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truthseeker john
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 Posted: Fri Jul 18, 2008 10:33 am Post subject: US about to attack Pakistan? |
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Don't know what to make of this...
John
http://www.ahmedquraishi.com/article_detail.php?id=379
Published : July 17, 2008 | Author : Ahmed Quraishi
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URGENT ALERT
U.S. Attack Nears, U.S. Embassy Closes Peshawar Consulate
A AhmedQuraishi.com REPORT
Thursday, 17 July 2008.
WWW.AHMEDQURAISHI.COM
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan—The embassy of the United States in Pakistan has decided to shut down its consulate in Peshawar between 25 July and October 15, 2008, and advised U.S. nationals in Peshawar to exercise caution.
No reason was give for this move, which coincides with mounting reports in the U.S. media of an impending military attack on Pakistan’s western region. (italics mine)
The Pakistani military has dismissed eyewitness reports of unusual U.S. and Afghan military deployment near Pakistan’s borders across the tribal region.
The U.S. embassy announced the decision on its Web site.
In a ‘Warden Notice 11/2008’, dated 17 July, the embassy said:
“This Warden Message is to alert American citizens that the Consular Section at the U.S. Consulate in Peshawar will limit services to the public to emergency cases only from July 25 to October 15, 2008. Americans who require routine services such as applying for passports may contact Embassy Islamabad during this period for assistance at (92-51) 208-0000. As per our long-standing guidance, we would like to remind the American citizen community of the need to stay alert, to be aware of your surroundings, to reduce travel to a minimum, and to act self-defensively at all times. American citizens should vary their routes and times, avoid areas where Westerners are known to congregate, and maintain a low profile. Threats, protests, and demonstrations may occur throughout Pakistan without prior notice or warning and on occasion have turned violent, or have been the target of violence. We therefore recommend that American citizens always avoid all demonstrations, protests, and large gatherings.”
It is a standard practice for all U.S. embassies to issue such alerts to U.S. citizens. However, the alert is always linked to anticipated events. The only anticipated event in Peshawar and its surroundings is a U.S.-led invasion of Pakistani territories. The declared purpose is to neutralize support for attacks by the Afghan resistance groups on U.S. occupation forces in their country and against the puppet regime of Hamid Karzai.
The Afghans and their Indian intelligence trainers and advisers in Kabul are also hoping this attack, if it happens, would give them a golden opportunity to intensify their game plan: The eventual breaking up of the NWFP and the northern areas from Pakistan in the name of ethnicity and in retaliation for atrocities suffered by the Pashtun tribes in the war on terror. The blame for this suffering has also being laid at the door of Pakistan through a carefully planned propaganda campaign using military psy-ops techniques. Pakistan will end up alienating our brave Pashtun Pakistanis despite the enormous killings committed by U.S. and Karzai soldiers against mostly Pashtun Afghans in the past six years in Afghanistan.
Our American friends are not innocent bystanders either. The chaos will provide more ammunition to U.S. ‘concerns’ that Pakistani nukes could fall into the wrong hands. The mess will also weaken Islamabad’s hold on Balochistan, where terrorists are actively armed, financed and guided by those who control today’s Afghanistan.
The silence of the Pakistani government is mind boggling. It only means that Washington has conveyed to this government that any operation will be limited and ‘surgical’ and will not lead to trouble.
Unfortunately, even within our intelligentsia, we have a large number of people who are good intentioned but definitely with small hearts and defeatist mindsets. They are still not ready to understand that this is the time for Pakistan to show some toughness and renegotiate with the U.S. government. Instead of getting defensive, Islamabad needs to demand a quid pro quo in Afghanistan, where India has much more advantage and almost all the senior Afghan security officials are Indian trained. Pakistan can ask the United States for changing the rules of the game in Afghanistan and stopping the conspiracies that target Gwadar, Balochistan, NWFP and China from the Afghan territories.
It is amazing that when the U.S. is on the retreat diplomatically and militarily in the entire region, we are still unable to handle U.S. bully tactics. Washington has just proposed sending U.S. diplomats to Iran in a major concession to Tehran. Israel had to grudgingly negotiate with Hezbollah State-to-State and release its prisoners, and U.S. army in Afghanistan withdrew from an area where the Afghan resistance killed 9 U.S. soldiers last week. Does this look like a bully to you?
Why is it that the U.S. is retreating on all these fronts but is bullying Pakistan endlessly without even a whimper from Islamabad?
© 2007-2008. All rights reserved. AhmedQuraishi.com.
Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article is permitted in any medium without royalty provided this notice is preserved.
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TonyGosling
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xmasdale
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| Posted: Sat Jul 19, 2008 1:07 pm Post subject: US diplomats 'to return to Iran' |
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By the same token the following report suggests the US is not planning to attack Iran.
Editors' Blog
BBC World Service
Page last updated at 06:46 GMT, Thursday, 17 July 2008 07:46 UK
E-mail this to a friend Printable version
US diplomats 'to return to Iran'
Condoleezza Rice has said the US wants to reach out to Iranian people
The US has refused to deny reports that it will establish a US diplomatic presence in Iran in the next month.
The UK's Guardian newspaper reports the US plans to open an interests section in Tehran, its first diplomatic presence in the country for 30 years.
The state department said its policy towards Iran was unchanged, but that it wanted to reach out to Iranians.
It comes as the US announced that a top diplomat would attend talks in Geneva with the Iranians on Saturday.
The talks will be the first time in 30 years that such a high-ranking US diplomat - the third-most senior in the US - has met Iranian officials.
Change of tone
US officials said recently that the idea of a diplomatic presence in Iran was being discussed, but that it was not being actively worked on.
The unsourced Guardian report said that the interests section - a step towards setting up an embassy - would be similar to the one in Cuba.
Signs of hope in Iran-US ties
When asked for a comment, the state department sent out a note with past comments made by US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice.
She said that while US policy towards Iran was known and unchanged, the Iranian people deserved better.
Ms Rice added that the US was determined to find ways to reach out to the Iranian people and wanted more Iranians to visit the US.
While Washington still insists Iran must suspend uranium enrichment - a process the West fears could be used to make nuclear weapons - there seems to be a significant change in US tone, says the BBC's Kim Ghattas in Washington.
Tehran has an interests section in Washington, where it processes visa applications and which gives it a presence on the ground in the US.
But the US has not had a diplomatic presence in Iran since the hostage crisis in 1979, and Iranians have to go to Dubai to get US visas.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/7510899.stm
Given the current international climate, the closing of a consulate in Western Pakistan and the opening of a diplomatic office in Tehran would seem unlikely, but what do we know?
Has the resistance within the US administration and military to widening the war into Iran proved too much for the Neocons? So are they now seeking to retain their macho credentials by a bit of bombing in a troublesome area of Pakistan to help their friend Military Dictator Musharaf enforce his rule in a "troublesome" region and to help the Republicans to win the US election? |
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TonyGosling
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Disco_Destroyer
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| Posted: Mon Jul 28, 2008 8:30 am Post subject: |
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| Quote: | Suspected US missile strike kills six in Pakistan
http://uk.news.yahoo.com/rtrs/20080728/tpl-uk-pakistan-violence-81f3b6 2.html
Reuters - 27 minutes ago
WANA, Pakistan (Reuters) - A suspected U.S. missile strike on a Pakistani madrasa killed six people, including foreigners, on Monday in tribal lands regarded as an al Qaeda and Taliban hotbed, intelligence officials said.
The target of the pre-dawn attack was a house close to a madrasa used by militants near Azam Warsak village, about 20 km (12 miles) west of Wana, the main town of the South Waziristan region bordering Afghanistan.
The attack, one of many in recent months, was launched hours before Pakistani Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani was due to meet President George W. Bush in Washington for talks that will focus on the conduct of the war against terrorism.
The United States, alarmed by rising casualties among Western forces in Afghanistan, wants Pakistan to do more to contain the al Qaeda and Taliban threat in its territory.
A Pakistani military spokesman confirmed an incident had occurred in Waziristan, but said he was unaware of details, though intelligence officials in Wana gave a clearer picture.
One official told Reuters the madrasa, or religious school, was a militant base and the owner of the targeted house, a tribesman named Malik Sallat Khan, had ties with the militants.
"The owner of the house and seminary had some links with militants, and the madrasa was not used for education, but as a compound," he said.
Another official, who also declined to be identified, said at least three missiles hit the house and seminary, killing six people, including foreigners whose nationalities had still to be identified. Three people were wounded.
Residents said they heard the sound of a drone aircraft engine, suggesting that the missile may have been fired by a U.S.-controlled unmanned Predator.
"We had heard the sound of a drone engine just before the explosions," said Zia-ur-Rehman, a local tribesmen.
"These drones have been flying since late Sunday night."
Spokesmen for NATO and U.S.-led coalition forces in Afghanistan denied involvement in any cross-border strike, but could not speak for the CIA, which also operates drones.
