Instability In Pakistan- Merged Thread

[CougarKing]

Yet another reminder of this threat to the security of Pakistan's nukes:

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091023/ap_on_re_as/as_pakistan

ISLAMABAD – A suicide bomber struck a checkpoint near a military complex reportedly linked to Pakistan's nuclear weapons program Friday, killing seven people as the army pressed ahead with a major anti-Taliban offensive in the northwest.

The attack took place near the sprawling aeronautical complex in Kamra, around 30 miles (50 km) from the capital, Islamabad, and is sure to raise renewed concerns about the safety of Pakistan's nuclear program.

The Kamra site is often mentioned by foreign military experts and researchers as a likely place to keep planes that can carry nuclear warheads. The army, which does not reveal where its nuclear weapons are stored, has denied that the facility is tied to the program.

The attacker was apparently riding a bicycle and detonated his explosives at a checkpoint on a road leading to the complex, police officer Akbar Abbas said, blaming the Taliban. The seven dead included two security troops, while 13 people were wounded.
"The attacker wanted to go inside. He exploded himself when officials wanted to search his body," Attock police chief Fakhar Sultan Raja told The Associated Press.

The attack is the latest in a wave of violence sweeping Pakistan as its army pushes forth with its offensive against Islamist militants in the northwestern tribal region of South Waziristan. More than 170 people have died in bombings and raids on Western and security-related targets in the past three weeks.

One of the attacks included a 22-hour standoff at the army's headquarters, an embarrassing breach of security that also raised worries about its ability to protect the country's nuclear weapons.

The complex at Kamra or its workers have been targeted at least once before. In December 2007, a suicide car bomber struck near a bus carrying children of Pakistan Air Force employees, wounding five of them.

Pakistan has long insisted its nuclear program is safe and secure, and has sought to protect it from from attack by militants by storing the warheads, detonators and missiles separately in facilities patrolled by elite troops.

U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton recently expressed confidence in Pakistan's nuclear safeguards, but analysts are divided on how secure the weapons are. Some say the weapons are less secure than they were five years ago.

Security plans aside, much could depend on the Pakistani army and how vulnerable it is to infiltration by extremists, according to some observers. One possible scenario that could endanger the program would involve militant sympathizers getting work as scientists at the facilities and passing information to extremists.

Pakistan is estimated to have between 70 and 90 warheads, according to Hans Kristensen, director of the Nuclear Information Project of the Federation of American Scientists.

Shaun Gregory, an expert on Pakistani security at the University of Bradford in Britain, said in a recent interview that militants have struck near an air base in Sargodha, where nuclear missiles are believed to be stored, and the Wah cantonment, where missiles that could carry nuclear weapons are believed to be assembled.

He added that the attacks did not appear to have targeted nuclear weapons, but said there is evidence of threats to the program.

Pakistan hopes that its week-old army offensive in South Waziristan will go a long way toward eliminating the militant menace on its soil, but residents fleeing the region reported this week that the insurgents are digging in for a fight.

Tired and dusty refugees arriving Thursday in the northwestern town of Dera Ismail Khan from different parts of South Waziristan reported intense army bombing by jets and helicopters but said they had seen no ground troops.

(...)

 

 

[CougarKing]

Good. The Pakistani Army just captured Taliban leader Hakimullah Mehsud's hometown.

http://www.military.com/news/article/paktaliban-leaders-hometown-captured.html

Pak-Taliban Leader's Hometown Captured
October 24, 2009
Associated Press

ISLAMABAD - Officials say Pakistan's army has captured the hometown of the country's Taliban chief in a major offensive.

Elsewhere in the northwest, officials said a suspected U.S. missile strike has killed at least 14 people.

Two army and one intelligence official said Saturday that the military has taken the town of Kotkai in South Waziristan after days of fighting.

They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to media.

Kotkai is strategically important because it lies on the way to the major militant base of Sararogha. It's also the hometown of Pakistani Taliban chief Hakimullah Mehsud.
Government official Mohammad Jamil said the missile strike hit the Bajur, a tribal region farther north.

THIS IS A BREAKING NEWS UPDATE. Check back soon for further information. AP's earlier story is below.

ISLAMABAD (AP) - Pakistani leaders say the military offensive in a Taliban stronghold along the Afghan border is succeeding and have resolved to press ahead despite a ferocious wave of retaliatory attacks that have killed some 200 people this month.

The government statement came as a spate of bombings in northwest Pakistan on Friday killed 24 people, including 17 headed to a wedding. The onslaught appears aimed at sapping public support for the army's offensive in South Waziristan, a lawless tribal region under the sway of the Taliban and al-Qaida.

Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani declared that "failure is not an option despite the ferocity of these attacks," according to the statement released late Friday after a meeting of top government and military officials.

The army chief, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, told participants that the offensive is moving ahead successfully and is trying to keep civilian casualties to a minimum, according to the statement. Some 155,000 civilians have fled the region, the United Nations says.

Pakistan's civilian government and powerful military are under intense international pressure to root out Islamist militants who are also blamed for rising attacks on U.S. and NATO troops across the frontier in Afghanistan.

The militants have promised to carry out strikes across the country if the offensive in South Waziristan doesn't stop, and the attacks have put many Pakistanis on edge.

In a sign it is sensitive to popular support, the government statement appealed to the media "not to glorify the terrorists and acts of terrorism in any form and to avoid live coverage of such incidents as it created panic and despondency in the public."

In one of Friday's attacks, a suicide bomber struck a checkpoint on a road leading to the Pakistan Aeronautical Complex at Kamra, about 30 miles (50 kilometers) from the capital, Islamabad. The complex is the country's major air force maintenance and research hub, servicing and building jet fighters and radar systems.

The blast killed two security officers and five civilians who were on their way to work at the base, said police officer Akbar Abbas. Some 13 people were hurt.

Hours later, an explosion struck a bus traveling in the Mohmand tribal region, north of South Waziristan.

Four women and three children were among the 17 killed, said Zabit Khan, a local government official. He said it was unclear whether the bus struck a buried bomb or the explosive device was detonated by remote control.

Also Friday, a car bomb exploded in the parking lot of a recreational facility housing a restaurant and a marriage hall in Peshawar, the main city in the northwest. Fifteen people were wounded.

