Turmoil In Pakistan: Supreme Court Ousts Prime Minister Gilani

Pakistan's political situation has been anything but serene since Pervez Musharaf lost power. Yousuf Raza Gilani was elected Prime Minister but he's run afoul of the Supreme Court once again for failing to investigate and prosecute claims of corruption against Asif Ali Zardari, the country's president.

Today, the court essentially booted him from office.

Local television news stations said leaders of the ruling Pakistan People’s Party were huddled in an emergency meeting and seemed poised to accept the court’s decision and nominate a different leader to the prime minister’s spot, diffusing some of the tension.

“Yousuf Raza Gilani has been disqualified from the membership of parliament from April 26, which is the date of his conviction, and he has also ceased to be the prime minister of Pakistan,” Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry read from the court order, according to reports by Geo news and other television channels.

“The election commission shall issue a notice of disqualification and the president is also required to take all necessary steps to ensure the continuation of democratic process in the country.”

But the Associated Press quoted Fawad Chaudhry, an aide to Gilani, saying that Gilani would continue his duties and only the parliament could disqualify the prime minister.

Legal experts were debating whether the disqualification could render moot Gilani’s legislative activity since April 26, including passage of Pakistan’s budget. Some said the court’s decision probably would invalidate at least some of Gilani’s actions over the past eight weeks.

“The prime minister should have left his office back in April, when he was convicted for contempt of court, but he decided to stick to his slot illegally,” retired judge Wajihuddin Ahmed told Geo TV. He said that he thought Gilani’s “day-to-day government affairs” work would likely stand but that other official acts could be declared invalid.

Gilani’s conviction stemmed from his adamant refusal to pursue money-laundering and kickback cases brought by Swiss authorities against Zardari; he faced up to six months in prison but was never sentenced.

This also throws the US-Pakistan relationship into limbo as well as counter terrorism efforts in the frontier provinces. The PPP will try to maintain a veneer of normalcy but this is anything but normal.

All the political turmoil adds to an unstable political and economic situation, including power shortages and riots, and ongoing terrorism in the frontier provinces. The government has been ineffective to resolve any of the issues confronting it.

Continuing Fallout From US bin Laden Raid; US Launched Raids Into Pakistan Prior to Successful Bin Laden Raid

While the successful mission to kill Osama bin Laden rightfully gets tons of press, it was hardly the first time that the elite DEVGRU/SEAL Team 6 operated within Pakistan with orders to go after high value targets. In fact, two such missions were carried out during the Bush Administration, but they came away without getting their targets. In one instance, the target was Ayman al Zawahiri.

But what it reveals is that last Monday's operation, which has sparked ferocious debate in Pakistan over national sovereignty, is far from the first time that elite US forces have mounted military operations on the ground in the nuclear-armed nation.

Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani was to address parliament last night to reiterate a message driven home last week by Pakistani military chiefs - that the country would not tolerate any further breaches of sovereignty by the US or any other nation.

He was also expected to announce a parliamentary inquiry into the intelligence services' failure to detect bin Laden, who lived for five years under their noses in the garrison town of Abbottabad.

Pakistani army chief General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani told senior Pakistani journalists last week that "certain red lines had been crossed" by the US military.

Several people present at that briefing have suggested the subtext of his message was that the US had crossed a line by carrying out an operation in an area where Pakistan's urban and increasingly anti-US population could bear witness to it.

The Navy SEAL operation in Bajaur Agency was first reported by The New York Times in 2008, which cited a former top CIA official as confirming the mission.

A former ISI station chief for Pakistan's Pashtun-dominated northwest and tribal areas from 2001 to 2003, Asad Munir, yesterday also confirmed the 2006 operation took place, and was different to the drone strike on a suspected Zawahiri compound in January of the same year that is said to have killed up to 25 civilians.

"They flew over in helicopters, people came out on ladders and searched the compound, found nothing, and flew back," Brigadier Munir told The Australian.

"It was known by the ISI, but not by the media, and never made it to the newspapers. It was a very low-profile operation, but I have no doubt that it occurred."

He said yet another operation occurred in 2008 just over the Afghan border in South Waziristan, in which three US special operations officers raided a madrassa suspected of being used as a base from which insurgents were firing on coalition forces.

Rustam Shah Mohmand, a former chief secretary of the northwest frontier province and Tribal Areas Commissioner, also confirmed the fact that last week's Navy SEALs raid was not the first on Pakistani soil.

What makes the bin Laden raid notable is that it was successful in getting the target - and it was as high profile a target as can be imagined. When the other raids didn't get their targets, the teams involved were able to slip away.

Moreover, it appears that the ISI and military were caught flat footed over the bin Laden raid, as compared to closer coordination in the prior raids. Considering how the ISI and military have their fingers in every aspect of the Pakistani economy and security apparatus, it's hard for some to believe that the ISI or military didn't know that bin Laden was living in Abbottabad. In many respects, the ISI and military operate in the same fashion as Iran's IRGC does - complete with its own economic support system outside that of the local economy.

The Pakistani leadership is clearly red-faced in public over the raid; and they are quick to lay blame on the US for carrying out the raid even though there are ongoing indications that a significant segment of the Pakistani public and military and ISI are predisposed to bin Laden's worldview and radicalization.

At the same time, there are now reports that the US and Pakistan had worked out a deal a decade ago that the US would go after bin Laden in Pakistan. It was a secret deal between Pervez Musharraf and President Bush. Pakistani forces would allow unilateral raids by the US to go after bin Laden or Zawahiri.

The United States repeatedly told Pakistan that Washington would send American forces into that country if it had evidence that Osama bin Laden was hiding there, according to current and former U.S. officials.

The message that the United States would not hesitate to send American operatives into Pakistan to get bin Laden was transmitted to top Pakistani officials on multiple occasions by the administrations of Presidents Barack Obama and George W. Bush, said a U.S. national security official who asked for anonymity when discussing sensitive information.

A former senior U.S. counter-terrorism official, also speaking on condition of anonymity, said there was an "understanding" between Washington and Islamabad that amounted to an acknowledgment by Pakistani authorities that the United States would take unilateral action on Pakistani soil if it had intelligence on the al Qaeda leader's whereabouts.

Of course, the news of the secret deal has gotten the usual suspects in Pakistan upset. Even Musharraf originally stated that the US was in the wrong for going after bin Laden in Pakistan last week. Did anyone in the current government know about the deal, even as they were quick to blame the US for invading and violating their sovereignty. The nationalists in the Pakistani government are quick to blame the US, even though bin Laden was living under the Pakistani noses for years without anyone seeming to know anything about it.

Now, it's possible that Musharraf didn't inform the current Pakistani government or that the US didn't reiterate that understanding, but I find that hard to believe. Instead, it's much more likely that the Pakistanis wanted to find fault with the US actions because it shows just how little the US trusts the Pakistani ISI and military to keep a secret - and the possibility that the ISI/military could have been tipping off key al Qaeda/Taliban to avoid being captured/killed in these raids.

The question of Pakistani sovereignty is an odd one when one further considers that the Pakistanis can barely control their own territory - the frontier provinces are autonomous and Pakistani military forces operate there at their own risk because of Taliban and al Qaeda threats.

Meanwhile, bin Laden's son, Omar, is busy comparing the US raid to kill his father to an assassination and that Osama was denied some form of due process.

“When Osama did not resist, why wasn’t he arrested? After being killed, why didn’t the family get to identify him? Why was he buried at sea when that is against their Islamic beliefs?”

The questions were posted by Jean Sasson, an American writer, on her blog on Tuesday. Sasson helped bin Laden’s son Omar bin Laden write the memoir, “Growing Up bin Laden.” He has publicly denounced his father’s terrorism, but is still seeking answers to the circumstances around his death.

