US violates ‘hammer and anvil’ deal–-leaves border naked

Prime Minister Gilani talked to President Obama about the withdrawal of US forces from the Pakistani Afghan border.

• Pakistan fears the pullout confirms the U.S. is walking away from a key military agreement
• Under the “hammer and anvil” deal, the two sides agreed to coordinate efforts to prevent insurgents escaping an offensive
• 700 Taliban escape into Afghanistan
• Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani pressed the issue in Washington last month, as did Prime Minister Yousuf Gilani during the recent nuclear-security summit

This the second time that the US forces abandoned thier post on the Afghan side of the border and let the insurgents escape. The first time wa sin Bajaur right in the middle of the Pakistani military offensive. Now again the US forces left the border naked, and did not intercept the militants that the Pakistani Army has been chasing.

As the U.S. army retreated last week from its final outpost in Afghanistan’s Korengal Valley–the short way up to Kabul for insurgents coming over the remote Pakistani border–American officials tried to frame the move as part of the administration’s new strategy to shift focus away from the frontier and toward protecting large population centers and main roads. But Pakistan fears the pullout confirms the U.S. is walking away from a key military agreement.

• Footage of Taliban fighters swarming a former U.S. military mountain-top base in Afghanistan has been aired on a major satellite TV station.
• Just days after American forces withdrew from the Korengal Valley – which has seen some of the toughest fighting in the Afghan war – armed insurgents can be seen over-running the area.
• The video, which was shown yesterday on Al-Jazeera television, will be seen as a morale boost for Taliban fighters – even though the U.S. insists the area has no strategic value.

Under the “hammer and anvil” deal, the two sides agreed to coordinate efforts to prevent insurgents escaping an offensive on one side of the border from taking sanctuary on the other. The Pakistani military has spent two years exerting control over its side of the Korengal border, just to see an estimated 700 Taliban take refuge in Afghanistan, unchallenged by withdrawing U.S. forces.

The future of the hammer-and-anvil strategy has become the No. 1 topic for the Pakistani military. Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani pressed the issue in Washington last month, as did Prime Minister Yousuf Gilani during the recent nuclear-security summit. Pakistani Ambassador Husain Haqqani says Pakistani forces played the “anvil” role during recent U.S. operations in Helmand province, but requests for reciprocal backup for Pakistani operations in the Bajaur and Mohmand tribal areas have not been met. “Hammer-and-anvil has to work both ways,” he says.

more about “US military base under Taliban control“, posted with vodpod

Pakistani officials have pointed out that the Soviets adopted precisely the same “urban centers” strategy back in the mid-1980s, abandoning efforts to stop the flow of insurgents across the border. It was a huge tactical blunder. It remains to be seen whether the U.S. is in the process of making that same error. U.S. Bails On Key Military Strategy, Newsweek By John Barry

There is a movie and a book about the base.

Junger, author of “The Perfect Storm,” made five one-month trips to the Korengal Valley in 2007 and 2008 as an embedded reporter with U.S. troops. He and photojournalist Tim Hetherington have produced a film, “Restrepo,” which won the grand jury prize for best documentary at the Sundance Film Festival. A new book by Junger will be out next month, titled “War,” that chronicles the experiences of a platoon of soldiers who fought, and watched their friends die, in the Korengal.

Junger’s book offers no grandiose theory of how to combat terrorism. It is a gripping account of how modern warfare is experienced by those who do the fighting, and its focus is that of a laser, not a floodlight. He reaches just one grand conclusion about the nature of war: that in the final analysis, you kill the enemy not because of nationality or ideology, but because if you don’t, the enemy might kill you. Washington Post

The First Baloch Suicide Bomber–Expect Many More

[Meet the Baloch man who blew himself up to slaughter Shias in Quetta hospital.  Questions arise, but perhaps the most important being--Why would a Baloch (who are normally a very non-religious lot) do such a thing?  It might be properly explained as an attack upon people perceived to be Punjabi invaders.  It is more likely that this man was a member of the Sunni-Baloch terrorist group, Jundullah.  Any group that stands in the way of Baloch separatism is probably considered a legitimate target by them.  The Jundullah group was organized near Wana by members of Lashkar e-Jhangvi, who later became the TTP.  Beginning with the attempted assassination of Gen. Musharraf, Jundullah has actively participated in all attacks attributed to the  "Amjad Farooqi faction."]

