September 11

May we remember this day, and understand who was truly responsible for it.

Zardari takes Pakistan presidency

Asif Ali Zardari, co-chairman of the Pakistan People's Party (PPP) and widower of Benazir Bhutto, a former prime minister assassinated last year, has become the president of Pakistan.

Zardari took 481 votes out of 702, needing only 352 votes to guaranteed him victory, according to provisional election results.

The PPP said Zardari's win was "a victory for democracy".

Sherry Rehman, the country's information minister, said: "It is an historic win. This man suffered jail for more than 11 years for the sake of democracy and today he is elected as the president of the country.

"It is a sign of the strengthening of democracy."


Votes from the four provincial assemblies are yet to be fully counted.

Zardari will succeed Pervez Musharraf, who resigned on August 18 under threat of impeachment.

[More]


Comment:

Insofar as this blog is concerned, this is probably good news, as it means that operations against the Taliban will most likely continue. However, it remains to be seen what sort of a leader Zardari will be, as there are substantial allegations that he is corrupt and mentally ill.

Ground assault by US-led forces: Women, children among 20 killed in Waziristan

WANA, Sept 3: At least 20 people, most of them women and children, were killed in an assault by US-led coalition forces on a village near the Afghan border on Wednesday.

According to people in Musa Neka Ziarat, three US helicopters landed in the plains at around 4am, troops disembarked from them and attacked a house, killing 10 people.

They said that two children, three women and five men were killed in the attack on the house of one Payo Jan Torjikhel. A woman survived the indiscriminate shooting, they said.

The troops then opened fire on villagers who had come out of their homes, killing another 10 people. The victims, including three children and two women, belonged to the families of Faiz Mohammad and Nazar Jan.

Payo Jan and Nazar Jan were also killed.

Local people said Payo Jan and the two other families had no association with militants.

“The Americans came in helicopters, landed, walked up to the houses, started shooting and then flew back towards Afghanistan,” a villager told Dawn.

“It is an outrage,” NWFP Governor Owais Ahmad Ghani said in a statement. “This is a direct assault on the sovereignty of Pakistan and the people expect that the armed forces of Pakistan will rise to defend the sovereignty of the country and give a befitting reply.”

The attack comes amid an increase in the number of missile and predator attacks on suspected Al Qaeda hideouts in Waziristan in recent days.

It was the first known ground assault of its kind.

A security official said the Americans no longer shared information with Pakistan before launching missile or predator attacks in the tribal region. “They are not sharing any information with us. These are all totally unilateral actions.”

Our Reporter in Islamabad adds: Inter-Services Public Relations chief Maj-Gen Athar Abbas said, “In the wee hours of the morning on Sept 3, Isaf (International Security Assistance Force) troops in two helicopters landed at a village near Angoor Adda, South Waziristan Agency, and as per reports received so far, killed seven innocent civilians.”The army spokesman condemned the “completely unprovoked act of killing” and regretted the loss of precious lives.

He blamed the coalition forces for the violent act and said that such acts of aggression would not serve the common cause of fighting terrorism and militancy in the area.

He said the Pakistan Army had lodged a strong protest with the Office of the Defence Representative in Pakistan and said that “we reserve the right of self-defence and retaliation to protect our citizens and soldiers against aggression”.

There were unconfirmed reports that the Isaf troops had also captured some people and taken them to Afghanistan.

Via Dawn.


Comment:

Hmm. I smell something here. According to Al Jazeera, "Both the US-led forces operating in Afghanistan and the separate Nato-led International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) have said they have no knowledge of the incident."¹ Ordinarily I wouldn't attach too much importance to this, but the only sources for this raid are South Waziri locals, who are not exactly impartial, and the account of the raid simply doesn't make sense. Why on earth would they have gotten out of their helicopters? Why would they have even left the country? We have Predators for that sort of thing. South Waziristan is an extremely dangerous place, and I can't imagine us needlessly risking our troops lives like that.

Taliban claims Pakistan attack

The Pakistani Taliban has claimed responsibilty for an assasination attempt on Yousuf Gilani, Pakistan's prime minister.

Shots were fired at the pime minister's motorcade on Wednesday near Islamabad's international airport, but officials and police said Gilani was not in the car at the time.

The Taliban said it was behyind the attack and said it was targeting Gilani because he was responsible for offensives against their fighters in the country's northwest.

"We will continue such attacks on government officials and installations," Muslim Khan, a spokesman for the group, said.

The prime minister's office said multiple sniper shots had been fired at the prime minister's car and television pictures showed two bullet marks a couple of inches apart on the cracked bullet-proof window.

Some reports suggested Gilani's son, Moosa, and Qamar Zaman Kaira, the federal minister for Kashmir and Northern affairs, were in the motorcade at the time, travelling to the airport to pick up the prime minister.

Officials said a formal investigation into the incident had been launched.

In the past, suspected al-Qaeda fighters have launched attacks on Pervez Musharraf - who stepped down as Pakistan's president last month - attacks the former president only narrowly survived.

Via Al Jazeera.

