Violence continues in Pakistan - 39 Killed in Bloody Wave of Violence Across Pak

[KRonn]

Kind of seems to me that Pakistan's mistake was in trying to deal with the radical types and groups in order to avoid confrontation. But only to delay confrontation since the radicals became stronger and emboldened, expanding their territory and control, leading to Pakistan being forced to go on the offensive. I think that Pakistan has made some good gains now, and has had quite a change of mind in dealing with the radicals in their country.
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[size]http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,566541,00.html

39 Killed in Bloody Wave of Violence Across Pakistan

Teams of gunmen launched coordinated attacks on three law enforcement facilities in Pakistan's eastern city of Lahore and car bombs hit two other cities Thursday, including an attack outside a Peshawar school. The day's violence claimed the lives of at least 39 people in an escalating wave of anti-government attacks.

The bloodshed, aimed at scuttling a planned offensive into the Taliban heartland near the Afghan border, highlights the Islamist militants' ability to carry out sophisticated strikes on heavily fortified facilities and exposes the failure of the intelligence agencies to adequately infiltrate the extremist cells.

No group immediately claimed responsibility, though suspicion fell on the Pakistani Taliban who have claimed other recent strikes. The attacks Thursday also were the latest to underscore the growing threat to Punjab, the province next to India where the Taliban are believed to have made inroads and linked up with local insurgent outfits.

SLIDESHOW: Bloody Violence in Pakistan (Graphic)

President Asif Ali Zardari said the bloodshed that has engulfed the nation over the past 11 days would not deter the government from its mission to eliminate the violent extremists.

"The enemy has started a guerrilla war," Interior Minister Rehman Malik said. "The whole nation should be united against these handful of terrorists, and God willing we will defeat them."

The wave of violence practically shut down daily life in Lahore. All government offices were ordered shut, the roads were nearly empty and major markets were closed.

The assaults began about 9 a.m. when a group of gunmen attacked the Federal Investigation Agency, the national law enforcement body.

The attack lasted about 1 1/2 hours and ended with the death of two assailants, four government employees and a bystander, senior official Sajjad Bhutta said. Police official Chaudhry Shafiq said one of the dead wore a homicide vest.

A second band of gunman then raided a police training school on the outskirts of the city, killing nine police officers, officials said. Police killed one gunmen and the other three blew themselves up.
Related Stories

    * Bomb Explodes Outside School in Pakistani City of Peshawar

A third team then scaled the back wall of a police commando training center near the airport, Lahore police chief Pervez Rathore said. The attackers stood on the roof of a house, shooting at security forces and throwing grenades, said Lt. Gen. Shafqat Ahmad, the top military officer in Lahore.

Two attackers were slain in the gunbattle and three blew themselves up, he said. A police nursing assistant and a civilian also died, he said.

TV footage showed helicopters in the air over one of the police facilities and paramilitary forces with rifles and bulletproof vests taking cover behind trees outside the compound's wall.

Officials have warned that Taliban fighters close to the border, Punjabi militants spread out across the country and foreign al-Qaida operatives were increasingly joining forces, dramatically increasing the dangers to Pakistan. Punjab is Pakistan's most populous and powerful province, and the Taliban claimed recently that they were activating cells there and elsewhere in the country for assaults.

An official at the provincial Punjab government's main intelligence agency said they had precise information about expected attacks on security targets and alerted police this week, but the assailants still managed to strike. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to comment on the situation.

Despite their reach and influence, the nation's feared spy agencies have failed to stop the bloody attacks plaguing the country.

Kamran Bokhari, an analyst with Stratfor, a U.S.-based global intelligence firm, said Pakistan needed to penetrate more militant groups and intercept conversations to prevent attacks, but the task was complicated in a country so big and populous.

"The militants are able to exploit certain things on the ground, like the anti-American sentiment, which is not just in society -- it's also in the military," he added.

