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Topic: U.S. expanding the Afghan war into Pakistan
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M. Spector
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 8273
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posted 03 September 2008 12:38 PM
quote: The US military, with the possible cooperation of the Afghan military, may have conducted a special operations air assault across the border into Taliban-controlled South Waziristan, according to unconfirmed reports from Pakistan.The initial report from a Geo TV correspondent indicated the casualties were taken after US helicopters launched missiles at three homes in the Barmal area of Angorada late at night. The report later changed when the correspondent claimed the helicopters landed and troops dismounted, who then began searching homes. One witness told The Associated Press that "American and Afghan soldiers starting firing" on one family outside of their home. Soldiers then entered the home and others, and killed fifteen people, including women and children. The raid was reported to have occurred in the village of Musa Nikow. The Pakistani military confirmed an attack occurred in the region, AP reported but did not provide details. Two anonymous Pakistani intelligence officials said the attack occurred, and claimed 19 were killed. The US military in Afghanistan said its forces were not involved, and the US embassy in Pakistan did not comment. The US military command in Afghanistan can plausibly deny its forces were involved in such a raid as the operation would be carried out by Special Forces teams. Task Force 88, the hunter-killer teams assigned to take down al Qaeda and the Taliban's command structure, does not report to the conventional command in Afghanistan. - Source
That's right. These hunter-killer teams (known elsewhere in the world as "death squads") operate completely outside the usual chain of command and have a free rein to ignore the rule of law - even the rules concerning international boundaries. This Sunday missile attack was apparently the fourth one in the month of August. The third one had occurred a day earlier, when four people were killed, including two Canadians: quote: Four people, including two Canadians of Arab origin, were killed and two other people injured when a missile reportedly fired from Afghanistan hit a house in the Korzai area of South Waziristan on Saturday.According to local people, a plane was seen flying over the area shortly before the missile hit the house of one Noor Khan Gangikhel near a scout camp in Wana at around 4.30pm.
Pakistan DawnAnd from The Guardian: quote: The war in Afghanistan spilled over into Pakistani territory for the first time today when heavily armed commandoes, believed to be US special forces, landed by helicopter and attacked three houses in a village close to a known Taliban and al-Qaida stronghold.The early morning attack on Jala Khel killed between seven and 20 people, according to a range of reports from the remote Angoor Adda region of South Waziristan. The village is situated less than a mile from the Afghanistan border. Local residents were quoted as saying most of the dead were civilians and included women and children. It was not known whether any Taliban or al-Qaida militants or western forces were among the dead. Major-General Athar Abbas, a spokesman for the Pakistan army, said Nato's International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) had carried out the raid. "Two helicopters of Isaf landed very early in the morning and conducted a raid on a compound there. As per our report, seven civilians were killed in this raid." But a Nato spokesman denied involvement. "There has been no Nato or Isaf involvement crossing the border into Pakistan," the Nato spokesman James Appathurai said. There were unconfirmed reports that the incursion was carried out by US special forces, which are not under Isaf command and can operate independently. A US military spokesman at the Bagram base near Kabul did not deny an attack had occurred but declined to comment.
quote: Coalition forces have sent missiles into the border region of Pakistan to strike against militants but commando operations by American forces into the tribal region have been under discussion in Washington. - NYT
Of course, Barack Obama approves.[ 22 September 2008: Message edited by: M. Spector ]
From: One millihelen: The amount of beauty required to launch one ship. | Registered: Feb 2005
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unionist
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 11323
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posted 03 September 2008 07:11 PM
quote: Originally posted by Fidel: So long as Americans believe the "war on terror" is real, they don't actually have to put hundreds of thousands of troops into Afghanistan for a total military occupation.
A total what?? The only difference "hundreds of thousands" of troops would make is many more U.S. casualties. The U.S., with their Canadian helpers, can't win this war. Besides being at war with the Afghan people, they are increasingly showing themselves to be cowards - refusing to engage the insurgents in frontal battle, and instead calling in random-killing air strikes whenever danger rears its head. Weak-kneed snivelers like these are no match for the insurgents, who are fighting for their own people, and who do battle without fear. The Afghan people will win - indeed, they are winning. Canada's choice, like the others, is how many dead to tolerate before that inevitable victory is won.
From: Vote QS! | Registered: Dec 2005
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Fidel
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 5594
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posted 03 September 2008 07:27 PM
quote: Originally posted by unionist:
The only difference "hundreds of thousands" of troops would make is many more U.S. casualties. The U.S., with their Canadian helpers, can't win this war.