The first Baloch suicide bomber

Haq Nawaz Baloch will go down in the history of Balochistan as the first Baloch suicide bomber. Based on the information provided by Ali Sher Haider, the official spokesman of the underground Sunni militant group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ), the suicide attack on Quetta’s Civil Hospital last Friday was carried out by the Baloch suicide bomber in order to continue the so-called battle against the sectarian Shia minority. The unprecedented suicide bomb blast inside the hospital killed at least eleven people, including two senior police officers and a television journalist.

After the passage of a week, the police in Quetta have even not succeeded to ascertain more details about the suicide bomber. No real culprit from the banned group has been arrested in the wake of this deadly strike. The blast was, however, taken as an excuse by the paramilitary forces to wage a grand search operation in the Baloch-dominated parts of Quetta which culminated in the killing of Baloch woman, Shahnaz Bibi, the mother of a political activist from the Balochistan National Party (BNP-Mengal).

LeJ has warned to mastermind more such attacks against the Shias living in Quetta and elsewhere in the province. It has threatened a few top police officials to avoid taking action against the banned outfit’s activists. The Lashkar is irked over the delay in the release of one of its activists Naseer Kharani despite court orders of his acquittal.

Haq Nawaz’s action coincides with another recent ugly incident of acidifying the faces of two teenage sisters in Dalbandin district by activists of an unknown organization i.e. Baloch Gharathmand Tanzeem. This organization had previously threatened the womenfolk of the area not to get out of their homes or will be targeted for defying the threat. Otherwise, acid would be thrown on their faces as a punishment, the group threatened. With the local community not taking the threat very seriously, the organization waged its first attack weeks after the issuance of warnings by badly burning the faces of the two sisters with acid.

These two developments alarmingly remind us about the growing religious radicalization being injected in the Baloch society. The response of the Balochs is not dissimilar to that of rest of the Pakistan towards the wave of terrorism. “Experts” on the country’s private news channels still strive to convince us that the suicide bombers cannot be Muslims or Pakistanis. We are still told that the country does not face a threat of religious extremism. On a number of occasions, these experts and analysts have said that Israel, India or the United States is behind the religious extremism and suicide bomb blasts.

Only a first-class-degree-holder-psychologist can enlighten us why societies behave so strangely when they end up as the victim of terror perpetrated by their own children. Similarly, most Balochs remain in a state of denial that their kids could become suicide bombers or throw acid on the faces of other girls. The intelligence agencies, they say, are doing all this to malign the Baloch national struggle.

Baloch society has been the target of radical Islam since the day Mir Ghose Baksh Bizenjo, a prominent Baloch nationalist leader, said in 1947, “If the mere fact that we are Muslims requires us to join Pakistan, then Afghanistan and Iran… should also amalgamate with Pakistan.” This assertion came as an almost-a-heart-attack for those who were starkly unfamiliar with Baloch, Sindhi and Pakhtun nationalism on the eve of the formation of Pakistan. It was then they realized that Baloch nationalism was too recalcitrant to reconcile with the religion-driven “two-nation theory”. Since then, the Balochs have been struggling to retain their distinctive national identity while Islamabad has been enticing the them to give up their centuries-old Baloch identity by embracing the Islamic identity. This has been the benchmark to become a patriotic Pakistani in the last six decades.

The situation in Balochistan took a dramatic turn after the Soviet invasion on Afghanistan. With the Jihad being sponsored by the west, religious schools mushroomed in the province very rapidly. Hefty amounts of money were dispatched informally from Gulf countries to promote the religious schools.

It is funny when Islamabad complains that Baloch tribal chiefs do not allow development in the province. Only the gamblers can certify how fertile this land of vastly illiterate people is for exploitation and manipulation.

The fact of the matter is not a penny was invested by foreign donors to establish secular educational institutions in the Baloch province. On the contrary, some Arab countries invested handsomely for the promotion of the religious schools in the Baloch areas. The secular Sardars even did not oppose the construction of these religious schools in their areas for the reason that the government had even failed to play its due responsibility to impart education to everyone.

Today, one can see (and cannot see if you do not want to see) the horrifying edifice of radicalization the Arab funds have established in the Baloch areas. This lava has just begun to brew in the secular Baloch society by churning out sectarian killers, suicide bombers and hitmen who burn girls’ faces for walking outside their homes.

Political parties and different groups living in Balochistan should read between the lines that something very unpleasant is about to happen in the province in the future if the threat of sectarianism and religious radicalism is not checked on the right time. With too little expected to be done by the government, we urge the political parties, civil society groups and international donors to convene more inter-sect dialogue, cultural programs and sports events which bring the members of various sects closer to each other.