Pakistan reported fighting in several parts of South Waziristan on Friday and said its soldiers had seized some high ground from militant control. A statement reported two soldiers were killed, bringing the army's death toll to 20, and that 13 militants were killed - six of them Uzbeks - bringing their death toll to 142.

Reporters are blocked from entering the region, meaning independently verifying the information is all but impossible.

Around 100,000 more civilians are expected to join the 155,000 who have already fled the region, according to a U.N. statement Friday. Security concerns complicate delivering humanitarian aid to nearby regions, but the U.N. says it is managing the work through local partners.

 

[CougarKing]

The advance continues. Good.

http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/reuters/091025/world/international_us_pakistan_violence

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (Reuters) - Pakistani aircraft attacked Taliban in the South Waziristan region on Sunday a day after the army said it had captured a strategic town on an approach to main militant base area.

Separately, gunmen on a motorcycle shot dead the minister of education in the provincial government in Baluchistan, a gas-rich southwestern province where separatist rebels have been waging a low-level insurgency for decades.


The army assault in the ethnic Pashtun tribal region of South Waziristan on the Afghan border is seen as a test of the government's determination to tackle Islamists responsible for a string of attacks against government and other targets.


The United States and other powers embroiled in neighboring Afghanistan's growing conflict want Pakistan to eliminate militant sanctuaries in its lawless northwest.


The latest bombardment in the week-old offensive was against militant bases in the three villages of Sam, Badr and Ladha, government and security officials said.


"It was intense bombing and later helicopter gunships attacked," said an intelligence agency official who declined to be identified.


Several militant hideouts had been destroyed in the bombing, said a government official, adding he had no information about casualties. Military spokesman were not available for comment.


South Waziristan, a rugged land of rocky mountains and patchy forest, is a global hub of Islamist militancy. Foreign fighters including Uzbeks and Arab al Qaeda supporters are fighting alongside the Taliban.


Soldiers are advancing on the militants' main stronghold area from three directions.


HEAVY CLASH


Forces moving in from the southeast had taken control of Kotkai town, the birthplace of Pakistani Taliban chief Hakimullah Mehsud and the home town of Qari Hussain Mehsud, a senior commander known as "the mentor of suicide bombers," the army said on Saturday.


The small town is a gateway to important militant strongholds and intelligence officials in the region said government forces killed at least 15 militants in a heavy clash as they pushed beyond Kotkai.


Reporters do not have access to the area.


About 150,000 people have fled their homes in South Waziristan but aid officials do not expect the exodus to become a humanitarian crisis, as did a similar offensive in the Swat valley this year.


In Baluchistan, there was no claim of responsibility for the killing of provincial education minister Shafiq Ahmed Khan, who was shot near his home in the provincial capital, Quetta.

(...)

 

 

[CougarKing]

Reporting from Kanju, Pakistan - Members of the 40-day-old tribal militia in this Swat Valley village come in all shapes, from all walks of life.

Some struggle to fasten bandoleers around pot bellies; some haven't finished high school. They are doctors and teachers, wealthy landowners and dirt-poor wheat farmers.

Some make their way with Kalashnikov rifles slung over their shoulders, others with only a wooden stick in hand.

What unites them is the memory of the Taliban's brutality, a time when the militant organization took over Kanju and the rest of the Swat Valley. Taliban militants beheaded perceived enemies, flogged women and bombed school buildings.

With most of Swat back in the hands of the government after a military operation that drove the Taliban into hiding, thousands of Pakistanis in towns like Kanju have been banding together to form lashkars, or tribal militias, to help keep trouble from coming back.
<more>

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-pakistan-lashkars26-2009oct26,0,4719846.story?page=1

While this article is about Pakistan, if I understand correctly, similar tribal militias are a significant component of McChrystal's long term COIN strategy for Afghanistan.

 

[CougarKing]

Wow. Tragic.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091028/ap_on_re_as/as_pakistan

PESHAWAR, Pakistan – A car bomb struck a busy market in northwestern Pakistan on Wednesday, killing 93 people — mostly women and children — as visiting Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton pledged U.S. support for Islamabad's campaign against Islamic militants.
More than 200 people were wounded in the blast in the main northwestern city of Peshawar, the deadliest in a surge of attacks by suspected insurgents this month. The government blamed militants seeking to avenge an army offensive launched this month against al-Qaida and Taliban in their stronghold close to the Afghan border.

The bombing was the deadliest since explosions hit homecoming festivities for former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto in Karachi in October 2007, killing about 150 people. Bhutto was later slain in a separate attack.

Wednesday's bomb destroyed much of the Mina Bazaar in Peshawar's old town, a warren of narrow alleys clogged with stalls and shops selling dresses, toys and cheap jewelry that drew many female shoppers and children in the conservative city.

The blast collapsed buildings, including a mosque, and set scores of shops ablaze. The wounded sat amid burning debris and parts of bodies as a huge plume of gray smoke rose above the city.

Crying for help, men tried to pull survivors from beneath wreckage. One man carried away a baby with a bloody face and a group of men rescued a young boy covered in dust, but others found only bodies of the dead. A two-story building collapsed as firefighters doused it with water, triggering more panic.

"There was a deafening sound and I was like a blind man for a few minutes," said Mohammad Usman, who was wounded in the shoulder. "I heard women and children crying and started to help others. There was the smell of human flesh in the air."

Clinton, on her first visit to Pakistan as secretary of state, was a three-hour drive away in the capital, Islamabad, when the blast took place. Speaking to reporters, she praised the army's anti-Taliban offensive in South Waziristan and offered U.S. support.

"I want you to know this fight is not Pakistan's alone," Clinton said. "These extremists are committed to destroying what is dear to us as much as they are committed to destroying that which is dear to you and to all people. So this is our struggle as well."

Standing beside her, Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi said the violence would not break his government's will to fight back.

"The resolve and determination will not be shaken," Qureshi said. "People are carrying out such heinous crimes — they want to shake our resolve. I want to address them: We will not buckle. We will fight you. We will fight you because we want peace and stability in Pakistan."

Peshawar, the economic hub of the northwest and the seat of the provincial government, has long been a favorite target of militants who control large parts of territory to the west in tribal regions near the Afghanistan border. Extremism has flourished there since it was used as a staging ground in the 1980s for U.S.-funded fighters preparing to battle the Soviet-installed regime in Afghanistan.