That's true, and Yanquis realize this as well. All the world's a stage, isn't it? I don't believe the Yanks have any real intentions for nation-building in Afghanistan. Destablilizing countries is what they've done throughout the cold war. And I think Zbignew Brzezinski types will have already warned them not to let the Russians give them another VietNam, or a reversal of roles of the proxy war in Afghanistan from 1980-89. Gore Vidal said the Soviets stabbled the MIC in the back by ceding the cold war. All the warfiteers really wanted is to maintain the illusion of an external threat. We already know that this is a phony war on terror and that 9-11 commissioners themselves indicated a probable coverup.
From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004
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jester
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 11798
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posted 04 September 2008 07:38 PM
quote: Originally posted by unionist:
A total what?? The only difference "hundreds of thousands" of troops would make is many more U.S. casualties. The U.S., with their Canadian helpers, can't win this war. Besides being at war with the Afghan people, they are increasingly showing themselves to be cowards - refusing to engage the insurgents in frontal battle, and instead calling in random-killing air strikes whenever danger rears its head. Weak-kneed snivelers like these are no match for the insurgents, who are fighting for their own people, and who do battle without fear. The Afghan people will win - indeed, they are winning. Canada's choice, like the others, is how many dead to tolerate before that inevitable victory is won.
Strong words indeed - jingoistic even. Oh, we can only wish that such a stalwart supporter of the warrior ethos were on Canada's side. No mention that almost all of Canada's casualties were inflicted by 'insurgents who battle without fear' using remote detonated explosive devices bravely buried in roads an byways. No mention of the civilian Afghans maimed and killed by these same devices. No mention of the civilian Afghans targetted by the Taliban for murder just to buck up the rest of the civilian population. Yes,yes, Homage to the 'insurgents who battle without fear' by our own Taliban rentboy.
From: Against stupidity, the Gods themselves contend in vain | Registered: Jan 2006
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jester
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 11798
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posted 04 September 2008 08:00 PM
quote: Originally posted by unionist:
Thank you. I love you too. May I please bear your babies? Are you as fertile as your posts? God I love you, it's, like, overwhelming. Love love love.
Bear my babies? Are you female? No, I'm a cowhand, not a trucker "Whats love gotta do,gotta do with it" I love the Pointer Sisters too. How did a nice Jewish girl from Montreal get Hearst Syndrome for Mullah Omar anyway? I can visualise you,arm in arm with Omar,singing Stout Hearted men with Pythonesque abandon.
From: Against stupidity, the Gods themselves contend in vain | Registered: Jan 2006
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unionist
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 11323
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posted 04 September 2008 08:01 PM
quote: Originally posted by Bacchus:
Actually dont the Allied forces love direct combat? Where their tanks and stuff just wipe out Taliban forces? (at least in any of the direct conflicts so far)The taliban are just using the techniquesw that worked so well against the Soviets. Hit and run, disperse into the mountains etc. Direct conflict is just suicide for them
The "Allied forces" call in air strikes every single time they spot an insurgent, without exception. The insurgents don't appear to have aircraft or anti-aircraft capability. How do you characterize that form of warfare? The U.S., Canada, U.K. troops are cowards. They can only engage insurgents from the safety of superior armament - and it's not so safe any more. That doesn't exclude guerrilla tactics on the part of the insurgents. They can and must use such tactics, because of inferior means and because they have sufficient support among the local population (without which they would have been dead and gone long ago).
From: Vote QS! | Registered: Dec 2005
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Fidel
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 5594
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posted 04 September 2008 08:05 PM
quote: Originally posted by jester: "Whats love gotta do,gotta do with it" I love the Pointer Sisters too.
Tina Turner? quote: I can visualise you,arm in arm with Omar,singing Stout Hearted men with Pythonesque abandon.
That's pretty close to what Republicans accused Lib-Dems of having done in the 90's, and vice versa in the 2000's. And our same two parties just hum along.
From: Viva La Revolución | Registered: Apr 2004
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jester
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 11798
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posted 04 September 2008 08:16 PM
quote: Originally posted by Fidel:
That's pretty close to what Republicans accused Lib-Dems of having done in the 90's, and vice versa in the 2000's. And our same two parties just hum along.
Yeah, Tina. mea culpa. Yes, the Taliban do present useful optics at times. I don't doubt that previous connections to the CIA are providing mutual profits in the present conflict. No sense letting the corrupt Karzai and crew have all the spoils.
