Monday, October 23, 2006
Pakistan Taliban Pact Part Deux
The latest in Taliban news...
Military blogger Bill Roggio on a new deal Pakistan is mulling with Taliban, Qaeda militants:
Today, the Gulf Times reports a deal with the Taliban and al-Qaeda in Bajaur is coming – and right soon. “Maulana Faqir Mohamed, once most wanted cleric in Pakistan's Bajaur tribal region, and his fellow militants are likely to ink peace accord with the government after Eid al-Fitr, as the government has released all his relatives as a goodwill gesture,” according to the Gulf Times report. These are the nine “al-Qaeda suspects” we noted were released in last evening's report on the Taliban tax in Miramshah. “Besides Faqir Mohamed's brother (Maulana Gul Mohamed), those released were identified as Bahadur Khan, Habibullah, Bashirullah, Ziaul Haq, Jamal Syed, Nazimeen Khan and as mentioned the two clerics - Dr Ismail and Maulana Inayatur Rahman.”
....The Bajaur Accord will very likely mirror that of the Waziristan Accord, where the Pakistani military ceded control of the border crossing point, withdrew to garrison, surrendered control of the policing and administrative functions of government. Attacks in the Afghan border provinces on Paktia, Paktika, and Khost have increased threefold since the signing of the Waziristan Accords, as has the infiltration by al-Qaeda and Taliban fighters and suicide bombers.
Whether you're right, left or center, I highly recommend Roggio's almost-daily work on Pakistan's dealings with pro-Taliban militants.
From a scary AFP report:
Afghan militants are planning to launch deadly attacks on civilians in Europe in revenge for the 2001 invasion by United States-led forces, a Taliban commander said on Sky News television on Monday.
Mullah Mohammed Amin said resurgent militants had built up stockpiles of weapons and were bent on vengeance against "the foreign invaders".
...."The ordinary people of these countries are behind this - so we will not spare them. We will kill them and laugh over them like they are killing us and laughing at us."
Reuters reports on a NATO airstrike near the Pakistan border:
In the latest fighting, NATO said it killed five rebels in an air strike in Paktika province, bordering Pakistan, on Sunday.
Yep, that's all there was about that there.
A little bit more on the strike in this Kuwait News Agency Report:
Separately, NATO forces claimed killing five Taliban in an air raid in the same region. The strike, the third against Taliban insurgents in the previous four days, was carried out in Giyan district of the Paktika province. Two days back, Governor of Afghanistan's southern Kandahar province Asadullah Khalid admitted the killing of nine civilians in such an attack.
The ISAF statement said the operation was conducted as part of the "Operation Mountain Fury", which is underway in the southeastern and eastern provinces of Afghanistan.
ISAF's Deputy Commanding General Operations Brigadier General James Terry said no civilian was killed or injured neither any civilian property was damaged in the precision bombing.
|
