficult in Pakistan (despite the horror and desire for revenge that such actions like killing schoolchildren evokes) because at the heart, Pakistan is internally divided and a large faction of Pakistan's power brokers actually created and to a certain extent condone and control what the terrorists do:

http://theweek.com/article/index/273946/why-pakistan-wont-hunt-down-the-terrorists-within-its-borders

Why Pakistan won't hunt down the terrorists within its borders Pakistan's civilian leaders are terrified of the country's real power brokers
By Shikha Dalmia | December 19, 2014


If there is anything approaching a silver lining in the horrific slaughter of 132 school children in Peshawar, it is the united outrage in Pakistan against Tehreek-e-Taliban (or the Pakistan Taliban) that perpetrated this gruesome attack. Virtually every newspaper in the country — left, right, and center — demanded that the Pakistani establishment declare a "zero tolerance" policy toward all Islamist terrorists, no ifs, ands, or buts.

Pakistan's largest English-language newspaper, The News, asked Pakistanis to think about what support for Islamist extremists has done to them. "Nothing matters more than ending the militancy and brutality it has brought to our society." Dawn, Pakistan's oldest newspaper, editorialized that military and counterterrorism operations will amount to "little more than firefighting unless there's an attempt to attack the ideological roots of militancy and societal reach of militants." The liberal Daily Times demanded a "chapter-turning decision" that brings a "final end to this terror."

But the most scathing was The Nation, which excoriated Pakistani leaders by name, reserving special scorn for Gen. Raheel Sharif, a bold move given that the terrorists had deliberately targeted an army-run school, and that many of the kids killed at point-blank range came from army families, as did the school principal, who was torched alive. "The country is reaping what it [the army] has sown over decades," the newspaper deplored.

This is absolutely correct. But the problem is that the mindset that sowed this poisonous fruit will make it difficult to root it out. Hence, these newspapers' noble calls are unlikely to be heeded.

Regimes change course only when the cost of maintaining the status quo exceeds the cost of enacting change. This is not to minimize the cost of scores of innocent young lives. But to Pakistan's political leaders, the price of these children's lives is still lower than the toll of a veritable civil war with an intelligence service that has long played footsie with extremist groups it finds geopolitically useful.

Ever since its inception over six decades ago, Pakistan has been obsessed with countering its neighbor, India. Some fear is obviously warranted given that nuclear-armed India is six times bigger in both size and population, and its predominantly Hindu population has no love lost for Pakistan. But Pakistan's fears have taken almost pathological proportions. And India's secular democracy has done a relatively decent job of keeping its own belligerence in check (even when the Hindu nationalist Bharatiya Janata Party has been in power, although the jury is out on the party's current prime minister, Narendra Modi, who has a track record of tolerating anti-Muslim violence).

Thanks partly to exaggerated fears about India, Pakistan has built its army and its intelligence arm, the Inter-Intelligence Service (ISI), into all-powerful entities that are scarcely answerable to civilian rulers. Indeed, no Pakistani government can survive without their support. The army and ISI know it, and demand free rein over the nation's foreign and defense priorities.

They threw in Pakistan's lot with America during the Cold War not because they appreciated American democracy and freedom, but simply as a counterweight to India's alliance with the Soviet Union. But after the U.S.-backed Afghani guerrillas defeated Russian forces in the 1980s, Pakistan helped the Taliban defeat its rivals and take control rather than allowing Kabul to return to secular monarchical rule, lest it ally with India. Furthermore, although Pakistan denies it, ISI has colluded with the Taliban to train and arm Islamist terrorist groups to conduct a proxy war in Kashmir, the Muslim-dominated border state that Pakistan wants to wrest out of India's control.

This is also why it was vital for ISI to reinstate the Taliban in Afghanistan after NATO forces toppled the group in the wake of 9/11. Even though the Taliban had become a pariah in the world thanks to its retrograde ideology and harboring of al Qaeda, ISI offered it sanctuary, training, camps, expertise, and fundraising advise. "ISI support was critical to the survival and revival of the Taliban after 9/11," notes the Brooking Institute's Bruce Riedel, "just as it was critical to its conquest of Afghanistan in the 1990s."

ISI even allowed a rump group of Pashtun Taliban fighters driven out of Afghanistan by American forces to settle in North Waziristan and open a Pakistani chapter. Since then, however, this group has chafed at the ignominy of having to live under Pakistani rule and wants to impose sharia on the whole province — if not all of Pakistan.

Following multiple terrorist attacks, including two particularly deadly assaults against the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad and Pearl Continental in Peshawar — not to mention the shooting of Malala Yousafazi — the Pakistani army finally launched Operation Zarb-e-Azb, or Operation Sword, in June to bring this noxious outfit under control. The Peshawar school attack was its answer to that initiative.

Pakistan's instinct will be to mount more such initiatives to avenge the carnage. But this won't buy the country enduring relief so long as extremists continue to receive aid and comfort from their Afghani overlords, who themselves are under ISI's protection. For example, Mullah Omar, the Taliban ringleader to whom all Taliban chapters swear fealty and on whose head America has a multimillion-dollar bounty, is widely believed to be holed up in Quetta or Karachi with ISI's blessing. ISI is also in bed with the Afghanistan Taliban's right-arm, the Haqqani network, which allegedly runs its jihadi operations in Kashmir.

Pakistan can't rid itself of Islamist terrorists without going after their ISI protectors. However, it is hard to see how the country's civilian rulers — who serve at the pleasure of the army and ISI — can undertake such a task and still survive to tell the tale.

The first thing they would have to do is dial down the India threat and turn their back on the jihadi outfits that have terrorized their neighbor, even if that means defying ISI. That they are far from ready to do so became abundantly clear on Thursday morning, when a Pakistani court handed bail to the mastermind of the 2008 Mumbai attack.

Enduring periodic mass casualties, even of young children, ultimately might be less politically painful to Pakistani rulers than taking on powerful defense and intelligence interests that thrive on playing "good terrorist" and "bad terrorist." Sadly, Peshawar probably isn't the last tragedy of this scale on Pakistani soil.

 

[CougarKing]

Seems Pakistan's power infrastructure is more vulnerable than previously thought...

Sky News

Attack Leaves 80% Of Pakistan Without Power

Millions of homes have been plunged into darkness following one of the worst blackouts in Pakistan's history.

More than 140 million people - up to 80% of the population - lost electricity after militants attacked a transmission tower and caused a massive power surge.

Earlier today, disruption had been reported at Lahore's international airport, and two nuclear power plants remain offline.

Pakistan's Energy Minister tweeted: "On the Prime Minister's directive, we are not to sleep until this problem is resolved."

(...SNIPPED)