From: Against stupidity, the Gods themselves contend in vain | Registered: Jan 2006
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jester
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 11798
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posted 04 September 2008 08:18 PM
quote: Originally posted by unionist:
Oh, God! Oh, jester! Oh, God!!!
I do hope its laughter that is incapacitating you.
From: Against stupidity, the Gods themselves contend in vain | Registered: Jan 2006
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jester
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 11798
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posted 06 September 2008 07:08 PM
quote: Thirty-one people have so far been confirmed dead in the blast, five of whom are policemen. Eighty-one others, including four policemen, were injured. A policeman is missing as well,” Senior Superintendent of Police (SSP), Operations, Peshawar, Kashif Alam, told The News. The SSP was all praise for SI Aurangzeb, saying he sacrificed his life but did not let the bomber hit his target. The suicide bomber apparently hit the police post when he learnt that he would miss his target. Majority of the victims were innocent villagers who either owned shops in the three markets or were buying daily use items from the market when they fell victim to the blast. A senior police official believes that the bomber was on his way to hit some important building, probably the NWFP Assembly Secretariat, where legislators were casting their votes to elect the 12th president of Pakistan. Police had sealed the entire area around the NWFP Assembly after being tipped off about possible suicide bombing in the provincial capital.
More mayhem
From: Against stupidity, the Gods themselves contend in vain | Registered: Jan 2006
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M. Spector
rabble-rouser
Babbler # 8273
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posted 12 September 2008 08:19 PM
quote: The United States has just invaded Cambodia. The name of Cambodia this time is Pakistan, but otherwise it’s the same story as in Indochina in 1970.An American army, deeply frustrated by its inability to defeat an anti-American insurgent movement despite years of struggle, decides that the key to victory lies in a neighboring country. In 1970 the problem was the Ho Chi Minh Trail in Cambodia. Today it is Taliban and al Qaeda bases inside Pakistan, which the United States has been attacking from the air for some time, with controversial “collatoral damages.” George W. Bush has now authorized independent ground assaults on Taliban and al Qaeda targets in Pakistan’s Tribal Territories, without consultation with Pakistan authorities. These already have begun. This follows a period of tension, with some armed clashes, between American and Pakistani military units, the latter defending “Pakistan’s national sovereignty.” Pakistan public opinion seems largely against “America’s war” being fought inside Pakistan. Washington’s decision was made known just in time for the 7th anniversary of the 9/11 attacks that opened the first phase of the “war on terror,” after which “nothing could ever be the same.” We no doubt have now begun phase two.
William Pfaff
From: One millihelen: The amount of beauty required to launch one ship. | Registered: Feb 2005
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M. Spector
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Babbler # 8273
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posted 12 September 2008 08:24 PM
quote: Fourteen people were killed in the northwestern Pakistani region of North Waziristan on Friday in a missile attack by a pilotless U.S. aircraft on suspected militants near the Afghan border, security officials said.The strike, near the town of Miranshah, was the first since a recent surge in tension between Pakistan and the United States over how to tackle the Taliban and al Qaeda on the Pakistani side of the border. "We confirm a missile attack at around 5.30 in the morning (2330 GMT on Thursday) ... We have informed the government," said military spokesman Major Murad Khan. The military, apparently reluctant to highlight infringements of sovereignty, has rarely confirmed such attacks. Khan gave no more details but security officials in the region said 14 people had been killed and about 12 wounded. - Reuters
From: One millihelen: The amount of beauty required to launch one ship. | Registered: Feb 2005
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M. Spector
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Babbler # 8273
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posted 18 September 2008 08:14 PM
quote: The George W. Bush administration's decision to launch commando raids and step up missiles strikes against Taliban and al Qaeda figures in the tribal areas of Pakistan followed what appears to have been the most contentious policy process over the use of force in Bush's eight-year presidency. That decision has stirred such strong opposition from the Pakistani military and government that it is now being revisited. Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, arrived in Pakistan Tuesday for the second time in three weeks, and U.S. officials and sources just told Reuters that any future raids would be approved on a mission-by-mission basis by a top U.S. administration official. The policy was the result of strong pressure from the U.S. command in Afghanistan and lobbying by the Special Operations Command (SOCOM) and the CIA's operations directorate (DO), both of which had direct institutional interests in operations that coincided with their mandate. State Department and some Pentagon officials had managed to delay the proposed military escalation in Pakistan for a year by arguing that it would be based on nearly nonexistent intelligence and would only increase support for the Islamic extremists in that country. But officials of SOCOM and the CIA prevailed in the end, apparently because Bush and Vice President Dick Cheney believed they could not afford to be seen as doing nothing about bin Laden and al Qaeda in the administration's final months.