No group claimed responsibility for the bombing, but that is not unusual, especially when the victims are Pakistani civilians. Sahib Gul, a doctor at a nearby hospital, said 93 people were killed and more than 200 injured. He said 60 of the dead were either women or children.

Three bombs have exploded in Peshawar this month, including one that killed more than 50 people. They are part of at least 10 major attacks in Pakistan that have killed 250 people either claimed by or blamed on Taliban militants.

Most have targeted security forces, but some bombs have gone off in public places, apparently to undercut support for the army's assault on the border and expose the weakness of the government.

The Taliban have warned Pakistan that they would stage more attacks if the army does not end its ground offensive in the South Waziristan tribal region, where the military has sent 30,000 troops to flush out insurgents. South Waziristan is a major base for the Pakistani Taliban and other foreign militants.
North West Frontier Province Information Minister Mian Iftikhar Hussain blamed the militants for Wednesday's attack.

"We are hitting them at their center of terrorism, and they are hitting back targeting Peshawar," he said. "This is a tough time for us. We are picking up the bodies of our women and children, but we will follow these terrorists and eliminate them."

(This version CORRECTS direction of tribal areas to west, not north.)

 

 

[CougarKing]

Good.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091101/ap_on_re_as/as_pakistan

Security forces fighting their way through a mountainous Taliban stronghold killed at least seven militants Sunday and injured several more, officials said, while Pakistan's foreign minister said the offensive in tribal South Waziristan should finish sooner than originally expected.

As part of the government's ramping up of its fight against the militants, it will offer bounties of up to 50,000,000 rupees ($600,000) for each of the top three Taliban leaders, according to an official advertisement to be published Monday in Pakistani newspapers and obtained by The Associated Press.

But the recent successes of the campaign in South Waziristan — and the optimism of Foreign Minister Makhdoom Shah Mahmood Qureshi that it would soon achieve its objectives — were offset by a string of anti-government attacks in other tribal regions, where militants kidnapped and killed a prominent pro-government activist and blew up a girls' school.

(...)

 

[CougarKing]

A belated update on this front on the War on Terror:

Pakistan captures two Taliban strongholds in South Waziristanhttp://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2009/11/pakistan_captures_tw.php

By Bill Roggio
November 3, 2009 11:21 AM 

The Pakistani Army has captured two more Taliban strongholds in South Waziristan and is close to taking another, while a Taliban spokesman claimed the group has conducted tactical withdrawals and is prepared to fight "a long war" in the tribal agency.
The military has killed 33 Taliban fighters and lost only one soldier during two days of fighting, according to the Inter Service Public Relations, or ISPR, the public affairs office of the Pakistani military.
Pakistani troops are now in full control of Kanigoram, a town that served as a stronghold for Uzbek and other central Asian fighters. "Hundred percent of the town has been cleared and secured," the ISPR reported.
The Army has also secured the village of China, which is just outside the town of Makeen, one of the Taliban's largest bases in South Waziristan. The military disabled 20 roadside bombs in China.
Pakistani soldiers have also begun to clear the town of Sararogha, where South Waziristan Taliban leader Waliur Rehman Mehsud is said to be directing operations. Two days ago, the military said Sararohga and Makeen were surrounded.
The military has claimed that more than 330 Taliban fighters and 35 soldiers have been killed since the operation began on Oct. 17. But no senior Taliban commanders have been killed or captured during the current offensive. And in stark contrast to the military's reports, the Taliban claim that only 11 of their fighters have been killed so far in the operation.
The Taliban are refuting the military's claims of success and said Taliban forces "are drawing government soldiers into a trap," according to a report in the Associated Press."We are prepared for a long war," Taliban spokesman Azam Tariq told the Associated Press. "The areas we are withdrawing from, and the ones the army is claiming to have won, are being vacated by us as part of a strategy. The strategy is to let the army get in a trap, and then fight a long war."
The real story in South Waziristan is difficult to discern, as the Pakistani Army has closed off communications from the region and has denied journalists the ability to report from the battle zone. Journalists are taken on closely orchestrated battlefield tours and are given a glimpse of what the Army wants them to see.
The military is evidently taking and holding ground in South Waziristan, but the Taliban clearly are not putting up a serious fight against the Army as they have done in the past.
At the outset of the South Waziristan operation, US intelligence officials told The Long War Journal that all indications were that the main body of the Taliban force and its commanders have left the region while a rearguard force was left behind to harass the Army [see LWJ report, "Pakistan launches South Waziristan operation"].
"The Taliban appear to want to deny the military a decisive victory so they have pulled up some units and key leaders," a US intelligence official said on Oct. 17. "A substantial rearguard unit will be left to bleed the Army."

(...)
Read more: http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2009/11/pakistan_captures_tw.php#ixzz0VpgUWwJX

 

[MarkOttawa]

Ominous:

Pakistan Taliban taps Punjab heartland for recruits
Pakistanis are increasingly concerned over the deadly collaboration between Punjabi militants from Sargodha and the Taliban.
http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-pakistan-punjab16-2009nov16,0,3306802.story

Reporting from Sargodha, Pakistan -  One by one, recruits from Pakistan's Punjab heartland would make the seven-hour drive to Waziristan, where they would pull up to an office that made no secret of its mission.

The signboard above the office door read "Tehrik-e-Taliban." In a largely ungoverned city like Miram Shah, there was no reason to hide its identity.

The trainees from Sargodha would arrive, grab some sleep at the Taliban office and afterward head into Waziristan's rugged mountains for instruction in skills including karate and handling explosives and automatic rifles.

"Someone recruits them, then someone else takes them to Miram Shah, and then someone in Miram Shah greets them and takes them in," said Sargodha Police Chief Usman Anwar, whose officers this summer arrested a cell of returning Punjabi militants before they could allegedly carry out a plan to blow up a cellphone tower in this city of 700,000. "It's an assembly line, like Ford Motors has."

The arrests of six Punjabi militants in Sargodha in two raids Aug. 24 illustrated a burgeoning collaboration between Punjabi militants and northwestern Pakistan's Taliban that has Pakistanis increasingly concerned as the government focuses its military resources on Taliban and Al Qaeda militants in South Waziristan...