Sasson provided a further statement to the New York Times from Omar bin Laden, that said, “We maintain that arbitrary killing is not a solution to political problems ... justice must be seen to be done.”

Cry me a river - bin Laden declared war on the US; he never gave any of his thousands of victims due process; and that he wasn't armed when the raid happened doesn't detract from the fact that he was a mass murderer who was essentially caught with his pants down (lacking weapons and inadequate security) when the SEAL team killed him.

Fallout from Bin Laden's Death and What Did Pakistan Know?

Fallout from the death of Osama bin Laden continues to ripple throughout the world. Bin Laden's burial at sea has been criticized, even though that's a far better fate than the nearly 3,000 who were murdered at the World Trade Center. Some criticize that the US was too respectful, while others claim the US was not respectful enough. To me, that says that the US got it right - and I believe that the burial at sea was necessary to eliminate any possibility that his burial site could be treated as a rallying point.

As new details of the raid continue to leak out, the real questions are being pointed in the direction of Pakistan. What did they know and when did they know that bin Laden was living large in their country?

Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari submitted an op-ed in the Washington Post today in response to the US mission that killed Osama bin Laden in the town of Abbotabad, just miles from the Pakistani capital of Islamabad.

Let us be frank. Pakistan has paid an enormous price for its stand against terrorism. More of our soldiers have died than all of NATO’s casualties combined. Two thousand police officers, as many as 30,000 innocent civilians and a generation of social progress for our people have been lost. And for me, justice against bin Laden was not just political; it was also personal, as the terrorists murdered our greatest leader, the mother of my children. Twice he tried to assassinate my wife. In 1989 he poured $50 million into a no-confidence vote to topple her first government. She said that she was bin Laden’s worst nightmare — a democratically elected, progressive, moderate, pluralistic female leader. She was right, and she paid for it with her life.

Some in the U.S. press have suggested that Pakistan lacked vitality in its pursuit of terrorism, or worse yet that we were disingenuous and actually protected the terrorists we claimed to be pursuing. Such baseless speculation may make exciting cable news, but it doesn’t reflect fact. Pakistan had as much reason to despise al-Qaeda as any nation. The war on terrorism is as much Pakistan’s war as as it is America’s. And though it may have started with bin Laden, the forces of modernity and moderation remain under serious threat.

My government endorses the words of President Obama and appreciates the credit he gave us Sunday night for the successful operation in Khyber Pakhtunkhawa. We also applaud and endorse the words of Secretary of State Hillary Clinton that we must “press forward, bolstering our partnerships, strengthening our networks, investing in a positive vision of peace and progress, and relentlessly pursuing the murderers who target innocent people.” We have not yet won this war, but we now clearly can see the beginning of the end, and the kind of South and Central Asia that lies in our future.

Only hours after bin Laden’s death, the Taliban reacted by blaming the government of Pakistan and calling for retribution against its leaders, and specifically against me as the nation’s president. We will not be intimidated. Pakistan has never been and never will be the hotbed of fanaticism that is often described by the media.

Zardari is in a real tough position right now. He's got to simultaneously defend his country from claims that he was harboring al Qaeda's top dog, claiming that he was providing assistance (unidentified and uncorroborated by US officials who have studiously stated that they shared no aspects of this mission with any other country, including Pakistan), and has to be worried that the Islamists will try to topple his government because of its existing ties with the US (a belief that the government is complicit with the US even if there was no actual). Given the way that Pakistanis love their conspiracy theories (even more than the nutjobs who think Osama wasn't real, wasn't killed, or any permutation thereof), all kinds of speculation is rampant in Pakistan right now over what Pakistan's government knew and when did they know of it.

Fact is, no one really knows what the Pakistani government knew about bin Laden's location, but it is highly suspicious that he was able to live in relative comfort in a compound just yards from the country's military academy and where military personnel go to retire. It is plausible that members of the military or the ISI were complicit in keeping bin Laden's whereabouts hidden but it once again indicates the difficulty of trusting the Pakistani government to reveal key details. Those questions are being asked by members of Congress on both sides of the aisle - and they have good reason to ask those questions. Similar questions are being asked by other countries, including the UK.

Zardari is right to state that his country has been ravaged by Islamic terrorists, particularly Taliban and al Qaeda. Yet, each time the Pakistani government (whether under Zardari or his predecessor, Pervez Musharraf) cracks down, it doesn't go far enough to eliminate the threat. It does just enough - anything more and the Islamists in the Pakistani government (Parliament, military, ISI) would thwart further action.

He further claims that radical Islamist parties make up a small fraction of his government, but that overlooks those other groups that lean towards radicalism and who do not condone crackdowns against the Islamists.

Pakistan barely maintains control over the frontier provinces, which are overrun with Taliban and have hosted al Qaeda for years on end. Efforts to thwart the Taliban have met with mixed success - and the body count among Pakistani soldiers is quite high and

The country can't align itself too greatly with the US for fear of assassinations or coups to install a more Islamist government, but doing nothing allows the Islamists free reign in the frontier provinces.

The question of what Pakistan knew and who knew might be revealed in the treasure trove of intel captured by the special forces team that carried out the mission. They recovered numerous computers, hard drives, thumb drives, and other intel that can be critical to unraveling the logistical network and other contacts, as well as identifying other key members and locations. It could also shed light on other planned or contemplated targets.

Bin Laden's death may also result in a reappraisal of ongoing military operations by the ISAF in Afghanistan, including the possible withdrawal of troops earlier than 2014. I think that would be a serious mistake, considering that al Qaeda and the Taliban remain a serious threat, and allowing them safe haven is a mistake.

Pakistani Christians Bury Assassinated Government Minister Who Supported Repeal of Anti Blasphemy Laws

Shahbaz Bhatti was laid to rest in his home village in Pakistan after being assassinated on Wednesday because he sought a repeal of the country's notorious anti-blasphemy laws.

Thousands of Pakistani mourners have attended the funeral of murdered minorities minister Shahbaz Bhatti.

Mr Bhatti, a Christian, was shot dead on Wednesday by the Taliban after he urged reform to blasphemy laws.

There were emotional scenes as several thousand Christians buried their leader in his home village near Faisalabad.

Earlier, hundreds turned out for a church service in the capital. Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani told them his colleague had been "very rare".

Wednesday's assassination in Islamabad was the second this year of a Pakistani politician who wanted to reform the controversial blasphemy laws.

The ease with which Bhatti was assassinated led to calls for the resignation of key security ministers and investigations.

The blasphemy law imposes a death sentence for anyone who insults Prophet Muhammad or the religion of Islam, but its opponents note that the law has been used to settle personal scores and persecute members of the minority faiths.

Gilani was among those paying their respects at the funeral, but President Zardari did not attend, and the ruling party has refused to reform the blasphemy law.

Bhatti and Punjab province Gov. Salman Taseer both criticized the blasphemy laws after a Christian woman was sentenced to death under them last year. On Jan. 4, Taseer was shot dead by one of his bodyguards, who said he was angry about the governor's stance on the laws.

But the ruling party abandoned Bhatti and Taseer on the subject, a sign of how scared they are of upsetting powerful Islamist groups. Gilani has repeatedly insisted the government would not change the laws.

President Asif Ali Zardari did not attend the funeral mass or the burial service in Khushpur, though he rarely makes public appearances out of fear for his life. Also notably missing were top leaders of the main opposition party, the Pakistan Muslim League-N, which is considered somewhat sympathetic to Islamists.

There are reports that Gilani offered to step down because of the assassination because someone had to take responsibility for the security lapses.

What's needed is that Pakistan's top leadership repudiate the blasphemy laws and reform the law. Instead, they're cowed by the threats of violence against those who express any views that are antithetical to the Islamic extremists.