Inter Press Service
From: One millihelen: The amount of beauty required to launch one ship. | Registered: Feb 2005
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M. Spector
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posted 22 September 2008 01:50 PM
quote: Pakistani troops twice opened fire to repel two US helicopter gunships which violated Pakistani airspace in a tribal region bordering Afghanistan, officials said Monday.The incidents happened about half an hour apart on Sunday evening near Lwara Mundi village in the North Waziristan district, where Pakistani forces have been battling Taliban and Al-Qaeda militants, they said. "Pakistani forces fired at two US gunships which violated Pakistan's airspace and forced them to return to Afghanistan," a local security official told AFP on condition of anonymity. "The helicopters flew back after our troops fired shots at them." A senior security official based in Islamabad said later that the helicopters were repelled on two separate occasions by both army troops and soldiers from the paramilitary Frontier Corps (FC). "The helicopters were heading towards our border. We were alert and when they were right on the boundary line we started aerial firing, they hovered for a few minutes and went back," the official said. "About 30 minutes later they made another attempt. We retaliated again, firing in the air and not in their direction, from both the army position and the FC position, and they went back," he added.
AFP
From: One millihelen: The amount of beauty required to launch one ship. | Registered: Feb 2005
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M. Spector
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posted 23 September 2008 09:57 PM
quote: In response to the public outcry in Pakistan against Bush's policy statements and the military attacks, on September 17, Admiral Mike Mullen, the Chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, pledged to the Pakistani leadership that Washington would respect the nation's sovereignty.But less that one day after Mullen's promise the U.S. launched another missile attack against a compound in Waziristan, killing at least five villagers. This was only the latest in a series of ground and air assaults against tribal areas in Pakistan since early this month. After the first gound incursion, on September 3, Pakistani officials temporarily closed the most crucial land route for transporting supplies to U.S.-NATO's troops in Afghanistan. Pakistan's parliament unanimously called for the use of force in response to further attacks. Army chief General Ashfaq Kayani declared that the territorial integrity of his country "will be defended at all costs." This rebuke was intended both to chastise Washington and to bolster the enraged Pakistani public's confidence in the army. Anti-Americanism in Pakistan has reached a record high, and the army is threatened with a loss of perceived legitimacy if it is unable to repel U.S. incursions. Kayani's threat was dismissed as mere bluster in Washington. But Washington was forced to think twice when, on September 15, two U.S. armed helicopters attempting to cross into Pakistan were forced to retreat by firepower from Pakistan-based forces. The following day the head of the military's press liason branch announced the military's policy regarding future U.S.-NATO attempted air or ground crossings into Pakistan: "The orders are clear... open fire."
Source ----- quote: A US spy plane crashed in a Pakistan tribal area on the border with Afghanistan on Tuesday.Unconfirmed reports said the drone, an unmannned aircraft known to be used by the U.S.-led forces in Afghanistan to launch missile strikes in the tribal areas of Pakistan, was shot down by tribals. The plane came down in Angoor Adda, which saw a ground incursion by American troops earlier this month and a missile strike. - Source
[ 23 September 2008: Message edited by: M. Spector ]
From: One millihelen: The amount of beauty required to launch one ship. | Registered: Feb 2005
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M. Spector
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Babbler # 8273
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posted 25 September 2008 11:54 AM
quote: Pakistani troops fired on U.S. helicopters on Thursday in a sharp escalation of tensions between the two allies, who gave conflicting accounts of the incident.Pakistan's military said its soldiers fired warning shots at the helicopters after they intruded into Pakistani airspace. But the United States said the aircraft were operating inside Afghanistan. "The flight path of the helicopters at no point took them over Pakistan," Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman said. "This is an unfortunate incident. It just goes to demonstrate the importance of coordination along that border," he added. "The Pakistanis have to provide us with a better understanding of why this took place." Pakistani military spokesman Major-General Athar Abbas said: "There were two helicopters from Afghanistan that crossed into Pakistani territory. Our soldiers fired warning shots and those helicopters returned fire and flew back." Washington denied returning fire. There were no casualties, nor were the helicopters damaged. - Reuters
quote: Pakistani and American ground troops exchanged fire along the border with Afghanistan on Thursday after the Pakistanis shot at two American helicopters... - NYT
[ 25 September 2008: Message edited by: M. Spector ]
From: One millihelen: The amount of beauty required to launch one ship. | Registered: Feb 2005
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unionist
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posted 04 October 2008 02:20 PM
This is what Obama has been calling for:More than 20 dead after U.S. air strike in North Waziristan quote: Pakistani villagers collected the corpses and body parts on Saturday of at least 20 people, including several suspected Arab militants as well as three children, killed by a U.S. missile strike overnight.A pilotless drone aircraft launched the attack late on Friday, targeting a tribesman's house in Mohammad Khel, a village 30 kilometres west of Miranshah in North Waziristan, a known sanctuary of al-Qaeda and Taliban militants close to the Afghan border. ... "We now have a figure of 20 dead. That includes eight residents of the house, five other locals and seven foreigners," the official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject. The foreigners appeared to be Arabs, although their nationalities were unknown, he said.
