Quote:US strike kills 5 German militants in Pakistan

By Melissa Eddy

11:00 AM Tuesday Oct 5, 2010



An American missile strike killed five German militants in the rugged Pakistan border area. Photo / AP



BERLIN - An American missile strike killed five German militants in the rugged Pakistan border area where a cell of Germans and Britons at the heart of the US terror alert for Europe - a plot US officials link to al-Qaida leader Osama bin Laden - were believed in hiding.



The attack, part of a recent spike in American drone strikes on Pakistan, came as Germany said it has "concrete evidence" that at least 70 Germans have undergone paramilitary training in Pakistan and Afghanistan, and about a third have returned to Germany.



Authorities across Europe have heightened security at airports and other travel hubs as well as at main tourist attractions following the US warning of an al-Qaida-linked terror plot targeting London, Paris, Berlin and other European capitals.



Washington warned Americans over the weekend to use caution when traveling in Europe and imposed a curfew on some US troops based in Germany. On Monday, Britain, Japan and Sweden issued warnings of their own, advising their citizens traveling in Europe to be on alert for possible terrorist attack by al-Qaida or other groups.



Police officers with sniffer dogs patrolled subways in Britain on Monday, while soldiers and mounted police were dispatched to two major churches in Paris - Notre Dame in the heart of the city and Sacre Coeur on the Right Bank. Paramilitary troops were also seen patrolling the area around the Eiffel Tower - twice evacuated in recent weeks for unspecified threats.



The US missile strike in Pakistan killed five German militants taking shelter in a house in the town of Mir Ali in North Waziristan, a known hub for foreign militants with links to al-Qaida, Pakistani intelligence officials said.



The terror cell said to be behind the Europe plot -- eight Germans and a Briton -- were believed to have been in hiding in the region. A second Briton was killed in a US strike last month.[color="#800080"]

(The earlier 4 Oct news item mentions that the intended islamic attacks on European locales were apparently modelled on the islamic jihad on Bharatam's Mumbai. A testament to what christofunding from US/British/other European to TSP and to Indian christoislamania can accomplish. And AmeriKKKa arms them besides. Plus the protective coat is by christomedia in India and overseas.)[/color]



A German Foreign Ministry spokesman said Monday that his office was checking the report of the latest killings. He declined to be named in keeping with policy.



However, the German police agency responsible for terrorism investigations, the Federal Criminal Police Office, said as many as 220 people have traveled from Germany to Pakistan and Afghanistan for paramilitary training, and at least 70 have received it. A Pakistani intelligence official last week said there are believed to be around 60 Germans in North Waziristan now.



Despite the growing evidence of a terror plot, France, Britain and Germany -- the nations believed to be the targets of the scheme -- have not changed their terror threat levels. On Monday, the German government played down the fears by declaring there is "no reason to be alarmist."



The threat is being viewed differently by Washington and European capitals, and some analysts said it was a matter of approach. Such differences have played out repeatedly in the years since the 9/11 attacks on the United States, they said.



British intelligence prefers to keep targets under surveillance as they plan attacks, often waiting until the final stages to intervene -- hoping to gather evidence and to gain information about contacts in Britain and overseas.



"That cuts significantly too close to the bone for the United States. They are not happy to let plots run for too long," said Tobias Feakin, director of national security and resilience at London's Royal United Services Institute, a military think tank.



In Germany, the homeland security spokesman for the main opposition Social Democratic party said there is a different security culture in Europe and the United States.



"After 9/11 there were almost daily warnings of new threats in the US which -- thank God! - never became a reality" in Germany, Dieter Wiefelspuetz said.



In Washington, State Department spokesman P.J. Crowley said Monday that the travel advisory was issued because of extensive evidence of a plot.



"We felt, having tracked intelligence over a lengthy period of time, it was appropriate to issue this alert at this moment," he said.



"We specifically have said continue with your travel plans, but just be cautious because we are aware of active plots against the United States, American citizens and other allies around the world."



German Interior Minister Thomas de Maiziere insisted his nation had no concrete evidence of an imminent attack. "There is no reason to be alarmist at this time," de Maiziere said.



He said he had spoken with US Homeland Security Secretary Janet Napolitano about the travel advisory and that it is not "in keeping with our assessment of the situation."



In a rare public speech last month, MI5 director general Jonathan Evans warned that the risk of attacks can never be completely eradicated.