Pakistani Minister Assassinated For Opposing Blasphemy Laws

An outspoken opponent to Pakistan's longstanding anti-blasphemy laws was assassinated today and was the second such minister to be assassinated for speaking out against the laws this year.

Gunmen killed Pakistan's minister for minorities, Shahbaz Bhatti, Wednesday, in the second attack this year on a high-profile figure who has opposed the country's blasphemy law.

Witnesses say the attackers fled the scene in their car without hurting Bhatti’s driver, who then rushed him to the nearby hospital where he was pronounced dead. City Police Chief Wajid Durrani spoke to reporters outside the hospital.

The police officer said the attackers intercepted Bhatti’s official car shortly after he left his residence for work and shot him several times at close range.

The slain minister belonged to the ruling party of President Asif Ali Zardari and was the only Christian member of the federal cabinet.

Bhatti had been threatened by Muslim extremists for speaking out against Pakistan’s controversial blasphemy law.

Pakistan's government is cowering behind the threat, and many government officials have stayed away from the earlier funeral. Zardari and his fellow officials don't want to be seen as being too close to the slain opponents to the anti-blasphemy laws lest they become assassination targets as well.

The movement to repeal the anti-blasphemy laws has come under increasing pressure and the assassinations are likely to thwart the move to repeal the 30-year old laws. Zardari and the reform agenda aren't likely to advance, and I'd say that the effort to repeal the anti-blasphemy law is all but dead due to the extremists cowing the government and those who would seek the changes.

Despite Bhatti's request for security guards in light of threats made against him, none were apparently present at the time of the assassination.

UPDATE:

Additional photos of the assassination scene, and ensuing demonstrations can be found here (HT: Gus)

Pakistan In Turmoil Once Again

A day after Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani suffered a major setback after one of the parties left the ruling coalition short of the necessary votes in Parliament and could raise a vote of no confidence at any time, an outspoken ally to the President Zardari was assassinated by one of his security guards at a market. The assassination was sparked by his opposition to a death sentence handed down against a woman for blasphemy.

The governor of Pakistan's largest province was assassinated Tuesday at a genteel market in the nation's capital--allegedly by one of his own security guards, angered by the governor's support of a Christian woman sentenced to death for blasphemy.

Police said Salman Taseer- a sharp-tongued supporter of embattled President Asif Ali Zardari and an outspoken critic of religious extremists - was shot multiple times at the shopping plaza, which is near his home in Islamabad and is frequented by foreigners.

A Pakistani news station quoted a witness who said he saw a security guard get out of Taseer's vehicle, raise a Kalishnikov rifle and fire through the window of the vehicle.

Interior Minister Rehman Malik said one of the governor's guards surrendered to police after the shooting, and told them he was angered by Taseer's recent public endorsement of a pardon for a Christian woman sentenced to death for blasphemy.

That position had earned Taseer threats from Islamist parties, who held a strike last week against proposed changes to the nation's controversial anti-blasphemy laws. Taseer stood by his stance, posting on Dec. 30 on his Twitter account: "I was under huge pressure sure 2 cow down b4 rightest pressure on blasphemy. Refused. Even if I'm the last man standing."

Islamists have been gunning for Taseer for months now, calling him an apostate over his stance on blasphemy laws and because he was not kowtowing to the Islamist line.

None of this is especially helpful to the ongoing counterterrorism efforts against the Taliban and al Qaeda that operate from Pakistan's frontier provinces that are loosely governed from Islamabad.

Osama Strikes Back At Pakistanis In Latest "Video"

Days after Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari admitted that Pakistan was behind nurturing and birthing Islamic terrorist groups, al Qaeda has released a video with Osama bin Laden mouthing off on the Pakistanis.

Osama Bin Laden told Pakistanis their leaders are "allies of Satan" in a newly released tape, urging them to fight the offensive in tribal areas where Al Qaeda and the Taliban are entrenched.

Bin Laden zeroed in on the Swat Valley and the Pashtun tribal belt on the Afghan border for his 32nd taped rant since the 9/11 attacks.

The Pakistani army has fought extremists in Swat who are imposing a brutal version of shariah, or Islamic law. The army has also moved against Waziristan - home turf of Taliban, Al Qaeda leaders and friendly warlords.

"Are you for the establishment of the shariah or are you for those who wage war against it, from America, [Pakistani President] Zardari and his aides?" Bin Laden said, according to a transcript of the tape provided to the Daily News.

"Zardari and his army are the allies of Satan."

I put the term video in quotes since Osama isn't actually seen in the video speaking, but it is yet another voiceover.

Osama and his fellow terrorists in al Qaeda and their coreligionists in the Taliban are feeling the sting of Pakistani military pressure while trying to outlast and outrun ISAF efforts in Afghanistan. He can't wait for that pressure to be let up, and he can only hope that some other Islamist tries to bump off Zardari or cause the Pakistani military to give up its efforts to limit the Taliban spread through the frontier provinces.

While the Taliban continue to hold on to vast areas, al Qaeda and Taliban leaders continue to be targeted by US airstrikes and Pakistani efforts. Those airstrikes have sent the Taliban leaders into hiding.

Zardari Admits Pakistan Nurtured Islamic Terrorism

It's a candid admission and one that isn't likely to make Asif Ali Zardari many friends in Pakistan's fractured political scene.

For the first time, Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari has admitted that militants and extremists were "created and nurtured" in the country as a policy to achieve some short-term tactical objectives.

But they began to haunt the country in the post-9/11 era, Zardari said in a candid admission during an interactive meeting with former senior civil servants at the presidency last night.

Militants and extremists emerged on the national scene and challenged the state not because the civil bureaucracy was weakened and demoralised, but because they "were deliberately created and nurtured as a policy to achieve some short-term tactical objectives," he said.

"Let us be truthful to ourselves and make a candid admission of the realities," Zardari said.

"The terrorists of today were the heroes of yesteryears until 9/11 occurred and they began to haunt us as well," he added.

Labelling Pakistan as a frontline state in the war against terrorism, Zardari pledged to eliminate this scourge from society. "I have taken charge at a difficult time and will come up to the challenges the country is facing."

His remarks came days after his comments in an interview that the Pakistan Army would even target militants it had backed in the past for use as a proxy force against India.

That's right folks, Pakistan has admitted that they created and nurtured terrorists as a planned political objective. Of course, this fact shouldn't come as a surprise to my readers. The Syrians, Saudis, Iranians, and Iraqis under Saddam Hussein among others all used terrorists as proxies for their foreign and domestic policy goals. The Syrians, Saudis, and Iranians continue to do so to this day.

Now that they've accepted this, Zardari has to do something about it. That means standing up to the ISI which fostered the policy and clean house of the Islamists who find nothing wrong supporting jihadis against the West, India, and those who aren't as Muslim as they want.

Pakistan Plays It Both Ways

Pakistan continues playing games with how they intend to deal with the Taliban that have taken over an alarming amount of Pakistani territory. The Zardari government is limiting the military response to the Swat region only.

Pakistanis don't see the government succeeding with this latest offensive any more than they did with any prior military actions, precisely because the government engages in appeasement and will cave before they succeed in their military operations. Also, despite all the technological equipment provided by the US, the Pakistani military keeps falling short against the Taliban.

In other words, it doesn't matter that Zardari says that the government and country wont collapse. The facts and events in the frontier provinces suggest an instability that the government is ill-prepared to deal with.

Don't think that the Pakistani people aren't noticing either.

The Pakistani army said Friday it had lost 13 of its own men in the past 24 hours and killed 143 militants. There was no word on civilian casualties. But front-line officers report only slight gains against the thousands of militants in Swat and two neighboring districts, Buner and Lower Dir.

"This is going to be hard fighting, no quarter here. These miscreants know the terrain. They are formidable," said an army major in a telephone interview.

