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.

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.

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.

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 Coalition Crumbling

So much for the coalition government led by Nawaz Sharif and Asif Ali Zardari. Sharif has pulled out of the coalition government, which raises questions over who will lead the government. Neither Zardari nor Sharif had enough votes to win the election outright, and Zardari garnered a larger number of votes in the Parliament.

The exit by Mr. Sharif’s party, the Pakistan Muslim League-N, had been expected in the last few days, and was finally spurred by the decision of Mr. Zardari to run for president, in an electoral college vote set for Sept. 6. President Pervez Musharraf resigned last week under threat of impeachment.

The departure of Mr. Sharif, whose party sat uneasily with Mr. Zardari’s Pakistan Peoples Party, is unlikely to result in immediate elections. Mr. Sharif said his members would sit in the opposition in the Parliament and try to play a “constructive” role.

The Pakistan Peoples Party holds the most seats in the Parliament, but not a majority. Political analysts said they expected it would be able to cobble together a new parliamentary coalition with smaller parties.

Still, Pakistan faces continued political instability that may distract from serious governance and serious efforts to turn back the growing strength of the Taliban in the northwestern parts of the nation.

Sharif has claimed that Zardari's party broke promises to share power. The coalition government lasted all of a week. Again, all this goes back to long standing grudges and Sharif probably thinks that he should be in the driver's seat given that he was in power when Musharraf overthrew his government in 1999. The breakup occurred because Zardari refused to give a timeline to reinstate judges that were tossed out of power by Musharraf, while Sharif wanted to see them reinstated immediately.

None of this helps the situation along the Afghan-Pakistani border with a resurgent Taliban that uses Pakistani territory as a safe haven, and from which they can launch attacks against Afghan targets with increasing regularity.

Nearly 100 people were killed in suicide bombings last week. Pakistani Taliban say the attacks were carried out in response to a military campaign against them -- and have threatened more were to come.

The government said Monday it had banned the main Taliban militant umbrella group Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan and frozen its bank accounts and assets in Pakistan.

The militants in the Bajaur region offered a unilateral ceasefire on Sunday, which the government rejected.

Musharraf Resigns

After weeks of threats by the Pakistani opposition to impeach Pervez Musharraf, Musharraf announced his resignation this morning.

Mr. Musharraf, 65, will stay in Pakistan in the immediate future, a request he had insisted on, according to Nasir Ali Khan, a senior member of the Pakistan Muslim League-N, a partner in the coalition. The coalition, led by Asif Ali Zardari, the leader of the Pakistan Peoples Party, and Nawaz Sharif, the chairman of the Pakistan Muslim League-N, were scheduled to meet here in the capital Monday afternoon to discuss the way forward, Mr. Khan said.

There were few indications of who the next president would be. According to the Constitution, a new president must be chosen within 30 days. American officials have said that Mr. Zardari, the widower of Benazir Bhutto, the former prime minister who was assassinated in December, would like the post. But Mr. Sharif, who maintains a barely civil relationship with Mr. Zardari, is strongly opposed to the elevation of Mr. Zardari.

Mr. Musharraf has been under strong pressure in the past few days, as the coalition said it had completed a charge sheet to take to Parliament for his impeachment. The charges were centered on “gross violations” of the Constitution, according to the minister of information, Sherry Rehman.

The rhetoric from the coalition mounted over the weekend, but the leading politicians wavered on an exact date for bringing the charges, thus leaving a window for Mr. Musharraf to leave.

In his speech, Mr. Musharraf tore into the coalition for what he called their failed economic policies. He said Pakistan’s critical economic situation — a declining currency, capital flight, soaring inflation — was their responsibility. In contrast, he said, his policies had brought prosperity out of near economic collapse when he took charge in 1999.

He then gave a laundry list of his achievements, ranging from expanded road networks to a national art gallery in the capital. Although Pakistan’s literacy rate hovers around 50 percent, and is much lower among women, he took credit for new schools.

The army, the most powerful institution in Pakistan, stayed publicly above the fray in the past 10 days. But in remaining studiously neutral and declining to come to Mr. Musharraf’s rescue, the new leader of the army, Gen. Ashfaq Parvaz Kayani, tipped the scales against the president, politicians said.

The big winners in this are Nawaz Sharif, Asif Ali Zardari, and Baitullah Mehsud. The first two are leaders of their respective political parties, and Mehsud is the most prominent leader of the Taliban, who controls much of the border regions along the Afghan-Pakistani border.

Mehsud continues to act as a world unto himself, and instituted Islamic law in the areas he claims dominion over. That's bad news for the Afghans and Pakistanis who aren't nearly as Islamic as Mehsud is.

Mehsud is a more dangerous factor in Pakistan than perhaps even al Qaeda, given that Mehsud controls a militia force that is capable of taking the fight to the Pakistani military and has forced Musharraf to tuck tail and run on several occasions. Mehsud's thugs are providing aid and comfort to al Qaeda, which is why the solution to the problems in Afghanistan actually rest on what goes on in Pakistan.

If the new government doesn't crack down on the Islamists or go after Mehsud, the ability to stabilize the situation in Afghanistan remains out of grasp.

More thoughts on what Musharraf's resignation means on key questions can be found at my earlier posting here. As I noted then, the fight over Musharraf's continued governance was as much a personal grudge match as it was over policy or politics or corruption. Sharif sought to do unto Musharraf that Musharraf had done unto him - namely overthrow the government and throw Musharraf in jail (Sharif had been Pakistani Prime Minister when Musharraf overthrew the government in 1999). Sharif and Zardari can barely stand each other. And Mehsud seeks nothing less than imposing an Islamist state in the areas he controls.

Musharraf Resignation Rumors and What It Means for the Region

There are a number of stories on the wires suggesting that Pervez Musharraf, who led Pakistan until the recent elections resulted in his loss of power, will resign in the next few days. Expect the Army to make Musharraf keep his word.

He's supposedly to resign rather than face impeachment by the Parliament, which is led by Nawaz Sharif's party. The timing of the resignation will depend on the sides negotiating a deal under which Musharraf can avoid any further legal entanglements. Musharraf had been trying to stick it out, but his allies in the Parliament and the government have dried up.

