Gunmen attack Pakistan air base: air force

[Toramana]

Gunmen attack Pakistan air base: air force

ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - A Pakistan air force official said gunmen attacked and entered an air force base in central Pakistan early on Thursday, calling the attackers "terrorists".

Security guards and the attackers were exchanging intense gunfire nearly three hours after the assault began at Minhas base in the town of Kamra in Punjab province, the official said.

An air force statement said security guards had encircled the "terrorists".

"Terrorists" is the term Pakistani authorities use to describe militant groups such as the Taliban who are seeking to topple the U.S.-backed government.

Pakistan's Taliban movement have staged a number of high-profile attacks over the past few years, including one on army headquarters and a naval base in the southern city of Karachi.

The group, which is close to al Qaeda, is blamed for many of the suicide bombings across Pakistan, a strategic U.S. ally.

http://ca.reuters.com/article/topNews/idCABRE87E1C620120816

[Toramana]

Pakistan mulls Swat-type operation in Waziristan

* US military officials say Kayani recently told Gen Allen that September operation will be a large-scale offensive designed to sweep Waziristan

Daily Times Monitor

LAHORE: Top Pakistani military officials plan to conduct a major terrorist-clearing operation next month similar to the 2009 Swat valley operation that purged one of the most Taliban-infested regions of Pakistan, US military officials told Fox News.

The news confirmed a Monday disclosure from US Defence Secretary Leon Panetta, who had said Pakistan had indicated its military was planning an operation against terrorists in a terrorist hotbed in the northwest.

Now, US military officials in Kabul and Washington say that Pakistan’s Chief of Army Staff General Ashfaq Pervaiz Kayani recently told the top US commander in Afghanistan, Gen John Allen, that it would be a large-scale offensive designed to sweep the Waziristan tribal agencies.

The officials, who have close knowledge of the meeting between Allen and Kayani, requested anonymity due to the fragile status of relations between the US and Pakistan. They described the operation as similar to the clearing of Swat, in which Pakistan sent in thousands of troops for an 18-month-rout of a mountain region where the military is still positioned today to prevent Taliban from returning.

Such a tactical effort would have the potential to be a significant turning point in the tense relationship Washington has endured with what it describes as its most important ally in the war on terror, even though that ally has often been uncooperative in the face of US demands that it tackle its growing militancy problem.

“We do not know at this stage if this indication of an operation has any substance to it,” said a US military official in Kabul. “It may be lip service or it is perhaps an attempt to placate us as we continue to urge Pakistan to rout out militants and their safe havens within the Tribal Areas. The militants who hide there not only inflict casualties on Afghan citizens as well as Afghan and coalition forces but they also are responsible for the deaths of tens of thousands of Pakistanis.”

It is also unclear if the operation would reach into the unruly region of North Waziristan, where some of the US’s highest-value terrorist targets are based, or simply in South Waziristan, where the Pakistan military has been trying to rid the tribal agency of terrorists since mid-2009.

Pakistan’s operation would target Taliban fighters from both the Afghan and Pakistan factions, which separately aim to oust the Western-friendly governments of their respective countries, said a military official in Washington.

It is unclear if the operation will hunt down elements of the Haqqani network, which is said by the US to support the remnants of original core of al Qaeda who were behind the 9/11 attacks.

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2012%5C08%5C16%5Cstory_16-8-2012_pg7_11

[Toramana]

So Pakistan's Punjab army now engineered an attack on Kamra to find justification for NW operation?

[Friend]

So Pakistan's Punjab army now engineered an attack on Kamra to find justification for NW operation?

wow we have the same point of view on this.

[Toramana]

Pakistan will soon Raid Militant Hideouts, Easing US Concerns


Wednesday, 15 August 2012

After waiting a long time to act against Taliban militants inside its territory, a top US official says Pakistan will soon launch operations in a region that serves as a haven for Taliban militants near the Afghan border

Pakistan has told U.S. military officials that it plans to launch combat operations against Taliban militants soon in a tribal area near the Afghan border that serves as a haven for leaders of the al-Qaeda-affiliated Haqqani network, Defense Secretary Leon Panetta said Aug. 13.

