From BBC News by Kim Ghattas in Washington, Oct. 21, 2010
First, an important stat from the BBC ...
"Since 2005, Pakistan has received more than $1bn (£636.4m) of military aid a year from the US - and received close to $2bn for the last fiscal year."
Next, an excerpt ...
A White House report sent to congress earlier this month laments the Pakistani army's inability to hold territory it has seized from insurgents, a failure that means gains are likely to be short-lived.
"The Pakistan military continued to avoid military engagements that would put it in direct conflict with Afghan Taliban or al-Qaeda's forces in North Waziristan," the report said, referring to the region in north-western Pakistan seen as a Taliban and al-Qaeda haven.
"This is as much a political choice as it is a reflection of an under-resourced military prioritizing its targets."
Full story
The end of the BBC piece references an Oct. 19 New York Times editorial written by By Zalmay Khalilzad, former US ambassador to Afghanistan.
Its suggestions are clear and outline a possible future of the US in Central Asia that not only continues along the current self-appointed world police trajectory, but reveals how intricately the pursuit of US enemies fits together with conquest and empire. It's a slight variation on colonialism, but with a much more tempestuous wind at its back. Which brings us back to spending tax money on military equipment and missions.
An excerpt ...
The United States should demand that Pakistan shut down all sanctuaries and military support programs for insurgents or else we will carry out operations against those insurgent havens, with or without Pakistani consent. Arguments that such pressure would cause Pakistan to disintegrate are overstated. Pakistan’s institutions, particularly the country’s security organs, are sufficiently strong to preclude such an outcome.
Nonetheless, this aggressive approach would require the United States to think through a series of likely Pakistani responses. To deal with an interruption of our supply lines to Afghanistan, for example, we must stockpile supplies and start bringing in more materiél through the northern supply routes and via air.
At the same time, we should present clear, significant incentives. In exchange for demonstrable Pakistani cooperation, the United States should offer to mediate disputes between Pakistan and Afghanistan; help establish a trade corridor from Pakistan into Central Asia; and ensure that Pakistan’s adversaries do not use Afghanistan’s territory to support insurgents in Pakistani Baluchistan.
More fundamentally, the United States needs to demonstrate that, even after our troops depart Afghanistan, we are resolved to stay engaged in the region. To that end, the United States should provide long-term assistance to Pakistan focused on developing not only its security apparatus, but also its civil society, economy and democratic institutions.
Showing posts with label North Waziristan. Show all posts
Showing posts with label North Waziristan. Show all posts
Friday, October 22, 2010
Tuesday, September 28, 2010
CIA publicly announces its increase in drone attacks in Pakistan
C.I.A. Steps Up Drone Attacks on Taliban in Pakistan
By MARK MAZZETTI and ERIC SCHMITT
Published: September 27, 2010
WASHINGTON — The C.I.A. has drastically increased its bombing campaign in the mountains of Pakistan in recent weeks, American officials said. The strikes are part of an effort by military and intelligence operatives to try to cripple the Taliban in a stronghold being used to plan attacks against American troops in Afghanistan.
As part of its covert war in the region, the C.I.A. has launched 20 attacks with armed drone aircraft thus far in September, the most ever during a single month, and more than twice the number in a typical month. This expanded air campaign comes as top officials are racing to stem the rise of American casualties before the Obama administration’s comprehensive review of its Afghanistan strategy set for December. American and European officials are also evaluating reports of possible terrorist plots in the West from militants based in Pakistan.
The strikes also reflect mounting frustration both in Afghanistan and the United States that Pakistan’s government has not been aggressive enough in dislodging militants from their bases in the country’s western mountains. In particular, the officials said, the Americans believe the Pakistanis are unlikely to launch military operations inside North Waziristan, a haven for Taliban and Qaeda operatives that has long been used as a base for attacks against troops in Afghanistan.
Beyond the C.I.A. drone strikes, the war in the region is escalating in other ways. In recent days, American military helicopters have launched three airstrikes into Pakistan that military officials estimate killed more than 50 people suspected of being members of the militant group known as the Haqqani network, which is responsible for a spate of deadly attacks against American troops.
Such air raids by the military remain rare, and officials in Kabul said Monday that the helicopters entered Pakistani airspace on only one of the three raids, and acted in self-defense after militants fired rockets at an allied base just across the border in Afghanistan. At the same time, the strikes point to a new willingness by military officials to expand the boundaries of the campaign against the Taliban and Haqqani network — and to an acute concern in military and intelligence circles about the limited time to attack Taliban strongholds while American “surge” forces are in Afghanistan.
Pakistani officials have angrily criticized the helicopter attacks, saying that NATO’s mandate in Afghanistan does not extend across the border in Pakistan.
As evidence of the growing frustration of American officials, Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top American commander in Afghanistan, has recently issued veiled warnings to top Pakistani commanders that the United States could launch unilateral ground operations in the tribal areas should Pakistan refuse to dismantle the militant networks in North Waziristan, according to American officials.
“Petraeus wants to turn up the heat on the safe havens,” said one senior administration official, explaining the sharp increase in drone strikes. “He has pointed out to the Pakistanis that they could do more.”
Special Operations commanders have also been updating plans for cross-border raids, which would require approval from President Obama. For now, officials said, it remains unlikely that the United States would make good on such threats to send American troops over the border, given the potential blowback inside Pakistan, an ally.
But that could change, they said, if Pakistan-based militants were successful in carrying out a terrorist attack on American soil. American and European intelligence officials in recent days have spoken publicly about growing evidence that militants may be planning a large-scale attack in Europe, and have bolstered security at a number of European airports and railway stations.
“We are all seeing increased activity by a more diverse set of groups and a more diverse set of threats,” said Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano before a Senate panel last week.
The senior administration official said the strikes were intended not only to attack Taliban and Haqqani fighters, but also to disrupt any plots directed from or supported by extremists in Pakistan’s tribal areas that were aimed at targets in Europe. “The goal is to suppress or disrupt that activity,” the official said.
The 20 C.I.A. drone attacks in September represent the most intense bombardment by the spy agency since January, when the C.I.A. carried out 11 strikes after a suicide bomber killed seven agency operatives at a remote base in eastern Afghanistan.
According to one Pakistani intelligence official, the recent drone attacks have not killed any senior Taliban or Qaeda leaders. Many senior operatives have already fled North Waziristan, he said, to escape the C.I.A. drone campaign.
Over all the spy agency has carried out 74 drone attacks this year, according to the Web site The Long War Journal, which tracks the strikes. A vast majority of the attacks — which usually involve several drones firing multiple missiles or bombs — have taken place in North Waziristan.
The Obama administration has enthusiastically embraced the C.I.A.’s drone program, an ambitious and historically unusual war campaign by American spies. According to The Long War Journal, the spy agency in 2009 and 2010 has launched nearly four times as many attacks as it did during the final year of the Bush administration.
One American official said that the recent strikes had been aimed at several groups, including the Haqqani network, Al Qaeda and the Pakistani Taliban. The United States, he said, hopes to “keep the pressure on as long as we can.”
But the C.I.A.’s campaign has also raised concerns that the drone strikes are fueling anger in the Muslim world. The man who attempted to detonate a truck filled with explosives in Times Square told a judge that the C.I.A. drone campaign was one of the factors that led him to attack the United States.