Sane Sunni and Shia scholars should start meeting and talking to each other more frequently. They have to check such priests who teach odium against the members of the rival sect. The media and non-governmental organizations should also play their role to thwart the plans of radicalization in a province which can come under American drone strike at any time on the basis of speculations that the spiritual leader of Taliban movement, Mullah Mohammad Omar, is hiding in Quetta.

It is encouraging that the National Party has responded very intelligently in response to the acid-throwing assault on the little sisters. The society must unite to discourage religious fundamentalism at all costs.

Pakistanis and Indians Dance to America’s Tune

[The following article is not only a good example of what is wrong with both the Pakistani and the Indian media, it is also an excellent example of how American influence distorts what and how is reported in those media.  Notice that in this report, the Indian writer cited, tip-toes around the malevolent American intrusion into India's state affairs, and the Pakistani writer ignores the Indian's lack of candor and proceeds to join him in the tip-toeing around any examples that reveal the worst American intrusion into Pakistan's affairs.  This is the essence of the CIA formula for subverting any nation, first make a nation's leaders complicit in criminal actions, then undertake new criminal actions which they dare not report to anyone else.  The CIA helped both India and Pakistan in their attacks upon the other, now neither side dares to expose American subversion in the region, for fear of exposing their own country's complicity in those crimes.]

India, Pakistan urged to join hands against US influence in region

By Moayyed Jafri

LAHORE: India and Pakistan must work together in order to keep the American influence out of South Asia, said Prem Shankar Jha, former editor of the Economic Times, Financial Express and Hindustan Times.

Citing an example of the American influence in the region, the renowned Indian journalist said, “India has nothing to do with Afghanistan, which does not share any borders with India, but the Indians were allowed to establish their machinery by the Americans there, which implies that America would be at one hand with Pakistan and at the other with India, turning our two countries against each other”.

He said the US, intentionally or unintentionally, treats India and Pakistan differently on issues so as to develop dissent between the two countries. Thus, he said, the Afghanistan issue has particularly served as a wake-up call for both India and Pakistan, demanding that they need to develop a mutually agreed common strategy for Afghanistan, besides all other such issues where American policy line divides the neighboring nations.

Prem Shankar Jha praised former foreign minister Khurshid Mahmood Kasuri, saying that Kasuri proved himself a brave man enough to openly dismiss the much-touted allegation that Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh had backed out of the Kashmir resolution framework which had been agreed by both the countries.

He said Pakistan’s then president Pervez Musharraf had categorically said that he could not sell the mutually agreed framework to his nation because of the chief justice’s movement, which had made him unpopular, and thus he requested that he needed time for it all to settle.

Expressing his reservations over the recently-hyped issue of water between the two countries, he said the Aman Ki Asha dialogue has revealed that this issue has been misreported, exaggerated and intentionally whipped up by some agencies in Pakistan in order to alienate the two countries from each other, because the Kashmir issue is no longer spurring anti-India jingoistic sentiments in Pakistanis.

Stressing the importance of Aman Ki Asha project, he said, “It is so important, as it corrects opinion of the peoples through truthful information-sharing which nullifies the propaganda of certain elements who try to arouse offensive sentiments between the two nations”.

Expressing his perspective on the issue of American Influence, former Indian foreign secretary and ambassador Salman Haider said although Indians and Pakistanis perceive America differently, this does not deny importance of the fact that the two countries need to work against the American influence which has the tendency to disturb Indo-Pak relations.

He said the intent of America cannot be doubted totally, because India is among the top growing economic powers in the world and the US wants to tap into this huge market.

Talking about the dissent and a level of anger that exists in the Pakistanis towards India, he said he is not offended by the sentiments of Pakistanis, as it will take some time for building neutral opinion of the masses through untainted information-sharing, for which Aman ki Asha provides a perfect platform. However, he maintained, all this necessitates time and persistent efforts as there has been a lot of negativity in the past.

Commenting on India’s reaction in the event of a civil nuclear pact with America, he said although it is dealing strictly between Pakistan and the US, there is a distinct possibility that India will have concerned issues with it, just like Pakistan had when the civil nuclear pact between America and India came about.

Much of this has to do with the fact that both the countries do not know what the level of cooperation is extended by the US to either of them which raises concern over perceived threat from each other.

Admiral (Retd) K. Nayyar said a young girl approached him after the dialogue and questioned why India is bent upon killing Pakistani agriculture and people by inflicting a drought through violation of the Indus water treaty.

