USA bombs Pakistan

[Leif]

Pakistan fury as CIA airstrike on village kills 18
Imtiaz Ali in Damadola and Massoud Ansari in Karachi
(Filed: 15/01/2006)

Angry Pakistani officials have condemned an American airstrike on a remote village near the Afghan border which the US said was aimed at Ayman al-Zawahiri, Osama bin Laden's second-in-command.

Pakistan is preparing to lodge a formal diplomatic protest over the attack, which killed at least 18 people, because it was launched from four pilotless aircraft which intruded 30 miles into Pakistani air space from Afghanistan. But a senior American government official said that Pakistan would have been informed before an attack on a such high-profile target on its soil.

However, there was confusion amid the rubble of the mud houses in the Berkandi area of Damadola, which Pakistani officials said had been struck by as many as 10 missiles fired from the remote-controlled drones. Five women and five children were among those killed and 14 of the dead were said to be from the same family.

One local resident, Sherzada, 25, said that he had seen "spy" planes flying over the village for three nights before the attack.

A senior Pakistan intelligence official strongly denied reports that al-Zawahiri, the al-Qaeda number two, was anywhere near the village that was at the centre of the attack.

"We have checked all our sources. There was no sign of al-Zawahiri's presence in the village," the ISI official, who wished to remain anonymous, told the Sunday Telegraph. "All those killed in the airstrike are innocent civilians. They [the US] are now trying to cover this up by leaking faulty information to the media."

But when one local, who would not give his name, was asked whether he knew bin Laden's right-hand man, he said: "Yes, I do know him, but we don't have any connection with him." Pakistan is a frontline ally of America in its war on terror, but US forces stationed in Afghanistan are not allowed to carry out any attacks on its territory without prior permission.

In Friday's strike, the target appeared to be a cluster of three houses, one of which was the venue for a party. The official number of dead is 18 but locals are saying that as many as 25 have been killed, though only 13 graves were to be found yesterday. Contrary to local custom, the bodies were buried quickly, with no formal funeral arrangements, adding to confusion and suspicion throughout the region.

Other villagers denied any knowledge of al-Zawahiri. Sher Afzal, 45, the brother of one victim, Bakht Pur, 65, said: "We totally reject that we know al-Qaeda. We don't have any connection with al-Qaeda."

Yesterday an estimated 8,000 tribesmen, led by Haroon Rasheed, a parliamentarian and member of the radical Islamic party Jamate Islami, gathered in a nearby town to protest at the airstrike. Damadola is a stronghold of Gul Badin Hikmatyar - a mujahideen leader who is engaged in guerrilla warfare against American forces in neighbouring Afghanistan.

A senior American government official said the CIA had been following a group of "foreigners" who arrived in the village, after what was believed to be a tip-off from a paid informant that al-Zawahiri was among their number. The group is believed to have been divided between the three houses destroyed by the missile strikes.

Al-Zawahiri declared in a video after the July 7 London bombings that al-Qaeda's battle was being carried to "enemy territory". He blamed Tony Blair for the attack on the capital.

[Leif]

This is so fucked up.

[Excorcism]

This is so fucked up.

....I wonder how Al Qaeda or supporters of Al Qaeda would interpret the fact that unmanned planes are now doing the killing. That definilty has to hurt their morale. You can imagine one of the fighters shooting down an airplane and there is no body to be found and it's only a small drone that wiped out half of your army from the sky. I think most would just give up at that point after realizing that the U.S. doesn't really need men to control flying aircraft that launch explosives and gunfire. What would be the point to fight if 20 of those suckers just attacked your camp at night and the guy controlling it is sitting on his ass miles and miles away eating dinner at the same time. It's like he's playing a freaking video game and here you are running out of your camp in horror as the drones are pointing at you. :D

It is fucked up though hwo the missles hit innocent civilians but something tells me it wont be in the American news and if it will be, it will probably be for like 5 minutes until some stupid domestic trial of someone fucking a dog, or a woman, or a dog/woman is on television for the next 3 damn weeks just to cover up some shady deals in the world and advert the American public's attention.

[Leif]

....I wonder how Al Qaeda or supporters of Al Qaeda would interpret the fact that unmanned planes are now doing the killing. That definilty has to hurt their morale. You can imagine one of the fighters shooting down an airplane and there is no body to be found and it's only a small drone that wiped out half of your army from the sky. I think most would just give up at that point after realizing that the U.S. doesn't really need men to control flying aircraft that launch explosives and gunfire. What would be the point to fight if 20 of those suckers just attacked your camp at night and the guy controlling it is sitting on his ass miles and miles away eating dinner at the same time. It's like he's playing a freaking video game and here you are running out of your camp in horror as the drones are pointing at you.

In the future someone will develop EMP rockets or something, as they'd be far more effective against modern military units than purely explosive devices.

It is fucked up though hwo the missles hit innocent civilians but something tells me it wont be in the American news and if it will be, it will probably be for like 5 minutes until some stupid domestic trial of someone fucking a dog, or a woman, or a dog/woman is on television for the next 3 damn weeks just to cover up some shady deals in the world and advert the American public's attention.

