47 killed as Insurgents Take Key Fort in NW Pakistan

It is rather surprising that insurgents would bother to hold the fort for some period. It is not clear from the article as I read it that the military even retook the fort. Both the US and the Pakistani govt. seem bound and determined to try and subdue the tribal areas something that has never been possible in the past as far as I know. Pakistan is in for an indefinite period of increased unrest and violence. If the US should actually send troops there could be all out civil war with incalculable consequences.


47 Killed as Insurgents Take Key Fort in NW Pakistan

By Griff Witte and Imtiaz Ali
Washington Post Foreign Service
Thursday, January 17, 2008; A14



ISLAMABAD, Pakistan, Jan. 16 -- Hundreds of insurgent fighters mounted a brazen assault on a key fort in northwestern Pakistan on Wednesday, seizing it from security forces in a battle that left at least 47 people dead, the military said.

The attack was carried out by fighters loyal to Taliban commander Baitullah Mehsud, who has been blamed by Pakistani authorities for a succession of high-profile strikes, including the assassination last month of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto.

Mehsud and the military have been engaged in an intensifying battle for territory in the country's volatile northwest, and Wednesday's clash reflected the Taliban commander's growing strength, as well as the Pakistani government's struggle to confront him.

The assault, in the remote tribal region of South Waziristan, began Wednesday just after midnight when 200 Mehsud fighters converged on Sararogha Fort, barraging it with small-arms fire and rocket-propelled grenades.

The fort was manned by 42 soldiers from Pakistan's Frontier Corps, and the troops initially succeeded in repelling the attack by using heavy artillery fire, according to a military spokesman, Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas. But an hour and a half later, the Taliban fighters returned, this time in greater numbers -- between 300 and 400.

"The second attack was more fierce and more intense," Abbas said.

The insurgents used explosives to blow holes in the fort's outer walls, streamed in and began fighting the soldiers hand-to-hand. Seven troops were killed, 15 managed to escape and an additional 20 were unaccounted for, Abbas said. There were fears Wednesday night that they had been taken hostage, a common tactic of Mehsud.

Abbas said 40 insurgents were killed in the battle.

A purported spokesman for the Pakistani Taliban disputed the military's numbers. "We have killed 16 soldiers and have kidnapped 12, while just two of our fighters have been killed in this clash," Maulvi Omar told the BBC's Pashto-language service.

While Mehsud has carried out a string of devastating attacks in recent months, the decision to assault the fort head-on reflected an even bolder strategy than he has exhibited before.

In the past, Mehsud's fighters have carried out suicide attacks on military convoys, as well as hit-and-run strikes against Pakistani government checkpoints and facilities. But as of Wednesday night, his forces seemed intent on holding on to the fort.

"It really carries a lot of significance," said Fazal Rahim Marwat, a professor at Peshawar University who has studied the Taliban movement in Pakistan. "This is another daring step on the part of the militants, and it seems that they are getting stronger and bolder with the passage of time."

Over a century old, Sararogha Fort is one of the few symbols of government authority in South Waziristan, an area where Pakistan has never succeeded in exerting much control.

The region is a haven for Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters and has been identified by Western intelligence officials as an international headquarters for Islamic extremist groups.

The Pakistani government has struggled to find a strategy to counter the threat -- alternately combating it with military force and signing peace deals. Crucial truces in both North and South Waziristan collapsed last summer, spurring a surge in attacks that have claimed hundreds of lives throughout the country.

A Western military official with knowledge of extremist groups on both sides of the Pakistan-Afghanistan border estimated this week that Mehsud, who has allied himself with al-Qaeda, has about 5,000 hard-core fighters at his disposal.

But the official also said Mehsud has purposely exaggerated his own influence. "A lot more is attributed to him than I think he's capable of," the official said.

Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf has blamed Bhutto's assassination on Mehsud, and the government has produced an audio recording that it says implicates him. But Bhutto's supporters have said they believe that explanation is intended to cover for others, including current and former government officials.

Pakistan has repeatedly tried and failed to kill Mehsud. It has also attempted to turn rival tribal commanders in the area against him, with limited success.