Speaking to The Associated Press in his Pentagon office, Panetta said Pakistan’s military chief, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, discussed the planned operation in recent conversations with the top American commander in Afghanistan, Gen. John Allen. The U.S. has long been frustrated by Islamabad’s refusal to target Afghan Taliban militants and their allies using Pakistani territory to stage attacks against U.S. and coalition troops in Afghanistan. Many analysts believe Pakistan is reluctant to target groups with which it has strong historical ties and that could be useful allies in Afghanistan after foreign forces withdraw.

Panetta said he did not know when the Pakistani operation would start, but he said he understands it will be in the “near future,” and that the main target will be the Pakistani Taliban, rather than the Haqqani network.

Panetta welcomed Kayani’s initiative, even though the main target may not be the Haqqani leadership. “They’ve talked about it for a long time. Frankly, I’d lost hope that they were going do anything about it. But it does appear that they in fact are going to take that step,” said Panetta. In June, the secretary of defense had warned Pakistan that the U.S. was losing patience with Pakistan’s refusal to eliminate safe havens in its territory.

Clash with Afghanistan

As Pakistan promised to launch an attack on insurgents, authorities in Afghanistan said yesterday that one of their border posts had come under a shelling attack from Pakistan, prompting Afghans to return fire in a clash that lasted for more than two hours, according to Agence France-Presse. The incident, which reportedly caused no casualties, comes amid growing border tension between the neighbors, with Kabul alleging that Pakistani security forces have fired hundreds of rounds into Afghanistan in recent months. Pakistan has also denied reports that a delegation of Afghan officials met with a former deputy leader of the Taliban who is imprisoned in Pakistan.

His arrest reportedly angered Afghan President Hamid Karzai because Baradar had been in secret talks with the Afghan government. The former Taliban deputy is seen as a potentially important player in the process of striking a peace deal in Afghanistan. Pakistan’s Interior Ministry said reports of a meeting between Afghan officials and Baradar were “absolutely baseless and ill motivated.”

http://www.turkishweekly.net/news/140453/pakistan-will-soon-raid-militant-hideouts-easing-us-concerns.html

[BLS_1919v2.0]

You reap what you sow. They brought this mess to pashtunkhwa and Afghanistan and now the fruits of their labour are showing. Whether this is engineered or not, it is a huge gamble.

[Toramana]

Pakistani Air Force Base With Nuclear Ties Is Attacked

KARACHI, Pakistan — Suspected Islamist militants attacked a major Pakistani Air Force base with links to the country’s nuclear program in the early hours of Thursday, setting off an exchange of fire that lasted several hours...

http://www.nytimes.com/2012/08/16/world/asia/pakistani-air-force-base-with-nuclear-ties-is-attacked.html?_r=1

[khushal]

Why would the paksitanis engineer a embarrasing situation for themselves. This attack actually tells the paksitani people "your army is worthless" just like the US operation did when they killed OBL. Did the ISI engineer US choppers infiltrating Paksitani airspace, land at Paksitans "West Point", do thier job, leave, and the paksitanis werent even aware of what happened.

What justification does the Paksitani army need to do military operations on their own soil. ITs not like they need permission from the UN.

[Admin Khan]

Why would the paksitanis engineer a embarrasing situation for themselves. This attack actually tells the paksitani people "your army is worthless" just like the US operation did when they killed OBL. Did the ISI engineer US choppers infiltrating Paksitani airspace, land at Paksitans "West Point", do thier job, leave, and the paksitanis werent even aware of what happened.

What justification does the Paksitani army need to do military operations on their own soil. ITs not like they need permission from the UN.

When you are an American stooge, having an Army is nothing but a decoration.