Pakistan's war on terror at risk
Furor expected over the end of legal amnesty for politicians as ministers could be hauled before the courts over decade’s old criminal cases

Pakistan faces fresh political turmoil with the end of a legal amnesty for politicians, a move that will divert Islamabad from the anti-terrorism fight and create an uproar aimed at ousting the pro-Western President.

A controversial law, brought in by military ruler Pervez Musharraf back in 2007, wiped away long-standing criminal charges pending against many political and bureaucrats, including current President Asif Zardari, the widower of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, who became leader last year. But a court ruling means that the amnesty will end November 28, creating a legal minefield as old charges are suddenly revived.

Ministers and other senior officials who benefited from the amnesty, known as the National Reconciliation Ordinance, including Mr. Zardari, top presidential aide Salman Farooqui, Interior Minister Rehman Malik, and prominent Home Minister in the Sindh provincial government Zulfiqar Mirza. Altogether, about 5,000 people saw charges dropped against them as a result of the ordinance.

Soon ministers could find themselves hauled before the courts over criminal cases dating back to the 1990s, ranging from murder to corruption, or they could rush to seek pre-arrest bail.

Although Mr. Zardari enjoys legal immunity as President in theory, some believe that this does not protect him from cases instituted before he became head of state, and it brings into question his eligibility to have become President in the first place. His opponents contend that without the amnesty, now declared invalid, he could not have stood for president. Lawsuits that challenge Mr. Zardari's right to be president are already primed to go.

The President, for his part, is determined to hang on, telling friends that he'll only leave the presidency “in an ambulance.” It means that, just as the United States is trying to persuade Islamabad to sign on to its new Afghanistan policy and Pakistan is fighting Taliban extremists within its own borders, Islamabad will be consumed by political intrigue...

Mark
Ottawa

 

[CougarKing]

Perhaps this new political crisis might complicate US efforts to help stabilize Pakistan: 

From the Associated Press via Yahoo News

Pakistani court deals US-backed president big blow
By ZARAR KHAN and NAHAL TOOSI, Associated Press Writers Zarar Khan And Nahal Toosi, Associated Press Writers
53 mins ago

ISLAMABAD – Pakistan's top court struck down an amnesty Wednesday that had protected U.S.-allied President Asif Ali Zardari from corruption charges, setting the stage for political turmoil at a time when America seeks a united front against militants along the Afghan border.
The ruling is a major blow to the desperately unpopular Zardari and could mark the beginning of his downfall, analysts said. While he enjoys immunity from prosecution as president, Zardari's opponents now plan to challenge his eligibility to hold the post.

A political crisis could complicate U.S. efforts to encourage Pakistan to step up military operations against al-Qaida-linked extremists. Effective action against those militant groups is seen by the U.S. as a linchpin of its war strategy.

A weakened Zardari would face a huge challenge in responding to U.S. pressure for a broad crackdown. Elements of the armed forces and much of the Pakistani public oppose a major offensive against Afghan militants who use Pakistan as a base. They instead blame Washington for stirring up turmoil in this country.

Minutes after the ruling, the opposition party called on Zardari to resign on moral grounds. His aides scoffed at the suggestion.

The court's decision also left thousands of others who had been shielded by the amnesty vulnerable to reopened corruption and other criminal cases. Interior Minister Rehman Malik, the country's top civilian security officer, and at least two other ministers loyal to Zardari are among those now at risk of prosecution.

The amnesty "seems to be against the national interest," and "violates various provisions of the Constitution," Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry said in announcing the decision of the 17-member bench.

The amnesty was part of a U.S.-brokered deal with former military ruler Pervez Musharraf that paved the way for former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto to return home from self-exile and participate in politics without facing charges her party says were politically motivated. Zardari, Bhutto's husband, took control of the party after Bhutto was assassinated in 2007.
The party won parliamentary elections in February 2008, and lawmakers elected Zardari president that September.

Despite his immunity from prosecution, Zardari's opponents are now expected to challenge his qualification for the post, arguing that if it were not for the amnesty he would not have been able to run for president. Roedad Khan, a former government employee and a petitioner in the amnesty case, said he would pursue that avenue.

"This man has looted the wealth of this nation," Khan said, comparing Zardari's case to the Watergate scandal that led to the resignation of U.S. President Richard Nixon. "This is Islam-gate for Zardari," Khan declared.

Analysts and legal experts were divided over whether the push for Zardari's ouster will succeed. The process is likely to take months. Even some of Zardari's critics argue that stopping his tenure at midterm — which would likely require a nod from the powerful army — would represent a setback to Pakistan's transition to democratic rule after years of military government.

Zardari, 54, has long been haunted by corruption allegations dating back to governments led in the 1990s by his late wife. He spent several years in prison under previous administrations. There are allegations he misappropriated as much as $1.5 billion.

Zardari has routinely denied any wrongdoing, and the president's office has declared the cases "unproven politically motivated allegations."

The court on Wednesday singled out an alleged money laundering case involving Zardari and his late wife that had been heard in a Swiss court until the attorney general under Musharraf withdrew proceedings against them as a result of the amnesty. Chaudhry said this was illegal and ordered the government to ask Swiss authorities to reopen the case.

Many civil rights activists and ordinary Pakistanis have bristled over the amnesty, known as the National Reconciliation Ordinance, saying it protected the wealthy elite who govern the impoverished, corruption-plagued nation from being punished for their alleged crimes.

The court decreed that the reopened cases against all those covered by the amnesty would be monitored by special judges. The Supreme Court said it would also monitor the cases.

Pakistani political analyst Rasul Bakhsh Rais doubted that Cabinet ministers and other politicians affected by the ruling would simply step down. He noted that investigative and prosecuting entities in Pakistan are not really independent of the government — making real justice for lawmakers potentially elusive.

"They will play all these tricks and they will stay in power," Rais said, predicting many messy court battles ahead.

Pakistan's original constitution envisioned a parliamentary system in which the presidency is a ceremonial role, but the balance of power shifted under Musharraf, who took power in a 1999 military coup. Ever since Zardari took the presidency, the opposition has demanded he give up sweeping powers he inherited from Musharraf.

A few weeks ago, amid mounting pressure, Zardari relinquished command of the country's nuclear arsenal and said he would give up more powers soon. But that's a promise he's made before, including in a major speech to lawmakers just days after being sworn in.