Pakistan's military, built for tank battles and artillery duels against Indian forces on the plains of the subcontinent, has in the past four years struggled through a series of campaigns against the Taliban across the mountains of northwestern Pakistan. Most, like the 18-month battle in Swat, ended in standstill.

The U.S. is stepping up its efforts to try to reshape Pakistan's military into a force that can fight insurgents in the rugged terrain along the Afghan border, where the Taliban and al Qaeda have flourished since being pushed from Afghanistan by U.S.-led forces in 2001.

Authorities in Pakistan say they are mobilizing to receive as many as half a million newly displaced people by fighting in and around the Swat Valley.

U.S. and Pakistani officials say the Americans will provide night-vision goggles and more helicopters. There are also plans to train Pakistani soldiers in counterinsurgency doctrine and wean them from their reliance on artillery and air power, which often flattens villages and kills more civilians than insurgents.

Still, U.S. officials privately question whether Pakistan's top brass, many of whom still see India as the real threat, are committed to reorienting their forces.

"Look at what they're doing right now," said a U.S. official in Washington, referring to the airstrikes and artillery bombardment against Taliban positions in Swat over the past few days. "This is why they keep losing."

Part of the problem is that the government isn't putting its best forces in the fight against the Taliban. They're sending paramilitary forces into the breach, rather than the regular army.

The government says that they're going to limit their offensive against the Taliban to Swat. That leaves the rest of the frontier provinces free for the same Taliban thugs to regroup for renewed conflict against both Pakistan and Afghanistan. It's a recipe for disaster, and yet this is how Pakistan's governments have operated for years on end - first under Pervez Musharaf, and now under Asif Ail Zardari.

Meanwhile, the US isn't going to sit back and wait for things to go from bad to worse. Covert airstrikes once again targeted Taliban/al Qaeda targets in South Waziristan, which is the main base for Baitullah Mehsud, who is the most organized and capable Taliban thug.

Mehsud's forces have managed to stymie Pakistani military forces for years, and the Pakistanis don't appear to have any answers to that mess.

Throw in the fact that the Taliban have fully manipulated the media to the point of where all civilian casualties are the fault of the US, NATO, Afghan forces, or Pakistani forces, and not the Taliban and al Qaeda who continue putting civilians into harm's way, and who hide in and among civilians. It's to the point where even Afghan President Karzai questions airstrikes and civilian casualties, despite the fact that it was the Taliban bringing those airstrikes down on civilians by hiding in and among those civilians.

The propaganda campaign continues, and the Pakistanis, Afghans, and US are still playing catchup to the Taliban. Claims that there were casualties that were the result of white phosphorus mimic those alleged against Israel in its battles with Hamas in Gaza or Hizbullah in South Lebanon. They're successful because the smear sticks, while the refutation takes far too long for anyone to care.

Pakistan's Government Finally Taking Gloves Off In Fight Against Taliban?

Has the Pakistani government under President Zardari finally realized the tremendous folly of appeasing terrorists who seek nothing less than to conquer Pakistani territory and establish dominion over large swaths of the country? Pakistan's Prime Minister announced that they would crush the Taliban. Pakistani forces have taken some hits, and several that went missing in Dir were apparently executed by the Taliban. Pakistani airstrikes are more successful than ground attacks at this point, and while the government claims that they have 15,000 troops in the provinces, most appear confined to barracks:

Fighting in Swat has been heavy over the past two days. The military claimed 55 Taliban fighters and six civilians were killed today as Pakistani Air Force fighters and Army helicopters pounded Taliban positions. The military claimed it killed Taliban commander Ibn Aaqil, who is the brother of Ibn Amin, the leader of a brigade of al Qaeda's paramilitary Shadow Army that is operating in Swat and now Buner. The Taliban has more than 7,000 fighters active in Swat.

Nine Pakistani troops have been killed during fighting in Swat and 15 more have gone missing in the neighboring district of Dir, where an operation to dislodge the Taliban is in its thirteenth day. Twelve of the missing troops are reported to have been executed by the Taliban. Five more soldiers were killed in the Malakand district.

The Taliban killed seven of the soldiers after ambushing a military convoy as it attempted to enter Mingora, the main town in Swat. "The troop carrier was coming and there were seven soldiers killed in that," military spokesman Major General Athar Abbas told Dawn. "Two soldiers were killed somewhere in the valley north of Matta." Abbas said.

It is unclear if the soldiers were killed by gunfire or in a roadside bomb attack. Abbas also did not state if the soldiers were part of the regular Army or the paramilitary Frontier Corps. The Pakistani military says it has more than 15,000 troops in Swat. But the soldiers have largely been confined to barracks.

I'd say that the government is trying to have it both ways. Again.

Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gillani's announcement, made in a late-night, televised address, signaled the final collapse of a fragile peace accord between the government and Taliban forces in the Swat region. It also represented the civilian government's formal green light for a full-fledged offensive by the military, which until now has been fighting sporadically.

Gillani called on all Pakistanis to unite behind the armed forces "to restore the honor and dignity" of the nation, the safety of citizens and the authority of the government. "We will defend every inch of our homeland at any cost," he declared.

Gillani's address came on another day of intense but scattered clashes. Military officials said the army and other security forces had attacked militant positions with warplanes, attack helicopters and tanks. They said that they killed at least 80 Taliban fighters in Swat and Buner districts, and that nine soldiers died in an ambush and other attacks. A son of a senior Islamist leader in Swat, Sufi Mohammed, was also reported to have been killed by army shelling.

Gillani spoke here as Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari was finishing several days of talks in Washington with senior U.S. officials and leaders from neighboring Afghanistan in an effort to find a common strategy against the Islamist extremism that is afflicting both countries.

The announcement also came amid a massive exodus of civilians from the areas of Swat, Buner and Dir, where Taliban extremist forces have occupied villages and towns, attacked schools and police and terrorized the populace while trying to spread their radical version of Islam.

Gillani said the government has allocated $13 million to assist people fleeing from the area, in addition to assistance that is coming from the U.N. refugee agency and other charities. Camps have been set up in safe areas near the conflict zones, although Taliban fighters have blocked roads with trees and other barricades to prevent people from reaching them.

The government has announced a major campaign against the Taliban, but I remain seriously concerned over the government's ability to sustain the tempo and commitment to defeat the Taliban.

Keeping the troops in the barracks doesn't exactly signal a renewed attempt to destroy the Taliban, but rather throw some red meat to the US and Afghan diplomats who are furiously trying to stem the Taliban attacks inside Afghanistan.

After all, the Pakistani government has repeatedly engaged in crackdowns when the Taliban and Islamists threatened the government, but would sign deals and engage in cease-fires at the most inopportune moments - particularly when the Islamists and/or Taliban were on the verge of folding. Pervez Musharraf tried this tactic several times, and it blew up in his face miserably. In fact, the Taliban and Islamists repaid the favor with multiple assassination attempts.

This time may prove to be no different. Zardari is hamstrung because his government includes quite a few Islamists who are sympathetic to the Taliban cause in the provinces, and by allowing the Taliban to become entrenched, the fight will be even more difficult.

Barbarians Inside the Gates

The Taliban engage in barbaric practices, and the news coming out of the frontier provinces and nearby provinces fully inside Pakistan are truly horrific. The Taliban are misogynists, and they treat women worse than chattel. They slaughter people on a whim, and even those Muslims who initially welcomed these thugs with open arms are horrified at what has resulted.

When Taliban fighters first entered Karim's village last month, he recounted, they said they had come to bring peace and Islamic law, or sharia, to Swat. But the next day, two of the fighters dragged a policeman out of his truck and tried to slit his throat. Horrified, a crowd rushed over, shouting and trying to shield the officer. The fighters let him go, but the incident confirmed the villagers' worst suspicions.

"We all said to each other, what sort of people have come here? And what kind of sharia is this? Cutting off people's heads has nothing to do with Islam," recounted Karim, 55, a bus driver. "The people were filled with great rage, and great fear."