"NO PRIOR INFORMATION"
Despite Islamabad's repeated protests, several drone missile attacks have been carried out this year by U.S. forces against militants linked to al Qaeda and Taliban hiding in the northwest tribal lands near the Afghan border.
Pakistan's military spokesman said he had little information, and noted that U.S. coalition forces were no longer informing the Pakistan army over every missile strike.
"Some incident did take place but what kind of strike it was, whether it was missile or rocket attack or bomb explosion, we don't know," said Major General Athar Abbas.
"Coalition forces don't share information about any strike with us prior to any attack," he said. Security in northwest Pakistan has deteriorated in the past few weeks.
Pakistani Taliban chief Baitullah Mehsud, whose fighters were blamed for many of the suicide bomb attacks on Pakistani security forces and politicians last year, has suspended peace talks and threatened to unleash a fresh wave of violence.
There had been a lull in the violence since the new government came to power in March after elections in February.
Gilani's government embarked on a strategy of dialogue with the militants, although there has been limited military action in some parts of the semi-autonomous tribal region where unrest has flared.
Western governments fear the Pakistani strategy provided the militants with breathing space to increase the flow of fighters across the border to fuel the Afghan insurgency.
Separately, a bomb planted on a bicycle killed a boy and wounded eight policemen near the northwestern garrison town of Kohat on Monday, police said. The policemen had been aboard a bus taking them on duty when the remote-controlled device exploded.
(Additional reporting by Mohammad Hashim, Haji Mujtaba, Alamghir Bitani and Hafiz Wazir)
(Writing by Kamran Haider; editing by Simon Cameron-Moore and Sanjeev Miglani) |
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Disco_Destroyer
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| Posted: Wed Nov 05, 2008 9:29 pm Post subject: |
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| Quote: | Wednesday 5th November, 2008
U.S. bombings in Pakistan kill 27
---------------------------------------------------------------------- ----------
Big News Network.com Saturday 1st November, 2008
Intelligence officials in Pakistan say two suspected U.S. missile strikes in northwestern Pakistan Friday killed at least 27 people, including a mid-level al-Qaida leader.
In the first attack, officials say two missiles struck a house near Mir Ali town and a vehicle in North Waziristan tribal area.
Intelligence officials and local residents say the strike killed a foreign al-Qaida militant who went by the name Abu Akasha, also known as Abdur Rehman al-Iraqi, who helped carry out attacks in Afghanistan. He was among 20 other foreign militants, including Arabs, killed in the strike.
Officials say about two hours later, two more missiles were fired into a house in South Waziristan near Wana from what is believed to be a U.S. unmanned (drone) aircraft. Officials said at least seven people, including foreign fighters, were killed in that raid.
The strikes come just two days after Pakistan summoned the U.S. ambassador to formally protest U.S. missile attacks on Pakistani territory.
The number of strikes has increased over the last two months, straining relations between the two allies.
Earlier Friday, Pakistani officials said a suicide bomber killed at least nine people, including himself, outside the office of a top police chief in northwestern Pakistan.
At least five police officers and three civilians were among those killed in the attack in the town of Mardan. More than 25 people were wounded.
No group has claimed responsibility for the attack.
Mardan is near the area where Pakistani forces have been battling Taliban and al-Qaida militants for months. |
http://feeds.bignewsnetwork.com/index.php?sid=424943
_________________
'Come and see the violence inherent in the system.
Help, help, I'm being repressed!'
“The more you tighten your grip, the more Star Systems will slip through your fingers.”
www.myspace.com/disco_destroyer |
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Disco_Destroyer
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| Posted: Sat Dec 06, 2008 4:42 pm Post subject: |
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Pakistan mulls downing U.S. drones --Says attacks destabilize the country; wants policy change 04 Dec 2008 Pakistani officials are urging the incoming Obama administration to stop air attacks on Pakistani territory and even are hinting that they might shoot down U.S. drones that have hit al Qaeda militants and civilian bystanders. U.S. forces based in Afghanistan have carried out about 25 strikes this year, most of them by drones, in the border region. Foreign Ministry spokesman Mohammed Sadiq said the U.S. ambassador was told that the attacks violate Pakistan's sovereignty and territorial integrity.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2008/dec/04/pakistan-mulls-shootin g-us-drones-out-of-sky/
_________________
'Come and see the violence inherent in the system.
Help, help, I'm being repressed!'
“The more you tighten your grip, the more Star Systems will slip through your fingers.”
www.myspace.com/disco_destroyer |
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