Earlier this year, Zardari gave in to street protests and reinstated Chaudhry as the chief justice after he was fired by Musharraf. Many analysts took Zardari's reluctance to restore Chaudhry as a sign he worried the judge would try to undermine him by reviewing the amnesty.

___

Associated Press writers Munir Ahmad in Islamabad and Robert Burns in Washington contributed to this report.

 

[CougarKing]

US Predator/UAV strikes in Pakistan continue.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091217/ap_on_re_as/as_pakistan

Officials: US missile barrage kills 17 in Pakistan

Two U.S. missile strikes pummeled targets inside the main sanctuary used by al-Qaida and the Taliban along Pakistan's border with Afghanistan, killing 17 people Thursday, local intelligence officials said.

The latest drone attacks came amid the prospect of renewed political instability in Pakistan, with President Asif Ali Zardari facing calls for his resignation after the Supreme Court struck down an amnesty that had protected him and thousands of other political officials from corruption charges.

(...)

The missiles rained down Thursday on North Waziristan, a haven for many militants including groups determined to push the U.S. and NATO out of Afghanistan. The second, bloodier attack involved five drones and 10 missiles — an unusually intense bombardment, they said.

The strikes in North Waziristan are especially sensitive because they risk angering Afghan-focused militant groups who have agreed to be neutral as Islamabad cracks down on Taliban fighters in neighboring South Waziristan who have threatened the Pakistani state.

(...)

 

[The Bread Guy]

Gotta start somewhere - more, from The News (PAK):

Minister for Interior Rehman Malik on Monday said religious scholars belonging to different schools of thought were of the view that terrorism and suicide bombings were un-Islamic and funeral prayer of a suicide bomber was not permissible.

Addressing a press conference after attending a meeting with Ulema here at the Chief Minister House, the minister said the participants of the meeting exchanged views in detail about terrorism and all were unanimous in condemning acts of terrorism and suicide bombings.

He said Ulema offered about 20,000 seminary students to fight against terrorism. He said the Pakistan armed forces were capable of defeating terrorists, but the government needed the support of religious scholars on ideological front to frustrate the designs of extremists and terrorists, who were misusing the name of Islam.

Rehman Malik said such meetings with religious scholars would also be held in Lahore and Peshawar under the instructions of Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani. He said he would hold such meetings with the scholars in Lahore on Dec 10, adding after holding meetings with the religious scholars in all provinces, he would submit a detailed report to the prime minister to counter terrorism. He said the religious scholars belonging to a Madrassa (seminary) in Islamabad extended help to the government, where a terrorist had stayed. He said some heads of the Madrassa have handed over suspected extremists to the government ....

 

[VinceW]

According to US Defence secretary Robert Gates,he believes that Al Qaeda is trying to start a war between India and Pakistan.
He's probably right considering that Al Qaeda stoked the fire in Iraq between the Sunni's and Shi'ites in their civil war.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8470357.stm

 

[CougarKing]

The war against the Taliban in Pakistan now claims American lives:

Associated Press link

SHAHI KOTO, Pakistan – A roadside bomb killed three U.S. soldiers and partly destroyed a girls' school in northwest Pakistan on Wednesday in an attack that drew attention to a little-publicized American military training mission in the al-Qaida and Taliban heartland.
They were the first known U.S. military fatalities in Pakistan's lawless tribal regions near the Afghan border and a major victory for militants who have been hit hard by a surge of U.S. missile strikes and a major Pakistani army offensive.

The blast also killed three schoolgirls and a Pakistani soldier who was traveling with the Americans. Two more U.S. soldiers were wounded, along with more than 100 other people, mostly students at the school, officials said.
The attack took place in Lower Dir, which like much of the northwest is home to pockets of militants. The Pakistani army launched a major operation in Lower Dir and the nearby Swat Valley last year that succeeded in pushing the insurgents out, but isolated attacks have continued.

The Americans were traveling with Pakistani security officers in a five-car convoy that was hit by a bomb close to the Koto Girls High School.

"It was a very huge explosion that shattered my windows, filled my house with smoke and dust and also some human flesh fell in my yard," said Akber Khan, who lives some 50 yards (45 meters) from the blast site.

The explosion flattened much of the school, leaving books, bags and pens strewn in the rubble.
"It was a horrible situation," said Mohammad Siddiq, a 40-year-old guard at the school. "Many girls were wounded, crying for help and were trapped in the debris."

Siddiq said the death toll would have been much worse if the blast had occurred only minutes later because most of the girls were still playing in the yard and had not yet returned to classrooms, some of which collapsed.

"What was the fault of these innocent students?" said Mohammed Dawood, a resident who helped police dig the injured from the debris.

The soldiers were part of a small contingent of American soldiers training members of the paramilitary Frontier Corps, Pakistan's army and the U.S. Embassy said. The mission is trying to strengthen the ill-equipped and poorly trained outfit's ability to fight militants.
(...)

 

[CougarKing]

Fears of further instability renewed with this development:

From the Associated Press


Pakistan's top court strikes down presidential order, raising fears of instability
Sat Feb 13, 2:48 PM


By Asif Shahzad, The Associated Press


ISLAMABAD, Pakistan - Pakistan's Supreme Court suspended the presidential appointment of two top judges in an emergency ruling late Saturday that could cause a destabilizing clash between the judiciary and the unpopular, Western-backed government.
As local media reported the country was headed into a political and judicial crisis following the decision, President Asif Ali Zardari's spokesman issued a statement dismissing rumours the government was planning to declare a state of emergency.


The development will concern Pakistan's western allies who want the country to concentrate on battling al-Qaida and Taliban militants in the northwest. The stability of the nuclear-armed nation is also key to Washington's hopes of defeating the insurgency just across the border in Afghanistan.


Zardari is already facing the prospect of legal challenges to his rule after the Supreme Court struck down an amnesty in December that had been shielding him from graft allegations dating back to the 1980s. Earlier last year, he was forced to reinstate the Supreme Court chief justice fired by former president Gen. Pervez Musharraf after demonstrations that exposed his political vulnerability and the clout of the judiciary.


Saturday's ruling came after Zardari appointed a new Supreme Court judge and chief of the Lahore High Court, going against the recommendation of the Supreme Court. Pakistan's constitution says the president must consult with the Supreme Court over the appointment of new judges.