In a meeting with reporters on Monday, General Petraeus indicated that it was new intelligence gathering technology that helped NATO forces locate the militants killed by the helicopter raids against militants in Pakistan.
In particular, he said, the military has expanded its fleet of reconnaissance blimps that can hover over hide-outs thought to belong to the Taliban in eastern and southern Afghanistan.
The intelligence technology, General Petraeus said, has also enabled the expanded campaign of raids by Special Operations commandos against Taliban operatives in those areas.
Rod Nordland and Alissa J. Rubin contributed reporting from Kabul, Afghanistan, and Ismail Khan from Peshawar, Pakistan.
By MARK MAZZETTI and ERIC SCHMITT
Published: September 27, 2010
WASHINGTON — The C.I.A. has drastically increased its bombing campaign in the mountains of Pakistan in recent weeks, American officials said. The strikes are part of an effort by military and intelligence operatives to try to cripple the Taliban in a stronghold being used to plan attacks against American troops in Afghanistan.
As part of its covert war in the region, the C.I.A. has launched 20 attacks with armed drone aircraft thus far in September, the most ever during a single month, and more than twice the number in a typical month. This expanded air campaign comes as top officials are racing to stem the rise of American casualties before the Obama administration’s comprehensive review of its Afghanistan strategy set for December. American and European officials are also evaluating reports of possible terrorist plots in the West from militants based in Pakistan.
The strikes also reflect mounting frustration both in Afghanistan and the United States that Pakistan’s government has not been aggressive enough in dislodging militants from their bases in the country’s western mountains. In particular, the officials said, the Americans believe the Pakistanis are unlikely to launch military operations inside North Waziristan, a haven for Taliban and Qaeda operatives that has long been used as a base for attacks against troops in Afghanistan.
Beyond the C.I.A. drone strikes, the war in the region is escalating in other ways. In recent days, American military helicopters have launched three airstrikes into Pakistan that military officials estimate killed more than 50 people suspected of being members of the militant group known as the Haqqani network, which is responsible for a spate of deadly attacks against American troops.
Such air raids by the military remain rare, and officials in Kabul said Monday that the helicopters entered Pakistani airspace on only one of the three raids, and acted in self-defense after militants fired rockets at an allied base just across the border in Afghanistan. At the same time, the strikes point to a new willingness by military officials to expand the boundaries of the campaign against the Taliban and Haqqani network — and to an acute concern in military and intelligence circles about the limited time to attack Taliban strongholds while American “surge” forces are in Afghanistan.
Pakistani officials have angrily criticized the helicopter attacks, saying that NATO’s mandate in Afghanistan does not extend across the border in Pakistan.
As evidence of the growing frustration of American officials, Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top American commander in Afghanistan, has recently issued veiled warnings to top Pakistani commanders that the United States could launch unilateral ground operations in the tribal areas should Pakistan refuse to dismantle the militant networks in North Waziristan, according to American officials.
“Petraeus wants to turn up the heat on the safe havens,” said one senior administration official, explaining the sharp increase in drone strikes. “He has pointed out to the Pakistanis that they could do more.”
Special Operations commanders have also been updating plans for cross-border raids, which would require approval from President Obama. For now, officials said, it remains unlikely that the United States would make good on such threats to send American troops over the border, given the potential blowback inside Pakistan, an ally.
But that could change, they said, if Pakistan-based militants were successful in carrying out a terrorist attack on American soil. American and European intelligence officials in recent days have spoken publicly about growing evidence that militants may be planning a large-scale attack in Europe, and have bolstered security at a number of European airports and railway stations.
“We are all seeing increased activity by a more diverse set of groups and a more diverse set of threats,” said Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano before a Senate panel last week.
The senior administration official said the strikes were intended not only to attack Taliban and Haqqani fighters, but also to disrupt any plots directed from or supported by extremists in Pakistan’s tribal areas that were aimed at targets in Europe. “The goal is to suppress or disrupt that activity,” the official said.
The 20 C.I.A. drone attacks in September represent the most intense bombardment by the spy agency since January, when the C.I.A. carried out 11 strikes after a suicide bomber killed seven agency operatives at a remote base in eastern Afghanistan.
According to one Pakistani intelligence official, the recent drone attacks have not killed any senior Taliban or Qaeda leaders. Many senior operatives have already fled North Waziristan, he said, to escape the C.I.A. drone campaign.
Over all the spy agency has carried out 74 drone attacks this year, according to the Web site The Long War Journal, which tracks the strikes. A vast majority of the attacks — which usually involve several drones firing multiple missiles or bombs — have taken place in North Waziristan.
The Obama administration has enthusiastically embraced the C.I.A.’s drone program, an ambitious and historically unusual war campaign by American spies. According to The Long War Journal, the spy agency in 2009 and 2010 has launched nearly four times as many attacks as it did during the final year of the Bush administration.
One American official said that the recent strikes had been aimed at several groups, including the Haqqani network, Al Qaeda and the Pakistani Taliban. The United States, he said, hopes to “keep the pressure on as long as we can.”
But the C.I.A.’s campaign has also raised concerns that the drone strikes are fueling anger in the Muslim world. The man who attempted to detonate a truck filled with explosives in Times Square told a judge that the C.I.A. drone campaign was one of the factors that led him to attack the United States.
In a meeting with reporters on Monday, General Petraeus indicated that it was new intelligence gathering technology that helped NATO forces locate the militants killed by the helicopter raids against militants in Pakistan.
In particular, he said, the military has expanded its fleet of reconnaissance blimps that can hover over hide-outs thought to belong to the Taliban in eastern and southern Afghanistan.
The intelligence technology, General Petraeus said, has also enabled the expanded campaign of raids by Special Operations commandos against Taliban operatives in those areas.
Rod Nordland and Alissa J. Rubin contributed reporting from Kabul, Afghanistan, and Ismail Khan from Peshawar, Pakistan.
Tuesday, September 21, 2010
North Waziristan motorcyclists latest to be killed by UAV
From the Long War Journal ...
US Predators strike again in North Waziristan
By Bill Roggio September 20, 2010
Excerpts appear here—
"Four 'militants' were reported killed in the strike, but their affiliation to terror groups is unclear. No senior Taliban or al Qaeda commanders have been reported killed."
"The areas controlled by Bahadar and by the al Qaeda-linked Haqqani Network have been hit especially hard this year. Despite the fact that Bahadar and the Haqqani Network shelter al Qaeda and other South and Central Asian terror groups, the Pakistani government and military refuse to take action in North Waziristan. Bahadar and the Haqqanis are viewed as 'good Taliban' as they do not attack the Pakistani state."
US Predators strike again in North Waziristan
By Bill Roggio September 20, 2010
Excerpts appear here—
"Four 'militants' were reported killed in the strike, but their affiliation to terror groups is unclear. No senior Taliban or al Qaeda commanders have been reported killed."
"The areas controlled by Bahadar and by the al Qaeda-linked Haqqani Network have been hit especially hard this year. Despite the fact that Bahadar and the Haqqani Network shelter al Qaeda and other South and Central Asian terror groups, the Pakistani government and military refuse to take action in North Waziristan. Bahadar and the Haqqanis are viewed as 'good Taliban' as they do not attack the Pakistani state."