Authorities in North-West Frontier Province said that with the conflict intensifying, they expect half a million people to flee the once-bucolic Swat region near the Afghan border, much of which is now occupied by heavily armed militants. Officials announced Tuesday that they plan to open six refugee camps in the safer nearby districts of Swabi and Mardan, but until then, many who leave home to escape the violence are facing the arduous task of finding their own shelter.

The reports also show just how reluctant the Zardari government is in engaging in a proper offensive against the Taliban. They're not sending the regular army against the Taliban, but rather the paramilitary forces, which have gotten bloodied on a regular basis and who have regularly lost ground against the Taliban, who are asserting dominion over Swat and nearby provinces outside the frontier.

The Pakistani government claims that they are busy killing Taliban as they find them in Swat, but the reports are grim. Taliban are patrolling large areas of Swat and have pushed deep inside Pakistan proper.

Reports from Swat are confused as the military claims that they've killed dozens of Taliban, including suicide bombers, while other reports suggest that they were civilians attempting to flee.

It's an absolute mess, and it shows no signs of improving. The cause for all this misery; years of doing nothing to stop the Taliban from laying the groundwork in the Frontier Provinces and inside Pakistan proper that would seek to usurp power from the Pakistani government and traditional power brokers. The government in Islamabad, including Musharraf and Zardari, regularly engaged in crackdowns and appeasement, which offered the Taliban the insight they needed to simply outlast any sustained effort to stop the Taliban.

Each deal that the Pakistani government cut was one deal more that the Taliban would break knowing that another deal would be forthcoming. Each successive deal would further erode Islamabad's position, and the refusal to send the military to crush the Taliban has repercussions throughout the region.

The Obama Administration is engaging in wishful thinking if it believes that the Pakistani government and the Afghan government are going to crack down and crush the Taliban, even with US assistance. The Pakistanis lack the political will to do so, which means that no matter how much the US or Afghan governments pledge to do so, the safe havens in the frontier provinces will be off limits. It will take the Pakistanis to do what must be done, and their reluctance has brought the region to the precipice.

Taliban Consolidating Grip On NW Pakistan

I think it's fair to say that Pakistan is now two countries. There's the portion held by the government in Islamabad, and then there's the rest of the country, which includes the frontier provinces and a shifting border that is creeping ever closer to Islamabad. That portion is controlled by the Taliban, and they're tightening their grip on the region.

Taliban control has serious consequences, not only to Pakistan, but the entire region.

The Taliban are once again overtly seeking to support and shelter Osama bin Laden and al Qaeda. Islamabad has been incapable of controlling the frontier provinces and has all but given up on the idea, allowing the Taliban to impose sharia on the region. Most dangerous among the Taliban are the Mehsud clan, led by the capable Baitullah Mehsud, and whose relatives include those who are notorious for training child suicide bombers and whose thugs are regularly harassing NATO/US supply lines between Pakistan and Afghanistan.

It's becoming all too apparent that the Zardari government in Islamabad is losing control of Pakistan to the Taliban, and there's little anyone can do about it. The US Secretary of State has basically said that the Zardari government has abdicated its responsibilities.



I don't think that's entirely fair to the Zardari regime, which has basically cut deals with the Taliban on repeated occasions in a fashion little different than the prior Musharraf regime. The Pakistani leaders try to stick around long enough, and they repeatedly cut deals until they are threatened personally with terror attacks, in which case they engage in crackdowns. It's a cycle of violence that does not end because the appeasement repeatedly shows weakness to the Taliban, who exploit it.

The Pakistani military, which continues sending troops into the frontier provinces has been ineffective, which makes the situation all the more desperate.

Pakistan on Thursday sent paramilitary troops to a district virtually taken over by the Taliban, a day after Washington said Islamabad had abdicated to the militants by agreeing to impose Islamic law in the region.

Around 100 paramilitary troops had been deployed in Buner district, not far from Islamabad, police said. Soon after they arrived, militants attacked their convoy, killing a policeman escorting them, said Arsala Khan, a deputy police superintendent.

"A platoon of the Frontier Corps has arrived in Buner to help police maintain security in the district," Khan told Reuters.

Surging violence across Pakistan and the spread of Taliban influence in the country's northwest has revived concerns about the stability of the nuclear-armed state, which is crucial to U.S. efforts to stabilise neighbouring Afghanistan.

After failing to quell the Taliban through force, President Asif Ali Zardari last week approved enforcement of Islamic sharia law in the Swat valley and adjoining areas despite criticism from Western countries and Pakistani liberal and rights groups.

Despite spending billions on their military, they're unable to control the situation. US airstrikes are regularly denounced, despite the fact that they have been quite successful in taking out mid- and high-level terrorists.

It comes as no surprise that Gen. David Petraeus stated that Pakistan's greater threat isn't the traditional rival India, but the Taliban. For a nation steeped in nationalism and longstanding hatred of India (as seen by multiple wars and regular skirmishes across the Line of Control), recognizing that the Taliban are the true threat is a difficult thing for the government in Islamabad to do, let alone convince a polarized and Islamist-sympathizing population that they are threatened by the Taliban.

Pakistan Caves To Taliban; Islamists Win Again

Pakistan is busy turning itself over to the Taliban in bits and pieces and Sharia will be the law of the land before long.

Pakistan simply couldn't defeat the Taliban after six months of fighting in Swat, so they've decided that it's just not worth the fight to stop the Islamists and the supporters of al Qaeda from using Pakistani territory from which to carry out their attacks against Afghanistan or the rest of the region and beyond.

The Taliban aren't going to be satisfied with just their corner of the country (frontier provinces and Swat). They're going to want more, sensing weakness from the Zardari government. That bodes poorly for the US/NATO operations in Afghanistan as the Taliban and al Qaeda use Pakistan's frontier provinces for refuge, even as the US UAV airstrikes continue to take out top leaders and al Qaeda thugs much to the chagrin of the Pakistani government in Islamabad.

Mullah Dastagir, the shadow governor of Badghis province, was killed in the Sunday night airstrike in the Balamurghab district along with his brother Mullah Nabi Jan, another known Taliban commander named Mawlawi Hayatullah, and five other Taliban fighters. US and Afghan Army forces called in the airstrike after surrounding Dastagir's compound. Dastagir commanded more than 300 full-time Taliban fighters and another 300 part-time fighters.

Dastagir's rise to power in Badghis was facilitated by an order issued last year by President Hamid Karzai. Dastagir was released from National Security Directorate custody after the Directorate received an order from Karzai in September 2008. Karzai was responding to the appeals of local tribal leaders in Badghis, who appear to have been coerced by the Taliban.

Dastagir was nominated as the shadow governor for Badghis by a Taliban shura in October 2008. The Taliban appoint a shadow government in the provinces when it is determined the Taliban presence is sufficient. He quickly exacted revenge for his capture with the deadly November ambush on an Afghan Army resupply column north of the Balamurghab district center. The attack, which was purportedly led by Dastagir, led to a three-hour battle that resulted in 13 Afghan Army soldiers killed, 11 soldiers wounded, and 16 others missing. Scores of vehicles were torched and destroyed and others were stolen by the Taliban raiders.

The Taliban are sensing weakness and disarray in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and in the US and are hoping to exploit this to their own ends.

India is right to be concerned, especially after the Pakistani government admitted that the Mumbai bombings/attacks were planned from inside Pakistan.

UAV Strike Killed 25+ In South Waziristan

Once again, an American UAV has struck at al Qaeda and Taliban targets inside Pakistan's troublesome frontier provinces. The latest attack hit a compound in the town of Malik Khel within South Waziristan, which is Taliban territory. There are conflicting reports as to the number of terrorists and Taliban killed, ranging from 25 up to 32. All of those involved appear to be foreign fighters. Bill Roggio reports that many were Uzbek mujahideen, and this particular area is controlled by Baitullah Mehsud.