The court order said no consultation had taken place and that the appointment "appeared to be in violation of the provision of the constitution"


Deputy Attorney General of Pakistan Shah Khawar said government officials had been summoned to appear on Feb. 18 to explain why the order had been issued against the court's recommendations.


Some TV channels quoted government critics as saying the appointment of the judges in apparent violation of the constitution could be used as the basis for a fresh challenge against Zardari's hold on the presidency.


Information Minister Qamar Zaman Kaira said the president issued the order only after consulting the chief justice.


"We have always acted constitutionally," he said. "We will take any step in future as required by the law and constitution."


Pakistan' lawyers and judges have always played a role in the political life of the country. Protests by lawyers were credited with helping oust Musharraf.


While undertaking operations against militants in the northwest, the Zardari government had been widely criticized for failing to make a dent in the country's major economic and social problems. Elements within the military are also believed to be angry at him for being too close to the United States and longtime foe India.

 

[CougarKing]

Pakistan's security services foil another bombing attack on foreigners/Western targets.

Reuters link

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Pakistani police have foiled a plot to blow up a restaurant in Islamabad's diplomatic enclave that is frequented by foreigners, and government buildings, a police official said on Monday.


Militants tied to Qari Hussain, known as the Taliban's "mentor of suicide bombers," were arrested before they could attack the Serena Hotel and the French Club restaurant in the heavily guarded diplomatic zone, Bani Amin Khan, Islamabad's acting police chief, told a news conference.

Taliban insurgents have previously attacked Western targets in a bid to destabilize the U.S.-backed government of President Asif Ali Zardari, part of a violent campaign that has scared away foreign investors.


An alleged militant wearing a black hood stood up beside police officials and told the news conference that he helped carry out the suicide attacks on the U.N. World Food Programme and near Pakistan's Naval Complex in the capital city last year.


"I was part of the planning. I provided logistics and suicide jackets to the bombers and in return, the Taliban paid me," said the man, who said he was a former paramilitary soldier named Noor Jahan.


Police said they arrested two militants, Noor Jahan and a second man, Rehmat Gul, and seized a suicide jacket and pistol from their possession.

(...)

 

 

[Yrys]

Pakistan and U.S. Pledge to Work Together

WASHINGTON — Pakistan and the United States wrapped up two days of
high-level talks on Thursday, with a raft of economic development initiatives,
an agreement to hasten deliveries of military hardware and a promise to put
their often mistrustful relationship on a new footing. In a communiqué issued
after the talks, the countries said they would “redouble their efforts to deal
effectively with terrorism” and would work together for “peace and stability
in Afghanistan.”

Administration officials said Pakistan was likely to get swifter delivery of F-16
fighter jets, naval frigates and helicopter gunships, as well as new remotely
piloted aircraft for surveillance missions. But the United States was silent
about Pakistan’s most heavily advertised proposal: a civil nuclear agreement
similar to the one the Bush administration signed with Pakistan’s archrival,
India. Given Pakistan’s history of selling nuclear technology to Iran, Libya and
North Korea, such an agreement would realistically be 10 or 15 years away,
a senior administration official said Thursday. Still, the administration was
careful not to dismiss the idea out of hand.

“This is a new day,” Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said in greeting
Pakistan’s foreign minister, Shah Mahmood Qureshi. “For the past year, the
Obama administration has shown in our words and our deeds a different
approach and a different attitude toward Pakistan.”

The “strategic dialogue” was by itself meant to send a message: The administration
used the term reserved for the substantive, wide-ranging exchanges it carries on
with important countries like China and India. Pakistan and the United States held
three such dialogues during the Bush administration. But last year, Mr. Qureshi
asked Mrs. Clinton to upgrade the exchange to the level of foreign minister. On
Wednesday, he said he hoped the two days of higher-level talks would help Pakistan
and the United States overcome a history that “did not always enjoy a sunny side.”
Mr. Qureshi said the United States had agreed to put on a fast track some
longstanding Pakistani requests for military hardware.

Although Mrs. Clinton deflected a question about civil nuclear cooperation, she said,
“We’re committed to helping Pakistan meet its real energy needs.” Among specific
announcements was an agreement for the United States Agency for International
Development to help Pakistan upgrade three thermal power plants. The administration
said it would try to push through legislation creating so-called reconstruction
opportunity zones in Pakistan. And it hopes to set up a fund to stimulate direct foreign
investment.

Pakistan’s military campaign against Taliban insurgents in the Swat Valley and South
Waziristan has improved the tenor of its relationship with Washington. But success
on the battlefield cuts both ways for Pakistan, analysts said. It gives the country’s
government in Islamabad a more credible argument for increased military aid.
But it also imposes greater expectations from the United States about Pakistan’s
counterinsurgency efforts and military cooperation.

“Yes, you get a pat on the back,” said Bruce O. Riedel, an expert on Pakistan at the
Brookings Institution. “But now that you’ve shown you can do something, you’ve
got to do more.”

Pakistan’s role in Afghanistan also remains a subject of intense scrutiny in the
United States. The Pakistani authorities cooperated with the Central Intelligence
Agency to capture the Taliban’s military chief, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar. But
some analysts question whether the Pakistanis are rounding up other Taliban leaders,
including shadow Afghan governors, simply to make sure that Pakistan has leverage
in any future political bargaining in Kabul.

Mr. Qureshi insisted that Pakistan wanted Afghanistan to lead this process. “If they feel
we can contribute, if we can help, we’ll be more than willing to help,” he said. “But we
leave it to them.”

On this subject, however, administration officials are more interested in hearing from
Pakistan’s chief of army staff, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, who was part of the delegation.
General Kayani recently held talks in Islamabad with Afghanistan’s president, Hamid Karzai,
and the general is viewed as critical to determining the role Pakistan will play. Of all the raw
nerves in the relationship, Pakistan’s nuclear ambitions may be the most sensitive.
Islamabad yearns for an agreement with the United States because it would confer legitimacy
on Pakistan’s existing program.

But Washington does not formally recognize Pakistan as a nuclear power. The selling of nuclear
secrets by the father of its nuclear program, Abdul Qadeer Khan, and the country’s refusal to
allow American investigators to have access to him ensures that this recognition may be a
long way off.

“The question is, can you move somewhere toward giving legitimacy to a Pakistani nuclear
program?” said Daniel S. Markey, senior fellow for India, Pakistan and South Asia at the Council
on Foreign Relations. “Is there space between a civil nuclear deal and just saying ‘no’?”