Sunday, June 20, 2010
Most recent drone attack in June
Missile in Pakistan Kills 16 Militants
By PIR ZUBAIR SHAH
New York Times piece dated June 19, 2010
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — A missile strike in North Waziristan killed at least 16 militants on Saturday as they were making plans to go fight NATO forces in Afghanistan, residents and an intelligence official said.
They said a single missile, believed to have been fired from a drone aircraft, struck a government water-supply plant in the village of Haider Khel, near the town of Mir Ali, where the group was meeting.
Most of the concrete, government-built structures in the area, like schools, hospitals and water plants, have been occupied by militants, who use them to meet and for training.
The residents said that 11 of the dead were foreigners, mostly Arabs and some Uzbeks. An additional 19 people were wounded.
The compound is near the border of Haider Khel and Hassu Khel, two villages that are militant strongholds.
The North Waziristan tribal area borders Afghanistan and is a base of Sirajuddin Haqqani, the leader of an insurgent network blamed by the Americans for recent attacks in Kabul, the Afghan capital. North Waziristan is also the place where the American authorities say that Faisal Shahzad, who is accused of trying to bomb Times Square, was trained in explosives.
By PIR ZUBAIR SHAH
New York Times piece dated June 19, 2010
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — A missile strike in North Waziristan killed at least 16 militants on Saturday as they were making plans to go fight NATO forces in Afghanistan, residents and an intelligence official said.
They said a single missile, believed to have been fired from a drone aircraft, struck a government water-supply plant in the village of Haider Khel, near the town of Mir Ali, where the group was meeting.
Most of the concrete, government-built structures in the area, like schools, hospitals and water plants, have been occupied by militants, who use them to meet and for training.
The residents said that 11 of the dead were foreigners, mostly Arabs and some Uzbeks. An additional 19 people were wounded.
The compound is near the border of Haider Khel and Hassu Khel, two villages that are militant strongholds.
The North Waziristan tribal area borders Afghanistan and is a base of Sirajuddin Haqqani, the leader of an insurgent network blamed by the Americans for recent attacks in Kabul, the Afghan capital. North Waziristan is also the place where the American authorities say that Faisal Shahzad, who is accused of trying to bomb Times Square, was trained in explosives.
Wednesday, June 16, 2010
U.S. showed Pakistan evidence on militant faction
Reuters story by Adam Entous, reporter and Doina Chiacu, editor.
Haqqani faction in the tribal border region of North Waziristan has been linked by the Pentagon to political violence in May.
"Suicide bombers carrying rockets and grenades launched a brazen predawn attack on the base on May 19, killing an American contractor and wounding nine U.S. troops. About a dozen militants, many wearing suicide vests packed with explosives, were killed, the Pentagon said at the time.
A day earlier, a suicide bomber attacked a military convoy in Kabul, killing 12 Afghan civilians and six foreign troops."
The U.S. is insisting Islamabad place more pressure on its military to seek out members of Haqqani and prevent future attacks.
A dimension of complexity presents itself to Pakistan's leadership as future negotiations might be undermined by military missions against Taliban factions.
"But there are strategic reasons for Pakistan's hesitancy to attack the Haqqanis.
Pakistan sees the group as a strategic asset that will give it influence in any peace settlement in Afghanistan so Islamabad will want those militants on its side."
Insistence by the U.S. with Pakistan follows the May 1 attempted bombing in New York City's Times Square.
Haqqani faction in the tribal border region of North Waziristan has been linked by the Pentagon to political violence in May.
"Suicide bombers carrying rockets and grenades launched a brazen predawn attack on the base on May 19, killing an American contractor and wounding nine U.S. troops. About a dozen militants, many wearing suicide vests packed with explosives, were killed, the Pentagon said at the time.
A day earlier, a suicide bomber attacked a military convoy in Kabul, killing 12 Afghan civilians and six foreign troops."
The U.S. is insisting Islamabad place more pressure on its military to seek out members of Haqqani and prevent future attacks.
A dimension of complexity presents itself to Pakistan's leadership as future negotiations might be undermined by military missions against Taliban factions.
"But there are strategic reasons for Pakistan's hesitancy to attack the Haqqanis.
Pakistan sees the group as a strategic asset that will give it influence in any peace settlement in Afghanistan so Islamabad will want those militants on its side."
Insistence by the U.S. with Pakistan follows the May 1 attempted bombing in New York City's Times Square.
Wednesday, May 19, 2010
Aletho News: “What kind of democracy is America, where people do not ask these questions?”
From Aletho News Tuesday ...
“What kind of democracy is America, where people do not ask these questions?”
By Kathy Kelly and Josh Brollier | Pulse Media | May 18, 2010
Kathy Kelly (kathy@vcnv.org) and Josh Brollier (Joshua@vcnv.org) are co-coordinators of Voices for Creative Nonviolence www.vcnv.org
Islamabad–On May 12th, the day after a U.S. drone strike killed 24 people in Pakistan’s North Waziristan, two men from the area agreed to tell us their perspective as eyewitnesses of previous drone strikes.
One is a journalist, Safdar Dawar, General Secretary of the Tribal Union of Journalists. Journalists are operating under very difficult circumstances in the area, pressured by both militant groups and the Pakistani government. Six of his colleagues have been killed while reporting in North and South Waziristan. The other man, who asked us not to disclose his name, is from Miranshah city, the epicenter of North Waziristan. He works with the locally based Waziristan Relief Agency, a group of people committed to helping the victims of drone attacks and military actions. “If people need blood or medicine or have to go to Peshawar or some other hospital,” said the social worker, “I’m known for helping them. I also try to arrange funds and contributions.”
Both men emphasized that Pakistan’s government has only a trivial presence in the area. Survivors of drone attacks receive no compensation, and neither the military nor the government investigate consequences of the drone attacks.
“What kind of democracy is America, where people do not ask these questions?”
By Kathy Kelly and Josh Brollier | Pulse Media | May 18, 2010
Kathy Kelly (kathy@vcnv.org) and Josh Brollier (Joshua@vcnv.org) are co-coordinators of Voices for Creative Nonviolence www.vcnv.org
Islamabad–On May 12th, the day after a U.S. drone strike killed 24 people in Pakistan’s North Waziristan, two men from the area agreed to tell us their perspective as eyewitnesses of previous drone strikes.
One is a journalist, Safdar Dawar, General Secretary of the Tribal Union of Journalists. Journalists are operating under very difficult circumstances in the area, pressured by both militant groups and the Pakistani government. Six of his colleagues have been killed while reporting in North and South Waziristan. The other man, who asked us not to disclose his name, is from Miranshah city, the epicenter of North Waziristan. He works with the locally based Waziristan Relief Agency, a group of people committed to helping the victims of drone attacks and military actions. “If people need blood or medicine or have to go to Peshawar or some other hospital,” said the social worker, “I’m known for helping them. I also try to arrange funds and contributions.”
Both men emphasized that Pakistan’s government has only a trivial presence in the area. Survivors of drone attacks receive no compensation, and neither the military nor the government investigate consequences of the drone attacks.