Wednesday's attack represented yet another setback for the Frontier Corps, a paramilitary force that is supposed to be on the front lines of Pakistan's counterinsurgency campaign but has taken heavy losses and proved generally overmatched.

The United States has made beefing up the Frontier Corps a priority and is investing in a new program to train and equip the force.

Adm. William J. Fallon, commander of U.S. Central Command, told reporters in Florida on Wednesday that Pakistan appeared more welcoming of U.S. counterinsurgency training and advice than it had been in the past.

"My sense is, there is an increased willingness to address these problems," he said. "And we're going to try to help them."

Ali reported from Peshawar.

Pakistan militants seize police stations

THis is from Yahoo.
The militants are obviously trying to gain sympathy among troops by releasing some. The Musharaff government is asking for trouble by taking on the tribal areas. The US will probably insist that he does but it is not the US that is taking casualties and about to suffer civil war perhaps.

Pakistan militants seize police stations By RIAZ KHAN, Associated Press Writer
Sat Nov 3, 7:15 AM ET



SWAT, Pakistan - Militants said Saturday they captured two police stations and 120 security forces in a mountainous region of northwest Pakistan that has increasingly fallen under the control of Taliban and al-Qaida-linked extremists, bringing further embarrassment to President Gen. Pervez Musharraf's government.

A flag was hoisted over one of the buildings after it was abandoned by officers in the scenic Swat valley, once a popular tourist destination now plagued by fighting between paramilitary forces and Islamic militants, said Sirajuddin, who goes by one name, speaking on behalf of the insurgents.

Hours later, militants took control of another police post six miles to the north, said Mian Rasool Shah, a Taliban commander, claiming his men had convinced 60 officers to leave and then locked the doors to prevent the looting of weapons.

No government official was immediately available to comment on the claims, which came a day after extremists paraded dozens of men described as surrendered government troops before journalists. They — like the 120 security forces who allegedly defected after being surrounded by militants overnight — were later released, Sirajuddin said.

The rising violence and political turmoil have fueled fears that Musharraf might extend his military rule by imposing a state of emergency or martial law, jeopardizing a promised transition to democracy. The Bush administration and European allies have urged against such moves, a Western diplomat in Islamabad said on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.

Elements in Pakistan's ruling party were pushing the U.S.-backed leader to impose emergency measures in case the Supreme Court disqualifies his Oct. 6 presidential victory because he did not first give up his position as army chief, the diplomat said. A verdict is due before his current term expires Nov. 15, after which Pakistan is due to hold parliamentary elections.

Adm. William Fallon, the chief of the U.S. Central Command, met with Musharraf and other top generals on Friday to discuss the security situation in the northwest, where Islamic militants have expanded their reach beyond traditional tribal regions. Washington backs Musharraf as a bulwark in its war on terrorism.

But a spokesman for Pakistan's army angrily denied newspaper reports suggesting Fallon had offered to provide U.S. troops to help tackle the insurgency in Swat, where a hard-line cleric is trying to enforce Taliban-style rule. Several policemen have been decapitated in the region in recent weeks, their heads later displayed to the public.

Some residents in Swat, which up until recently drew tourists from all over the country because of its sweeping scenic views and snowcapped mountains, said while they supported efforts to impose Islamic law in the valley, they abhorred the bloodshed.

"We don't know what will happen here," said Abdul Majeed, a local shopkeeper, adding vendors in his bustling market were worried about the future of their businesses. "The bazar is open and people are buying goods, but we are constantly worried about the fighting."

Next step: Regime Change in Pakistan

This article and the following article together show that most likely the US the UK -and to some extent with propoganda help from the CBC that has had a constant replay of a documentary on Benazir Bhutto- are planning to promote a regime change in Pakistan. This is either in lieu of a military intervention in the tribal areas or perhaps to get permission to enter the areas. The whole plan will just widen the area of conflict and perhaps lead to civil war in Pakistan. Musharraf has already met with Bhutto and no doubt hopes to achive some power-sharing agreement. Free elections will then bring in Bhutto who will either step up the attacks in tribal areas or invite the US to help. I have yet to see any reporter who actually bothered to look into the corruption charges against Bhutto but after all she is the good girl, at least for now. Once she is in power she may show that she does not think that what is good for the US is good for Pakistan. But here is a quote that no doubt will endear her to the US and UK etc. Strange that these places are always "lawless". This just means that the central government control is marginal in the areas. Of course they still are part of Pakistan and any attempt to occupy them by the US is bound to provoke a much wider reaction something the US doesn't seem to care a fig about.
MONTREAL (AFP) - Pakistan's exiled former leader Benazir Bhutto warned that the threat of terrorism in northwestern Pakistan's lawless tribal zones will not go away while a military government is in power.