In the Taliban-riddled northwest, meanwhile, a homicide car bomb exploded next to a police station in the Saddar area of Kohat, collapsing half the building and killing 11 people -- three police officers and eight civilians -- Kohat police chief Abdullah Khan said.

Early Thursday evening, a bomb exploded in a car outside a housing complex for government employees in the northwestern city of Peshawar, killing a 6-year-old boy and wounding nine others, most of them women and children, said Liaqat Ali Khan, the top police official in the region. He said an assailant parked the car outside the house and walked away before remotely detonating the bomb.

The U.S. has encouraged Pakistan to take strong action against insurgents who are using its soil as a base for attacks in Afghanistan, where U.S. troops are bogged down in an increasingly difficult war. It has carried out a slew of its own missile strikes in Pakistan's lawless tribal belt over the past year, killing several top militants.

One suspected U.S. missile strike killed four people overnight Thursday when it hit a compound in an area in North Waziristan tribal region where members of the militant network led by Jalaluddin Haqqani are believed to operate, two intelligence officials said. They spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.

Pakistan formally protests the missile strikes as violations of its sovereignty, but many analysts believe it has a secret deal with the U.S. allowing them.

The Taliban have claimed credit for a wave of attacks that began with an Oct. 5 strike on the U.N. food agency in Islamabad and included a siege of the army's headquarters in the garrison city of Rawalpindi that left 23 people dead.

The Taliban have warned Pakistan to stop pursuing them in military operations.

The Pakistani army has given no time frame for its expected offensive in South Waziristan tribal region, but has reportedly already sent two divisions totaling 28,000 men and blockaded the area.

Fearing the looming offensive, about 200,000 people have fled South Waziristan since August, moving in with relatives or renting homes in the Tank and Dera Ismail Khan areas, a local government official said, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media.

The Associated Press contributed to this report.

[HisMajestyBOB]

There was an article quoted by LongWarJournal.org that kinda agrees with you: the Pakistani military has been too timid, complacent, and/or incompetent in confront these radical groups.

http://www.longwarjournal.org/threat-matrix/archives/2009/10/whats_wrong_with_pakistan_a_fo.php

Threat Matrix: What's wrong with Pakistan's Army? A former officer's perspective
Earlier, I noted that the Pakistani military's lack of response to the assault on Army General Headquarters in Rawalpindi is going to have serious repercussions. A comment from a former Pakistani Army officer, passed along from my friend Ravi Rikhye at Orbat.com, drives the point home.

The note below was written by Agha H. Amin, a retired cavalry officer in the Pakistani Army currently working for a power transmission company in Afghanistan. Mr. Amin provides a scathing look at the Pakistani military and its inability to quickly and effectively respond. The military's authority has eroded and is no longer feared by enemies within the state, Mr. Amin argues, and the effectiveness of the terrorist assault and the poor response of the unit guarding the headquarters and the officers within make the military look weak. Here goes:

    The attack on Pakistani GHQ [General Headquarters] raises more serious questions about Pakistan Army's military effectiveness and potency than answers.

    The most crucial and grave question is that the Pakistani military seems to have lost in a great degree its coercive value and moral deterrence. Something which is the foundation of any political system and on which all agree starting from Freud, Aristotle, Plato down to Marx, Lenin, Mao, and Khomeni.

    Once General Musharraf decided to make a U turn under coercion by USA the army lost its moral credibility in the eyes of a large section of Pakistani populace, not the majority but a sizeable minority far more effective in tangible potency than a far larger minority.

    The first most serious question is not from where the threat originated but how did a small minority of a few handpicked young men developed the resolution to attack the citadel of Pakistani military, the GHQ ? Its an intangible question but far more serious than whether these men had their organisational centre in Waziristan or Afghanistan.

    The second serious question is the response to the attack.Or one may say the lack of response !