This national crisis is as much about a personal grudge match as it is about leadership and the capability to thwart the Islamists who threaten the government and the region at every turn.

Musharraf had come to power in a coup that overthrew the government in 1999 then led by Sharif. Sharif has made it his mission to see the favor returned - including watching Musharraf thrown in prison. At the same time, you've got Benazir Bhutto's widow, Asif Ali Zardari, claiming that Musharraf was engaged in embezzlement and corruption, which happened to be the same charges that were lobbed against Zardari when he pretty much skimmed 10% on every contract that came across his desk.

The talk about the impeachment stems from Musharraf's decision to implement a state of emergency in 2007, which restricted rights, and his assault on the courts and the legal professionals.

There are several questions to consider in all of this (in no particular order):
1) What does this mean for the war on terror;
2) What does this mean for the Pakistani relationship with the US;
3) What does this mean for the Pakistani relationship with India; and
4) Who will retain control over the Pakistani nuclear arsenal.

Well, the Pakistanis have been schizophrenic on the subject of fighting the Islamists. Musharraf would alternate between appeasement and crackdown depending on how close the latest assassination attempt on his life got. The new government isn't likely to do much different. They'll do just enough to get by, and not much more.

The Pakistanis know that they get a lot of aid and trade from the US, and they'll do just enough to keep that aid flowing. They'll complain about airstrikes against al Qaeda and Taliban elements that cross into Afghanistan but they'll let those strikes continue. However, the ISI (Pakistani security) continues to be thoroughly compromised by Islamists, so breaking the Taliban/al Qaeda presence, including 157 terror camps, isn't likely to happen unless the government takes a far harder stand than they've been willing to do in the past. Given that Sharif and Zardari have been more accommodating and looking to engage in talks with the Taliban, expect the violence to continue.

Indeed, the spate of bombings and attacks continue, with a suicide bomber killing nine people in Lahore. The Pakistani security forces and military have repeatedly fought with the Taliban with mixed success.

India will continue to look nervously towards its common border with Pakistan and wonder what they'll do. The Line of Control hasn't been quiet, and there have been sporadic firefights, including one just today. Riots this past May in Kashmir haven't made relations between Muslims and Hindus any more friendly. India also blames Pakistan's ISI for the bombing of its embassy in Kabul, Afghanistan that killed more than 60 people.

The most troublesome question, however, is what will happen to Pakistan's nuclear arsenal. No one is quite sure who will maintain control and what kind of control protocols are in effect to prevent unauthorized access to the weapons or the nuclear components. It is possible that the Islamists would be able to get their hands on Pakistan's nuclear weapons program, which could spell bad news in the proliferation game - both to rogue regimes and to terrorists.

I suspect that any deal to unseat Musharraf will include provisions relating to the country's nuclear program. The US has faced this issue before, going back to 2007 when Musharraf imposed the state of emergency. The problems remain, and the US efforts in Afghanistan remain in peril.

Pakistani Government To Impeach Musharraf?

This is a developing story, but CNN and other outlets are reporting that the Pakistani government is moving to impeach Pervez Musharraf. A dangerous situation in Pakistan has just gotten that much more unstable.

A closer look at the situation notes that the ruling coalition, which just defeated Musharraf in elections earlier this year is now looking to exert its power and demands that Musharraf hold a vote of confidence in the Parliament or else face impeachment. This is all designed with an intent to force Musharraf to resign:

Two ruling party officials said the course of action was decided upon during marathon talks between party leaders Asif Ali Zardari and ex-Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.

Both officials divulged the outcome of the two days of talks before the formal announcement at an Islamabad news conference.

Musharraf, who ousted Sharif's government in a bloodless coup in 1999 and then dominated Pakistan for eight years, was sidelined when Zardari and Sharif formed a coalition government after trouncing the former general's allies in February parliamentary elections.

The coalition has a comfortable majority in the National Assembly, so Musharraf would struggle to win a confidence vote. That would crank up political pressure on the US-backed former army chief to resign.

The articles of impeachment would focus on Musharraf's failure to stimulate the economy and undermined a move towards democracy.

Bill Roggio notes how Pakistan remains a dangerous neighbor to both Afghanistan and India. Roggio says that the critical factor is the deteriorating situation in Pakistan and the disastrous failings of the Pakistani military to flush out the Taliban and al Qaeda following yet another one of the Islamists' assassination attempts on Musharraf. The military suffered serious losses and Musharraf concluded that talks were preferable to watching his military suffer yet more defeats at the hands of the Taliban. This only served to embolden the terrorists, and they remain safely tucked away in the safe havens of Warizistan and NWFP - an ongoing and persistent threat to not only Pakistan and Afghanistan, but allows the terrorists to plot attacks against the West and the US.

UPDATE:
As if to underscore the dangerous situation in Pakistan, 200 Taliban thugs attacked a Pakistani outpost. 25 of the thugs were killed, along with 2 Pakistani soldiers.

An attack on a Pakistani military checkpost by some 200 pro-Taliban militants triggered intense fighting that killed 25 insurgents and two paramilitary soldiers near the Afghan border, security officials said Thursday.

The fighting broke out Wednesday in Loi Sam village in the Bajur tribal region, said two army officers and an area intelligence official. All three spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to media.

The terrorists are taking advantage of the Pakistani government's ongoing refusal to crush the Taliban and assert control over the border provinces.

Musharraf Under Threat as Parties Seal Pact on Joint Government

Pakistan's two largest political parties — which won last month's national elections — sealed a power-sharing deal yesterday, raising doubts about President Musharraf's political future.

The accord between Asif Ali Zardari, the de facto leader of the Pakistan People's Party (PPP) and widower of the murdered former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, and the Pakistan Muslim League (N) led by Nawaz Sharif, another former Prime Minister, cleared the way for the formation of an anti-Musharraf government.

“We feel that the country is on the verge of making history,” said Mr Zardari. “This was also the desire of Benazir Bhutto and we also intend to stick to the road to democracy; we are aware of the problems that the country is facing.”