Wednesday, May 12, 2010
Pakistan denies Taliban link to Times Square bomb suspect
Investigators dismiss US claims that Faisal Shahzad was working under direction of Pakistani Taliban
From the London Guardian Tuesday 11 May 2010 18.57 BST
by Saeed Shah in Karachi
see also Huffington Post: "Pakistan: No Evidence Pakistani Taliban Linked To Shahzad"
Pakistani investigators have found no evidence to support American claims that the failed Times Square bomber was working under the direction of the Pakistani Taliban, the Guardian has learned.
Senior officials in Washington – including the attorney general, Eric Holder, and John Brennan, the White House's special adviser on counterterrorism – have said that the suspected bomber, Faisal Shahzad, conspired with militants in Pakistan, but a Pakistani security official with knowledge of the investigation said: "No Taliban link has come to the fore."
The interrogation of Muhammad Rehan, a friend of Shahzad who was arrested last week outside a radical mosque in Karachi, has not yielded a link to the Pakistani Taliban or any other militant group. Rehan, a member of the banned Jaish-e-Mohammad extremist group, remains the only suspected link found between 30-year-old Shahzad and the militant underworld in Pakistan.
Officials in Islamabad are perplexed and angry at statements from Washington about Shahzad's links with the Pakistani Taliban, believing that the US is exploiting the issue to apply pressure for new military offensives in Pakistan's tribal border area with Afghanistan, in the north Waziristan region.
"We have not found any involvement of Rehan [in the New York attempted bombing]. He didn't introduce Faisal Shahzad to the Pakistani Taliban," said the security official.
"There are no roots to this case, so how can we trace something back?"
An FBI team which flew into Pakistan after the arrest of Shahzad was allowed to question Rehan on Sunday. More than a dozen other suspects taken into custody in Karachi have been released, but the investigation is continuing, so new leads could yet emerge.
Rehan's arrest as he left prayers at the Karachi mosque was seized on by the international press as evidence of Shahzad's involvement with Pakistani militant groups. It emerged that Rehan and Shahzad had last year taken a 1,000-mile road trip from Karachi to Peshawar, on the edge of Pakistan's tribal area, raising further suspicions.
However, Pakistani investigators have found that Rehan was not a very active member of JEM, a violent group primarily against India and with no history of global activities. He knew Shahzad because he is related to Shahzad's wife.
Shahzad, a naturalised American citizen of Pakistani origin, told US interrogators that he had been trained in Waziristan, part of Pakistan's tribal area, according to the court charges laid against him.
After the failed attack, the Pakistani Taliban released a video in which its chief trainer of suicide bombers, Qari Hussain, appeared to claim responsibility. But that video said nothing specifically about New York, Shahzad, or a car bomb.
Since then, the Pakistani Taliban's official spokesman, Azam Tariq, has twice denied that his group was involved with Shahzad. The ineptness of Shahzad's bomb, which did not go off, also raised doubts over whether the Pakistani Taliban could have trained him.
Holder said at the weekend that the Pakistani Taliban were "intimately involved" in Shahzad's attempted bombing. Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, also warned Islamabad of "dire consequences" if a plot originating in Pakistan succeeded in the US.
But David Petraeus, the American general in charge of the Middle East and central Asia, had previously said that Shahzad was a "lone wolf" who was "inspired by militants in Pakistan but didn't have direct contact with them".
A senior Pakistani government official said: "There is a disconnect between the Pentagon and the [Obama] administration. The Pentagon gets it that more open pressure on Pakistan is not helpful."
The US focus on Pakistan's tribal area, thought to be a power base for the Afghan Taliban and al-Qaida, as well as Pakistani Taliban, continued today with another missile strike from an unmanned American drone aircraft, the third such attack since the failed Times Square bombing. The strike, in north Waziristan, reportedly killed at least 14 militants. The Obama administration has unleashed an intensive campaign of drone attacks inside Pakistani territory, targeting extremist hideouts in the tribal area.
From the London Guardian Tuesday 11 May 2010 18.57 BST
by Saeed Shah in Karachi
see also Huffington Post: "Pakistan: No Evidence Pakistani Taliban Linked To Shahzad"
Pakistani investigators have found no evidence to support American claims that the failed Times Square bomber was working under the direction of the Pakistani Taliban, the Guardian has learned.
Senior officials in Washington – including the attorney general, Eric Holder, and John Brennan, the White House's special adviser on counterterrorism – have said that the suspected bomber, Faisal Shahzad, conspired with militants in Pakistan, but a Pakistani security official with knowledge of the investigation said: "No Taliban link has come to the fore."
The interrogation of Muhammad Rehan, a friend of Shahzad who was arrested last week outside a radical mosque in Karachi, has not yielded a link to the Pakistani Taliban or any other militant group. Rehan, a member of the banned Jaish-e-Mohammad extremist group, remains the only suspected link found between 30-year-old Shahzad and the militant underworld in Pakistan.
Officials in Islamabad are perplexed and angry at statements from Washington about Shahzad's links with the Pakistani Taliban, believing that the US is exploiting the issue to apply pressure for new military offensives in Pakistan's tribal border area with Afghanistan, in the north Waziristan region.
"We have not found any involvement of Rehan [in the New York attempted bombing]. He didn't introduce Faisal Shahzad to the Pakistani Taliban," said the security official.
"There are no roots to this case, so how can we trace something back?"
An FBI team which flew into Pakistan after the arrest of Shahzad was allowed to question Rehan on Sunday. More than a dozen other suspects taken into custody in Karachi have been released, but the investigation is continuing, so new leads could yet emerge.
Rehan's arrest as he left prayers at the Karachi mosque was seized on by the international press as evidence of Shahzad's involvement with Pakistani militant groups. It emerged that Rehan and Shahzad had last year taken a 1,000-mile road trip from Karachi to Peshawar, on the edge of Pakistan's tribal area, raising further suspicions.
However, Pakistani investigators have found that Rehan was not a very active member of JEM, a violent group primarily against India and with no history of global activities. He knew Shahzad because he is related to Shahzad's wife.
Shahzad, a naturalised American citizen of Pakistani origin, told US interrogators that he had been trained in Waziristan, part of Pakistan's tribal area, according to the court charges laid against him.
After the failed attack, the Pakistani Taliban released a video in which its chief trainer of suicide bombers, Qari Hussain, appeared to claim responsibility. But that video said nothing specifically about New York, Shahzad, or a car bomb.
Since then, the Pakistani Taliban's official spokesman, Azam Tariq, has twice denied that his group was involved with Shahzad. The ineptness of Shahzad's bomb, which did not go off, also raised doubts over whether the Pakistani Taliban could have trained him.
Holder said at the weekend that the Pakistani Taliban were "intimately involved" in Shahzad's attempted bombing. Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, also warned Islamabad of "dire consequences" if a plot originating in Pakistan succeeded in the US.
But David Petraeus, the American general in charge of the Middle East and central Asia, had previously said that Shahzad was a "lone wolf" who was "inspired by militants in Pakistan but didn't have direct contact with them".
A senior Pakistani government official said: "There is a disconnect between the Pentagon and the [Obama] administration. The Pentagon gets it that more open pressure on Pakistan is not helpful."