Comment:

It looks like the Taliban has opted for the John McCain approach of victory through force and force alone rather than the Barack Obama approach of victory pursued on all fronts. Had the Taliban just sat back and let Pakistani politics do its thing it would be in pretty good shape, as Khalid Aziz notes:

when the government is near success the old game of using parliament as a prop to defeat the will of the state is brought into play. Any revision of policy at this stage will be a great blow to the government. At the same time Pakistan is in the midst of a severe political crisis. This has occurred due to a breakdown of the coalition at the time of a Presidential election. The tribal areas have 20 electoral votes in this contest. The tribal MNAs and Senators have said that they would like the military activity stopped in Bajaur as a precondition for casting their votes for the PPP candidate. In short the Presidential contest has become a negotiable item in the path of security operations. The JUI (F) which has more than 30 Electoral College votes has categorically asked for a halt to all military operations.

This foolish strike on the Prime Minister's convoy will have the dual effect of hardening him against any compromise and of shoring up public sympathy for him and his party.

Pakistan army 'just miss' Zawahiri

Pakistan's security forces have missed the opportunity to capture al-Qaeda's second-in-command, Ayman al-Zawahiri, a senior government official has said.

Rehman Malik, the adviser to Pakistan's prime minister on security affairs, said on Monday they also received a report al-Zawahiri's wife had been in the tribal region of Mohmand.

Pakistani forces stormed the location but did not find the couple, he said, without indicating when the raid took place.

He said al-Zawahri moved between Mohmand and the Afghan provinces of Kunar and Paktika.

"We certainly had traced him at one place, but we missed the chance. So he's moving in Mohmand and, of course, sometimes in Kunar, mostly in Kunar and Paktia."

Al-Zawahiri and Osama bin Laden, Al-Qaeda's leader, have been in hiding since the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States.

They are both believed to be in tribal region that straddles northwest Pakistan and eastern Afghanistan.

According to Malik, three weeks of fighting in the Pakistani-Afghan border district of Bajur had killed a number of civilians and badly damaged several villages.

Al Jazeera's correspondent in Islamabad quoted a tribal and security sources as saying 15 Pakistani civilians were killed in tribal area of Bajaur when two shells fell on their two homes.

Of about 500,000 people who fled, many of them to government relief camps, about 30,000 had returned by Monday.

Hand in glove

Malik said the Pakistani Taliban were working directly with Al-Qaeda, providing them with shelter and acting as their mouthpiece.

"They have not only connections, I would say Tehrik-e-Taliban is an extension of Al-Qaeda," he said, referring to a Pakistani Taliban umbrella group which authorities blame for a string of bomb attacks over the past year that have killed hundreds of people.

Pakistan last month banned the Taliban group, which was also accused of the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, the former prime minister, in December.

The US says Al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters are based in sanctuaries in Pakistan's tribal areas where they orchestrate attacks in Afghanistan and Pakistan and plot
violent attacks in the West.

The resignation of Pervez Musharraf, the former president and staunch US ally, last month raised questions about the government's commitment to the unpopular US-led "war on terror" campaign.

But US Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the US armed forces, said last week he was encouraged by recent Pakistani action against fighters, while adding both Pakistan
and the United States needed to do more to shore up security.

Via Al Jazeera.


Comment:

The article confuses the similarly named Paktia and Paktika provinces. Paktia is probably the one that is meant, because of its proximity to the other two and the Taliban's strong presence there.

While I can easily understand Zawahiri moving between Mohmand and Kunar (which are right next to each other), I'm not sure what he's doing in Paktia. There is a relatively safe corridor connecting it to Mohmand via the Khyber and Kurram Agencies, but it is still a little out of the way.

If the article did mean Paktika, it would be extremely interesting, because Paktika borders the Islamic Emirate of Waziristan. I can definitely imagine Zawahiri and bin Laden being hidden in the Apostasy's two principal strongholds in Pakistan, and meeting with each other in Paktika.

Pakistani tribesmen organize private armies to fight Taliban

Pakistan's Taliban might be getting stronger, wreaking havoc along the country's border with Afghanistan, but they are also growing wildly unpopular, inciting their own tribesmen to turn against them.

In the latest of a series of incidents, a lashkar, or private army comprised of Pakistani tribesmen, torched the houses of Taliban commanders in Bajaur, near the Afghan border, vowing to fight them until they are expelled, the Daily Times, a Pakistani newspaper, reports.

Tribesmen in Bajaur Agency's Salarzai tehsil on Sunday formed a private army (lashkar) of around 30,000 people against the local Taliban. A local jirga decided to form the lashkar in the wake of the increasing presence of the local Taliban in the area. The lashkar torched 14 houses, including the house of a local Taliban commander. Tribal elder Malik Munsib Khan, who heads the lashkar, said tribesmen would continue their struggle until the Taliban were expelled from the area, adding that anyone found sheltering Taliban militants would be fined one million [rupees] and his house would be torched. The tribesmen also torched two important centres of the Taliban in the area and gained control of most of the tehsil.