He said, “This is what misinformation has brought about, and that is why the perspective of the people of both the countries hosts grievances, anger and even aggression”. He said if such propaganda is not checked, the pursuance of peace will meet failure.

He said if the misconceptions harbored by the people of both the nations over the water issue are not removed immediately by the governments, it may develop into the most destructive contention. All the three intellectuals, despite their diverse fields, agreed that there is a need to acknowledge each other’s issues, even if they have serious differences.

Shale Gas Boom Deflating the Nabucco Delusion

An unconventional dilemma

Carola Hoyos and Ed Crooks, Financial Times

ft.com

Andrew Austin is bringing an American revolution to Britain. On a patch of farmland east of Liverpool, his company Igas has drilled one of Europe’s first wells for “unconventional” gas, extracted from source rocks traditionally rejected by the industry as uneconomic.

The former investment banker hopes in the next couple of years to exploit the source that has transformed the outlook for energy in the US: shale rocks.

Igas has taken leases on 300,000 acres of shale, a sedimentary rock, across north Wales and north-west England, joining the rush of companies large and small in countries such as Poland and Germany seeking to replicate a boom in the US that has captured the industry’s imagination.

“Even a year ago, if I had said I was taking licences in big slabs of shale rock, everybody would have thought I was barking mad,” Austin says. “Now I get invited to five conferences a week.”

The rush of European interest in shale underscores wider awareness of a change in the outlook for gas supplies. A surge in US production has meant that within three years the world has gone from running out of natural gas to being drowned in it.

The implications are profound. Policymakers have faced a trilemma: how to make energy supplies secure, affordable and clean. Now an abundance of gas appears to provide the answer to all three problems at once. In the words of Tony Hayward, chief executive of BP, it is a “game changer” – certainly for America, and quite possibly for the world.

If western politicians get it right, they could transform their uneasy relationships with suppliers in potentially troubling countries such as Russia and Nigeria, while meeting carbon reduction targets without relying on nuclear and wind power, which can deliver electricity only at vastly inflated expense. The consequences will be greatest if Europe can emulate the upsurge in US production. If it does not, the effects will still be profound.

However, there are two problems that could prevent gas from being the “long-term energy solution” proclaimed this week by Jim Mulva, chief executive of ConocoPhillips, a US oil and gas group.

One is political resistance; the other is the danger of pollution that one analyst warns could pose a “Toyota-sized” reputational risk.

Scepticism about the gas revolution is understandable because change has come so fast. Until five years ago, US policymakers and energy executives were fretting about securing enough gas to make up for the decline in the country’s own, sizable production. This year, the US has overtaken Russia to become the world’s biggest gas producer for the first time in nearly a decade. Technical breakthroughs that allow companies to tap gas trapped in its vast shale reserves, until recently considered impervious, have allowed it to shut its doors to imports from distant countries. The industry now thinks it can produce from those reserves for 100 years.

Furthermore, with technical developments that make it easier to export liquefied natural gas, changes in the US market can have effects thousands of miles away. As America loses its appetite for imports, LNG tankers from countries such as Qatar are re-routed to Asia and Europe.

For the latter, the prospect of increased imports of LNG and the potential for its own unconventional gas production offer reprieve from dependence on Gazprom, the Russian gas export monopoly. A recent report by the Wood Mackenzie consultancy concluded that Russia’s share of the European gas market was likely to fall from 29 per cent to 24 per cent this decade because of the competition from gas originating in countries such as Qatar, Nigeria and Algeria.

The increased supply of gas, and the more cautious views of the outlook for demand growth after the recession, have also taken the urgency out of projects such as the Nabucco pipeline, the European Union-backed project to bring up to 31bn cubic metres of gas a year from the Caspian region to central Europe. Because Russia has the world’s largest reserves of gas, Europe will still find it difficult to extricate itself from the relationship with its biggest supplier. But exploiting its own unconventional gas reserves could make a big difference to the EU, its eastern members in particular.

The especially appealing feature of the new supplies of gas is that they could reinforce energy security at a much lower cost than other home-grown energy sources such as nuclear power or offshore wind.

In America, the benchmark price of gas is below $US5 per million British thermal units; in Britain, it is about 30p per therm. Those prices are equivalent to about $30 per barrel of oil: less than half today’s crude price of about $US80. Prices are so low that it is cheaper to use gas to generate electricity than coal. As the world economy recovers, prices are expected to pick up again. But rising US production is likely to put a ceiling on how far they can rise.