The US focus on Pakistan's tribal area, thought to be a power base for the Afghan Taliban and al-Qaida, as well as Pakistani Taliban, continued today with another missile strike from an unmanned American drone aircraft, the third such attack since the failed Times Square bombing. The strike, in north Waziristan, reportedly killed at least 14 militants. The Obama administration has unleashed an intensive campaign of drone attacks inside Pakistani territory, targeting extremist hideouts in the tribal area.
Drones attack Taliban targets in Pakistan
Financial Times story by Farhan Bokhari in Islamabad
Published: May 12 2010 03:10
CIA-flown pilot-less drone aircraft on Tuesday fired more than 15 missiles at a suspected Taliban stronghold in Pakistan’s lawless north Waziristan region killing at least 24 suspected militants.
The attack was the biggest of its kind since the failed attempt by Faisal Shahzad, a Pakistani-born US national, to blow up New York’s Times Square on May 1.
Tuesday’s attack, said by a Pakistani intelligence official to be “Washington’s payback”, follows claims by US officials that Mr Shahzad is connected to Taliban militants. Mr Shahzad was arrested last week.
The Pakistani intelligence official said the missiles hit two targets – a vehicle driving three militants through a village and a nearby compound used for the training of recruits.
The attack took place in an area known to be controlled by Gul Bahadur, a Taliban commander.
In the past few months, US officials have increasingly acknowledged Pakistan’s growing importance as an ally in Washington’s efforts to secure the Afghanistan-Pakistan region where al-Qaeda and Taliban militants continue to pose a major resistance.
Shah Mehmood Qureshi, Pakistan’s foreign minister, on Tuesday said relations between the US and Pakistan continued to improve, brushing aside concerns over tensions after the failed New York bombing attempt. “There is nothing to worry about, our relationship is smooth and it is moving towards a partnership,” he said.
But a foreign ministry official in Islamabad warned that further US attacks on Pakistani soil of the kind seen on Tuesday will “inevitably bring in frictions of the kind that no one wants to see. You can’t bomb a country increasingly and expect cordial relations at the same time.”
Published: May 12 2010 03:10
CIA-flown pilot-less drone aircraft on Tuesday fired more than 15 missiles at a suspected Taliban stronghold in Pakistan’s lawless north Waziristan region killing at least 24 suspected militants.
The attack was the biggest of its kind since the failed attempt by Faisal Shahzad, a Pakistani-born US national, to blow up New York’s Times Square on May 1.
Tuesday’s attack, said by a Pakistani intelligence official to be “Washington’s payback”, follows claims by US officials that Mr Shahzad is connected to Taliban militants. Mr Shahzad was arrested last week.
The Pakistani intelligence official said the missiles hit two targets – a vehicle driving three militants through a village and a nearby compound used for the training of recruits.
The attack took place in an area known to be controlled by Gul Bahadur, a Taliban commander.
In the past few months, US officials have increasingly acknowledged Pakistan’s growing importance as an ally in Washington’s efforts to secure the Afghanistan-Pakistan region where al-Qaeda and Taliban militants continue to pose a major resistance.
Shah Mehmood Qureshi, Pakistan’s foreign minister, on Tuesday said relations between the US and Pakistan continued to improve, brushing aside concerns over tensions after the failed New York bombing attempt. “There is nothing to worry about, our relationship is smooth and it is moving towards a partnership,” he said.
But a foreign ministry official in Islamabad warned that further US attacks on Pakistani soil of the kind seen on Tuesday will “inevitably bring in frictions of the kind that no one wants to see. You can’t bomb a country increasingly and expect cordial relations at the same time.”
Tuesday, May 11, 2010
Patrick Cockburn in Pakistan 4/22
"It isn't just journalists but politicians from the rest of Pakistan who never come to see us," said local leaders in Ghazni Khel, a poor agricultural village in the middle of parched farmland.
This Counterpunch piece by Patrick Cockburn from April 22 is another one I just ... missed. It's about trying to live on Pakistan's Northwest Frontier where the Taliban will come after you if they think you are cooperating with the military and the military will come after you if they think you are cooperating with the Taliban.
Reprisal and Revenge
Vicious War on Pakistan's N.W. Frontier
By PATRICK COCKBURN
Staying alive is not a simple business for people in Pakistan's North West Frontier Province. The local Taliban and the army compete mercilessly to establish their authority along the border with Afghanistan. "If we support the army, the Taliban is unhappy and if we support the Taliban then the army is unhappy," lamented one local resident living outside Peshawar.
This unhappiness can have dire consequences for the civilian population. In the case of the army this usually means ordering civilians out of a hostile area and then plastering it with high explosives. The Taliban is on the retreat, but it likes to show it is still a force to be reckoned with by sending its suicide bombers to kill anybody it sees co-operating too enthusiastically with the army.
Mostly the Taliban favors soft targets. I was driving through Kohat district on the main road leading south from the Khyber Pass last weekend when we passed through a small village where a few hours earlier a suicide bomber had driven a vehicle packed with explosives into the gate of the local police station. The explosion had brought down concrete beams and ripped open the fronts of shops. Three police officers and four civilians had been killed. The police had draped brightly colored sheets over the wreckage to hide the extent of the damage suffered by the police station. Some shopkeepers were milling around trying to salvage their goods, but overall nobody looked too surprised at what had happened.
It is a nasty little war that receives little attention in the rest of Pakistan or in the outside world. It is dangerous for journalists to visit the area. When they do come they are usually escorted by the army and police. These are sensible precautions as was recently underlined when a British journalist and his two advisers, two former members of Pakistan's powerful ISI military intelligence, were kidnapped; they are now being held for ransom in North Waziristan.
"It isn't just journalists but politicians from the rest of Pakistan who never come to see us," said local leaders in Ghazni Khel, a poor agricultural village in the middle of parched farmland. It was not difficult to see why. Though everybody agrees that security is better than when the Taliban were roaming freely, life is still dangerous. At a hastily called village meeting one man complained: "It is difficult for us to go out in the evening because we are afraid of kidnappers who pick us up on the road and take us away." A doctor described how he had been kidnapped with his 13-year-old son and held for 70 days until they escaped by digging through the ceiling of the room where they had been kept captive.
I was able to go to Ghazni Khel because it is the village of Selim Saitullah Khan, a powerful local tribal leader, politician and industrialist who was going there with his own well-armed bodyguards. Mr Khan felt that the outside world should get some inkling of what life is like on the north-west frontier of Pakistan. He is deeply conscious of the poverty that afflicts the area, mainly because of the lack of water and electricity. In an impromptu speech to villagers, he said that for all the slaughter caused by suicide bombers in the area a greater number of people were dying because of poor hospitals and bad administration. He says the best plan is to build a dam in a nearby gorge to provide water for irrigation and to generate electricity.
Mr Khan may be right about economic and social deprivation killing more people than political violence, but it must be a close thing. The Pakistan Taliban are being driven back by army offensives. They have lost several of their best-known leaders to US-directed drone attacks. But they are not going down without a fight and are eager to prove that nobody who turns against them will escape their vengeance.