    If ten or so armed men can terrorise and paralyse a half a million plus army's headquarter for 22 plus hours the issue is strategic rather than tactical ! If ten civilians trained by irrational mullahs can penetrate a citadel hitherto considered impregnable and impenetrable and 1600 officers inside it are like chicken in a barbed wired coup at mercy of ten armed and highly motivated men then the situation is grave, not routine. A witness states that the attackers held some 4 to 6 officers from major to colonel rank hostages and also offered them their dry rations.This shows that the attackers wanted to deliver a message and did not want to inflict fatalities on the Pakistan Army.

    In a nutshell the serious aspects of the issue are :--

    1. The most serious threat to Pakistan is internal and not external.
    2. The military has lost its strategic and coercive deterrent value.
    3. That ten armed civilians penetrated a military headquarters guarded by an infantry battalion and a similar number of DSG soldiers [Defense Security Guards] is a serious strategic imbalance.
    4. That 6 plus armed men were roaming the GHQ for many hours and had the opportunity to kill many generals, an opportunity that they for some mysterious reasons chose not to exercise is a cause of grave strategic concern.
    5. The fact that the perimeter guarding battalion 10 Punjab although it killed some four intruders failed to hold the few attackers from penetrating the GHQ is a grave matter.
    6. The fact that the battalion plus DSG soldiers although armed with G 3 and SMG rifles just bolted away is a grave matter.
    7. The fact that it took more than 18 hours and the fact that SSG troops had to be brought from some 70 miles away to redeem the situation is ironic par excellence.
    8. The fact that Pakistan's enemies both state and non state are so ineffective still is the only consoling part of the issue.

    Here is a case of a military machine :--

    1. Fighting a civil war with serious internal fractures.
    2. A military machine which has lost a great degree of its coercive value.
    3. Lack of initiative in the officer rank and lack of forethought in not allowing the some 1600 officers in GHQ not to carry weapons.
    4. The primacy of non state actors in Pakistan.

    Sad is the story. Hilarious are the praises being heaped on the military's response. Where is the honour and dignity of danger in overcoming six well motivated irregulars by a commando force outnumbering them by 100 to 1. This is not a criticism. I am not a paid journalist. This is a call for reflection .Serious reflection and serious inner thinking that may be the spur to serious reorganisation in the Pakistani military. The enemy is not in Waziristan or Afghanistan. The enemy is our own damn inefficiency and complacency. It merits serious thinking at all plains, tactical, operational and strategic.

[KRonn]

HMB, that paints a quite concerning picture. More of a worry than I would have thought.

[Grallon]

But we must avoid being bigots! 




G.

[KRonn]

This is really turning into a show of wills between Pakistan's government and military versus the radicals of the Taliban, AQ and others. A lot at stake here.

[size]
http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,568461,00.html

Taliban Vow to Defeat Army in Pakistan Offensive



DERA ISMAIL KHAN, Pakistan —  Pakistani troops and the Taliban fought fierce battles in a militant sanctuary near the Afghan border, with both sides claiming early victories in an army campaign that could shape the future of the country's battle against extremism.

The offensive in South Waziristan was expected to be a key topic of discussion Monday as U.S. Sen. John Kerry and U.S. Central Command chief David Petraeus visited Pakistan for talks with military and political leaders. American officials have pushed Pakistan to crack down on extremists who use its soil as a base for planning attacks on Western troops in Afghanistan.

A Taliban spokesman vowed the Islamist militants would fight to "our last drop of blood" to defend their stronghold in South Waziristan, predicting the army would fail in its latest attempt to gain control over the tribal region.

The army said Sunday that 60 militants and eight soldiers had been killed since the offensive began Saturday in the mountainous, remote region that the army has tried and failed to wrest from near-total insurgent control three times since 2004. Two Pakistani soldiers have been killed in the past 24 hours.

The Taliban claimed to have inflicted "heavy casualties" and pushed advancing soldiers back into their bases. It was not possible to independently verify the claims because the army is blocking access to the battlefield and surrounding towns.

Victory for the government in South Waziristan's tribal badlands would eliminate a safe haven for the Taliban militants blamed for surging terrorist attacks and the Al Qaeda operatives they shelter there. It would also send a signal to other insurgent groups in the nuclear-armed country of the military's will and ability to fight them.