Gas is also the preferred fuel for power companies planning to build plants, because gas-fired designs are cheapest and quickest to construct. Combined cycle gas turbines, the most modern and efficient plants, are a proved technology that can be built for less than $US1 million per megawatt of capacity, compared to perhaps $US4 million per megawatt for a new nuclear plant and $US5 million per megawatt for a wind turbine located out at sea. “Gas is a very competitive option,” says Fabien Roques of the IHS CERA consultancy. “Gas-fired plants are very flexible; they can back up renewables; they are very straightforward, and they are very low risk for investors.”

When the political commitment to curb greenhouse gas emissions is taken into account, the appeal of gas is even stronger.

Gas creates about half the carbon dioxide of coal when burned to generate electricity. Indeed, one of the cheapest ways to cut emissions is to shut coal plants and replace them with gas.

Lambert Energy, the advisory firm, estimates that shutting down the EU’s coal-fired power stations and replacing them with CCGT plants would cut emissions by about 20 per cent of 1990 levels, meeting the target set by European governments for 2020.

In the US, the same shift would cut emissions by 22 per cent from 2005 levels, exceeding the 17 per cent reduction proposed by President Barack Obama at the Copenhagen climate summit last December.

If it switched entirely out of coal-fired power and into gas, the EU would need about 40 per cent more gas, but higher LNG imports and some domestic shale gas production could make it possible to meet that increased demand.

The vision of a gas-based energy system, cheap, clean and secure, is a seductive one. It will not be easy, however, to turn it into reality.

The primary problem is politics, according to Philip Lambert of Lambert Energy. “There is only one thing that can stand between natural gas being the affordable, quick and material answer to the environmental challenge posed by the globalisation of energy use – and that is political unwillingness to accept gas as the fuel of choice.”

In part because of concerns about excessive reliance on Russia, EU governments have committed themselves to renewables such as wind power, promising to derive 20 per cent of Europe’s energy from those sources by 2020. As a result, the industry is being pushed away from the lowest-cost options for emissions reduction to higher-cost technologies such as offshore wind.

In the US, opposition to an increased use of natural gas comes not only from the politically powerful coal lobby resisting any erosion of its position but also from policymakers and Congress, largely focused on supporting renewables and nuclear power.

Policymakers on both sides of the Atlantic have been slow to accept that the outlook for gas supplies has been transformed.

At the CERA Week industry conference in Houston on Tuesday, Steven Chu, the US energy secretary, spoke positively about shale deposits but highlighted the role of gas as merely “a key enabler of renewable energy”.

Günther Oettinger, the new European commissioner for energy, also stresses the value of renewable energy. Welcoming forecasts yesterday that the EU was on course to meet its renewable goal for 2020, he said: “Our task will be to help all member states not only to reach the 20 per cent target but to go beyond.”

That political pressure damages confidence in future demand for gas and risks choking off the investment needed to guarantee supplies. It may also weigh against the construction of new gas-fired power stations because investors will worry about whether the plants will run only when other forms of power, such as wind, are unavailable. “Investors need to work out how gas plants will remain profitable post-2020,” says Mr Roques.

The other problem is the potential environmental impact of shale gas production. Water, sand and chemicals are pumped into the ground under pressure, to crack the shale and create gaps so the gas can flow out.

In the US, this process of fracturing, or “fracking”, has already caused concern among environmental campaigners and some politicians worried about possible contamination of ground water.

Michael Zenker of Barclays Capital, warns: “If fracturing was halted, there would be a serious dent in the supply outlook for North America.”

He does not expect environmental concerns to slow the growth of the US industry, although he acknowledges they could be a “reputational” risk.

In more densely populated and often environmentally sensitive European countries, however, those worries could be much more of a problem.

Wolfgang Ruttenstorfer, chief executive of Austria’s OMV, one of the companies exploring the potential of shale gas in Europe, says: “I don’t want to create these kind of hopes and fantasies that lack final results, so I’m extremely cautious whether [shale gas] will be an option at all.”

Alexander Medvedev – the head of Gazprom’s international business, who is watching the effect of shale gas nervously – is counting on environmental concerns to derail ambitions to bring shale gas technology to Europe. If things go his way, then there is a risk that Russia’s grip on European energy could tighten, not ease.

While shale gas may fail to take off in Europe, however, the most important revolution could come in China, which relies on coal for 81 per cent of its rapidly growing electricity needs and on gas for only 1 per cent.