 

[CougarKing]

The latest attack on a US consulate in Pakistan:

Reuters link

Mon Apr 5, 12:20 PM


By Alamgir Bitani


PESHAWAR, Pakistan (Reuters) - Militants using a car bomb and firing weapons attacked the U.S. consulate in the Pakistani city of Peshawar on Monday hours after a suicide bomber killed 38 people elsewhere in the northwest, officials said.


Pakistani Taliban militants claimed responsibility for the attack on the consulate, in which eight people, including three militants, were killed but no one in the mission was hurt. They vowed more violence.


Islamist attacks have raised fears for the future of the nuclear-armed U.S. ally, also beset by economic problems and chronic political wrangling.
(...)

 

[Yrys]

Same events :

U.S. Consulate in Pakistan Is Attacked by Militants, NY Times

PESHAWAR, Pakistan — In the most direct attack on an American facility in Pakistan in years,
militants mounted a multipronged assault against the United States Consulate in this northern
city on Monday, using a truck bomb, machine guns and rocket launchers, Pakistani and American
officials said. At least five attackers, all suicide bombers, failed to breach the outer perimeter of the
compound, according to a Pakistani intelligence official, but they demolished part of an exterior wall
with a large truck bomb that shook the city and sent huge plumes of brown dust and smoke into
the sky. At least 6 Pakistanis were killed and 20 wounded. No Americans were killed or hurt.

The United States Embassy in Islamabad, Pakistan’s capital, confirmed the attack. The coordinated
assault involved, the embassy said, “a vehicle suicide bomb and terrorists who were attempting to
enter the building using grenades and weapons fire.” Employees of the consulate were evacuated
after the attack, according to a Pakistani official. Pakistani television reported that the consulate
would be closed Tuesday, but an embassy spokeswoman could not immediately confirm that.

A spokesman for the Pakistani Taliban, Azam Tariq, claimed responsibility for the attack, saying it
was in retaliation for Pakistani military operations in the western tribal areas that border Afghanistan,
and for American missile strikes in the area that killed dozens of militants over the past several months.

The assault is a chilling reminder that the militants are still able to strike at prominent targets in Pakistan,
even as operations by the Pakistani military in Taliban-controlled northern areas have brought a lull in
violence over the past three months. “They are trying to demonstrate that they are still alive and kicking,”
said Hasan Askari Rizvi, a defense analyst.

A Pakistani militant commander issued a veiled threat last week to attack important installations in Pakistan
“to refresh the memories” of an attack on an American base in Khost, Afghanistan, in which seven Americans
working for the Central Intelligence Agency were killed.

Militants have taken aim at Americans, and even the consulate in Peshawar in the past, but the commando-style
siege that unfolded Monday was new. Similar tactics were employed last year in attacks on Pakistani targets:
police training centers in and near Lahore, an eastern city, and the army headquarters in Rawalpindi. The strike
was the second on Monday. A few hours earlier, a suicide bomber detonated his payload at a political ceremony
in another northern area, killing 42 people. A police officer tried to overpower the bomber, and was shouting to
a crowd of more than 500 when the bomb exploded.

The ceremony — in Dir, where several American soldiers were killed this year in a bomb attack at the opening
of a girls’ school — was to celebrate a measure in Parliament to change the name of the North-West Frontier
Province to Khyber-Pakhtoonkhwa, and was held by a Pashtun political party, the Awami National Party. More
than 100 people were wounded. In the assault in Peshawar, officials there said, a squad of well-armed militants
attacked the outer security perimeter of the well-fortified consulate from the main intersection that connects
Peshawar with the highway to Afghanistan and a military area.

According to television reports, witnesses said the attackers wore uniforms of the Pakistani security forces,
though officials did not confirm that. The militants drove to the outer security wall in pickup trucks, two
intelligence officers and a senior government official said. The first bomber walked toward the entrance while
firing his automatic assault rifle, they said in separate interviews, and he later blew himself up near an
armored personnel carrier close to the checkpoint. Three other bombers followed closely, the officers and the
government official said, and one of them fired a rocket-propelled grenade at the armored personnel carrier,
causing an explosion, but missing his target.

“They used Russian-made Rocket-Propelled Grenade-7,” said a senior official from the bomb disposal squad.
“Had it hit the A.P.C., it would have dug a hole in it.”

As the three bombers moved forward, the vehicle that had taken them to the consulate blew up, sending a
plume of smoke into the sky, the officials said. Security officials believe that this explosion killed several of the
other bombers. Two bombers still wore live suicide jackets, and bomb squad officials later defused them. A
bomb squad official said the jackets were typical of those made by the Taliban.

One intelligence official said it appeared that the bomber sitting in the vehicle had detonated the explosives
prematurely, killing the other attackers in the process. That blast left a crater seven feet long and three and
half feet wide, said the leader of the bomb disposal squad, Sahfqat Malik.

The dead included one police officer and two security guards from the Frontier Corps. Most of those killed or
wounded were civilians.

There was no major damage to the consulate building, though the explosions smashed the windshields of several
cars in the parking lot, the official said. The consulate is in a busy area in the main part of the city. Peshawar, which
was tormented almost daily by bomb strikes last fall, remains a vulnerable target. “It is very easily accessible,” said
Mr. Rizvi, the defense analyst. “From tribal area you can walk right into Peshawar.”

Militants attacked the United States Consulate in Karachi in 2002, killing more than 10 people, none of them
Americans, and in 2008, militants fired at the top American diplomat in Peshawar as her armored car was leaving
her residence for the consulate, but failed to harm her.

Ismail Khan reported from Peshawar, and Sabrina Tavernise from Islamabad, Pakistan. Pir Zubair Shah and
Carlotta Gall contributed reporting from Islamabad.

 

[Yrys]

Drones Batter Al Qaeda and Its Allies Within Pakistan, NY Times

PESHAWAR, Pakistan — A stepped-up campaign of American drone strikes over the past
three months has battered Al Qaeda and its Pakistani and Afghan brethren in the tribal
area of North Waziristan, according to a mid-ranking militant and supporters of the
government there.