"The root cause of the problem lies in the inability of the government of Pakistan to assert governmental authority and state authority in the tribal areas," Bhutto told Canada's CBC public television channel Saturday.


"As long as we have a cabinet ... that needs the threat of terrorism to sustain a military dictatorship in Pakistan we're never going to get rid of terrorism," she said of the leadership of President Pervez Musharraf.





Militants end S Waziristan peace deal




Sailab Mahsud & Mushtaq Yusufzai

TANK/PESHAWAR: As a tribal Jirga is set to secure the release of 15 kidnapped FC soldiers from the captivity of militants today (Sunday), tribal militants of South Waziristan on Saturday unilaterally announced the scrapping of a peace accord with the government over allegations of its violation by the latter.

A spokesman for the Baitullah Mahsud group while accusing the government of violating the agreement signed with the Mahsud tribal militants in February 2005 in South Waziristan said the accord no more existed following the recent operations by the Pakistan Army in the agency.

Zulfiqar Mahsud, who introduced himself as a spokesman for Baitullah Mahsud, commander of the Mahsud tribal militants, phoned the office of The News and other media organisations from an undisclosed location that it was in fact the government that violated the peace agreement by sending troops in such large numbers to the agency and conducting military operations there without any need.

He said they had already brought the issue of reinforcing the forces at various places in the Mahsud inhabited areas to the notice of military officials as well as the 21-member peace committee that had helped broker the 2005 truce but nobody paid any heed to their reservations.

Tribal militants in the neighbouring North Waziristan Agency have already scrapped the peace agreement with the government over similar allegations.

Baitullah Mahsud, who was one of the most wanted tribal militants in South Waziristan, had signed the peace agreement with the government in 2005 in the presence of a tribal Jirga to resolve disputes with the government in Mahsud-inhabited areas.

A 21-member Jirga led by leading religious scholar Maulana Ainullah, which also comprised 11 Mahsud tribal elders and 10 ulema (religious leaders), had brokered the peace deal.

However, Senator Maulana Saleh Shah, who belongs to Maulana Fazlur Rahman’s Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam, declined reports that Baitullah Mahsud and his men had scrapped the peace agreement.

“I just spoke to Baitullah and then his spokesman and both explained that they had not scrapped the peace agreement yet. They said it was actually the government that violated the peace agreement and carried out unnecessary military operations at Chag Malai, Sarwakai and Spinkai Raghzai areas of South Waziristan tribal agency,” Maulana Saleh Shah said when approached by The News over telephone at his home in Gomal area near Tank.

He said Baitullah Mahsud and his men were still standing by the peace agreement. “I met Baitullah two days ago at Chag Malai and he explained that he would never fight the Pakistan Army but it was the army that imposed a war on them,” he said.

Saleh Shah felt that situation in the agency deteriorated two days ago when his suggestion to Brig Hanif, Pakistan Army commandant in Wana, that an army convoy should not travel on the Wana-Jandola road for security reasons was turned down. “I assured him of my full cooperation and explained to him that there would be no danger if the military officials delay the convoy for a day or two. But they did not listen to my advice and as usual ordered the convoy to leave Wana for Tank. The convoy came under the attack of militants at Chag Malai in which several innocent Jawans lost their lives and many sustained serious injuries,” the senator said.

Meanwhile, some of the 21-member peace committee representatives, who again held decisive talks with Baitullah Mahsud and Qari Hussain somewhere at Chag Malai area on Saturday, hoped to secure the release of 15 paramilitary Frontier Corps (FC) soldiers from the captivity of the militants probably today (Sunday).

While commenting on the issue, Senator Saleh Shah said he was in contact with representatives of the 21-member peace committee that had gone to Chag Malai to hold talks with the militants for the release of FC men and hoped that they would soon be handed over to them.