Mr Sharif said that his party would be part of a federal coalition led by the PPP, which is expected to name its prime ministerial candidate this week. The PPP has won 120 seats in the new 342-seat National Assembly, and the Muslim League 90, bringing them close to the two-thirds majority required to strip Mr Musharraf of his powers to dismiss Parliament. The Assembly is expected to meet in ten days' time.

On Saturday Mr Musharraf urged his opponents to put politics aside and concentrate on forming a “stable government and peace in society”.

Mr Zardari said that he had nothing personal against the President but Mr Sharif suggested that he had no future once the new government was formed. “I do not think we have recognised Musharraf's existence; we consider him an unconstitutional and illegal president and would not like our sacrifices that we made during the last eight years to go down the drain,” said Mr Sharif, who was ousted by Mr Musharraf in a military coup in 1999.

Much could depend on who will emerge as the country's new prime minister. The delay in naming the candidates partly reflects the power vacuum left after the assassination in late December of Ms Bhutto. Her husband and son have taken over as co-heads of the PPP but questions remain about whether anyone without her influence and charisma can keep the party united and growing in strength.

This is the will of the people. The people have said they do not want Musharraf i power. And its not like he was democratically elected. The problem is the devil you know versus the devil you don't. In Musharraf, the U.S. has a partner who at least pay lip service to anti-terrorism.

So lets take a look at the "new" players. Nawaz Sharif, former Prime Minister, is responsible for Pakistan's nuclear tests, dissolved the national assembly, met with Bin Laden and offered him money to topple the PPP. He also proposed a law to create an Islamic order in Pakistan and establish a legal system based on the Quran and the Sunnat. However, he did sign a treaty with India, taken steps to normalize relations between the two countries.

Asif Ali Zardari, the husband of Benazir Bhutto, on the other hand, is just a greedy corrupt politician. From wikipedia:

In 1990, Zardari was arrested on charges of blackmail, based on allegations that he attached a bomb to a Pakistani businessman, Murtaza Bukhari, and forced him to withdraw money from his bank account.[1] However, the charges were dropped when he was released from prison in 1993 when his wife's Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) took power and forced the charges out.

Zardari was made the Environment Minister during Bhutto's tenure.

As Minister, he was accused of taking millions of Rs. from local Pakistani banks for forestation of Pakistan.

***

He has been given the nickname "Mr. Ten Percent" by the media and other Pakistani figures because of the alleged 10% extortion he forced on people during the PPP governments.

He was kept in custody from 1997 to 2004 on charges ranging from corruption to murder. He was granted bail and released in November 2004 when a judge said the cases were all false, although allegations of pressure on the judge have also been made. However, he was re-arrested on 21 December 2004 after his failure to attend a hearing in a murder trial in Karachi.

***

In August 2004, Zardari finally admitted owning a £4.35m estate in Surrey, England (including a 20-room mansion and two farms on 365 acres, or 1.5 km², of land), which the Pakistani authorities allege was bought with the proceeds of corruption. He and his family had long denied ownership of such property in the United Kingdom. Legal proceedings brought by the Government of Pakistan against Zardari to recover the sale proceeds of the property are continuing before the High Court of Justice of England and Wales. In October 2006, the court dismissed Zardari's application to halt the proceedings on the basis that it did not have jurisdiction to hear the case. As of late 2007, Zardari is seeking permission to appeal that decision.

Zardari has spent a total of 11 years in prison. He says that the charges are politically motivated. Throughout this time, Zardari's lawyer has been Farooq H. Naek who has played a major role in his release.

A Swiss investigating magistrate has amassed enough evidence, including the purchase of a diamond necklace, to indict Pakistan's former Prime Minister, Benazir Bhutto and husband on money-laundering charges tied to contracts with two Geneva-based companies. The magistrate, Daniel Devaud, decided not to bring the charges against Ms. Bhutto in Switzerland, but rather to ask Pakistani authorities to indict her. The Geneva magistrate has been conducting a wide-ranging inquiry seeking to account for more than $13.7 million frozen by Swiss authorities in 2006.

***

After eight years in exile in Dubai and London, He and Benazir returned to Karachi on 18 October 2007, to prepare for the 2008 general election.

So these will be our partners in peace...makes me feel all warm and fuzzy!!!

Pakistan Votes

After a delay of six weeks following the assassination of Benazir Bhutto by Islamists, Pakistanis went to the polls under heavy security. While 10 people were killed in scattered attacks, the elections did seem to go off as planned.

It may take some time before the poll results are in for the parliamentary elections, which are to help shepherd the country from military to civilian rule. The Times relates that the turnout was low, without giving any kind of context:

A number of clashes among polling officials and voters resulted in 10 people killed and 70 injured, according to Pakistani television channels.

Voter turnout was low; in the North West Frontier Province, which abuts the lawless tribal areas, turnout was only 20 percent, according to election officials. In Peshawar, the provincial capital, Islamic militants prevented many women from voting. Election official estimated that only 523 of 6,431 registered female voters at six polling stations cast ballots.

In Lahore, the political capital of Punjab province, lines were thin, and many voters complained they could not find their names on the voting lists.

But as the polls closed at 5 p.m. local time, election officials said that nationwide voting had been relatively calm compared to past elections.

“We had more violence in one by-election in Karachi last year than across the country today,” said Staffan Darnolf, the country director for the International Foundation for Election Systems, a non-partisan group based in the United States that has been advising Pakistan for more than year on election procedures.

Let's note that 20% turnout is typical in many US primary elections. Low is a relative standard here, and given the circumstances, things are about as good as they're going to be for a while. You're not going to get a whole lot of women voting in places like the NWFP or Warizistan because the Islamists aren't kind to allowing women to act independently.

The low turnout may help Musharraf's party win the elections. Note that this isn't an election on Musharraf's future, but rather to fill seats in the new Parliament. Also, expect many to question the veracity of the results if Musharraf does win because they don't believe Musharraf can win fairly.

UPDATE:
Here's a good background on the election and what's at stake. (HT: Thanos at LGF)

UPDATE:
Early returns are in and it would appear that the opposition parties have roundly defeated Musharraf's party in the elections.

Though official results would not be announced until Tuesday, early returns indicated that the vote would usher in a prime minister from one of the opposition parties, and opened the prospect of a parliament that would move to undo many of Mr. Musharraf’s policies and that may even try to remove him.