I agree. The internet is usually much better for getting fast information and news, and I didn't hear about this until a full week after it happened.

[Felix the Cat]

It's an open secret that Osama is running the war in Afghanistan from the borderlands of Pakistan. I'm frankly surprised incidents like this don't happen more often

I agree. The internet is usually much better for getting fast information and news, and I didn't hear about this until a full week after it happened.
ho hum (http://www.thephora.net/forum/showthread.php?t=3078)

[Leif]

Odd, I did a search before I posted this and found nothing.

[Niko Bellic]

My comments on a blog entry that someone posted at that other forum.

Neocon ravings (http://www.speakeasy.invisionzone.com/index.php?showtopic=6244&view=findpost&p=57294):)

[Felix the Cat]

Pakistan's Push in Border Areas Is Said to Falter (http://www.nytimes.com/2006/01/22/international/asia/22pakistan.html?_r=1&pagewanted=1&ei=5094&en=517969a96f36f8b1&hp&ex=1137906000&partner=homepage)

PESHAWAR, Pakistan, Jan. 19 - Two years after the Pakistani Army began operations in border tribal areas to root out members of Al Qaeda and other foreign militants, Pakistani officials who know the area say the military campaign is bogged down, the local political administration is powerless and the militants are stronger than ever.

Both Osama bin Laden, who released a new audiotape of threats against the United States this week, and his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, are believed to be living somewhere in the seven districts that make up these tribal areas, which run for more than 500 miles along the rugged Afghan border and have been hit by several American missile strikes in recent weeks.

The officials said they had been joined by possibly hundreds of foreign militants from Arab countries, Central Asia and the Caucasus, who present a continuing threat to the authorities within the region.

The tribal areas are off limits to foreign journalists, but the Pakistani officials, and former residents who did not want to be identified for fear of retribution, said the militants - who call themselves Taliban - now dispensed their own justice, ran their own jails, robbed banks, shelled military and civilian government compounds and attacked convoys at will. They are recruiting men from the local tribes and have gained a hold over the population through a mix of fear and religion, the officials and former residents said.

An American military official in Afghanistan, in an e-mail response to questions about Pakistan's tribal areas, said: "I believe this region is going through a period of revolutionary change, in which moderates and extremists fight for the future of their nations. And with vast, lawless areas in which Taliban-style justice holds sway, Pakistan faces serious challenges." The official agreed to comment only on the condition of anonymity.

Maj. Gen. Shaukat Sultan, chief spokesman for the Pakistani military, said the accounts of the size of the militants' forces were exaggerated. He put the number of foreign militants in the whole of the tribal areas at "100, plus or minus."

But the officials and residents say the militants are far more numerous, and have embarked on a disruptive campaign of terrorism, particularly in North and South Waziristan: in the last year, 108 pro-government tribal elders, 4 or 5 government officials, informers and even 2 local journalists, have been assassinated by militants, local journalists say.

Qaeda operatives are the driving force behind the local militants and are influencing their tactics, the officials said. The militants have managed this despite a hammer-and-anvil strategy in the region, with American military forces pressing from the Afghan side of the border. There have been three American strikes in the area in the past six weeks, involving missiles fired from remotely piloted Predator aircraft operated by the Central Intelligence Agency, but whether they were an expression of American frustration or the outcome of a burst of intelligence remains unclear.

Despite government denials, the officials said, the strikes may have had the tacit approval of Pakistan's leadership, which has issued mostly pro forma condemnations. The officials asked not to be identified because their supervisors do not allow them to talk to the media.

The most recent strike, in Bajaur on Jan. 13, killed as many as 18 civilians, but might also have killed several high-level Qaeda members.

[On Saturday, President Pervez Musharraf told Under Secretary of State R. Nicholas Burns that the Jan. 13 strike "must not be repeated," The Associated Press reported.]

Bajaur, Afghan and Pakistani security officials said, is not as out of control as North and South Waziristan, but it has become a staging post for fighters entering and leaving the eastern Afghan province of Kunar, where American forces have encountered some of the most serious resistance over the past year.

Al Qaeda's propaganda unit has produced video CD's showing Afghan fighters being trained by an Arab commander and mounting ambushes on American soldiers and convoys in Kunar. Afghans know of two Arab commanders who fought against Soviet forces and have stayed on in Bajaur, said the governor of Kunar, Asadullah Wafa.

The Afghan border police say they learned of a meeting in a mosque in Bajaur six months ago between members of the Afghan Taliban, a group led by the renegade mujahedeen commander Gulbuddin Hekmatyar from Afghanistan and the Arabs, during which they are said to have divided up responsibility for insurgent operations in Afghanistan.

Pakistan's military has become more cautious about emerging from its bases in North and South Waziristan, and the civilian administration is so hamstrung that the senior government representative in South Waziristan does not even live there.

