Pakistan now has Nuclear capable Cruise Missiles as it turns to the Axis for support

[American Patriot]

Oh, and take back all the aid money we've given them. By force if necessary.

[BRVoice]

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/...74P3X520110526


Blast in northwest Pakistan kills five people: police
ISLAMABAD | Thu May 26, 2011 9:37am EDT

(Reuters) - A suspected suicide bomber killed five people Thursday in an attack outside a police station in the northwestern Pakistan town of Hangu, police said.

"Apparently it was a suicide attack," Mohammad Ehsan, a police officer, told Reuters by telephone. "Bodies are lying there. We have five confirmed dead."

Pakistani television said the death toll was as high as eight.


(Reporting by Kamran Haider; Editing by Chris Allbritton)

[BRVoice]

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/...7515XW20110602


Pakistan conveys concern to Kabul after militant raid
By Zeeshan Haider
ISLAMABAD | Thu Jun 2, 2011 3:05pm EDT

(Reuters) - Pakistan called on Thursday for stern action against militants in Afghanistan by Afghan and U.S.-led foreign forces after 27 Pakistani forces were killed in a cross-border attack by militants.

Forty-five militants were also killed in clashes that erupted after 300 to 400 militants from Afghanistan stormed a Pakistani checkpost in an attack in the northwestern region of Dir on Wednesday. The clashes lasted for more than 24 hours.

Pakistani Foreign Secretary Salman Bashir conveyed Pakistan's "strong concern" to the Afghan ambassador to Pakistan, the Pakistani Foreign Ministry said in a statement.

"The Foreign Secretary stressed the need for stern action by the Afghan army, U.S. and NATO/ISAF forces in the area against militants and their hideouts in Afghanistan and against organizational support the militants," the statement said, referring to foreign forces in Afghanistan.

"Pakistan's concerns are also being brought to the attention of the U.S. and NATO."

A senior security official in the region said the militants attacked the post from their "sanctuaries" across the border in Afghanistan's eastern province of Afghanistan.

"Pakistani forces retaliated and killed 45 militants," the official said on condition of anonymity.

There was no way to verify that toll because most journalists are not allowed to enter the border region in the northwest, the epicenter of fighting between militants and security forces.

Militants often dispute official casualty counts.

The Pakistani Foreign Ministry said the attackers also burned schools in the area.

The battle erupted after militants dressed in military uniforms attacked the post and killed one policeman.

The incident underscores the dangers posed by long, porous border which both countries have struggled to control as part of efforts control movements of insurgents on both sides of the boundary.

Pakistan's Taliban movement, which has close ties to al Qaeda, has increased pressure on the U.S.-backed government after vowing to avenge the killing of Osama bin Laden by U.S. special forces on May 2 in a Pakistani town.

It has stepped up suicide bombings, attacking paramilitary cadets, a naval base, a U.S. consulate convoy and other targets.

After the bin Laden raid, Washington reiterated its call for Pakistan to crack down harder on militancy, especially on groups that cross over to Afghanistan to attack Western forces.


(Additional reporting by Kamran Haider)

[BRVoice]

http://nation.com.pk/pakistan-news-n...aushehra-blast


Three killed, 20 injured in Naushehra blast
Submitted 7 hrs 42 mins ago

At least three people were killed and 20 others were injured in a blast in Naushehra, a village of Khushab district on Sunday evening, police said. According to local police, the blast happened in a bakery near a bus stand on Mal Road, Naushehra. Fire erupted in the bakery after the blast.

[BRVoice]

http://www.reuters.com/article/2011/...7573E320110608


Pakistan militant group vows to escalate fight in Afghanistan
By Saud Mehsud and Kamran Haider
DERA ISMAIL KHAN/ISLAMABAD | Wed Jun 8, 2011 10:28am EDT

(Reuters) - One of Pakistan's most powerful militant groups plans to step up its fight against American troops in neighboring Afghanistan in response to intensified U.S. drone missile strikes on its territory, two of its commanders said on Wednesday.

The Central Intelligence Agency has been pounding an area of South Waziristan along the Afghan border controlled by Maulvi Nazir, one of Pakistan's most influential militant leaders.

Since Friday, at least 34 militants have been killed in four drone strikes, intelligence officials say, possibly launched because high value al Qaeda or Taliban figures were spotted.

An escalation by Nazir's men in Afghanistan could complicate the United State's efforts to pacify the country as it starts a gradual troop withdrawal in July.

"Because the United States is launching these strikes we will send more fighters to Afghanistan and step up our operations against U.S. forces," Maulvi Younus, one of Nazir's senior commanders, told Reuters.

"We have no other option. We have no weapons which shoot them (drone aircraft) down so we will fight the United States in Afghanistan."