He said Baitullah Mahsud and Qari Hussain were ready to hand the hostages over to him a few days ago but the situation suddenly turned violent there due to the military operation in the area.

He said about 11 vehicles of the army convoy still remained stranded at Chag Malai while four bodies and 11 injured army soldiers were retrieved from the area on Saturday through efforts of the tribal elders and Ulema.

Meanwhile, Commander Masoodur Rahman Mahsud, successor of the slain commander Abdullah Mahsud, held a meeting with Mulla Nazeer, commander of the Wazir tribal militants, and regretted the detention of Wazir tribe people and seizing their vehicles at Dargai area near Wana a few days ago.

Sources close to Mulla Nazeer told The News that Commander Mahsud promised to send a Jirga to seek pardon from the Wazir tribe over what had happened a few days ago.

Also, all the 14 vehicles which the Mahsud men had snatched were returned to their owners.

According to sources, Mulla Nazeer sent his representative to army officials based in Wana to explain that the Wazir tribal militants would not allow the army to target hideouts of Mahsud tribal militants from their soil following the meeting.

Here is a Newsweek article a typical public consciousness massage piece--of course this is not to disupute that many of the facts are true enough.


State of Anxiety



By Michael Hirsh And Ron Moreau
Newsweek
Aug. 20-27, 2007 issue - Pervez Musharraf has always been a dubious ally in George W. Bush's War on Terror—the kind of guy you avert your eyes from while patting him on the back. It's not that Bush doubts the Pakistani leader's sincerity—"He shares the same concern about radicals and extremists as I do and as the American people do," the president said at an Aug. 9 news conference—it's just that Musharraf is never going to make it into Bush's democracy club. And Musharraf's ability to stop his nation's Islamist radicalism from spilling over into terrorism has always been limited. A genial autocrat who seized power in a 1999 coup and has refused to relinquish his general's uniform, Musharraf has succeeded in keeping Washington on his side by regularly handing over second-tier Qaeda suspects and by keeping tenuous control over his increasingly Islamicized country. But now Musharraf may be losing his grip on power amid rising concerns by senior U.S. officials that a new safe haven for Al Qaeda has emerged in Pakistan's rocky, ungoverned tribal regions, especially Waziristan.


As a result, an increasing number of voices in Washington—from Democratic presidential candidate Barack Obama to hard-line officials in the Bush administration—are calling for unilateral military action inside Pakistan. NEWSWEEK has learned that for weeks Pentagon officials have been debating the current policy of not violating Pakistani sovereignty, coming down in favor of restraint. But some officers in Joint Special Operations Command are "pawing the ground to go into Waziristan," says one Pentagon consultant who is privy to the debate but would speak about classified discussions only anonymously. Congress, meanwhile, has passed legislation that threatens to cut off aid to Pakistan if President Bush can't certify that Musharraf is doing all he can. "It's very humiliating for Musharraf," says retired Pakistani Lt. Gen. Talat Masood. "It could even destabilize him." That's one reason Bush continues to stand by him. Administration officials fear that if Musharraf falls and Pakistan descends into political chaos, then a nuclear-armed state could fail and Pakistan's nuclear know-how might end up in the wrong hands.

Even short of that doomsday scenario, senior U.S. officials, both active and retired, say that without more decisive action Al Qaeda will grow, if not flourish, in the tribal areas. And someday the U.S. homeland will likely be attacked from there, they say, just as Al Qaeda once used Afghanistan as a base from which to plot the 9/11 attacks. In late July a National Intelligence Estimate—a periodic assessment that is considered the most authoritative issued by the U.S. government—concluded Al Qaeda has "regenerated key elements" of its ability to attack the United States from the tribal regions of North Waziristan and Bajaur. Hank Crumpton, a near-legendary CIA clandestine service officer who retired last year as the State Department's counterterrorism coordinator, says Washington needs to do more than rely on the Pakistani military and intelligence services. "I'd go in there [tribal areas] with a hard-core counterinsurgency effort," Crumpton told NEWSWEEK. He would seek Pakistan's consent—"but I wouldn't pretend that this is sovereign territory. It is not."