The early edge went to the opposition Pakistan Peoples Party, which seemed to benefit from a strong wave of sympathy in reaction to the assassination of its leader, Benazir Bhutto, eight weeks ago, and may be in a position to form the next government.

The results were interpreted here as a repudiation of Mr. Musharraf as well as the Bush administration, which has staunchly backed Mr. Musharraf for eight years as its best bet in the campaign against the Islamic militants in Pakistan. American officials will have little choice now but to seek alternative allies from among the new political forces emerging from the vote.

Politicians and party workers from Mr. Musharraf’s party said the vote was a protest against government policies and the rise in terrorism here, in particular against Mr. Musharraf’s heavy handed way of dealing with militancy and his use of the army against tribesmen in the border areas and against militants in a siege at the Red Mosque here in the capital last summer that left more than 100 dead.

Here's Dawn's election results. Musharraf's party is the PML-Q (Pakistani Muslim League). The PPP is the party formerly led by Benazir Bhutto. The PML-N is the party headed by Nawaz Sharif.

UPDATE:
Metroblogging Islamabad is liveblogging the election returns, and predicts that a powersharing or coalition government will succeed Musharraf. That remains to be seen. (HT: Thanos at LGF)

Scotland Yard: Bhutto Died From Blast, Not Bullets

Scotland Yard said in a report released Friday that Pakistan’s opposition leader Benazir Bhutto died as a result of a suicide bomb blast, not a gunshot — findings that support the Pakistani government’s version of the events.

Bhutto’s Pakistan People’s Party immediately rejected the British conclusion and repeated its demand for a U.N. investigation.

The party says Bhutto was shot and suspects a government cover-up because Bhutto had accused political allies of President Pervez Musharraf of plotting to kill her.

Scotland Yard's conclusions mirror those of the Musharraf government, but here's the problem (or one of several).

No one has done an autopsy on Bhutto's remains. She was swiftly buried without any such examination that could determine the cause of death. It's an incomplete investigation at best, using scant forensic evidence. While it is plausible that she could have died from the blast combined with hitting her head on some part of the vehicle in which she was driving, unless you do a physical examination of her body, there's no way to know for sure.

So, for the Pakistanis, especially those aligned with her political party and that of Nawaz Sharif, who are suspicious of Musharraf generally and don't trust his position on the assassination (and some claim he was responsible), this does little to settle things. If anything, it only further complicates matters.

Pakistani Teen Arrested In Connection With Bhutto Assassination

A teenager who said he was part of a team of assassins sent to kill former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto was arrested near the Afghan border, Pakistani officials said Saturday.

The teen also confessed to taking part in a plot to attack Shiites during Ashoura, even as police in Pakistan's far south said they had foiled suicide attacks planned for the Shiite Muslim festival.

In Karachi, police chief Azhar Farouqi said officers detained five men who were in the possession of explosives, detonators and a small quantity of cyanide intended for attacks on this week's Ashoura processions.

"With these arrests we have foiled major attacks," Farouqi said.

The intelligence official said the 15-year-old told investigators that the five-person squad was dispatched to Rawalpindi, where Bhutto was killed, by Baitullah Mehsud, a militant leader with strong ties to al-Qaida and an alliance with the Taliban in nearby Afghanistan, on Afghanistan's northwest border.

The senior official from Pakistan's North West Frontier Province, who spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media, said the teen was arrested Thursday and was involved in a plot to attack Shiites during an Ashoura festival on Sunday.

Pakistan's Sunni extremists, who regard Shiites as heretics, often attack the community during Ashoura. On Thursday, 11 people died and 20 were injured in a suicide attack on a Shiite mosque in Peshawar, the capital of North West Frontier Province.

The Islamists indoctrinate children to take up the cause of jihad, and tribal and familial pressures reinforce the indoctrination so you get instances where children are taught that killing and mass slaughters are acceptable behavior.

Of course, Mehsud's thugs offered up that this is nothing less than government propaganda and that Mehsud's thugs had nothing to do with the assassination. It's always curious how the press is so quick to get feedback from Mehsud and other Taliban thugs. Are they on speed dial?

It also ignores the evidence proffered that suggests that Mehsud's thugs were deeply involved in the assassination. Scotland Yard and the CIA have both pointed at Mehsud's group as being behind the assassination.

Scotland Yard: Al Qaeda Linked Baitullah Mehsud Behind Bhutto Assassination

But British and American officials, who have examined the transcript, say they believe it is genuine and share Musharraf’s view that Mehsud is behind most of the suicide bombings in Pakistan.

Asked why Pakistani forces do not capture Mehsud, one official said: “It’s not so easy to go into tribal areas. Look what happened to the last lot of Pakistani soldiers that tried.” According to diplomats, Mehsud had dispatched teams of suicide bombers round the country to follow Bhutto to rallies and seize an opportunity to kill her.

The gun fired at Bhutto has been checked for fingerprints by the Scotland Yard detectives. A government minister told The Sunday Times that these have been traced through identity cards to a man in Swat, an area where Mehsud’s men have been fighting.

“There was no cover-up,” he insisted. “It was just unfortunate that in all the shock and confusion at the beginning, people shot their mouths off talking about sunroofs rather than simply saying it would be investigated.”

Scotland Yard has insisted that its task is not to establish who killed her but only how she died.

Even that is not straightforward. They cannot examine the body, and the crime scene and Bhutto’s vehicle were both scrubbed within hours.

Every day another conspiracy theory emerges. It is now widely believed that the gun had a laser sight, suggesting military complicity, or that a sniper may have been in a nearby building.

The Pakistani government hasn't exactly helped themselves by engaging in an exceedingly swift funeral and internment of Bhutto's body, which means that investigators cannot examine her remains for evidence as to how she died, and who might have killed her. Similarly, the scene of the attack was sanitized and little evidence remains for which investigators can use. There are some videos and photos of the scene - both immediately before the bomb went off and right afterwards.

However, it shouldn't be all that surprising that Mehsud was fingered by Scotland Yard. He was one of the logical choices for being behind the attacks and was among those prominently mentioned as details of the attack were unfolding.