"We appear increasingly to have imported from the American media the assumption that terrorism is 100 per cent preventable and any incident that is not prevented is seen as a culpable government failure. This is a nonsensical way to consider terrorist risk," Evans said.



Many tourists said they planned to be vigilant but would not change their plans.



"I'm very happy to be here in France. I think we're very safe, and I trust the French government to keep us safe," said James O'Connell, 59, of Pittsburgh.



Hannah Haskins, an 18-year-old from Portland, Oregon, who has been in Spain for a month working as an au pair, said she is headed to Britain next week for a visit and will be on guard but not obsessed with the terror alert.



"I probably will be alert and it is going to be high on my mind, but it won't change my plans," she said.



"I will catch the subways, go to the museums and enjoy. There are so many threats and this one is very vague. There is always a threat, so what's the difference?"



- AP

By Melissa Eddy

Quote:A naturalized U.S. citizen born in Pakistan was arrested Wednesday and charged with trying to help people posing as al-Qaida operatives planning to bomb subway stations around the nation's capital, the FBI said.

Quote:A suicide bomb tore through a Pakistani mosque during weekly prayers on Friday, killing 50 people and bringing down the roof, trapping victims under pulverised rubble. The attack in the volatile northwest was the deadliest in the nuclear-armed country on the front line of the US-led war on al Qaeda

in two months. Dozens of people were critically wounded and officials feared the toll could rise.



The carnage wrought havoc in Akhurwall village, part of the semi-tribal northwest area of Darra Adam Khel about 140 kilometres (90 miles) west of Islamabad.

Quote:PESHAWAR: A suicide bomber struck a mosque frequented by anti-Taliban tribal elders in northwestern Pakistan during afternoon prayers Friday, killing at least 67 people in one of the deadliest attacks this year.



Later in the day, three grenade blasts killed three people at a mosque in another northwest area where an anti-Taliban militia was active.

Quote:KARACHI: A high-impact explosion occurred after a gun battle between militants and police at Karachi’s Crime Investigation Department (CID) headquarters on Thursday.



The CID HQ is situated opposite to the Sindh Chief Minister House and behind the building of the Pakistan Industrial Development Cooperation (PIDC). The reported death toll has reached 15 and at least 100 people have been wounded.

Quote:The CID had recently arrested a top commander for Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). Yousuf alias Qari was arrested with weapons and ammunition in Orangi Town’s Mominabad area and was being interrogated by the CID, according to a Dawn report published last week.

Quote:Eleven years after the Kargil War, the Pakistan Army which has been denying its role in the conflict has quietly put the names of 453 soldiers and officers killed in the battle on its website.



Proof of the involvement of regular Pakistani soldiers in the 1999 Kargil War over a string of strategic heights in the Kargil sector of the Line of Control in 1999 has come from an institution that spent years denying its role in the hostilities with India – the Pakistan Army.



The 453 Pakistani soldiers were shown killed in Batalik-Kargil sector in Jammu and Kashmir.



The names of those who died in Kargil are tucked away in a list of thousands of personnel killed while on duty that has been posted in the "Shuhada's Corner" (Martyrs Corner) of the website.



The very first page of the long list of martyrs includes the names of Capt Karnal Sher and Havildar Lalak Jan, who were both killed on July 7, 1999 in Kargil and awarded Pakistan's highest military award, the Nishan-e-Haider.

Quote:Two suicide bombers dressed as policemen have killed at least 50 people at an anti-Taliban meeting in Pakistan.

The attack happened at a government compound in Ghalanai, the main town in the Mohmand district.

Tribal leaders were meeting at the site to discuss the formation of a local militia to fight insurgents.

Hospital officials said 60 people were also wounded in the bombing in the country's volatile northwest region.

Quote:ANALYSIS: Pakistan and the dehumanisation of minorities -Ishtiaq Ahmed



Professor Brij Narain was a famous Lahore-born academic whose books on economics were on the required reading list of the curricula of pre-partition universities. Enamoured by Jinnah’s English lifestyle and mannerism and himself strongly secular and idealistic, Brij Narain underestimated the morbid impact of the rabidly anti-Hindu and anti-Sikh rhetoric of the 1945-46 election campaign in Punjab. He developed a strong set of arguments to prove that Pakistan was economically feasible and viable. When partition took place in mid-August 1947 and Lahore was burning, he continued to believe that Hindus like him could be Pakistanis like any other community. A mob arrived at his door and mercilessly killed him notwithstanding his pleas that he supported Pakistan.