Defense Secretary Robert Gates has said there could be political talks with the Afghan Taliban by the end of this year, if the U.S.-led NATO alliance continued to make military gains on the ground, putting pressure on the insurgents.

Pakistan, which the United States wants to act more decisively to help its war on militancy, has no strategic reason to attack Nazir and his fighters.

They are among the so-called "good Taliban" militants not opposed to the Pakistani state who focus on trying to defeat U.S.-led NATO and Afghan forces across the border.

Pakistan struck a deal with Nazir's men in 2007 under which they would not harbor anti-government militants in exchange for not being targeted when the army started mounting offensives on the Pakistani Taliban, which is close to al Qaeda.

Military officials in Islamabad say the government is building a road for Nazir's fighters so they can avoid moving through an area controlled by rival militants.

Since it was discovered that Osama bin Laden had been living in the country long before he was found, Pakistan has come under mounting U.S. pressure to go after militants who enjoy sanctuaries in Pakistan and cross over to fight in Afghanistan.

Commander Younus called on the Pakistani government to end the drone strikes, but said his group had no intention of breaking the pact.

He declined to say how many fighters Nazir has at his disposal but Pakistani intelligence officials put the figure at about 1,200.

They mainly use rocket-propelled grenades, AK-47 assault rifles, machine-guns and mortars, commanders say.

While the drone strikes have killed high profile militants, they also fuel anti-American sentiment in Pakistan, recipient of billions of dollars in military aid.

The campaign has also enabled militants to recruit more people like relatives of those killed in the strikes, young men who are disillusioned with the state or Pashtun tribesmen with ethnic ties to militants and prescribe to a culture of revenge.

"We have lots of mujahideen (holy warriors). It is not a problem. If drone strikes continue we believe many tribesmen will join us because they (drone strikes) are killing ordinary people," said Qari Yousaf, a close aide to Nazir.

"Our shura (council of commanders) will decide on the appropriate time to send more fighters (to Afghanistan) and how many will go."

When the United States launched its war on militancy after al Qaeda's September 2001 attacks, and toppled Afghanistan's Taliban, many militants fled to Pakistan's tribal areas.

Afghan and Pakistani militants train together in unruly tribal areas, where they plot shootings and suicide bombings.

"We have our own system. We remain in touch with our brothers (the Afghan Taliban). We are sons of this soil. We know how to cross the border and from where," said Yousaf.

Nazir is a low-profile figure who avoids the limelight.

Mahmood Shah, former chief of security in the tribal regions, says Nazir is a force to be reckoned with.

"He is religious, non-egotistical, sincere and very motivated," said Shah. "Even if he decided to fight al Qaeda, he can. That's how determined he is."


(Writing by Michael Georgy; Editing by Daniel Magnowski)

[vector7]

Bump

[BRVoice]

For links see article source.

http://www.globalsecuritynewswire.or...10919_8374.php


India, U.S. Should Plan for Potential Pakistani Crises: Report
Monday, Sept. 19, 2011

An expert report issued this weekend urges India and the United States to secretly plan joint responses to multiple potential crises in Pakistan, such as threats to the Pakistani armed forces' oversight of the nation's atomic arsenal falling or the government descending into chaos, Dawn reported (see GSN, Sept. 12).

The United States should take every action within its power to help Islamabad guard its nuclear weapons, while India should pursue dialogue with the Pakistani armed forces, according to the U.S. Council on Foreign Relations and the Aspen Institute India.

“We developed … possible contingencies regarding developments in Pakistan,” former U.S. Ambassador to India Robert Blackwill, who co-headed of the panel that authored the report, told Foreign Policy magazine. “The report says the U.S. strategy (of) using military and civilian assistance to try to persuade the Pakistan military to cease its support for terrorist groups that kill Indians and kill Americans in Afghanistan has failed.”

Washington should “heavily condition, from now forward, military aid to Pakistan on the basis of Pakistan moving against these terrorist groups that target Americans and Indians,” the document states.

Pakistan's armed forces have consistently provided assurance that the nation's nuclear stockpile is adequately protected, but questions over such claims must be addressed, the report's authors said.

“If the society at large becomes more chaotic, more violent, if Islamic extremists have more influence inside the country, then one has to worry whether at some point in which the Pakistan nuclear complex has been penetrated by terrorists or Islamic extremists of other persuasion,” Blackwill said. “The United States and India should be talking in a contingency way about what one country or the other might try to do in those circumstances. And what the two of them could try to do to prevent that from happening” (Anwar Iqbal, Dawn, Sept. 19).

Pakistan has the "world's fastest-growing nuclear stockpile" and could have as many as 200 warheads within the next 10 years, according to a July analysis published in the Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists (see GSN, July 1). Islamabad today is estimated to have 90 to 110 atomic arms (Kristensen/Norris, Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists, July/August 2011).