Just how savage this revenge can be is illustrated by the fate of the village of Shah Hassan, not far from Lakki Marwat. At the end of last year the villagers had asked the Taliban, for whom it had been a sanctuary, to leave to avoid an onslaught by the army. The Taliban agreed to go but warned the villagers that they would exact vengeance. On 1 January many of the young men of the village were crowded together playing volleyball when a suicide bomber detonated his explosives killing about 100 of them. The bomber turned out to be from Shah Hassan and two of his victims were his brothers.
The violence in the North West Frontier Province is less reported than that in Iraq and Afghanistan, but in recent weeks more Pakistanis than Iraqis or Afghans have been dying in suicide bomb attacks. The Pakistan Taliban seem to have an endless supply of young men willing to kill themselves for the cause. Almost anybody might be their target. Recently they attacked Shia refugees from an army offensive as they collected food aid. In Peshawar a suicide bomber bizarrely targeted a meeting of the Janaat-i-Islami political party, which supports the Taliban, killing 24 and injuring 45.
But it would be wrong to think of the people of the frontier provinces as passive victims. "Everybody here is armed to the teeth," says one of Mr Khan's assistants with pride.
Even the Taliban have to take account of local public opinion because it is backed up by armed force organized along tribal lines. Mr Khan says that his tribe and its allies could easily raise a fighting force of 2,000 men in the course of a day.
This ability to command a significant armed force helped Mr Khan and other local leaders to get rid of the Taliban in Lakki Marwat, starting in 2006. "Before then we thought the army and the Taliban were in league," says a local leader. "We wanted to stop the army and the Taliban fighting there."
The army also has to keep in mind local feelings, particularly as its main supply route runs through Lakki Marwat. New bridges are being built and it is expected that the route will ultimately be used to support an offensive to drive the Afghan Taliban from their bastion in North Waziristan. We met several military convoys, the first vehicle with its lights on to warn civilian drivers to get off the road.
People are impressed by the ability of US drones to find their targets. There are many conspiratorial explanations for this, such as special electronic chips being covertly slipped into people's pockets so the drone can home in on them. But local leaders say that the Taliban's reputation for ferocity is enough to deter any conscious collusion with the army: "People are so frightened that they don't co-operate with the army because they are convinced the Taliban will come after them," one said.
The retreat of the Taliban is good news for the US-led forces in Afghanistan. The US and Nato convoys on the road are no longer such easy meat for the Taliban as they were when the Islamic militants had checkpoints on the road. Truck drivers used to carry boards bearing the slogan "long live the Taliban" which they would attach to the front of their vehicles when entering Taliban-controlled territory.
Local businessmen recall happy days when they bought pirated Nato containers which on one occasion turned out to be entirely filled with whisky and on another contained a disassembled Apache helicopter. "Unsaleable," remembers one potential broker disgustedly. "We wouldn't have known how to put it together."
The state within a state once created by the Pakistan Taliban is ceasing to exist and can probably never be resurrected in its previous form. But they still have many militants waiting for the army to relax its grip. The people of the north-west frontier, cautious and skilled in personal survival, are not going to write off the Pakistan Taliban just yet.
Patrick Cockburn is the the author of "Muqtada: Muqtada Al-Sadr, the Shia Revival, and the Struggle for Iraq."
This Counterpunch piece by Patrick Cockburn from April 22 is another one I just ... missed. It's about trying to live on Pakistan's Northwest Frontier where the Taliban will come after you if they think you are cooperating with the military and the military will come after you if they think you are cooperating with the Taliban.
Reprisal and Revenge
Vicious War on Pakistan's N.W. Frontier
By PATRICK COCKBURN
Staying alive is not a simple business for people in Pakistan's North West Frontier Province. The local Taliban and the army compete mercilessly to establish their authority along the border with Afghanistan. "If we support the army, the Taliban is unhappy and if we support the Taliban then the army is unhappy," lamented one local resident living outside Peshawar.
This unhappiness can have dire consequences for the civilian population. In the case of the army this usually means ordering civilians out of a hostile area and then plastering it with high explosives. The Taliban is on the retreat, but it likes to show it is still a force to be reckoned with by sending its suicide bombers to kill anybody it sees co-operating too enthusiastically with the army.
Mostly the Taliban favors soft targets. I was driving through Kohat district on the main road leading south from the Khyber Pass last weekend when we passed through a small village where a few hours earlier a suicide bomber had driven a vehicle packed with explosives into the gate of the local police station. The explosion had brought down concrete beams and ripped open the fronts of shops. Three police officers and four civilians had been killed. The police had draped brightly colored sheets over the wreckage to hide the extent of the damage suffered by the police station. Some shopkeepers were milling around trying to salvage their goods, but overall nobody looked too surprised at what had happened.
It is a nasty little war that receives little attention in the rest of Pakistan or in the outside world. It is dangerous for journalists to visit the area. When they do come they are usually escorted by the army and police. These are sensible precautions as was recently underlined when a British journalist and his two advisers, two former members of Pakistan's powerful ISI military intelligence, were kidnapped; they are now being held for ransom in North Waziristan.
"It isn't just journalists but politicians from the rest of Pakistan who never come to see us," said local leaders in Ghazni Khel, a poor agricultural village in the middle of parched farmland. It was not difficult to see why. Though everybody agrees that security is better than when the Taliban were roaming freely, life is still dangerous. At a hastily called village meeting one man complained: "It is difficult for us to go out in the evening because we are afraid of kidnappers who pick us up on the road and take us away." A doctor described how he had been kidnapped with his 13-year-old son and held for 70 days until they escaped by digging through the ceiling of the room where they had been kept captive.
I was able to go to Ghazni Khel because it is the village of Selim Saitullah Khan, a powerful local tribal leader, politician and industrialist who was going there with his own well-armed bodyguards. Mr Khan felt that the outside world should get some inkling of what life is like on the north-west frontier of Pakistan. He is deeply conscious of the poverty that afflicts the area, mainly because of the lack of water and electricity. In an impromptu speech to villagers, he said that for all the slaughter caused by suicide bombers in the area a greater number of people were dying because of poor hospitals and bad administration. He says the best plan is to build a dam in a nearby gorge to provide water for irrigation and to generate electricity.
Mr Khan may be right about economic and social deprivation killing more people than political violence, but it must be a close thing. The Pakistan Taliban are being driven back by army offensives. They have lost several of their best-known leaders to US-directed drone attacks. But they are not going down without a fight and are eager to prove that nobody who turns against them will escape their vengeance.
Just how savage this revenge can be is illustrated by the fate of the village of Shah Hassan, not far from Lakki Marwat. At the end of last year the villagers had asked the Taliban, for whom it had been a sanctuary, to leave to avoid an onslaught by the army. The Taliban agreed to go but warned the villagers that they would exact vengeance. On 1 January many of the young men of the village were crowded together playing volleyball when a suicide bomber detonated his explosives killing about 100 of them. The bomber turned out to be from Shah Hassan and two of his victims were his brothers.
The violence in the North West Frontier Province is less reported than that in Iraq and Afghanistan, but in recent weeks more Pakistanis than Iraqis or Afghans have been dying in suicide bomb attacks. The Pakistan Taliban seem to have an endless supply of young men willing to kill themselves for the cause. Almost anybody might be their target. Recently they attacked Shia refugees from an army offensive as they collected food aid. In Peshawar a suicide bomber bizarrely targeted a meeting of the Janaat-i-Islami political party, which supports the Taliban, killing 24 and injuring 45.