Beijing is keen to change that balance to reduce carbon and sulphur emissions, which are suffocating its big cities, and also wants to secure more of its fuel supplies at home. Last year the government signed an agreement under which the US government will help China assess its shale gas potential.

In the long run, China and the US agreeing that natural gas is the fuel of the future may well prove to be more important than their failure to come up with binding emissions targets at Copenhagen last year.

Russian Seals Crimean Deal, Extends Sevastapol Lease Until 2042

Russian envoy to Ukraine hails naval base deal

© RIA Novosti. Alexei Fedoseev

• Russia’s Black Sea Fleet

The deal extending Russia’s use of a naval base in Ukraine’s Crimea is economically beneficial for both Moscow and Kiev, the Russian ambassador to Ukraine said on Friday.

The agreement, signed on Wednesday by Russian President Dmitry Medvedev and Ukrainian President Viktor Yanukovych, extends the lease on the Russian base in the port of Sevastopol for 25 years after the current lease expires in 2017, and may be further extended by another five years.

“As far as Russia is concerned, it is not only a question of the redeployment of the Black Sea Fleet or the construction of new coastal infrastructure, but also a broad array of issues related to understanding how friendly our neighbor is,” Mikhail Zurabov said.

He said the new deal was important for eliminating the remaining “uncertainty” in relations between the two countries.

“We do not want to find ourselves in a situation of such high uncertainty and I don’t think our Ukrainian colleagues want that either,” he said, adding that uncertainty was bad for the economy.

Russian President Dmitry Medvedev submitted the agreement to the Russian lower house of parliament, the State Duma on Friday. The Duma has scheduled a plenary session on the ratification of the agreement for April 27 and Ukraine’s parliament is due to hold a session on the same day.

There has, however, been strong opposition to the deal in Ukraine and it is not clear that it will in fact be ratified on Tuesday.

The Ukrainian opposition said any prolongation of Russia’s military presence would require amendments to the Constitution as well as a national referendum.

Former Ukrainian President Viktor Yushchenko said on Thursday the deal amounts to “military occupation” and urged all opposition and patriotic forces to unite in the face of the threat to Ukraine’s sovereignty.

Mykola Tomenko, deputy speaker of parliament and a leader of the Yulia Tymoshenko Bloc opposition party said on April 14 that Article 17 of the Constitution forbids foreign military bases on Ukrainian soil.

However, on Thursday Ukraine’s Constitutional Court ruled the extension of the base lease did not violate the country’s Constitution.

Yanukovych, who became president two months ago, has pledged to steer Ukraine away from the pro-Western stance of Yushchenko, who vowed that Russia would have to look for a new base for its Black Sea Fleet after 2017.

KIEV, April 23 (RIA Novosti)

Russia’s bitter harvest of hinterland vendetta

As the Moscow bombings reveal, the crackdown in the Caucasus has left a landscape of damaged women, some all too ready to spread their pain to Russia’s heartland

• By Megan K. Stack, Los Angeles Times

• Rasul Magomedov (left) in his home in Balakhani, Dagestan
• Image Credit: Sergei L. Loiko/Los Angeles Times
• 

• 
• Students of the school where Mariyam Sharipova worked as a deputy administrator
• Image Credit: Sergei L. Loiko/Los Angeles Times

The last time Patimat Magomedova saw her daughter, she was puttering around the house, manicuring her nails and using henna to dye her hair bright red. It is high time we take care of the garden, the mother remembers Mariyam Sharipova saying that Friday. Let us plant raspberries, cucumbers and greens. And we have to do something about the kitchen, maybe get some pretty new dishes.

By evening, the young woman had vanished from the house in Balakhani, a remote village in the Russian republic of Dagestan. Magomedova did not see her daughter’s face again until somebody showed her a photograph of a decapitated head. At that moment, she said, “I knew there was no mistake.”

Sharipova, 27, had travelled a thousand miles to Moscow and climbed on to a crowded subway train at rush hour with an explosives-packed belt strapped around her waist. She was accompanied by a 17-year-old girl, also from Dagestan, who blew herself up at another station.

In the Russian news media, the women were immediately dubbed “black widows”. Their assault on the subway was taken as proof that the country had been shuttled back to the fearsome days when hollow-eyed female militants stalked Moscow and other cities far from the wars where their men fought Russian forces.

The subway bombings also sent ripples of unease across the turbulent, mostly Muslim republics strung along Russia’s southern edge. There was angst over the slaying of civilians and fear of retaliation. But it came as slim surprise that women were ready to die. This, after all, is a landscape of damaged women, grieving losses they dare not dwell upon.