Another recently retired senior CIA official, Bruce Riedel, says that Pakistan remains fatally conflicted about cracking down on Islamic extremists. That's even though Qaeda No. 2 Ayman al-Zawahiri (who along with Osama bin Laden is believed to be hiding in the Pakistani tribal areas) has tried to assassinate Musharraf at least twice. As eager as Musharraf may be to get bin Laden and Zawahiri, his enthusiasm is not necessarily shared by Pakistani intelligence. Riedel says: "It has no desire to either take on its Frankenstein or to see its Frankenstein removed."

Pakistani officials angrily dispute that assessment, and they say they are doing all that can be done. They note that some 350 Pakistani soldiers were killed in tribal actions in 2004 and 2005, leading Musharraf to try to reach a peace agreement with tribal elders that has since frayed. "There are no safe havens," Mahmud Ali Durrani, Pakistan's ambassador to the United States, told NEWSWEEK, saying the NIE is "absolutely incorrect." "This is preposterous. We will agree there may be odd people in hideouts. But ... whenever we get information we take them out. Even after we signed the agreement, we went into Waziristan and Bajaur five or six times this year. We went after the training camps." Still, Durrani confirmed that the government is very concerned about the extremists "creeping outside the tribal areas" and said Musharraf had launched "a new push" that includes adding 20,000 more paramilitaries to the 100,000 troops already bordering those areas. That, and additional training, "will take about six months," Durrani says.

Whether Musharraf has that much time is another question. Since he faced down an Islamist rebellion at a mosque in the heart of his capital city, Islamabad, he has appeared to lose control of his country's security. Al Qaeda-affiliated armed militants have retaliated strongly, killing nearly 200 people, chiefly police and soldiers, in a spate of IED attacks and suicide bombings in the lawless tribal region along the Afghan frontier, as well as two suicide attacks in Islamabad.

In response, the Pakistani leader has flirted with the idea of declaring a state of emergency that would extend his rule for at least one year, postponing both the presidential election, scheduled for late next month, and the general election, due early next year. The state of emergency would give him sweeping powers and allow him to curb civil liberties sharply. After an early-morning call from Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice on Aug. 9, however, Musharraf agreed to back down "for the time being," a U.S. official said, speaking as usual on condition of anonymity about high-level discussions.





Yet another measure of Musharraf's waning power is the eagerness with which he has politically courted a woman he once publicly called a "thief" for alleged corruption during her two terms as prime minister—Benazir Bhutto. In early August Musharraf flew secretly to Abu Dhabi to meet Bhutto, whose secular Pakistani People's Party remains the most popular in the country. Musharraf had been reaching out to Bhutto halfheartedly for a year, but after he summarily ousted the nation's Supreme Court justice in March, provoking widespread demonstrations, his popularity plummeted. Now he seems desperate to bring her into a coalition government that will blunt the calls for his resignation. "Musharraf is in a tough place," says Riedel. "She knows she has the upper hand now." In an Aug. 10 interview, Bhutto said the "ground reality" has changed in Pakistan. She confirmed that she and Musharraf are discussing the creation of a "caretaker government," but said she would not join it "while he is wearing his uniform."

For the United States, the No. 1 concern is figuring out a way to crush the resurgence of Al Qaeda and the Taliban in Waziristan and Bajaur, without doing fatal damage to Musharraf. Some U.S. officials say the Pakistani military is simply not up to the job—but no one else may be, either. "This is a part of the country that has not been effectively governed since Alexander the Great was there," says Deputy Assistant Secretary of State John Gastright. Pakistani officials point to the successes they've had inside their cities in arresting Qaeda bigwigs like Khalid Shaikh Mohammed.

Ambassador Durrani says the real fault lies with Washington. After KSM was captured in Rawalpindi in March 2003—just as Bush was invading Iraq—"I think Al Qaeda was almost destroyed in an operational sense. But then Al Qaeda got a vacuum in Afghanistan. And they got a motivational area in Iraq. Al Qaeda rejuvenated. And what Pakistan is getting now is the blowback from that, rather than the other way around." The worry now is that blowback will some day cross the Atlantic—and no one is effectively stopping it.

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