UPDATE:
Some are now suggesting that Mehsud is even more dangerous than Osama bin Laden. I guess it would depend on who he is more dangerous to. Clearly, Mehsud's followers have the capability to seriously destabilize Pakistan and cause trouble in Afghanistan. They've become especially effective at fighting the Pakistani military. However, the thug's reach beyond those two countries is far more limited, which is the perceived strength of Osama, whose minions operate around the world, but are focused on such places as Iraq, Somalia, Sudan, Saudi Arabia, Lebanon, Gaza, and have cells operating in Algeria and Europe as well.

Islamic Terrorists Have Busy Day

Islamic terrorists have been very busy today. They killed three people in Thailand. They murdered more than 20 and wounded 70 in a major suicide bombingin Lahore, Pakistan.

A suicide bomber blew himself up among police deployed outside a court in eastern Pakistan on Thursday, killing at least 24 people and wounding more than 70, officials and witnesses said.

The blast in front of Lahore High Court was the latest in a wave of attacks targeting politicians and security forces ahead of Feb. 18 parliamentary elections. There was no immediate claim of responsibility, but suspicion will likely fall on militants linked to Taliban and al-Qaida.

Bill Roggio has more. The body count keeps rising wherever these terrorists operate, and ignoring the fact that it's about their ideology will have deadly consequences.

These terrorists see murdering those who are not as Islamist as they are as a duty and obligation under Islam. However, there is one component to these attacks that could be exploited to defeat the Islamists - tribal loyalties. That's how the Sunni tribes in Iraq rose up against the Sunni dominated al Qaeda. They saw that the al Qaeda were busy targeting their tribes despite the fact that these tribes had been predisposed to helping al Qaeda defeat the US. The tribes came to realize that al Qaeda was not only far worse than the US could ever be, but that they were targeting anyone who wasn't as Islamist as they were. Those tribes began to regard the US as an ally and started helping the US in earnest this year as the US surged troops into Iraq to crush the al Qaeda threat and insurgency that is dominated by al Qaeda.

The same may be possible in Pakistan, but the situation is far more fluid and complex because of the instability of the Musharraf government and his unwillingness to take long term and decisive actions to defeat the Islamists. He's only been willing to do just as much as necessary to retain power and no more.

That could be changing slightly as some of the tribes in Warizistan are beginning to turn on Taliban aligned with al Qaeda because some of their tribesmen have been murdered by the al Qaeda aligned Taliban.

The US and coalition forces haven't been sitting back. They've been taking the fight to al Qaeda and the Islamists. They dropped a serious amount of ordnance on the terrorists outside Baghdad.

U.S. bombers and jet fighters unleashed 40,000 pounds of explosives during a 10-minute airstrike Thursday morning, flattening what the military called al-Qaida in Iraq safe havens on the southern outskirts of the capital.

A military statement said B-1 bombers and F-16 fighters dropped the explosives on 40 targets in Arab Jabour in 10 strikes.

The massive attack was part of Operation Phantom Phoenix, a nationwide campaign launched Tuesday to root out al-Qaida in Iraq fighters.

The US casualties reported in the past several days has been due to the current military operations - including the six troops killed when a booby-trapped building exploded in Diyala.

Afghan forces captured 11 Taliban thugs, including Pakistanis, around the country including Kabul, Kandahar, and various provinces for plotting attacks. That comes on the heels of the capture of a former Pakistani general and five of his minions in Lahore, Pakistan who was now al Qaeda and prepping suicide bombers.

Pakistani security forces have captured the leader of an al Qaeda suicide cell that was behind the attack on the Sargodha military base last fall. Ahsan al Haq and five cell members have been detained by Pakistani security forces in the city of Lahore, Reuters reported.

"We recovered explosives and jackets used for suicide bombings at his house next to a madrassa (Islamic school)," and anonymous intelligence official told Reuters. "All of them admitted they were behind the Sargodha attack and were planning to carry out similar attacks, even against politicians."

Al Haq, a retired Pakistani Army major, "was said have been close to Afghan Muslim guerrilla commander Younis Khalis, who battled Soviet forces in the 1980s and later had links with the Taliban," Reuters reported. "Haq ran a militant training camp in Afghanistan during Taliban rule."

Not Ready For Prime Time

Time Magazine doesn't mince words. They don't think that Benazir Bhutto's son is ready to lead the student union, let alone the failed state of Pakistan.

"This is a new experience for me, and I'm a bit nervous," he said.

So began the political career of the 19-year-old chairman of Pakistan's main opposition party, the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP). In his first full press conference since the Dec. 27 assassination of his mother, Benazir Bhutto, Bhutto Zardari laid out his plan to finish his three-year history degree at Christ Church College, Oxford and then enter politics, asserting that his lineage makes him a natural future leader of Pakistan.

But what was clear, both in Bhutto Zardari's words and unsure delivery, is that this would-be savior of a Muslim nuclear state on the verge of disintegration is exactly what he appears to be: a teenager nowhere near ready to lead a student union, let alone a country. "Unless I can finish my education and develop enough maturity, I recognize that I will never be in a position to have sufficient wisdom to enter the political arena," Bhutto Zardari himself conceded.

In a crammed and overheated hotel basement, the painful contradictions of Bhutto Zardari's appointment to the chairmanship of the PPP were laid bare: here was a young man dealing with a country plagued by poverty from a boutique hotel in Kensington on behalf of a party claiming to push for democracy even as it consolidates a dynasty. The British press pack was relentless. One BBC journalist asked: "What on earth do you propose as a 19-year-old who has hardly lived in the country, what do you propose you can offer Pakistan, a country of 170 million people?"

Bhutto Zardari replied: "It is true that I haven't lived there, but I was raised by my mother, I was completely and utterly involved in everything she did."

He's been thrust into this position because his mother was assassinated by Islamist terrorists, who would most certainly love to do the same to him as well should he pursue a course of action that threatens the Taliban and Islamist dominion over the NWFP, Swat, and Warizistan, let alone go after the Islamists elsewhere in the country.

Pakistan was supposed to have held its elections today, but Musharraf's government rescheduled them for February 18 after the assassination. No clearcut leader has emerged, but Bhutto's husband may have the name recognition and the ambition.