The closer you get to the fighting in the Caucasus, the murkier it appears. The violence in Dagestan, and in neighbouring Chechnya and Ingushetia, is not easy to classify — it is a mix of rebels who want independence from Russia, Islamist extremists bent on waging jihad, local clan and gang warfare and sectarian strife.

And as the fighting intensifies, it is the men who disappear. Masked agents pound on the door and cart them off for questioning. They come back beaten, or not at all. Sometimes the men are rebels; at other times, their affiliations are vague. It is the women who are left behind, their status and material comforts tangled up in the choices of their fathers, sons and husbands.

Sharipova lived in a spacious house with grape trellises and views up the mountainsides. Her mother teaches biology; her father is a self-described “patriot of the motherland” who teaches Russian literature. She was a serious woman who studied mathematics, psychology and computers.

She was also a homebody who, in the words of her mother, “didn’t mix well”. When not working as the deputy principal of the village school, she busied herself with home-improvement projects, cooked pilaf and fussed over clothes.

The fighting crept into the village. Security forces staged “clean-up operations”, swarming Balakhani with armoured personnel carriers, helicopters and ground troops, cutting off access to the mosque and searching houses for signs of rebels.

Sharipova’s two older brothers were accused of supporting the rebels. They were close to her; the three had shared an apartment when their parents sent them to study at the university in the Dagestani capital, Makhachkala.

Her elder brother was in a dentist’s waiting room in 2004 when masked men burst in, threw an overcoat over his face and carried him away. He was held all night, tortured and finally dumped in the forest, his parents say. The men never identified themselves, he told his family, but they were security agents of some stripe.

“Our problems started from that kidnapping,” said the father, Rasul Magomedova. Security forces ransacked the family’s rooms, looking for the brothers. The extended family took turns staying up all night to keep watch for troops. The older son eventually fled to Moscow. The younger is also in hiding. The family says neither is tied to the rebels.

Sharipova, meanwhile, withdrew deeper into Islam. A madrassa, or religious school, opened in the village mosque two months ago and she spent hours there. She set herself the task of memorising the entire Quran.

A few weeks ago, police warned her father that Sharipova had secretly married a notorious rebel commander. It was a rumour they had heard before, floating around the village, but had not taken seriously. After all, they reasoned, she was still in the house with them. Nevertheless, the parents confronted her — and were unnerved by her reaction. “She was very uneasy,” Patimat Magomedova said. “She became nervous and frightened, and turned away from us.”

Some of Sharipova’s friends refuse to believe she set out to kill. They insist that she was kidnapped, that she was drugged. Her parents make no such justifications. They are grieving their daughter and grieving what she did. They are indignant that Russian state television refused to air their condolences to the families of the dead. “I’m ashamed. People died because of her and that hurts me,” her mother said. “And it hurts me that I lost my daughter. I have this double hurt on me.”

There is a tendency in Moscow to describe the troubles in the Caucasus as black and white — either a righteous battle against terrorists or an indiscriminate campaign of human rights abuses from the security forces. In truth, it is a war of attrition, with dirty fighting and civilian deaths on both sides. And there is a swelling group of widows too, whose husbands were police officers killed by rebels. But if Moscow’s goal is stability, its methods appear to be falling short.

The kidnappings, torture sessions, secret prisons and extrajudicial executions documented by human rights groups throughout the region are breeding a new depth of animosity — and, critics say, sowing the seeds for a fresh bout of war.

Under Vladimir Putin, Russia has made little apology for its hardline antiterrorism tactics.

Only in the wake of the recent bombings have some voices in the government begun to raise the question of whether abuses and economic despair need to be addressed to quell the rise of extremism.

In Dagestan, as in Chechnya and Ingushetia, there is a sense of being hemmed in to Russia and yet rejected by the state. Prime Minister Putin’s face shines down on the town square in the capital, emblazoned with words of love for Dagestan. But people here remember the time he said he would hunt terrorists down into the toilet.

Once Russian security forces target a man, family members may be stripped of their jobs and wind up struggling to put food on the table, human rights workers say. “Here they persecute the whole family,” said Gulnara Rustamova, head of Mothers of Dagestan for Human Rights, who advocates for families in their clashes with security services.

If the husband dies in a “special operation”, she said, authorities often refuse to give the widow a death certificate, so she cannot collect welfare for the children. Corrupt investigators also force the families to buy back the bodies of their men, human rights monitors say.