The strikes have cast a pall of fear over an area that was once a free zone for Al Qaeda
and the Taliban, forcing militants to abandon satellite phones and large gatherings in
favor of communicating by courier and moving stealthily in small groups, they said. The
drones, operated by the C.I.A., fly overhead sometimes four at a time, emitting a beelike
hum virtually 24 hours a day, observing and tracking targets, then unleashing missiles
on their quarry, they said.

The strikes have sharpened tensions between the local tribesmen and the militants, who
have dumped bodies with signs accusing the victims of being American spies in Miram Shah,
the main town in North Waziristan, they said. The impact of the drone strikes on the militants’
operations — on freedom of movement, ability to communicate and the ease of importing new
recruits to replace those who have been killed — has been difficult to divine because North
Waziristan, at the nether reaches of the tribal area, is virtually sealed from the outside world.

None of those interviewed would allow their names to be used for fear for their safety, and all
were interviewed separately in a city outside the tribal areas. The supporters of the government
worked in positions where they had access to information about the effects of the drone campaign.

Along with that of the militant, the accounts provided a rare window on how the drones have
transformed life for all in the region. By all reports, the bombardment of North Waziristan, and to
a lesser extent South Waziristan, has become fast and furious since a combined Taliban and
Qaeda suicide attack on a C.I.A. base in Khost, in southern Afghanistan, in late December.

In the first six weeks of this year, more than a dozen strikes killed up to 90 people suspected of
being militants, according to Pakistani and American accounts. There are now multiple strikes on
some days, and in some weeks the strikes occur every other day, the people from North Waziristan
said. The strikes have become so ferocious, “It seems they really want to kill everyone, not just the
leaders,” said the militant, who is a mid-ranking fighter associated with the insurgent network headed
by Jalaluddin and Sirajuddin Haqqani. By “everyone” he meant rank-and-file fighters, though civilians
are being killed, too.

Tactics used just a year ago to avoid the drones could not be relied on, he said. It is, for instance, no
longer feasible to sleep under the trees as a way of avoiding the drones. “We can’t lead a jungle
existence for 24 hours every day,” he said. Militants now sneak into villages two at a time to sleep,
he said. Some homeowners were refusing to rent space to Arabs, who are associated with Al Qaeda,
for fear of their families’ being killed by the drones, he said.

The militants have abandoned all-terrain vehicles in favor of humdrum public transportation, one of
the government supporters said. The Arabs, who have always preferred to keep at a distance from
the locals, have now gone further underground, resorting to hide-outs in tunnels dug into the
mountainside in the Datta Khel area adjacent to Miram Shah, he said. “Definitely Haqqani is under
a lot of pressure,” the militant said. “He has lost commanders, a brother and other family members.”

While unpopular among the Pakistani public, the drone strikes have become a weapon of choice for
the Obama administration after the Pakistani Army rebuffed pleas to mount a ground offensive in
North Waziristan to take on the militants who use the area to strike at American and NATO forces
in Afghanistan.

The Pakistani military says it is already overstretched fighting militants on other fronts. But the militants
in North Waziristan — the Haqqani network backed by Al Qaeda — are also longtime allies of Pakistan’s
military and intelligence services. The group may yet prove useful for Pakistan to exert influence in
postwar Afghanistan.

The army maintains a division of soldiers in North Waziristan, but, the militant said, the Pakistani soldiers
do little to hinder militant operations, which, though under greater pressure from the drones, have by no
means stopped. Training sessions on how to make improvised explosive devices for use against American
and NATO soldiers in Afghanistan continue, the militant said. At one eight-day “crash course” in March,
the militant said he learned how to mix explosive chemicals and how to load a car with explosives that
would be used in suicide bombings.

In public, the Pakistani government opposes the drones, citing a violation of sovereignty. Under American
pressure, however, the Pakistani intelligence agency, Inter-Services Intelligence, has provided important
intelligence for targets, American and Pakistani officials have said. But increasingly the Americans appear
to have developed their own sources, the militant said.

An influx of young Arabs turned up in North Waziristan recently, presumably to replace some of the older
Arabs who had been killed by the drones. But many militants assumed that some of these Arabs were
actually American agents, he said. “Al Qaeda is very careful who they take among the new Arab recruits
because they are informants for America,” the militant said.

Perhaps the most disturbing strike for the Haqqanis was the killing of Sirajuddin Haqqani’s younger brother,
Mohammad, on Feb. 16. One government supporter in the area said he witnessed the attack. “I was walking
when I saw two drones, one going in one direction, one in another direction. I had a feeling they were
preparing,” he said.

There were “two blasts” when a car was hit about 1,200 feet in front of him, he said. “There was total dust,
everything was hazy,” he said. Suddenly, Haqqani fighters appeared out of nowhere. “All these vehicles
rushed up, cordoned the site so no outsider could come. They took away the dead bodies.” The question
of civilian deaths is an almost daily worry, all four men said. “Civilians are worried because there is hardly
a house without a fighter,” the militant said.

Two of the government supporters said they knew of civilians, including friends, who had been killed by being
in the wrong place at the wrong time. But, they said, they are prepared to sacrifice the civilians if it means
North Waziristan will be rid of the militants, in particular the Arabs. “On balance, the drones may have killed
100, 200, 500 civilians,” said one of the men. “If you look at the other guys, the Arabs and the kidnappings
and the targeted killings, I would go for the drones.”

 

[CougarKing]

Associated Press link

ISLAMABAD – Pakistan and U.S. intelligence wrongly reported the death of the head of the Pakistani Taliban in a CIA drone strike and the brash, ruthless commander is now believed to be alive, Pakistani spies said Thursday in an apparent propaganda coup for the insurgents.

The reports that Hakimullah Mehsud survived the January missile attack in an area close to the Afghan border will raise questions about the quality of the intelligence being gathered in the region.

U.S. officials were not immediately available for comment.

The Taliban had always claimed Mehsud was alive and dismissed the earlier reports of his death as lies.

The militant network said it was not going to offer any evidence such as a video recording because doing so could help security forces hunt Mehsud down. But until there is proof he is alive, questions may linger about his fate, given the apparently patchy nature of intelligence in the tribal regions.

One senior Pakistani official said Mehsud was no longer the major force in the Taliban movement, which has carried out scores of attacks in Pakistan in recent years and is allied with al-Qaida and militants in Afghanistan fighting U.S. and NATO troops. He said other Taliban commanders, such as Waliur Rehman, were now overshadowing him.
(...)