The younger Zardari doesn't even meet the age requirements to run for office; that's still another six years away as he must be 25 to run for office (he's only 19). A lot can change in that time, and it's a heavy burden to ask of him at a time when he's got so many people pulling him in so many different directions.

He has, however, demanded a UN investigation into his mother's death. Considering that it's the UN, don't expect a quick response. They're still looking for the real killer in the Rafiq Hariri assassination three years ago and are unwilling to openly admit that Syria was behind the multiple assassinations that have ravaged the Lebanese polity.

Pakistan's Problems Continue

Are there links between the Bhutto assassination and the release of terrorists from GitMo? That's exactly what the Randall Hoven of the American Thinker suggests in his latest article.

One of those who was released because of "insufficient evidence" was Abdullah Mehsud. If that last name sounds familiar, it's because he's the brother of Baitullah Mehsud, who's been implicated in the assassination of Benazir Bhutto.

If these are the types of people already released from GTMO for insufficient evidence, what does that say about those still held there? They did not just happen to be in Pakistan or Afghanistan for a wedding. They lie, they kill, they torture. And they do it on scales that can topple governments and democratic movements, and that is exactly their intention. In short, they are as dangerous as anyone could possibly be. Yet critics of the U.S. want to set them free.

Musharraf says that Bhutto ignored warnings about the security situation and dismissed any government involvment in the assassination. People might trust him just a wee bit more had the Pakistani government not pressured doctors into making statements about the cause of death and blaming everything but the gunshot that killed her, along with the failure to conduct an autopsy under controlled conditions. Musharraf is also saying that the inquiry into Bhutto's death was unsatisfactory to this point, but he's got few to blame but his own government officials. Calling in Scotland Yard isn't going to help, unless you're going to exhume the remains and conduct a proper examination of the body to determine cause of death. Much of the physical evidence has been destroyed or removed in the course of the cleanup of the scene of the attack, so reconstruction of the events is difficult at best.

All this takes place with the backdrop of the postponed elections, which are now scheduled to be held February 18. Some groups are already planning demonstrations and fear that Musharraf may postpone the elections indefinitely. If the rioting and mayhem continues, it could become a self-fulfilling prophesy.

On the lighter side, it appears the media and some bloggers can't quite figure out how to fact check. Someone thought that Bhutto's son had a facebook page, but it was some wannabe poseur who created the page had anyone bothered checking things out. Dan Riehl has the details.

Where Elections Are Threatened, Violence Follows

That's what happens across most of the rest of the world as election fraud and delayed elections threaten to rip apart Kenya and Pakistan.

Pakistan's government has an excuse - the assassination of Benazir Bhutto to fall back on. Musharraf is in a no-win situation because if he goes forward with elections January 8, his party is sure to lose and election fraud is quite possible given the rioting that ensued after Bhutto's assassination that included torching election offices that contained voter rolls. By pushing the election back to February 18, the voter rolls might be restored, but the opposition parties (PPP and Nawaz Sharif's party - and Sharif isn't allowed to run as a convicted felon) aren't happy about the move since they hoped to capitalize on the assassination and have their party leadership become Prime Minister.

Meanwhile, the situation in Kenya is dire as the claims of election fraud have resulted in widespread chaos and violence, with more than 300 dead, including one gruesome scene where more than 50 were killed when a church was torched with more than 50 people seeking refuge inside. International pressure is mounting to end the violence, but public statements do little to quell the violence when so many people feel aggrieved and that the election results were fraudulent.

The killing of up to 50 people from the Kikuyu tribe Tuesday as they sheltered in a church in the Rift Valley city of Eldoret fuelled fears of deepening ethnic conflict in what has been one of Africa's most stable democracies.

The United Nations cited Kenyan police as saying 70,000 people had been displaced in five days of violence.

Around 5,400 people have fled to neighbouring Uganda, said Musa Ecweru, that country's disaster preparedness minister. Several hundred people have fled to Tanzania, officials there said.

Much of Nairobi was quiet and deserted Wednesday, though clashes continued in the city's giant Mathare slum.

Government spokesman Alfred Mutua downplayed the violence, saying it had only affected about three per cent of the country's 34 million people. "Kenya is not burning and not at the throes of any division," he said.

The Kenyan government is playing down the violence, as though it's a mere blip on the radar. How much of the country has to burn before the Kenyan government will realize that they're condoning mass slaughter, displacement, and ethnic cleansing?

UPDATE:
The Pakistani government is calling on Scotland Yard for assistance in investigating the Bhutto assassination.

The decision to request outside help with the inquiry into Ms. Bhutto’s death appeared to be an attempt to deflect some of the withering criticism that has been building inside and outside Pakistan about the competence and objectivity of the investigation, and the government’s explanation about how Ms. Bhutto died.

In the address, Mr. Musharraf also defended a decision announced earlier Wednesday by Pakistan’s election commission to postpone parliamentary elections until Feb. 18, six weeks later than originally scheduled, saying the delay was unavoidable because of the destruction caused by the post-assassination riots in Sindh Province, the political base of Ms. Bhutto.

Senior Bush administration officials and American lawmakers from both parties have privately been urging Mr. Musharraf to allow international involvement in the inquiry into Ms. Bhutto’s death to help tamp down civil unrest and to give the inquiry credibility with Ms. Bhutto’s family and supporters.

“We have decided to request a team from Scotland Yard,” Mr. Musharraf said. “This team will work on the case and solve all the issues.”

Outrage continues in Pakistan over the Musharraf government’s assertion that Ms. Bhutto was not killed from gunfire or from shrapnel caused by a suicide bomber’s explosion, but from striking her head as she tried to duck into her car during the attack at a campaign rally last week.

UPDATE:
The Pakistani government has also apologized for putting forth the notion that Bhutto was killed not by gunfire or the suicide bomber, but when she struck her head on a latch in the SUV.

In a dramatic U-turn, Pakistan government has "apologised" for claiming that former premier Benazir Bhutto died of a skull fracture after hitting the sunroof of her car during a suicide attack.

Caretaker Interior Minister Hamid Nawaz Khan has asked the media and people to "forgive and ignore" comments made by his ministry's spokesman Javed Iqbal Cheema which were slammed by her Pakistan People's Party as "lies" and led to an uproar at home and abroad.