From: Vote QS! | Registered: Dec 2005
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M. Spector
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posted 04 October 2008 08:27 PM
quote: It doesn’t seem to matter to Americans that the [Sept. 3] blitz conducted by their troops resulted in the deaths of six women and two children, citizens of Pakistan. There has been no indication of regret or sympathy; not a shred of remorse for killing children. For how long can the non-American world tolerate this sort of barbaric malevolence? In America it doesn’t matter, because "Support Our Troops!" is the American mantra, especially in election year, and if a US citizen doesn’t wave the flag and say that American troops are wonderful, even when killing kids in Pakistan, then they are regarded as unpatriotic, which is a dreadful crime.To justify the slaughter the usual highly-placed anonymous US official told the New York Times that “The situation in the tribal areas is not tolerable. We have to be more assertive. Orders have been issued.” You can hear the Hitlerian resonance in this, straight from Cheney and Bush. It has hideous echoes of “My patience is exhausted,” before Fascist Germany invaded its neighbors – and of the justification that “Befehl ist Befehl” : “an order is an order,” as the Gestapo herded terrified women and children into concentration camps and then to gas chambers. (In fact some of the victims in the Guantanamo Bay concentration camp would welcome death by gassing, it being preferable to the vicious torture they are undergoing.) The American attitude, under Bush, is one of intolerance and macho contempt for any who dare to display independence. “We have to be more assertive” is a chilling declaration of what motivates the Washington administration. It is unlikely to change, irrespective of who is the next president. - Brian Cloughley
From: One millihelen: The amount of beauty required to launch one ship. | Registered: Feb 2005
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M. Spector
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posted 24 October 2008 09:50 PM
quote: Suspected US drones fired missiles into a Pakistani village yesterday, killing at least 11 people. The attack targeted a village in the North Waziristan region near the Afghan border where Jalaluddin Haqqani, an old friend of Osama bin Laden, had established a school. It was currently run by one of Haqqani's own commanders. Residents said three missiles were fired by pilotless drones and one hit the school while the other two hit a house. The school was not believed to have any students in it at the time of the attack. Twenty-three people, most of them relatives of Haqqani, were killed in a similar attack on the same village last month.
Gulf Daily News
From: One millihelen: The amount of beauty required to launch one ship. | Registered: Feb 2005
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M. Spector
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posted 27 October 2008 10:02 PM
quote: Twenty people were killed last night in a missile strike by CIA Predator drone aircraft inside Pakistan amid reports that Washington is intensifying its aerial bombardment of the country after being forced to back away from plans to send in ground forces.The attack - the 18th in the past few weeks - targeted what was described as a "militant compound" close to Wana, the main town of the South Waziristan tribal agency that is the fiefdom of top jihadi commander Baitullah Mehsud - a man closely linked to al-Qa'ida and the Taliban. The latest strike and others carried out by the CIA were described last night by Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani as "disastrous". "Such actions are proving counter-productive to (the Government's) efforts to isolate the extremists and militants from the tribal population which is involved in the formation of tribal lashkars (armies)," Mr Gilani said. In Islamabad yesterday, the first serious moves at peace talks with the Taliban in both Pakistan and Afghanistan began when a tribal jirga (assembly) convened at the instigation of both governments. The jirga brings together more than 50 tribal elders from both sides of the Durand Line that notionally divides the two countries, and is seen as a modest first attempt to begin negotiations with the militants. Participants said the viability of peace talks was likely to form the basis of the discussions, with strong opposition certain to emerge against US policy, including the Predator drone strikes, as well as the presence of US and other coalition forces in Afghanistan. A leading participant, former Pakistani ambassador to Afghanistan Rustam Shah Mohmand, said it would be impossible to deal with the Taliban as long as Western forces remained in Afghanistan. - The Australian
From: One millihelen: The amount of beauty required to launch one ship. | Registered: Feb 2005
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