Khyber Agency: militants’ hideouts eradicated

Updated at: 1557 PST, Thursday, September 25, 2008 Khyber Agency: militants’ hideouts eradicated

PESHAWAR: Armed tribal lashkhar burnt down most of the militants’ centers situated in Khyber Agency here on Thursday.

Militants’ hideouts were set on fire by the tribal lashkar in Malagori area of Khyber Agency, forcing them to vacate the area.

The decision to burn down militants’ positions was taken in a jirga headed by Haji Abdul Manan. Jirga was also attended by member of Malagori areas. The armed tribal army set ablaze center of local militants.

Lashkar bombed militants’ hideouts with artillery and took the area under control. Some militants were also arrested in the attack while rest of the insurgents managed to flee from the area.

Talking to Geo News, leaders of Malagori tribe confirmed that militants’ hideouts have been eliminated and vowed to continue attacks as well.


Updated at: 1500 PST, Thursday, September 25, 2008

Bajaur: four militants killed in air strikes KHAR: Pakistan military’s gunship helicopter shot dead four militants in fresh shelling as security forces continued operation against militants in Bajaur Agency on Thursday.

Security forces bombed militants’ hideouts in Gung area of Salarzai in Bajaur Agency in which four militants and one civilian were killed. According to sources, death toll may rise.

Meanwhile, mortars were fired at militants’ positions in Loisam and Mamond while choppers bombed their hideouts in Salarzai.

Source: Geo News


* US defence secretary says crossing border in pursuance of terrorists not against UN charter
* Hopes for stronger partnership with Zardari

WASHINGTON: The United States has a right to act against terrorist targets in Pakistan, but the new civilian government in Islamabad has to be ‘a willing partner’, US Defence Secretary Robert Gates said on Tuesday.

“I think it is essential for Pakistan to be a willing partner in any strategy we have to deal with the threat coming out of its western part and the eastern part of Afghanistan,” Gates said at a hearing of Senate Armed Services Committee.

UN charter: Gates said that in his view, the United Nations charter allowed the US to act in self-defence against international terrorists in Pakistan if the government was unable, or unwilling to deal with them.

“I will say to you, though, we will do what is necessary to protect our troops, but it is very important to engage the Pakistani government. I think the threat that they are seeing, threats to themselves, creates the opportunity where we can work together and there is no necessity for us to take any actions to protect our troops along those lines,” he said.

Partnership: Gates said that the Marriott Hotel bombing in Islamabad clearly showed that the US and Pakistan faced a common threat, and expressed hope for ‘an even stronger partnership’ with President Asif Ali Zardari than with his predecessor, General (r) Pervez Musharraf.

However, stepped up unilateral US missile strikes on Taliban and Al Qaeda safe havens in Pakistan’s Tribal Areas have strained relations between the two countries.

President Zardari on Saturday vowed that Pakistan would not tolerate violations of its sovereignty.

Gates said there were signs of improved co-operation with the Pakistanis despite the frictions.


LAHORE: The Fidayeen-e-Islam (FI), a terrorist outfit that claimed responsibility for the Marriott Hotel suicide blast in Islamabad, has threatened to target every person facilitating the United States Army in Pakistan, Geo News reported on Wednesday. In a message to an Arab TV office in Islamabad, the FI rejected the Pentagon’s claim that only two US marines had been killed in the Marriott blast, the channel said. A large number of US marines, FBI officials and European diplomats was staying at the upper three storeys of the hotel, the channel quoted the FI as saying. However, the message did not mention the number of US officials the militant organisation believed died in the bombing, it added.



ISLAMABAD: Pakistan will not tolerate violation of its sovereignty and territorial integrity by anyone in the name of fighting terrorism, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani said on Wednesday. “I want to declare categorically that we will not tolerate violation of our sovereignty by anyone in the name of combating terrorism,” Gilani said at the Iftar reception hosted for the media at Prime Minister’s House. “We need peace not only in Pakistan but also in the region. This requires your (media) co-operation and collaboration.” Gilani reiterated the government’s resolve to fight terrorism, and urged the media to co-operate with the government in facing the challenges of terrorism and extremism.