Miss Ralia Ram was a Lahore-born Christian lady who wrote letter after letter to Quaid-e-Azam warning him about Congress machinations. She too believed in the righteousness of Pakistan. Her letters are easily accessible in the several volumes of the Jinnah Papers. Fortunately in 1947, Christians were not a target group. Many Hindus and Muslims saved their lives by faking a Christian identity. Both in Amritsar and in Kasur thousands of Muslim refugees received medical aid from Christian volunteers.



Even more interesting is the fact that the majority of Punjabi Christians supported the Muslim League’s case for Pakistan before the Punjab Boundary Commission. Their leader, S P Singha, argued that the Christians would rather have a united Punjab, but if Punjab were to be divided they could expect better treatment in Pakistan than in caste-ridden India. The leader of the Anglo-Indians Mr Gibbon informed the Punjab Boundary Commission that the Anglo-Indians were happy to be in Pakistan. They regarded Lahore and West Punjab as their homeland.



I have already mentioned in an earlier op-ed that the leadership of the Ahmediyya community was deeply worried about persecution in a sectarian Pakistan. However, just before the partition of India it was decided to support the Pakistan movement (Munir Report 1954: 196-7). Thereafter the Ahmedis put all their efforts behind the Muslim League’s campaign. Sir Muhammad Zafarullah Khan, a leading member of the Ahmediyya community, presented the Muslim League case before the Punjab Boundary Commission with sterling competence. The counsel for the Congress Party, Mr Setalvad, could not restrain himself from publicly paying compliments to Zafarullah during the proceedings. In 1947, the Ahmedis were still included in government statistics among Muslims, and that alone had inflated the Muslim percentage of the Gurdaspur district to a bare majority of 51 percent.



All such stories sound unreal in the light of the Pakistan experience. The Hindus were naturally the first to flee from Pakistan. The next to exit were the Anglo-Indians. The Ahmedis started seeking refuge in the west in the 1980s. Only in Sindh a Hindu minority survived while in the rest of Pakistan mostly the poorest Christians stayed put because they had nowhere to go.



Ridiculing Sikhs as simpletons is a prejudice that still survives in Pakistani Punjab, but their leaders proved to be the most farsighted in anticipating the type of Pakistan that would emerge. In the second half of May 1947, the Sikh leaders met Jinnah in Delhi. Jinnah and Liaquat had come fully prepared to convince them to support the Pakistan demand. They told the Sikhs to write down whatever they wanted and it would be granted. The charm offensive, however, was too late in the day. Earlier, in March 1947, Sikh villages in the Rawalpindi, Attock and Jhelum districts had borne the brunt of mob attacks at the hands of Muslims. At least 2,000 Sikhs lost their lives.



No Muslim League leader, including Jinnah, issued a public statement condemning those attacks. I have looked in vain in the two main English-language newspapers of pre-partition Punjab, the Tribune and The Pakistan Times as well as in the Jinnah Papers for any evidence of the condemnation of that outrage. In the event, Hardit Sikh Malik, who acted as the spokesperson for the Sikhs told Jinnah that they could not risk their future on his promises; the day he is gone things would change. He was right.



I have always held the view that the anti-minority stance took birth at the time of the 1945-46-election campaign in the Muslim-majority provinces of north-western India. Once it was born, it assumed a life of its own. Only someone totally naive can believe that Jinnah’s August 11, 1947 speech was a magic mantra that could suffice to make it vanish. Already in early 1951, the ulema of all Sunni sub-sects — including the Barelvis — and the Ithna Ashari Shias had signed the 22-point Islamist agenda for an Islamic state prepared by Maulana Maududi. Gradually that agenda encroached on the constitutional and legal machinery, culminating in the Islamisation measures of General Ziaul Haq.



The mindset that such measures generated percolated all sections of society, with a few honourable exceptions. In the current situation, while President Zardari and Punjab Governor Salmaan Taseer are willing to spare the life of the Christian woman, Aasia Bibi, who most certainly has been wrongly framed on charges of blasphemy, federal Law Minister Babar Awan has made theatrical pronouncements in support of the draconian Blasphemy Law, thus undermining his own government. The legal fraternity remains badly divided. While the Lahore High Court has issued a stay order against the reprieve granted by the president, the President of the Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA), Ms Asma Jahangir has boldly criticised that decision. The confusion is absolute.