"We run a government on paper, but not on the ground," said one government official who has worked in North and South Waziristan, which have seen some of the heaviest combat of the past two years.

Now, the heaviest fighting has shifted to North Waziristan, where there are reports of casualties among the military or the civilian population almost daily. At least three small mountain lookout posts built by the army with American funds have been knocked out, one official who was there recently said.

"The situation is going from bad to worse," the official said. "No one can raise their voice against the Taliban." Armed local militants come and go freely and have even opened offices in the main bazaar of Wana, in South Waziristan, driving up in pickups filled with armed fighters. They use the offices to recruit followers from the large, illiterate and unemployed youth of the area, a former resident said, asking not to be identified for fear of retribution from the militants.

Military operations, which have killed at least 40 civilians and wounded 600, said one official, have also driven youths to join the militants.

General Sultan, the military spokesman, cautioned against taking such reports too seriously. "Calling them Taliban is sensationalizing the situation," in an interview in his headquarters Rawalpindi. "There is a mix of foreigners, Al Qaeda and Taliban and local supporters." By Taliban, he meant fighters from Afghanistan.

He said foreign militants had been eliminated in South Waziristan and existed in North Waziristan now only in small groups, adding that there were also few local militants allied to Al Qaeda and other foreigners.

He did not have figures for military casualties in 2005 but said there were fewer than in 2004, when 250 Pakistani soldiers died. "It's not anything like that now," he said.

Home to six million people and covering 10,000 square miles, the Federally Administered Tribal Areas for years provided a sanctuary for Afghan and other foreign fighters opposed to the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. But for the past four years, after members of the Taliban, Al Qaeda and foreign allies were driven out of Afghanistan, they have lived in the area and gradually taken greater control.

Government officials who have spent time in the tribal areas say there may be as many as 1,000 foreign militants there, but because many have intermarried and raised families, their status as foreigners is somewhat blurred.

Today the region is believed to be home to a kind of rogue's gallery. Besides Al Qaeda's leaders, Tohir Yuldashev, the Uzbek leader of the Independence Movement of Uzbekistan, which was allied with the Taliban, is thought to be in North Waziristan.

Jalaluddin Haqqani and Mr. Hekmatyar, who are both wanted by American forces in Afghanistan, and gained their fame as Afghan commanders from the days of resistance to the Soviet occupation, are widely believed to move between the tribal areas and Afghanistan.

(The Taliban leader, Mullah Muhammad Omar, and his close deputies, are thought to be farther south in the province of Baluchistan.)

The local militants are mostly also men who gained fought in Afghanistan, either against the Soviet Army or alongside the Taliban in its civil war against the Northern Alliance. But it is the foreign fighters who have most radicalized the local population, all agree. "The driving forces are the foreigners," General Sultan said.

The American military official in Afghanistan said the solution to the problem was to strengthen the Afghan Border Police, and "almost certainly it will involve Pakistan continuing to conduct operations in the border region and coming to grips with the Taliban influence inside Pakistan."

"Pakistan appears to struggle with whether to crack down on Al Qaeda and the Taliban, not just with how to crack down on them," he wrote. "This war will take time and unfortunately we expect future attacks on coalition and Afghan forces."

The inhabitants of the tribal areas are deeply religious, yet the local militants have introduced a new extremist language, like that of Al Qaeda, said one official who has spent time in the tribal areas.

The militants' main obsession is to fight Americans in Afghanistan, but they also attack the Pakistani Army and government officials, who are seen as subservient allies.

"They are religious, mujahedeen, and they think the military are serving the cause of Bush," the official said. The struggle is cast in the most messianic of terms, as a battle between God and Satan, he said.

Anyone who is seen to have links to the West or the government, including journalists who work for international news agencies, are also targets. Two local journalists have been killed and one kidnapped in recent months. Another left the area with his family last month after a bomb destroyed part of his house.

The military, rather than pacifying the region, has aggravated the situation by sidelining the civilian administration and the traditional tribal councils, which have also been drastically undermined by the numerous assassinations of tribal elders, the officials said.

The army's tactic of negotiating with militants in South Waziristan has only emboldened them, the Pakistani officials said. Self-styled Taliban militants have emerged in spectacular fashion in North Waziristan.

On Dec. 7 in Miram Shah, the administrative center, a band of militants waged a battle with a local criminal gang, killing 11 of them and burning down 25 houses.

The military and the Frontier Corps, which is a militia drawn from the local tribes, stayed out of the battle, and later the Taliban killed 26 or 27 gang members.

The clash made the militants enormously popular among local residents, who had suffered extortion at the hands of the gang, the official said. The campaign was reminiscent of those under the Afghan Taliban, who were born out of a movement to cleanse southern Afghanistan of rapists and other criminals in 1994.

Now, the official said, no one can contest the Taliban's authority in Miram Shah. General Sultan dismissed that, saying both groups in the clash had been put out of action.

Ruhallah Khapalwak contributed reporting from Asadabad, Afghanistan, for this article.