Pentagon says crashed ‘drone’ not from US

ISLAMABAD/NEW YORK: The Pakistani military said on Wednesday a pilotless aircraft that crashed in South Waziristan had been recovered, but the Pentagon denied any US drone had been lost in the area. Separately, the US military said one of its aerial vehicles had gone down with engine problems in Paktika province in eastern Afghanistan on Tuesday, but US forces had immediately recovered the aircraft. National Security Adviser Mahmud Ali Durrani told Daily Times however that the drone had crashed due to malfunction. He said military authorities had informed him the Pakistan Army had secured the site where the aircraft crashed and the US had been informed. But Pentagon spokesman Bryan Whitman told reporters on Wednesday: “We have no reports of any downed unmanned aerial vehicles.” Asked if that included unmanned aircraft operated by other agencies of the US government, Whitman stressed he had no reports of any missing drones. Shortly afterward, however, a US military spokesman in Afghanistan said a drone had crashed there. The Pakistani military confirmed that a pilotless aircraft had crashed but did not identify it as American. Other countries with forces in Afghanistan have not been known to operate drones over Pakistani territory. “A surveillance unmanned aerial vehicle while flying over Pak-Afghan border yesterday night crash landed, on this side of the border ... apparently due to malfunctioning,” the Pakistan Army said in a statement.

Suicide bomber targets FC convoy in Quetta

QUETTA: A teenaged female student was killed and 22 people were injured in a suicide blast aimed at a Frontier Corps (FC) convoy in Quetta cantonment on Wednesday afternoon.

“It was a suicide bomb. A young man aged 22 to 24 years with light beard, set off his explosives near a convoy of FC vans,” said Mohammad Akbar Arain, the Capital City Police Officer (CCPO).

“We are investigating the matter and will let the media and the public know once the investigation process is complete,” Arain said.

The blast that occurred in front of the Pakistan Army-maintained Askari Petrol Pump and Askari Park damaged two FC vans. A school van, passing by the site of the blast, was also damaged. A 19-year-old female student, Shahida, was killed.

“The FC team was the actual target,” said FC Inspector General Maj Gen Saleem Nawaz, adding, “Luckily, no one has been killed among the FC personnel.” Thirteen FC personnel were injured in the attack. No group has accepted responsibility for the blast.

AP quoted provincial police chief Asif Nawaz Warraich as telling Dawn News that 13 people including 11 FC personnel were injured in the blast. Raja Ishtiaq, another senior police official told AP that the girl who died was an 11-year old.

Meanwhile, APP reported that President Asif Ali Zardari and Acting President Mohammadmian Soomro condemned the blast, and hoped for the early recovery of the injured.

Zardari favours bilateral solution of Kashmir dispute with India

* President says US and Pakistan will rectify past mistakes

NEW YORK: If the people of India and Pakistan stand together, the Kashmir issue can be resolved, President Asif Ali Zardari said on Wednesday. But he refrained from confirming, despite a correspondent’s question, whether Pakistan’s position on Kashmir was still anchored in United Nations resolutions.

“If need be, we can always go back to the United Nations,” he added, but it was clear that he was keen to de-emphasise the role of the UN and felt that the issue of Kashmir should rather be dealt with bilaterally, a position India has long preferred and advocated.

Zardari said in answer to a question that he will take up the issue of water in his meeting with Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh later in the day.

Asked if in his meeting with President George Bush, he had been given the assurance that there will be no more physical incursions or attacks into Pakistani territory, the president replied that the US president’s statements on the subject were indicative of his ‘mindset’. It was clear that without being specific, the Pakistani leader was satisfied that there would not be a repetition of such attacks. He said the two sides were in ‘constant dialogue’ and Pakistan considers such attacks to be ‘counter-productive’ and not likely to win ‘hearts and minds’.

Asked to elaborate on one of his first statements that there would be ‘good news’ on Kashmir, Zardari answered that Kashmir remains the ‘core issue’ between India and Pakistan and every Pakistani government has viewed it so. The Pakistani position is well known. The current uprising is indigenous. However, the problem can be resolved through a ‘people to people dialogue’.

He said that his government would like to settle outstanding issues with its neighbours bilaterally and by talking to them.