How do we explain that despite several Sufi shrines being targeted by suicide bombers the Ahle Sunnat ulema are demanding that Aasia Bibi should be executed? How can the Ahle Sunnat ignore that fact that they themselves are on the hit list of extremists who consider them guilty of crimes no less serious than blasphemy? The Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) is considered a ‘democratic, parliamentary’ party by some western academics. I have seen with my own eyes a doctoral thesis passed by the reputable Gothenburg University of Sweden in support of JI’s democratic credentials. Its leader, Syed Munnawar Hassan, has also demanded that Aasia Bibi should be put to death. That is the type of democracy the JI actually represents.



Can one seriously believe that all these people who are crying for the blood of a poor Christian woman are doing this for their love for Prophet Mohammad (PBUH)? Perhaps, but what a love!



The writer is Professor Emeritus of Political Science, Stockholm University. He is also Honorary Senior Fellow of the Institute of South Asian Studies, National University of Singapore. He can be reached at billumian@gmail.com



http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2010%5C12%5C07%5Cstory_7-12-2010_pg3_2

Quote:On Monday, Karim Khan filed a police complaint saying that his brother and son, both government employees, were killed in a CIA drone strike on their home near Mir Ali in North Waziristan in December 2009. The complaint names the CIA station chief in Islamabad.



"He should be arrested and executed in this country," Khan said outside an Islamabad police station, according to news reports.



CIA spokesman George Little declined to address the matter directly, but said, "Our station chiefs routinely encounter major risk as they work to keep America safe … their security is obviously a top priority for the CIA, especially when there's an imminent threat."



Khan's lawyer, Shahzad Akbar, told The Times on Friday he got the name of the CIA officer from two Pakistani newspaper journalists, and put the name in legal documents because he believes the man should be held accountable for civilian deaths caused by drone strikes in the tribal areas.

Quote:The officials said there is strong suspicion that operatives of Pakistan’s powerful spy service, the Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence, had a hand in revealing the C.I.A. officer’s identity — possibly in retaliation for a civil lawsuit filed in Brooklyn last month implicating the I.S.I. chief in the Mumbai terror attacks of November 2008.



The American officials, who spoke on the condition of anonymity, did not immediately provide details to support their suspicions.



A senior Pakistani official, also speaking on condition of anonymity, said that the Pakistani government “believes that the suit in New York does not have a sound legal basis, and is based on conjecture. We did not need to retaliate”

.....



The relationship between the spy services has often frayed in recent years. American officials believe that I.S.I. officers helped plan the deadly July 2008 bombing of the Indian embassy in Kabul, as well as provided support to Lashkar-e-Taiba militants who carried out the Mumbai attacks later that year.



The lawsuit filed in Brooklyn last month, brought by families of American victims of the Mumbai attacks, names the I.S.I. chief, Lt Gen. Ahmed Shuja Pasha, as being complicit in the terror attacks.

Quote:Agencies Posted: Dec 20, 2010 at 1438 hrs

Islamabad A new line of T-shirts, launched online just a few hours ago, has Founding Father of Pakistan Mohammed Ali Jinnah wondering: "Dude! Where\'s my country?" "Ashton just lost his car. This poor guy lost a whole country to mediocre half-wits. Imagine his plight," reads the caption put out by Uth Oye, the makers of the T-shirt, on their Facebook page.



The caption refers to Ashton Kutcher, the star of the Hollywood film "Dude, Where\'s My Car?" which inspired the slogan on the T-shirts.



Uth Oye is not just another T-shirt making company. They describe themselves as "a socially conscious, cause-based design initiative" and "actively devise and fund sustainable projects within the educational, human rights, renewable energy and developmental sectors of Pakistan".



In the recent past, "the caused-based clothing company" has provided solar lamps in a village in Thar district, provided a computer laboratory in a girls school in Lahore, and joined forces to engineer a sustainable, long-term solution for people who had no access to piped gas.



Other interesting T-shirts in the "Lookbook 2011" series include "Man on the moon" and "Devolution".



The first one has an American looking dazed as he witnesses a Pakistani truck\'s landing on the moon; in the second there is mention of "politicians" bribing Charles Darwin for leaving them undocumented.



"Charles Darwin first recorded the appearance of these strange seemingly human creatures in the Galapagos Islands, but they bribed him into leaving them undocumented.



"They look and feel just like real human beings, but they have no heart. Or a soul. Or a conscience. Or a sense of humour," reads the caption.



The T-shirts have got a thumbs-up from Pakistanis.



"I want all these Tees," wrote Maveen Zainab on Facebook.



Hammad Ali Hassan described the Tees as "mind blowing, absolutely awesome, different".