Meanwhile, former top Pakistani scientist and proliferator Abdul Qadeer Khan described his past operations in greater detail in newly obtained documents, Fox News reported on Friday.

The papers indicate that top Pakistani officials were involved in, and profited from, the proliferation network, an allegation long rejected by Islamabad.

“Gen. Jehangir Karamat took $3 million through me from the N. Koreans and asked me to give them some drawing and machines” connected to enriching uranium, one document states. Karamat one-time Pakistani army chief of staff and a former ambassador to the United States, called Khan's claim a "preposterous, false and a malicious fabrication"

Khan also stated that he carried out the delivery of “a set of drawings and some components to the Iranians" on the order of then-Gen. Imtiaz Ali, “probably with the blessing" of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto (see GSN, July 8; Micah Morrison, Fox News, Sept. 16).

[vector7]

Pak is Russia’s ‘most important’ partner in South Asia: Putin

Nov 8, 2011

7 Comments

Moscow: Pakistan is Russia’s “most important” partner in South Asia and in the Islamic world, Prime Minister Vladimir Putin said Monday during a meeting with his Pakistani counterpart in St Petersburg.

“Pakistan today is not an important trade and economic partner of Russia, but also most important Russian partner in South Asia and in the Islamic world,” Putin was quoted as saying at his meeting with Pakistani Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani.


With deterioration of Islamabad's ties with Washington, Moscow is seeking a closer relationship with India's arch-rival with the blessing of China — Pakistan's "all-weather" friend. AFP

The two met on the sidelines of the Shanghai Cooperation Organisation (SCO) prime-ministerial meet in St Petersburg, ITAR-TASS reported.
Welcoming Gilani, Putin said he was happy to see him in Russia and his hometown St Petersburg, though he had met him earlier in other countries.

He also confirmed Moscow’s readiness to invest $500 million on the CASA-1000 electric transmission line to supply Pakistan with the Central Asian power from Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan.

With deterioration of Islamabad’s ties with Washington, Moscow is seeking a closer relationship with India’s arch-rival with the blessing of China — Pakistan’s “all-weather” friend.

This Russian shift in South Asia policy where India had always been Moscow’s main partner is reflection of apprehensions over New Delhi-Washington relationship turning into a military-political alliance to block Russia and China’s interests in the region.

Moscow also believes that the key to the stability in Russia’s soft belly — Central Asia — is ties with Islamabad, which has the potential of creating mischief along and inside the borders of the former Russian empire.

PTI

[BRVoice]