Dawn, another English-language daily in Pakistan, cited the lashkar at a much lower number.

The tribe has raised a lashkar of more than 4,000 volunteers. Malik Munasib Khan, who is leading uprising against the militants, said that the houses destroyed by the volunteers included one of militant leader Naimatullah, who had occupied several government schools and converted them into seminaries.

The development comes in the midst of the Pakistan Army's bombardment campaign, which has been unfolding for weeks in the tribal agency of Bajaur, a militant stronghold where some top commanders of the Taliban and Al Qaeda, including Osama bin Laden, are believed to be hiding. The bombardment, which has left some 400 militants dead according to The New York Times, highlights the rising power of the Taliban some seven years after they were first ousted from power in Afghanistan. But it also showcases why the Taliban are highly unpopular: Some 200,000 people have been displaced because of fighting, while dozens of citizens have been killed in clashes between the militants and military.

The Bajaur lashkar might be the largest of its kind, but it is not the only such force to have turned against the Taliban, according to recent reports. The News, a leading Pakistani daily, reported two weeks ago that several such lashkars have arisen throughout the North West Frontier Province, where the Taliban are increasing their hold.

[More]

Comment:

Khalid Aziz, in a blog post linked to from the main article, strongly suspects that political considerations will force the government to end the current campaign, which

will not only letdown the military but all those who have accepted the challenge to fight the militants at the community level. We have seen that while the government adheres to cease fires the militants do not. Under the excuse of cease fire the militants retaliate against those who risked attacking the militants. The government’s ascendancy that now prevails would be lost.

However, this would violate the number one rule of tribal politics: Never kill the elders. Slaughter babies, rape and pillage, but do not harm the elders. Once you do that, you're in deep trouble. Killing elders is what started the Anbar Awakening, and what prompted the elimination of a very large number of Uzbek militants back when this blog was just beginning. When you target tribal elders, you target the tribe, and when you target the tribe, you target a fundamental component of society, a component that, in this part of the world, is very heavily armed.

I do not know how this will play out. The tribes may be instrumental in the Taliban's defeat; they may play no role at all. However, that defeat will never come unless the tribes allow it.

Afghan family killed in house raid

A family of four, including two children, have been killed in an overnight raid by international troops, a police official and witnesses said.

Residents in Hud Kheil in the east of the capital said one of the two children was eight months old and grenades killed the family members during a joint Afghan-US special forces operation.

US special forces said they were not involved. Nato's International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) said they were investigating media reports.

The deaths are likely to further strain relations between Afghanistan and the US and other foreign forces in the country, who have been accused of using excessive force in civilian areas.

Hundreds of people blocked a road in Kabul, protesting against the raid.

"It was past one o'clock when the troops came and surrounded our houses," said Sulaiman, one resident.

"They threw hand grenades in one house and killed three family members," he said.

Some locals told Al Jazeera there was an exchange of fire, and that the family may have been caught in the crossfire.

Damaged building

"Are these two children Al Qaeda?" an angry resident asked, as the bodies were taken for burial.

"We don't expect anything from the government because we don't have a government," Sulaiman said.

Several US and Nato military bases are located in the area. Three people were taken away by the troops, residents said.

The operation came a day after Nato said it received information from a "reliable source" that pro-Taliban fighters may be planning to falsely claim that international forces killed up to 70 civilians in southern Afghanistan.

The operation also comes Hamid Karzai, Afghanistan's president, sacked an Afghan army general and a major after more than 100 civilians were reported to have been killed in an attack by US-led coalition forces.

Eyewitnesses and local people said more than 100 civilians, many of them women and children, were killed in the attack.

US officials, who said only three civilians were killed along with 25 Taliban fighters, have agreed to take part in a joint investigation with Afghanistan into the attacks.

Ground and air

Afghanistan's cabinet demanded last week a change in the rules governing international troops in the country, after the claims that more than 100 Afghans died in air attacks.

Despite Monday's deaths being caused by a ground operation, Daoud Sultanzoy, an Afghan MP, told Al Jazeera last week that it was air raids by Nato and US-led troops in villages and civilian areas that were causing the most damage.

The cabinet said that a review should focus on the "authorities and responsibilities" of troops and demand an end to air attacks in civilian areas, illegal detentions and unilateral houe searches.

"The authorities and responsibilities of the international forces in Afghanistan must be regulated through a "status of force agreement" consistent with both international and Afghan laws.

"Air strikes on civilian targets, unco-ordinated house searches and illegal detention of Afghan civilians must be stopped," a government statement said.

"With either good or bad intelligence, the most important lesson to learn from this is that we need to rely more on ground troops.

"Since Nato and the coalition don't have these troops, the reliance on air support is greater.

"If [Nato and the US] can increase their ground operations it would probably alleviate some of these problems."

The United Nations says that 255 of the almost 700 civilian deaths in fighting in Afghanistan this year have been caused by Afghan and international troops.

Via Al Jazeera.


Comment:

Fun fact: As of July, there were 162,000 US troops in Iraq.¹