Today's strike is the fifth attack this year and the first since Jan. 23, when US Predators conducted attacks in North and South Waziristan. The Jan. 23 attacks took place just two days after President Barack Obama took office.

The airstrike in South Waziristan is also the first since Senator Dianne Feinstein, the chairwoman of the Senate Intelligence Committee, disclosed that the CIA was operating a covert air base that is used to conduct the attacks inside of Pakistan. "As I understand it, these are flown out of a Pakistani base," Feinstein said after brushing off criticism and protests over the attacks.

Senator Feinstein's spokesman later claimed she was referring to a February 2008 report in the Washington Post. In September 2006, the Asia Times reported the US was operating a secret base in Tarbella, a region 12 miles outside of Islamabad.

Pakistan's defense minister rejected Feinstein's claim on Feb. 13. “We do have the facilities from where they can fly, but they are not being flown from Pakistani territory," Defense Minister Ahmad Mukhtar said. "They are being flown from Afghanistan... I do not know on what she based all this.”

Senior officials in Pakistan's government and military, including the president, the prime minister, and the Army chief of staff, have repeatedly protested US airstrikes inside the tribal areas as violations of the country's sovereignty. The disclosure of the base puts the Pakistani officials in a difficult situation with the citizens of Pakistan.

Pakistani officials are in serious trouble with all this. On the one hand, they can't provide tacit and open approval for the airstrikes against targets inside Pakistan without provoking the sizable Islamist population to rise up against the government in Islamabad. On the other, they are continuing to struggle to control these frontier provinces and stem the tide of terrorism that spreads from those areas and the airstrikes are taking out terrorists associated with al Qaeda and the Taliban who support them.

The New York Times claims the following:

Some Pakistani security officials have complained that the American missile attacks have been aimed solely at Al Qaeda and Taliban who cross the border into Afghanistan to fight American and NATO soldiers.

The officials have said that if the Americans were going to attack targets in the tribal areas, where Al Qaeda, with the support of the Taliban, have built safe havens, the Taliban that operate against Pakistan should also be targeted. Mr. Mehsud is considered responsible for many of the more than 60 suicide attacks in Pakistan last year.

I'm not quite sure who that official could be, but they're in the minority or at least recognizes the threats posed by the Islamists. Further, the US is engaging in striking at only those al Qaeda and Taliban who pose a threat to the US; they're not overtly expanding it to all Taliban who pose a threat to Islamabad, which could coincidentally destabilize the Zardari government in Islamabad because public sentiment in Pakistan opposes these airstrikes.

The problem for Zardari's government is that they're incapable of controlling these areas on their own. The frontier provinces are autonomous and the Taliban control wide areas of the country, including into Swat. That's a sign that the Pakistani government has lost control over the situation and destabilizing acts could precipitate an even worse crisis in the region.

Taliban Consolidate Barbaric Hold on Swat

The New York Times reports that the Taliban continue consolidating their barbaric hold on Swat province in Pakistan. The Pakistani government in Islamabad is pretty well powerless to stop the Taliban in the frontier provinces which the central government has considered autonomous for decades. That has enabled the Taliban to operate freely and assist al Qaeda in their quest for jihad.

Swat isn't part of those frontier provinces, but is part of Pakistan proper, which makes the Taliban's bold efforts all the more troubling. The Pakistani government is showing itself to be incapable of controlling its own territory.

Using a portable radio transmitter, a local Taliban leader, Shah Doran, on most nights outlines newly proscribed “un-Islamic” activities in Swat, like selling DVDs, watching cable television, singing and dancing, criticizing the Taliban, shaving beards and allowing girls to attend school. He also reveals names of people the Taliban have recently killed for violating their decrees — and those they plan to kill.

“They control everything through the radio,” said one Swat resident, who declined to give his name for fear the Taliban might kill him. “Everyone waits for the broadcast.”

International attention remains fixed on the Taliban’s hold on Pakistan’s semiautonomous tribal areas, from where they launch attacks on American forces in Afghanistan. But for Pakistan, the loss of the Swat Valley could prove just as devastating.

Unlike the fringe tribal areas, Swat, a Delaware-size chunk of territory with 1.3 million residents and a rich cultural history, is part of Pakistan proper, within reach of Peshawar, Rawalpindi and Islamabad, the capital.

After more than a year of fighting, virtually all of it is now under Taliban control, marking the militants’ farthest advance eastward into Pakistan’s so-called settled areas, residents and government officials from the region say.

To consolidate their hold, the Taliban routinely broadcast their latest depravities, including executing those who violate their religious dictates. There are public beatings to intimidate and cow the local populace into submission.

The local police are worried about being targeted for execution by the Taliban and routinely renounce their commissions so as to avoid Taliban wrath.

This is a recipe for absolute disaster in Pakistan, and the Zardari government isn't exactly showing itself to be any more capable of dealing with the Islamist threat than the Musharraf government.

Show moves, including taking over a charity linked to the deadly Mumbai attacks, are designed to take pressure off the government from acting in any concrete and permanent manner to disarm the Islamists.

The Islamic terrorists in Pakistan appear to have free run of the place, enabling them to continue targeting India. Yet another attack was thwarted today in Noida, India (just outside New Delhi) as police engaged in a gunfight with two terrorists, one of whom admitted they were Pakistanis plotting to attack celebrations in Delhi.

On way to the hospital, one of them identified himself as Farooq of Akara in Pakistan and his aide as Abu Ismail of Rawalkot in Pakistan. However by the time the two could reach the hospital, they succumbed. The doctors at the hospital pronounced them "dead upon arrival".

Two AK-47s, 4 magazines, 120 bullets, 5 hand grenades, Rs 18,000 cash, 3 detonators, 1.5kg of RDX and a rucksack were recovered from the car, police said. The materials seized from the car point out that the terrorists were trained in making plastic explosives and had planned to trigger three blasts, added the police.

The police are trying to find out the local contacts of the terrorists, Brij Lal added. The car's engine and chassis number had been erased, he said.

The Pakistani Two Step

Pakistan has announced that it has carried out raids against Lashkar-e-Taiba camps in the country.

Pakistani security forces on Sunday raided a camp used by Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), two sources said, in a strike against the militant group blamed by India for last month's deadly attacks on Mumbai.

Local man Nisar Ali told Reuters the operation began in the afternoon in Shawai on the outskirts of Muzaffarabad, the capital of the Pakistani side of disputed Kashmir region.

"I don't know details as the entire area was sealed off, but I heard two loud blasts in the evening after a military helicopter landed there," Ali said.

An official with the Jamaat-ud-Dawa charity, which is linked to LeT, said security forces had taken over the camp.

India has demanded Pakistan take swift action over what it says is the latest anti-India militant attack emanating from Pakistani soil. No comment on the raid was immediately available from Indian officials.

It's the Pakistani two-step. The Pakistanis have been doing this for years, and it follows a trend in other places like Saudi Arabia following terror attacks.

You make a few arrests.

You kill a few terrorists and say that you're cracking down. You do just enough to stay in power (in the case of Pervez Musharraf and now Asif Ali Zardari), and little more. You cycle between appeasement and crackdown, and the Islamists know this is coming just as surely as anyone who has been watching this for years.

The only way to break out of this mess is to take on the Islamists and destroy the Islamist terror infrastructure, but no one in Pakistan is willing to take it on; they've penetrated the ISI and the government can barely control the frontier provinces, let alone deal with the immediate threat of India's wrath following the terror attacks.