But it would be wrong to think of the people of the frontier provinces as passive victims. "Everybody here is armed to the teeth," says one of Mr Khan's assistants with pride.
Even the Taliban have to take account of local public opinion because it is backed up by armed force organized along tribal lines. Mr Khan says that his tribe and its allies could easily raise a fighting force of 2,000 men in the course of a day.
This ability to command a significant armed force helped Mr Khan and other local leaders to get rid of the Taliban in Lakki Marwat, starting in 2006. "Before then we thought the army and the Taliban were in league," says a local leader. "We wanted to stop the army and the Taliban fighting there."
The army also has to keep in mind local feelings, particularly as its main supply route runs through Lakki Marwat. New bridges are being built and it is expected that the route will ultimately be used to support an offensive to drive the Afghan Taliban from their bastion in North Waziristan. We met several military convoys, the first vehicle with its lights on to warn civilian drivers to get off the road.
People are impressed by the ability of US drones to find their targets. There are many conspiratorial explanations for this, such as special electronic chips being covertly slipped into people's pockets so the drone can home in on them. But local leaders say that the Taliban's reputation for ferocity is enough to deter any conscious collusion with the army: "People are so frightened that they don't co-operate with the army because they are convinced the Taliban will come after them," one said.
The retreat of the Taliban is good news for the US-led forces in Afghanistan. The US and Nato convoys on the road are no longer such easy meat for the Taliban as they were when the Islamic militants had checkpoints on the road. Truck drivers used to carry boards bearing the slogan "long live the Taliban" which they would attach to the front of their vehicles when entering Taliban-controlled territory.
Local businessmen recall happy days when they bought pirated Nato containers which on one occasion turned out to be entirely filled with whisky and on another contained a disassembled Apache helicopter. "Unsaleable," remembers one potential broker disgustedly. "We wouldn't have known how to put it together."
The state within a state once created by the Pakistan Taliban is ceasing to exist and can probably never be resurrected in its previous form. But they still have many militants waiting for the army to relax its grip. The people of the north-west frontier, cautious and skilled in personal survival, are not going to write off the Pakistan Taliban just yet.
Patrick Cockburn is the the author of "Muqtada: Muqtada Al-Sadr, the Shia Revival, and the Struggle for Iraq."
Monday, May 3, 2010
Spy's murder offers a glimpse at a complicated and changing Waziristan
Washington Post article by Karin Brulliard May 3
Excerpt— "'How could the mujaheddin kill their supporter?' asked Mohammed Zahid, 45, an engineer who was among a modest crowd standing under a baking mid-morning sun at the funeral. The answer, according to emerging clues and security analysts, is that North Waziristan, once a hub of Taliban fighters with links to Pakistan's military, has evolved into a stewpot of militant groups, each with different loyalties. Old Taliban ties may have meant little to the Asian Tigers, the group that said it killed Khawaja and is thought to be a Punjab-rooted organization battling the Pakistani state."
Excerpt— "'How could the mujaheddin kill their supporter?' asked Mohammed Zahid, 45, an engineer who was among a modest crowd standing under a baking mid-morning sun at the funeral. The answer, according to emerging clues and security analysts, is that North Waziristan, once a hub of Taliban fighters with links to Pakistan's military, has evolved into a stewpot of militant groups, each with different loyalties. Old Taliban ties may have meant little to the Asian Tigers, the group that said it killed Khawaja and is thought to be a Punjab-rooted organization battling the Pakistani state."
Saturday, May 1, 2010
Meet General Atomics Aeronautical Systems Incorporated
Extraordinary Edition piece by Collin on the First of May, 2010
It is the first of May, International Workers' Day, and I am trying to get my head around the U.S. situation in Pakistan. Which renders IWD of little difference from other days on the calendar where my preoccupations are concerned. Yet, aside from being overwhelmed as usual and unsure where to start, I do have something new to share with you which won't make much sense at first and probably hasn't much to do with the significance of May 1, International Workers' Day except that I have to leave for work and probably should have made a bid to get the day off so I could more clearly elaborate in these pages.
My question today is this. Who is General Atomics Aeronautical Systems?
And I mean aside from being a U.S. corporation led up by a charmain and CEO decorated in the business community, Neal Blue. His Vice Chairman is Linden S. Blue, which might give the impression General Atomics Aeronautical Systems is a family business of sorts. This notion is easier to gather than what's meant by, "Leading the Situational Awareness Revolution," which is boasted on the GA-ASI company web site.
The following are two defense industry accolades proudly listed on the company site:
LEAD San Diego 2009 Visionary Awards, Economic Opportunity, presented to Neal Blue, Chairman & CEO of GA-ASI, and Linden S. Blue, Vice Chairman of General Atomics
CONNECT Entrepreneur 2009 Hall of Fame Inductee, presented to Neal Blue, Chairman & CEO of GA-ASI, and Linden S. Blue, Vice Chairman of General Atomics
General Atomics Aeronautical Systems makes its home at an airfield situated between Palmdale and Lancaster, California, in a desert setting outside San Diego.
If you don't know already, GA-ASI is the patent-holder manufacturer of the unmanned aerial vehicles General Atomics MQ-9 Reaper, or Predator B, and the MQ-1 Predator. The US Air Force classifies these aerial weapons, armed with optics, camera, transmitter for the video signal and oftentimes missles or bombs, as Medium Altitude Long Endurance or MALE.
These accounts, previously linked or listed in these pages, show some of the recent reports of the capabilities and applications of the proud fleet produced and distributed by the good people of San Diego, Palmdale and Lancaster.
"I was in Damadola when the drones came. They killed more than 80 teenagers – all students – and, yes they were learning the Koran, and the madrasah, the Islamic school, was run by a Taliban commander. But 80! Many of them came from Bajaur, which would be attacked later. Their parents came afterwards, all their mothers were there, but the bodies were in pieces. There were so many children, some as young as 12. We didn't know how to fit them together." This statement was taken by British journalist Robert Fisk from a Pakistani journalist who was forced to speak under condition of anonymity because he, like so many in Pakistan living in dangerous surroundings, has no immediate plan to change occupations.
Alex Rodriguez and David Zucchino of the Los Angeles Times wrote May 2 from Pakistan, "Their whir is unmistakable, a buzzing hum that prompts the tribespeople of Waziristan to refer to the fleet of armed U.S. drone aircraft hovering overhead as machay, or wasps. The Khan family never heard it. They had been sleeping for an hour when a Hellfire missile pierced their mud hut on an August night in 2008. Black smoke and dust choked villagers as they dug through the rubble. Four-year-old Zeerak's legs were severed. His sister Maria, 3, was badly scorched. Both were dead. When their cousin Irfan, 16, saw them, he gently curled them into his arms, squeezed the rumpled bodies to his chest, lightly kissed their faces, and slid into a stupor."