The Interior Minister made the apology during a briefing for Pakistani newspaper editors on Monday. Punjab province on Tuesday issued a front-page advertisement in newspapers that offered a reward of Rs 1 crore for information about a gunman and a suspected suicide bomber seen in the photos and video footage of the assassination.

The government's apparent damage control exercise on Cheema's comments made at a news conference a day after Bhutto was assassinated at Liaquat Bagh in Rawalpindi on December 27, came after TV channels aired privately shot photos and video footage which showed a gunman shooting at Bhutto.

Delayed

This is not going to sit well with the PPP and those who are generally opposed to Pervez Musharraf. The Pakistani government has announced that the elections originally scheduled for January 8 will be rescheduled for some time in February.

The election date is expected to be announced formally on Wednesday, and President Pervez Musharraf is scheduled to address to the nation that evening.

The timing of the elections and how the news of the delay is received could be critical to Pakistan’s stability. The two main opposition parties have threatened continuous protests against the government over the delay.

Members of Mr. Musharraf’s faction of the Pakistan Muslim League acknowledged in the last several days that the elections could not be delayed for more than six weeks without risking fresh outbreaks of violence. “Six weeks is just about the outer limit before the frustration really hurts Musharraf,” said a member of the president’s faction.

The Election Commission secretary, Kunwar Muhammad Dilshad, said it would not be possible to hold the elections next Tuesday because the printing of ballot papers had stopped after the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, the opposition leader, and rioters had damaged election offices in Sindh Province.

New rioting could break out in response to the latest news, and could further deal Musharraf problems that he's barely able to contain at present.

UPDATE 1/2/2008:
Musharraf has announced that the elections will take place February 18. The opposition parties had hoped for the elections to go off as scheduled on January 8 so as to capitalize on the assassination of Benazir Bhutto. They're now claiming that Musharraf changed the date so as to maximize his chances.

Coming To Grips

Pakistani authorities are now talking about the possibility of exhuming Benazir Bhutto to conduct an autopsy. Are you kidding me. The time to have conducted a thorough examination was before she was buried so that the myriad of questions surrounding her death could be examined by top experts.

Instead, with the various theories and Zapruder-style films of her last moments coming to light, we've got nothing but a bunch of conjecture about her cause of death.

This all comes at a most delicate time for the Pakistanis who have to decide whether to let the Islamists rule the roost or whether they want to fight for a Western leaning government.

Even Bhutto's rivals, Nawaz Sharif, is blaming the Musharraf government for her assassination. But, one can't say that Bhutto was blind to the threats posed by the Islamists and various tribal interests arrayed against her. The US briefed her on the threats.

Meanwhile, the Pakistani government is hinting that the ongoing rioting and chaos could delay the elections, which are scheduled for January 8. This is a no-win situation for Musharraf, who is damned if he sticks to the originally scheduled date, or delays the elections. If he delays, the usual suspects will complain that he's thwarting the democratic process, while if he sticks to the schedule, he's again thwarting the democratic process because it will not give opposition groups including Bhutto's party the time to find a credible replacement.

The death toll from the rioting is now up to 38 and is expected to rise further.

Musharraf is promising to take firm action against the Islamists, but I fear he's going to do only enough to maintain his power, and nothing more. He's been the target of multiple assassination attempts by the Islamists, and yet he's done only the bare minimum to fight the Islamists who rule the roost along the border provinces with Afghanistan. The Islamists know this, and know that they can skip across the border and regroup, all while infiltrating all aspects of the Pakistani government apparatus.

If Musharraf were truly serious about fighting the Islamists, he must bring the full force and effect of the Pakistani military against the Islamists, instead of using secondary level forces that are less capable of dealing with an ongoing threat. The deal nearly 60 years ago that left the border regions outside the sphere of influence in Islamabad must end if the Islamist threat is to be defeated.

UPDATE:
It appears that Benazir's son will take on his mother's mantle. He's 19 years old, which might be good if you're thinking about a dynasty, but not so much if you think he's got the skills and experience to lead a troubled country.

A senior official of Benazir Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party (PPP) told TIME late Saturday that the slain former prime minister's 19-year-old son, Bilawal, will likely be named as her political heir and the new party leader on Sunday. PPP members are due to meet to discuss the party's future and to give Bilawal, a student at Oxford, a chance to read his mother's last will and testament.

A Pakistani television news channel also carried reports that Bilawal will be made the new leader, which the channel said accorded with Benazir Bhutto's wishes. If confirmed, the teenager will become the third leader of the 40-year-old center-left party, one of Pakistan's most powerful. Bilawal will follow his grandfather, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, who founded the PPP in 1967, led Pakistan as Prime Minister for four years in the mid 1970s and was hanged in 1979 by a military government, and Benazir, who took over from her father and was killed in a shooting and suicide bomb attack two days ago.

Some are pushing for Benazir's husband, Asif Ali Zardari, to take the reins of the party, and that could still happen.

The Perilous Vote

Yesterday, Islamists voted with gunfire and a suicide bomber. They assassinated Benazir Bhutto in the hopes of eliminating a threat to their entrenched comfort in Pakistan and the lawless border regions with Afghanistan. Bhutto's followers also voted yesterday - in rioting and standing firm in their convictions, they too sent a message. They will hold fast against Musharraf and the Islamists. Her supporters believe that Musharraf was behind her assassination, whether by actively engaging in the plot, or by not doing nearly enough to insure her security.

In Jacobabad, protesters set fire to shops belonging to the family members of interim premier Mohammedmian Soomro. Protesters torched buildings, trucks and shops, blocked roads and uprooted railway tracks. Shots rang out in a number of cities.

Banks and train stations were set ablaze, officials said.

Violent mobs burned 10 railway stations and several trains across Sindh province, forcing the suspension of all train services between Karachi and Punjab province, said Mir Mohammed Khaskheli, a senior railroad official.
A section of the track leading to the Indian border was also uprooted, he added.

A mob in Karachi looted three banks and set them on fire, police said.