In reply to a question about the Iran-Pakistan gas pipeline, Zardari said market forces would need to be brought in to make the project a reality since as much as $6 billion is required to put it on the ground. When a reporter said the US assurances extended to Pakistan vis-à-vis the war on terrorism were ‘no good’, he replied that there were weaknesses indeed but “we are trying to turn those weaknesses into strengths”.

He also said that “they have made mistakes and we have made mistakes but we are going to revisit those mistakes and correct them”.

He said although he hoped for the best, “hope is not a plan”. He denied that the ISI had come up for discussion during his meeting with Bush.

Asked if the ‘parting of the ways’ with Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz is permanent, he said he has a lot of respect for Nawaz Sharif and considers him his elder brother but there are ‘some hawks’ in Nawaz’s party and there has been talk of fresh elections.

“They are not advising their leader properly,” he added. As to what he was doing to introduce a ‘culture of austerity’ in Pakistan, he replied that he would lead by example and cited his travel by a commercial airline as an example of how he would set the austerity campaign into motion.

Zardari made several references to how he would like to go down in history. He said he would like to be remembered as someone who had abided by the struggle for democracy carried out by the PPP. He also made many references to his wife and leader Benazir Bhutto whose legacy he was committed to carrying forward.

To a question regarding his meeting with Afghan President Hamid Karzai, Zardari spoke about a ‘new chapter in our relations’, adding, “I am the new face of democracy in Pakistan.”

He also reiterated his strong desire to improve relations with India. As for the proposal that there should be joint patrolling of the Pak-Afghan border, he said if the proposal was brought up formally, it would be considered. As for Pakistan’s difficult economic situation, he said, “We are getting a sympathetic hearing.”

When honour killings in Pakistan, in particular, his own province of Sindh were brought to his notice, Zardari replied in an emotional tone that he is the father of two daughters and the brother of three sisters and this issue is very close to his heart.

He said Benazir Bhutto is always by his side and he is guided by her principles and is inspired by her ideals. He also noted that those responsible for the murder of five Baloch women, who were seen to have defied tribal custom, had been arrested.

About the UN investigation into Benazir Bhutto’s assassination, Zardari replied that it had been taken up and the UN itself had condemned it in a resolution.

* Says militant leaders ‘a power group that has to be preserved to seek political solutions’

LAHORE: The United States needs to talk to Mullah Omar to negotiate peace in Afghanistan, NWFP Governor Owais Ghani has said.

In an interview to The Daily Telegraph in Peshawar, Ghani urged the US to ‘talk’ to militant commanders in Afghanistan to establish peace. “They have to talk to Mullah Omar, certainly – not maybe, and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar and the Jalaluddin Haqqani group,” Ghani said.

“The solution, the bottom line, is that political stability will only come to Afghanistan when all political power groups, irrespective of the length of their beard, are given their just due share in the political dispensation in Afghanistan,” the governor said.

The paper expected Ghani’s remarks to ‘cause controversy’ among Pakistan’s allies in the war on terror. Ghani said that all three militant commanders were in Afghanistan.

Power group: “They are a power group that has to be preserved to seek political solutions. We would not destroy them because then you are contributing to further instability,” he said.

He denied that Pakistan “wants the Taliban back”, and went on to say Pakistan had ‘no favourites’ in Afghanistan.

The NWFP governor urged the West to accept that the “Mullah is a political reality”.

However, he denied that Pakistan was supporting them, by pointing out that it had handed over key Taliban ground commanders operating in Helmand.

He said the West must hold talks with the Taliban as Al Qaeda was regrouping from Iraq to Afghanistan. He alleged that Russia had begun to supply weapons to militants and that the Afghans were intolerant of foreigners on their soil and so were staging ‘a national uprising’.

“To eliminate the Taliban you have to slaughter half the Afghan nation,” Ghani said. The governor said Afghan President Hamid Karzai “does not represent any power group – tribal, religious or political and therefore, like the people in his government, he is dependant on foreign power. He is therefore an obstacle to dialogue and peace.”

Ghani described Pakistan’s military strategy as one of containment. “We are not looking for quick fixes,” he said.

Asked about allegations that Pakistan used Taliban to retain its influence in Afghanistan, Ghani replied: “We could counter by saying India uses the Northern Alliance.”

Source: Daily Times

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