In his piece, Fisk learns the drone operator technique of returning to the scene to attack rescuers, a tactic reminiscent of the horrific fire bombing of Dresden by Allied planes in WWII. "They killed 14 men in just one night last month, at Datta Khel in north Waziristan. The drones come in flocks, and five of them settled over the village, firing a missile each at a pick-up truck, splitting it in two and dismembering six men aboard. When local residents as well as Taliban arrived to help the wounded, the drones attacked again, killing all eight of them. The drones usually return to shoot at the rescuers. It's a policy started by the Israeli air force over Beirut during the 1982 siege: bomb now, come back 12 minutes later for a second shot. Now Waziristan villagers wait up to half an hour – listening to the shrieks and howls of the dying – before they try to help the wounded."
Fisk praises journalist Amir Mir for his work in Pakistan. Mir reported April 10 for Pakistani news site The International News, "Of the 60 cross-border predator strikes carried out by the Afghanistan-based American drones in Pakistan between January 14, 2006 and April 8, 2009, only 10 were able to hit their actual targets, killing 14 wanted al-Qaeda leaders, besides perishing 687 innocent Pakistani civilians."
The American Civil Liberties Union filed a law suit merely to provide an inquiry into the numbers and details involving civilian casualties. Democracy Now reported March 17, "The lawsuit seeks details under the Freedom of Information Act on the circumstances under which drone attacks are authorized as well as the number and rate of civilian casualties. The ACLU first filed its request in January but says the government simply refused to respond. Jonathan Manes of the ACLU’s National Security Project said: 'The public has a right to know whether the targeted killings being carried out in its name are consistent with international law and with the country’s interests and values.'
In short, I think people who live in the United States should be asking themselves who exactly General Atomics Aeronautical Systems is and what it does. Who are its friends? What kinds of tax subsidy does GA-ASI receive? Who holds its corporate charter and can it be revoked? Does GA-ASI have any records of what's happened in the reports above and do its officers and shareholders ever think about these issues? Can the issue of civilian deaths be more important than job creation, successful business ventures and relationships with powerful people in industry and government?
By answering these questions, we stand to learn a great deal. I have to leave for work now.
It is the first of May, International Workers' Day, and I am trying to get my head around the U.S. situation in Pakistan. Which renders IWD of little difference from other days on the calendar where my preoccupations are concerned. Yet, aside from being overwhelmed as usual and unsure where to start, I do have something new to share with you which won't make much sense at first and probably hasn't much to do with the significance of May 1, International Workers' Day except that I have to leave for work and probably should have made a bid to get the day off so I could more clearly elaborate in these pages.
My question today is this. Who is General Atomics Aeronautical Systems?
And I mean aside from being a U.S. corporation led up by a charmain and CEO decorated in the business community, Neal Blue. His Vice Chairman is Linden S. Blue, which might give the impression General Atomics Aeronautical Systems is a family business of sorts. This notion is easier to gather than what's meant by, "Leading the Situational Awareness Revolution," which is boasted on the GA-ASI company web site.
The following are two defense industry accolades proudly listed on the company site:
LEAD San Diego 2009 Visionary Awards, Economic Opportunity, presented to Neal Blue, Chairman & CEO of GA-ASI, and Linden S. Blue, Vice Chairman of General Atomics
CONNECT Entrepreneur 2009 Hall of Fame Inductee, presented to Neal Blue, Chairman & CEO of GA-ASI, and Linden S. Blue, Vice Chairman of General Atomics
General Atomics Aeronautical Systems makes its home at an airfield situated between Palmdale and Lancaster, California, in a desert setting outside San Diego.
If you don't know already, GA-ASI is the patent-holder manufacturer of the unmanned aerial vehicles General Atomics MQ-9 Reaper, or Predator B, and the MQ-1 Predator. The US Air Force classifies these aerial weapons, armed with optics, camera, transmitter for the video signal and oftentimes missles or bombs, as Medium Altitude Long Endurance or MALE.
These accounts, previously linked or listed in these pages, show some of the recent reports of the capabilities and applications of the proud fleet produced and distributed by the good people of San Diego, Palmdale and Lancaster.
"I was in Damadola when the drones came. They killed more than 80 teenagers – all students – and, yes they were learning the Koran, and the madrasah, the Islamic school, was run by a Taliban commander. But 80! Many of them came from Bajaur, which would be attacked later. Their parents came afterwards, all their mothers were there, but the bodies were in pieces. There were so many children, some as young as 12. We didn't know how to fit them together." This statement was taken by British journalist Robert Fisk from a Pakistani journalist who was forced to speak under condition of anonymity because he, like so many in Pakistan living in dangerous surroundings, has no immediate plan to change occupations.
Alex Rodriguez and David Zucchino of the Los Angeles Times wrote May 2 from Pakistan, "Their whir is unmistakable, a buzzing hum that prompts the tribespeople of Waziristan to refer to the fleet of armed U.S. drone aircraft hovering overhead as machay, or wasps. The Khan family never heard it. They had been sleeping for an hour when a Hellfire missile pierced their mud hut on an August night in 2008. Black smoke and dust choked villagers as they dug through the rubble. Four-year-old Zeerak's legs were severed. His sister Maria, 3, was badly scorched. Both were dead. When their cousin Irfan, 16, saw them, he gently curled them into his arms, squeezed the rumpled bodies to his chest, lightly kissed their faces, and slid into a stupor."
In his piece, Fisk learns the drone operator technique of returning to the scene to attack rescuers, a tactic reminiscent of the horrific fire bombing of Dresden by Allied planes in WWII. "They killed 14 men in just one night last month, at Datta Khel in north Waziristan. The drones come in flocks, and five of them settled over the village, firing a missile each at a pick-up truck, splitting it in two and dismembering six men aboard. When local residents as well as Taliban arrived to help the wounded, the drones attacked again, killing all eight of them. The drones usually return to shoot at the rescuers. It's a policy started by the Israeli air force over Beirut during the 1982 siege: bomb now, come back 12 minutes later for a second shot. Now Waziristan villagers wait up to half an hour – listening to the shrieks and howls of the dying – before they try to help the wounded."
Fisk praises journalist Amir Mir for his work in Pakistan. Mir reported April 10 for Pakistani news site The International News, "Of the 60 cross-border predator strikes carried out by the Afghanistan-based American drones in Pakistan between January 14, 2006 and April 8, 2009, only 10 were able to hit their actual targets, killing 14 wanted al-Qaeda leaders, besides perishing 687 innocent Pakistani civilians."
The American Civil Liberties Union filed a law suit merely to provide an inquiry into the numbers and details involving civilian casualties. Democracy Now reported March 17, "The lawsuit seeks details under the Freedom of Information Act on the circumstances under which drone attacks are authorized as well as the number and rate of civilian casualties. The ACLU first filed its request in January but says the government simply refused to respond. Jonathan Manes of the ACLU’s National Security Project said: 'The public has a right to know whether the targeted killings being carried out in its name are consistent with international law and with the country’s interests and values.'
In short, I think people who live in the United States should be asking themselves who exactly General Atomics Aeronautical Systems is and what it does. Who are its friends? What kinds of tax subsidy does GA-ASI receive? Who holds its corporate charter and can it be revoked? Does GA-ASI have any records of what's happened in the reports above and do its officers and shareholders ever think about these issues? Can the issue of civilian deaths be more important than job creation, successful business ventures and relationships with powerful people in industry and government?
By answering these questions, we stand to learn a great deal. I have to leave for work now.
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