The US has been largely operating with tacit approval of the Pakistani government in taking out targets inside Waziristan and the NWFP. A major problem is that the terrorists aren't simply confined there - there are rat lines all through Pakistan, and going after them is tougher, although the US did take out an al Qaeda bigwig a few weeks back outside the frontier provinces. That's a much more delicate situation and one that threatens the overall US policy on airstrikes inside Pakistan.

The Pakistanis have chosen for far too long to enable and condone the Islamists and the jihad. They can't simply turn and burn them now without payback, and the Pakistani government is going to walk the tightrope, just as Musharraf did. They'll do only so much to reduce the pressure from the West and India, but no further because that would risk the Islamists rising up against the government.

In fact, Pakistan's ISI appears to have aided and abetted the terrorists in attacking Mumbai. This isn't the first time the ISI has been implicated in terrorism either.

More ominously, the former ISI chief is linked to al Qaeda's WMD advisory group.

Lieutenant General (Retired) Hamid Gul served on the board of the Umma Tameer-E-Nau, an organization founded by Pakistani nuclear scientists and industrialists, according to a secret dossier that the United States has put together to present to the United Nations Security Council, The News reported. Gul has also been implicated in supporting the Afghan and Pakistani Taliban, the Haqqani Network, al Qaeda, and other extremist groups.

Gul served as the chief of the ISI from 1987 to 1989. Gul is known as the Godfather of the Taliban for his efforts to organize the fight against the Soviets in Afghanistan from 1979 to 1989, and the helping to facilitate the rise of the Taliban in the 1990s. Gul supports the terrorist insurgency in India-occupied Kashmir and opposes the US-led effort to defeat Islamic extremism.

The Umma Tameer-E-Nau "was founded by Pakistani nuclear scientists with close ties to Osama bin Laden and the Taliban," the US government stated in December 2001 after blocking the group's finances under Executive Order 13224. Three of the group's directors - two Pakistani nuclear scientists and an industrialist - were also proscribed under the executive order.

Note too that the NATO operations in Afghanistan are at tremendous risk because Pakistan simply cannot maintain operational security for the transportation terminals and convoys carrying the weapons and equipment into Afghanistan, and that threatens the IFOR. A major Taliban attack against one such terminal in Peshawar resulted in 160 vehicles destroyed, including dozens of humvees destined for Afghanistan. 70% of the equipment and vehicles destined for Afghanistan pass through Pakistan.

That's not a good situation to be in at all.

Cracking down against LeT and the Taliban in general is the absolute least the Pakistanis can do at this point. Appearing to crack down on LeT and the Taliban is the most they can do, precisely because of the risk of looking like the government is operating at the behest of the West or India.

UPDATE:
This certainly isn't good news. Pakistan has suspended the NATO supply lines from Pakistan into Afghanistan.

The decision came just hours after a logistics terminal in the northwestern Pakistani city of Peshawar, where dozens of trucks carrying Humvees and other military vehicles were parked, was attacked by insurgents on Sunday.

More than 300 Taliban militants armed with rocket-propelled grenades and assault rifles burned down the logistics [had to fix a typo in the original report] terminal.

That comes on the heels of still more attacks on NATO supply lines today, with 90 containers destroyed in an attack today. Pakistan claims that the terrorists involved are getting international assistance and that they can't handle the security of the NATO supply lines.

I guess the ISI now counts as international assistance?

Pakistan's Crackdown on Islamists Follows Devastating Marriott Hotel Bombing

Pakistani forces are busy going after Taliban and al Qaeda in the border regions, including FATA, Warizistan, and NWFP. More than 60 have been killed, and many others have been captured following the deadly Marriott Hotel bombing.

More than 50 of the alleged insurgents, along with one soldier, died in clashes since Monday in Kohat region, which borders Pakistan's semiautonomous tribal areas, army spokesman Maj. Murad Khan said.

He said the military had retaken control of key mountain tunnel from the insurgents.

In the nearby Bajur tribal region, security forces killed at least 10 militants during an ongoing offensive there, government official Iqbal Khattak said.

That operation, which began in early August, has won praise from U.S. officials worried about rising violence in Pakistan and Afghanistan, but has triggered retaliatory suicide bombings elsewhere in Pakistan.

The fact that the Pakistanis are cracking down against the Islamists in the wake of the deadly Marriott Hotel bombing in Islamabad should not surprise anyone. It fits a pattern we've seen from Pakistan in the past. Crackdowns against the Islamists - including al Qaeda and the Taliban, followed by appeasement and concessions. It's a recipe for a cycle of violence, and yet the Pakistanis keep falling into the same cycle at every turn.

President Zardari is doing exactly what President Musharraf did before him. He's cracking down against the Islamists following assassination attempts. I have no doubt that the Marriott bombing was an assassination attempt that was averted only when Zardari and other government officials switched locations for an Iftar dinner from the Marriott to another location mere hours before the bombing occurred.

So, who was responsible for the bombing? I've been suggesting Baitullah Mehsud was the primary culprit, and it looks like there's plenty of support for that proposition:

The official death toll stands at 53, but it is expected to rise as there are a number of persons unaccounted for. The majority of those killed were Pakistanis. So far, 21 of those killed are Westerners, including the Czech ambassador, two US Marines, and a Danish intelligence official. Scores more were wounded.

Pakistani officials have not directly implicated a group. But Rehman Malik, the adviser to the prime minister on security issues, said "all roads point to Waziristan," an obvious reference to Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud.

"This incident has similarities with the attack on the ISI's Hamza Camp as well as with the two loaded vehicles caught from D I Khan [Dera Ismail Khan], and with the blast outside the Danish embassy," Malik said on Sunday. "The explosives used in this blast matched those of earlier explosions." The explosives used in the attack contained military-grade RDX and TNT, and mortar shells and other accelerants were placed in the bomb. Al Qaeda and Baitullah's Taliban use the same explosive formula.

A spokesman for Baitullah denied involvement in the attack, but a little known Pakistani terror group took credit. The Fedayeen-e-Islam, a group with direct links to Baitullah Mehsud and al Qaeda, claimed they carried out the Marriott attack. The group is believed to be comprised of members of the Jaish-e-Mohammad, a banned terror group that operates in South Waziristan.

Meanwhile, reports continue to circulate that Pakistani forces shot at US helicopters as the helicopters tried to enter Pakistani airspace. US air strikes have killed quite a few high and mid level Taliban and al Qaeda terrorists inside Pakistan's borders, which has brought great consternation to the New York Times, which outed a secret authorization by the Bush Administration to carry out special forces raids against al Qaeda and Taliban inside Pakistan and has created significant tensions between the US and Pakistan over how to deal with the lawless border regions.

Al Qaeda's Latest Message A Signal To Carry Out Attacks?

The New York Sun reports that experts believe that the latest message by al Qaeda may be a signal to carry out attacks in coming weeks.

n the aftermath of two major terrorist attacks on Western targets, America's counterterrorism community is warning that Al Qaeda may launch more overseas operations to influence the presidential elections in November.

Call it Osama bin Laden's "October surprise." In late August, during the weekend between the Democratic and Republican conventions, America's military and intelligence agencies intercepted a series of messages from Al Qaeda's leadership to intermediate members of the organization asking local cells to be prepared for imminent instructions.

An official familiar with the new intelligence said the message was picked up in multiple settings, from couriers to encrypted electronic communications to other means. "These are generic orders," the source said — a distinction from the more specific intelligence about the location, time, and method of an attack. "It was, 'Be on notice. We may call upon you soon.' It was sent out on many channels."

Al Qaeda's message to coincide with the 9/11 attacks was disrupted and delayed by several days by a combination of intel services.

I said the same thing on the 19th. While the attacks could happen anywhere, and we've already seen major attacks in Pakistan and in Yemen, I think there's strong likelihood that an attack will occur in Egypt, especially given the focus of the message and Zawahiri's ties to the Islamists in the country.