About 7,000 people in Multan ransacked seven banks and a gas station and threw stones at police, who responded with the firing of tear gas shells. In Islamabad, about 100 protesters burned tyres in a commercial quarter of the city.

While al Qaeda has taken responsibility for the attacks, it almost doesn't matter which Islamist terrorist group was responsible because they're all cut from the same cloth. Indeed, there's a laundry list of groups that sought her death. They are all misogynist in nature, all seek to force all others to submit to their brand of Islam, and will commit heinous crimes and slaughter civilians by the score to achieve their goals.

Bill Roggio notes the following about al Qaeda and their purported responsibility:

"It is believed that the decision to kill Bhutto, who is the leader of the opposition Pakistan People's Party (PPP), was made by al-Qaeda No. 2, the Egyptian doctor, Ayman al-Zawahiri in October," Mr. Shahzad also reported. "Death squads were allegedly constituted for the mission and ultimately one cell comprising a defunct Lashkar-i-Jhangvi’s Punjabi volunteer succeeded in killing Bhutto."

Mustafa Abu al Yazid has long been the leader of al Qaeda in Afghanistan. In May, Yazid was officially appointed al Qaeda's military commander in Afghanistan.

The Lashkar-e-Jhangavi and other indigenous Pakistani terror groups such as Jaish-e-Mohammned and Lashkar-e-Taiba (which is now Jamaatud Dawa) essentially serve as muscle for al Qaeda in Pakistan.

Based on the sophistication of the Bhutto assassination, al Qaeda and the Taliban were very likely assisted by infiltrators and sympathizers in the Pakistani military and Inter Services Intelligence agency.

This latter issue has been the key problem for Musharraf all along. The military and ISI has been penetrated by the Islamists for years, and there's been little done to reverse that trend. It's extremely worrisome given Pakistan's nuclear capabilities.

The New York Times provides analysis that is little more than stating the obvious (gee, you think that his future appears as anything but troubled?). Musharraf has been skating on thin ice for years, and has been playing a dangerous game with the Islamists by alternatively appeasing and cracking down on various groups. He's done just enough to remain in power, which is likely to be his continued modus operandi. If the Lal Masjid episode didn't spur Musharraf to finally and thoroughly crack down on the Islamists, despite their direct threat to Musharraf, assassinating a rival in Benazir Bhutto isn't going to change things either.

UPDATE:
Bhutto was buried in Sindh, in the family's mausoleum, next to her father.

As of now, the January 8 elections are still on. Musharraf for his part says that he's going forward with the elections. What other choice does he have? Damned if he does, damned if he cancels them.

UPDATE:
Arnaud de Borchgrave, a journalist who was close to Bhutto, had this to say about the situation:

The more chaos the better for these people. Benazir Bhutto knew that we could not possibly succeed in Afghanistan until that border between Afghanistan and Pakistan was brought back under government control. It is now under al-Qaida and Taliban control, with the army in effect having been defeated there. They’ve lost over 1,000 with 3,000 injured — it was a very unpopular campaign in the federally administered tribal areas on the border because they’ve always been free of any kind of army interference ever since independence.

Sixty years ago it was agreed that the army would stay out of the federally administered tribal areas.

On both sides of the border these tribes are the same: Pashtun tribes on both sides of the border. They don’t recognize the Durant line which is the artificial border created by British colonialism in 1893. That border is not recognized by an awful lot of people — mostly political religious fundamentalist extremists.

The situation in Pakistan is sure to spill over into Afghanistan, which is something that Bhutto recognized, and which will continue to threaten the US mission in Afghanistan. The lawlessness along the border goes back to the founding of Pakistan, which means it's an entrenched issue that pits tribal alliances on both sides of the border with the Pakistani government, which has thus far been incapable of dealing with the Taliban and Islamist threat emanating from the region.

UPDATE:
Jammie has more on the possibility that rogue military forces were involved in the assassination.

UPDATE:
Pakistanis living in New Jersey are justifiably concerned about the events in Pakistan. The death toll is now 19 from the ongoing rioting.

UPDATE:
Yesterday definitely wasn't a good day for the Bush Administration as Sec. State Rice was behind brokering the deal that enabled Bhutto to return to Pakistan in the first place. The thinking was that she would provide a bulwark against the Islamists in the NWFP, Swat, and Warizistan, and do far more against the Islamists than Musharraf had been capable of doing. Wishful thinking at best.

UPDATE:
Andy McCarthy pulls no punches on the situation in Pakistan.

UPDATE:
Ralph Peters doesn't pull punches about Bhutto. The Pakistanis have announced that they've intercepted communications that link al Qaeda to the assassination, although the group that actually carried it out is Lashkar e-Jhangvi, who received congrats from Taliban thug Mehsud.

Meanwhile, questions will swirl about Bhutto's cause of death. While there was speculation and reports that she was killed by gunfire, today's reports suggest she was killed by blunt force trauma - not gunshots. No autopsy was conducted.

UPDATE:
Let's just say I'm not totally comforted when I hear the Pentagon claim that the Pakistani nuclear weapons are secure.

Pakistan's nuclear weapons arsenal is secure despite political turmoil after the assassination of opposition leader Benazir Bhutto, the Pentagon said on Friday.

"Our assessment is that the Pakistani nuclear arsenal is under control," said Pentagon spokesman Col. Gary Keck. "At this time, we have no need for concern."

Our intel has been wrong on so many issues in the past few years, that they could be wrong here as well. I'll remain concerned, unless we learn that the US has operational control of those weapons and that the jihadis can't get their grubby hands on them.

Keep that in mind as Sec. Def. Gates says that al Qaeda has regroups along the Afghan-Pakistani border.

Meanwhile, a new video has surfaced of the assassination. Bhutto's followers aren't buying the latest official version and cause of death, so expect the conspiracy theories to persist even as media outlets go over the videos as if they were the Zapruder film. To my eye, it looks like there's a muzzle flash just moments before the bomb blast as the video ends, which would confirm reports of gunfire preceding the bomb.

UPDATE:
The Pakistanis have released photos and xrays claiming to show the some of the injuries sustained by Bhutto, along with the condition of the vehicle in which she was riding (via HuffPo). Hot Air has more, including more analysis on the varying accounts of what happened.