Pakistan stops NATO supplies after raid kills up to 28

By Shams Mohmand
YAKKAGHUND, Pakistan | Sat Nov 26, 2011 11:12am EST



(Reuters) - NATO helicopters and fighter jets attacked two military outposts in northwest Pakistan on Saturday, killing as many as 28 troops and plunging U.S.-Pakistan relations, already deeply frayed, further into crisis.
Pakistan retaliated by shutting down vital NATO supply routes into Afghanistan, used for sending in just under a third of the alliance's supplies.
The attack is the worst single incident of its kind since Pakistan uneasily allied itself with Washington in the days immediately following the September 11, 2001 attacks on U.S. targets.
Relations between the United States and Pakistan, its ally in the war on militancy, have been strained following the killing of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden by U.S. special forces in a raid on the Pakistani garrison town of Abbottabad in May, which Pakistan called a flagrant violation of sovereignty.
A spokesman for NATO-led troops in Afghanistan confirmed that NATO aircraft had been called in to support troops in the area and had probably killed some Pakistani soldiers.
"Close air support was called in, in the development of the tactical situation, and it is what highly likely caused the Pakistan casualties," said General Carsten Jacobson, spokesman for the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF).
He added that he could not confirm the number of casualties, but ISAF is investigating the "tragic development."
"We are aware that Pakistani soldiers perished. We don't know the size, the magnitude," he said.
The Pakistani government and military brimmed with fury.
"This is an attack on Pakistan's sovereignty," said Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani. "We will not let any harm come to Pakistan's sovereignty and solidarity."
The Foreign Office said it would take up the matter "in the strongest terms" with NATO and the United States.
The powerful Chief of Army Staff, General Ashfaq Pervez Kayani, said in a statement issued by the Pakistani military that "all necessary steps be under taken for an effective response to this irresponsible act.
"A strong protest has been launched with NATO/ISAF in which it has been demanded that strong and urgent action be taken against those responsible for this aggression."
Two military officials said that up to 28 troops had been killed and 11 wounded in the attack on the outposts, about 2.5 km (1.5 miles) from the Afghan border. The Pakistani military said 24 troops were killed and 13 wounded.
EARLY MORNING ATTACK
It remains unclear what exactly happened, but the attack took place around 2 a.m. (2100 GMT) in the Baizai area of Mohmand, where Pakistani troops are fighting Taliban militants.
"Pakistani troops effectively responded immediately in self-defense to NATO/ISAF's aggression with all available weapons," the Pakistani military statement said.
The commander of NATO-led forces in Afghanistan, General John R. Allen, said he had offered his condolences to the family of any Pakistani soldiers who "may have been killed or injured."
The U.S. embassy in Islamabad also offered condolences.
About 40 Pakistani army troops were stationed at the outposts, military sources said. Two officers were reported among the dead.
"The latest attack by NATO forces on our post will have serious repercussions as they without any reasons attacked on our post and killed soldiers asleep," said a senior Pakistani military officer, requesting anonymity.
Reflecting the confusion of war in an ill-defined border area, an Afghan border police official, Edrees Momand, said joint Afghan-NATO troops near the outpost on Saturday morning had detained several militants.
"I am not aware of the casualties on the other side of the border but those we have detained aren't Afghan Taliban," he said, implying they may have been Pakistani or other foreign national Taliban operating in Afghanistan.
The Afghanistan-Pakistan border is often poorly marked, and Afghan and Pakistani maps have differences of several kilometers in some places, military officials have said.
However Pakistani military spokesman Major-General Athar Abbas said that NATO had been given maps of the area, with Pakistani military posts marked out.
"When the other side is saying there is a doubt about this, there is no doubt about it. These posts have been marked and handed over to the other side for marking on their maps and are clearly inside Pakistani territory."
The incident occurred a day after Allen met Kayani to discuss border control and enhanced cooperation.
"After the recent meetings between Pakistan and ISAF/NATO forces to build confidence and trust, these kind of attacks should not have taken place," a senior military source told Reuters.
BLOCKED SUPPLIES
NATO supply trucks and fuel tankers bound for Afghanistan were stopped at Jamrud town in the Khyber tribal region near the city of Peshawar hours after the raid, officials said.
"We have halted the supplies and some 40 tankers and trucks have been returned from the check post in Jamrud," Mutahir Zeb, a senior government official, told Reuters.
Another official said the supplies had been stopped for security reasons.
"There is possibility of attacks on NATO supplies passing through the volatile Khyber tribal region, therefore we sent them back toward Peshawar to remain safe," he said.
The border crossing at Chaman in Baluchistan was also closed, Frontier Corps officials said.
Pakistan is a vital land route for nearly half of NATO supplies shipped overland to its troops in Afghanistan, a NATO spokesman said. Land shipments only account for about two thirds of the alliance's cargo shipments into Afghanistan.
A similar incident on Sept 30, 2010, which killed two Pakistani troops, led to the closure of one of NATO's supply routes through Pakistan for 10 days.
NATO apologized for that incident, which it said happened when NATO gunships mistook warning shots by the Pakistani forces for a militant attack.
U.S.-Pakistan relations were already reeling from a tumultuous year that saw the bin Laden raid, the jailing of a CIA contractor, and U.S. accusations that Pakistan backed a militant attack on the U.S. embassy in Kabul.
The United States has long suspected Pakistan of continuing to secretly support Taliban militant groups to secure influence in Afghanistan after most NATO troops leave in 2014. Saturday's incident will give Pakistan the argument that NATO is now attacking it directly.
"I think we should go to the United Nations Security Council against this," said retired Brigadier Mahmood Shah, former chief of security in the tribal areas. "So far, Pakistan is being blamed for all that is happening in Afghanistan, and Pakistan's point of view has not been shown in the international media."
Other analysts, including Rustam Shah Mohmand, a former ambassador to Afghanistan, said Pakistan would protest and close the supply lines for some time, but that ultimately "things will get back to normal."
Paul Beaver, a British security analyst, said relations were so bad that this incident might have no noticeable impact.
"I'm not sure U.S.-Pakistan relations could sink much lower than they are now," he said.
(Additional reporting by Bushra Takseen, Saud Mehsud, Jibran Ahmad and Saeed Achakzai in Pakistan, Tim Castle in London, and Hamid Shalizi and Christine Kearney in Afghanistan; Writing by Augustine Anthony and Chris Allbritton; Editing by Ron Popeski and Rosalind Russell)

[American Patriot]

Sure, they could sink lower.

Wait until Pakistan nukes someone.

[Ryan Ruck]

At this point, we really do need to pull out of Afghanistan. Maintaining supply lines into that place was tenuous in the first place and we've pretty much accomplished all we could hope to.

Where we should not be pulling out of is Iraq because of the sea access it has, limited though it is. That is the country that we should be using as a major toe hold in the area. After all, we kicked their ass fair and square. No reason we couldn't make it like Germany or Japan.