The Sun also reports that Pakistan's President Zardari was scheduled to attend an Iftar dinner at the Marriott the evening of the bombing.

President Zardari, who had just given his first major address as Pakistan's head of state, on fighting the Taliban and Al Qaeda, was the target of Saturday's attack, the vice president for research at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies, Daveed Gartenstein-Ross, said.

"He was expected to attend the iftar dinner at the Marriott," Mr. Gartenstein-Ross said "Think of the symbolic value if they were able to kill Zardari after his first address as president of Pakistan in a speech announcing his fight against the terrorists. The symbolic effect of the attack on the same day would be devastating."

This means that my impression that this may have been an assassination attempt / decapitation strike against the Pakistani government was right on target and means that the questions I posed about the knowledge and insight of the terrorists who carried out the attacks must be discovered - there is a serious penetration of Pakistani security by al Qaeda and the Islamists, and it is well known that the Pakistani intel, the ISI has Islamist leanings.

The message has been sent. What will the world's nations do to stop the ongoing threat?

UPDATE:
While much of the focus will be on the Taliban and al Qaeda as being behind the attacks, the group that deserves closer attention is the Islamists led by Baitullah Mehsud, whose minions have shown themselves to be quite capable in large scale operations against the Pakistani military and has the wherewithal to carry out bombings of this kind of scale.

Hot Air notes that the bomb appears to have been particularly sophisticated, and that it was an attempt to be a thermobaric weapon, to maximize the blast damage and explosive effect away from the crater. In other words, as bad as the bomb actually was, it was hoped to be far more deadly by causing buildings in the immediate vicinity to collapse and to shatter the idea that the heart of Islamabad was secure.

The Times of India reports that three arrests have been made in connection with the bombing, including an imam at a major mosque in Islamabad.

Among those arrested was Qari Muhammad Ali, imam of the main Jamia mosque in Kharian, Dawn News channel reported.

There was also no official word on the arrests and no further details were available.

The security forces have launched a massive manhunt in the capital as well as adjoining provinces to trace militant cells responsible for the suicide bombing, which killed 53 people, including two US marines and the Czech Ambassador to the country.

As part of the drive, investigators are looking into the possibilities that the bombers constructed a 600-kg bomb in a safe house in the capital itself, as transporting such a heavy bomb load could not pass the numerous checks on the highway leading to the capital.

Reports said Pakistani authorities had launched a crackdown over the weekend on leaders and members of banned organisations.

UPDATE:
For what it's worth, Mehsud's spokesthug claims that his group had nothing to do with the attack.

UPDATE:
To clarify, Zardari and key government officials were supposed to hold the Iftar dinner at the Marriott, but officials changed the venue for the dinner several hours earlier. The terrorists who carried out the attack weren't warned of the change, which is why it went forward at the Marriott. Also, it appears that the bomber first detonated a suicide vest, and the resulting fire ignited the massive bomb in the truck's cargo area. There was no second vehicle involved as had been speculated yesterday.

Major Terror Attack In Islamabad: 40+ Dead

Once again, the Islamic terrorists strike during Ramadan and murder still more Muslims. A suicide bomber drove his truck into the security gate at the Marriott in Islamabad blowing up the vehicle and killing at least 17 people (CNN says 20).

It's notable especially for who was supposedly in attendance nearby:

Initial reports said a suicide bomber rammed his explosive-laden vehicle into the main gate of the hotel.

The powerful blast was heard from several kilometres away. The explosion destroyed numerous vehicles parked outside the hotel and uprooted trees.

It also sparked a fire in the hotel, which was evacuated. There were reports that Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani was hosting an Iftar dinner at the nearby prime minister's secretariat. The event was attended by President Asif Ali Zardari and army chief Ashfaq Parvez Kayani.

Ambulances rushed to the scene, where a fire also burned. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the blast, and its exact cause was unclear. But Pakistan has faced a wave of militant violence in recent weeks following army-led offensives against insurgents in its border regions.

Mohammad Sultan, a hotel employee, said he was in the lobby when something exploded, he fell down, and everything temporarily went dark.

Was this was an attempt to decapitate the entire Pakistani government in one shot? Did someone on the inside knew the schedules of those leaders and where they would be and planned an attack to assassinate them in one fell swoop?

Who are the prime suspects? Well, they're going to be the usual ones: Taliban, al Qaeda, and Baitullah Mehsud. My money is on Mehsud.

The attack comes hours after Asif Ali Zardari made his first speech to the Parliament as President.

The Pakistani leaders have walked a fine line for years - moving from crisis to crisis doing just enough to stay in power as the Islamists attack the government: appeasement followed by crackdown. It's what got Musharraf into trouble, and the new government faces the same exact problem. I fully expect them to follow in Musharraf's footsteps and do just enough to stay in power.

These are dangerous times in Pakistan.

UPDATE:
The BBC has some photos of the devastation (HT: Thanos at LGF). The death toll continues to climb, and now stands at 25 (AFP says 27 and the photo attached to that story gives some sense to how large a bomb this was).

UPDATE:
This will be my last update for a while, and the death toll is now 40, and I expect it to climb much higher.

The blast left a crater some 30 feet deep in front of the main building.

Flames poured from the windows of the hotel and rescuers ferried a stream of bloodied bodies from the gutted building.

Friday in Pakistan With Zardari

It doesn't have quite the ring of Tuesdays With Morrie, but it will have to do.

Asif Ali Zardari is going to be speaking to the Pakistani parliament for the first time this weekend since becoming President of Pakistan. He's got plenty on his plate with the Taliban and Islamists running rampant and having to deal with the dicey issue of al Qaeda and Taliban attacks into Pakistan followed by US airstrikes and possible ground actions against al Qaeda strongholds in the NWFP and Warizistan. The Pakistani government has been quite vocal about attacking US forces should they enter Pakistani territory, but one could only wish for such a strong reaction to the Taliban's and Islamists' actions inside Pakistan.

For the Americans, such raids and airstrikes are meant to disrupt the possibility of future 9/11 style attacks originating or planned within the safe havens of Warizistan, the NWFP, as well as improving security along the Afghan/Pakistani border region in general.

We're still in the middle of Ramadan, the Muslim holy month, and we once again have seen a spate of bombings. Bombers detonated a bomb at a school near Quetta, killing at least five people. That's on the heels of another explosion in Islamabad that killed seven people, though the circumstances of that explosion are unclear. Some suggest that it was a gas cylinder. Other sources claim it was a gas leak. Authorities aren't treating it as a terror attack though. Still, every time there's an explosion of some sort, the first thought is to a terror attack (and most incidents in Pakistan are indeed terror attacks).

A much more substantial attack was thwarted when tribesmen thwarted a Taliban attempt to kidnap 300 students. Two terrorists blew themselves up rather than be captured.

Two suspected suicide bombers blew themselves up in the Upper Dir town on Thursday after residents foiled their attempt to take 300 schoolchildren hostage, police said.

The men entered into the town from Swat valley but people from the area chased them away, local police officer Johar Ali told AFP. They took refuge in a school building then and tried to take students hostage, local news agencies said, but police and villagers forced them to flee from there as well.

Two of them then tried to take refuge in a forest where an exchange of gunfire took place, and later detonated the explosives strapped to their bodies, Johar Ali said. The state-run APP news agency said a third man fled, but Online said he was arrested.

“Showing extreme courage and boldness”, the residents of a village in Upper Dir district “foiled attempt of the armed militants to take hostage around 300 students of a school and successfully freed the students” after a fierce gunbattle, said an APP report about the incident.

Meanwhile, also of concern to Zardari is the situation in Jammu and Kashmir. Muslims leaving mosques in the disputed Kashmir engaged in rock-throwing and rioting had to be dispersed with tear gas. At least 50 were injured, including many police. This isn't the first time that's happened either, and tensions remain high along the Line of Control.