Defeat would give the militants a propaganda victory, add to pressures on the country's shaky civilian government and alarm Pakistan's Western allies.

"We know how to fight this war and defeat the enemy with the minimum loss of our men," Taliban spokesman Azam Tariq told The Associated Press from an undisclosed location. "This is a war imposed on us, and we will defend our land until our last man and our last drop of blood. This is a war bound to end in the defeat of the Pakistan army."
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    * 39 Killed in Bloody Wave of Violence Across Pakistan
    * Bomb Explodes Outside School in Pakistani City of Peshawar

Despite his comments, the some 10,000 Pakistani militants and about 1,500 foreign fighters are seen as unlikely to stand and fight. Instead, they will likely do as they have done in other parts of the northwest: Avoid conventional battles and launch guerrilla attacks on stationary troops or long supply lines.

Accounts from residents and those fleeing Sunday suggested that the some 30,000 government troops pushing into the region from three directions were facing much tougher resistance than they saw in the Swat Valley, another northwestern region where the army defeated the insurgents earlier this year.

"Militants are offering very tough resistance to any movement of troops," Ehsan Mahsud, a resident of Makeen, a town in the region, told the AP in the town of Mir Ali, close to the battle zone. He and a friend arrived there early Sunday after traveling through the night.

Mahsud said the army appeared to be mostly relying on airstrikes and artillery against militants occupying high ground. He said the insurgents were firing heavy machine guns at helicopter gunships, forcing the air force to use higher-flying jets.

The militants control roughly 1,275 square miles (3,310 square kilometers) of territory, or about half of South Waziristan, in areas loyal to former militant chief Baitullah Mehsud, who was killed in a U.S. missile strike in August. His clansman Hakimullah Mehsud now leads the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, or Pakistani Taliban Movement, an umbrella organization of several Islamist militant factions seeking to overthrow the secular government.

Officials have said they envisage the operation will last two months, when winter weather will make fighting difficult.

A resident in Wana — the main town in South Waziristan and in the heart of Taliban-held territory — said the insurgents had left the town and were stationed on the borders of the region, determined to block any army advance.

"All the Taliban who used to be around here have gone to take their position to protect the Mehsud boundary," Azamatullah Wazir said by telephone Sunday. "The army will face difficulty to get in there."

As many as 150,000 civilians — possibly more — have left in recent months after the army made clear it was planning an assault, but as many as 350,000 could still be in the region. The United Nations has been stockpiling relief supplies in a town near the battle zone.

Once it became clear two weeks ago that a military offensive was imminent, the Taliban unleashed a torrent of attacks around the country, including a 22-hour siege of army headquarters last weekend.

Taliban spokesman Tariq said the insurgents were also behind the two latest attacks: three commando-style raids on law enforcement agencies in the eastern city of Lahore on Thursday that killed about 30 people, as well as the deadly bombing of a police station in the northwestern city of Peshawar a day later.

[Grallon]

At this point Kronn I think we've all become more or less immune to threads about muslim blowing shit up.  Yet if this devolve into a civil war then India might be tempted to intervene and who knows where it would lead!?




G.

[MadImmortalMan]

The guys guarding the nukes better be good.



Edit: Now that I've written that, I just realized it's probably US Army Rangers.   

[KRonn]

At this point Kronn I think we've all become more or less immune to threads about muslim blowing shit up.  Yet if this devolve into a civil war then India might be tempted to intervene and who knows where it would lead!?

G.

Yep, but I think the latest moves and confrontation by Pakistan are pretty significant changes over all in a Muslim nation taking on militants and radicals. While the military has had some success, the issue is still in doubt. And it will have ramifications on NATO success next door in Afghanistan, or even perhaps regarding Pakistani nukes. Pakistan's military HQ was over run last week; gets rather concerning wondering also if one of their nuke sites could be compromised.