In a land where funeral rites are highly important, many families are forced to pay as much as $14,000 to claim the bodies. Rustamova said she has spent hours persuading grief-stricken women not to take bloody revenge.

“They talk about hanging explosives on themselves … and blowing themselves up,” she said. “These women are really driven to the point of despair.”

Asiyat Aliyeva used to moon over love stories on TV. They spun out in the corners of the house she was building for her son and his wife. Now she only has patience for war movies. Ever since security troops killed her son, she wants to see blood.

Her son, Kerim Asadulayev, was 27, tall and baby-faced, the father of a 9-month-old girl. He and his wife were studying law in Moscow. Asadulayev was home on a school break in January. The morning he died, he drank coffee with his mother, dropped her off at work and then went to meet a friend from Moscow. As the two young men left the restaurant, the shooting began.

A man whose windows overlooked the street recorded the attack on his mobile phone. The video shows gunmen shooting point blank into already prone bodies. Then it shows them rearranging the bodies. They planted a hand grenade and a gun in their hands, Aliyeva says.

Police said the two were terrorists and that they were killed in a shoot-out. Aliyeva said her son’s body was riddled with 42 bullets. She started to cry again. “They should tell us, don’t give birth to boys. They should tell us, we will kill your boys.”

Billy Graham’s Boy Too Islamophobic for Pentagon’s Image

Graham disinvited from prayer event over Islam comments

By the CNN Wire Staff

Washington (CNN) — The Army rescinded its invitation to evangelist Franklin Graham for the upcoming National Day of Prayer at the Pentagon over controversial remarks he made about Islam.

“True Islam cannot be practiced in this country,” he told CNN’s Campbell Brown last December. “You can’t beat your wife. You cannot murder your children if you think they’ve committed adultery or something like that, which they do practice in these other countries.”

Graham later tried to temper his remarks by saying that he had Muslim friends. However, the son of famed evangelist Billy Graham has a history of comments that bothered the Pentagon. Shortly after the terrorist attacks of September 2001, for instance, Graham called Islam a “very evil and wicked religion.”

Graham, who said a prayer at the inauguration of President George W. Bush, said he regretted the Army’s decision but stood by his comments.

“I don’t like the way they treat women, the way they treat minorities. I just find it horrific. But I love the people of Islam,” he said, adding some of his work has been in Muslim nations. For instance, Samaritan’s Purse, the international charity that he heads, works with Iraqi refugees in Jordan.

“It’s a part of the world I love very much,” Graham said. “And I understand it. But I certainly disagree with their teaching.”

“I want to express my strong support for the United States military and all our troops,” he said. “I’m very proud of them and it’s just unfortunate that I won’t be able to participate on May 6th.”

The Army, which oversees the National Day of Prayer ceremonies at the Pentagon, feared that if Graham spoke at the Pentagon, Islamic militants would publicize his comments, potentially fueling tensions in Muslim nations like Iraq and Afghanistan, where U.S. troops are deployed.

Concerns about Graham were flagged by the watchdog group Military Religious Freedom Foundation, which also raised objections that the Pentagon prayer ceremony had become a fundamentalist Christian event.

The group penned a letter to Defense Secretary Robert Gates on behalf of Muslim military members and defense department employees. It said that Franklin’s remarks had sparked outrage.

“Mr. Graham has never retracted or apologized for these statements,” the letter said.

But Graham’s supporters disagreed with the Army’s decision.

“What are they afraid Franklin Graham is going to say?” said Rep. Randy Forbes of Virginia. “I think again we are getting to the point in the country where we are trying to exclude everybody from speaking if I disagree with what they are going to say.”

Graham’s invitation was not the only controversy swirling about the National Day of Prayer this year. Last week, a federal judge struck down as unconstitutional the 1952 law that established the day, saying it violated the ban on government-backed religion.

On Thursday, the Justice Department informed a federal appeals court that the Obama administration will appeal that decision.

In defence of Punjabis: Stop target killing of Punjabi settlers in Balochistan

In defence of Punjabis: Stop target killing of Punjabi settlers

in Balochistan

Abdul Nishapuri

The Punjabi scapegoat

It is common practice in the (so called) leftist and progressive circles of Pakistan to blame Punjab for all failures of the country as a federation and also for the sufferings of ethnic and religious minorities.

What remains however ignored is the fact that dominant majority of Punjabis (i.e. Punjabis, Saraikis and other ethnicities living in the Punjab province) are as disempowered and miserable as are the people living in other provinces and areas of Pakistan.

While by virtue of a number of factors, not least their demographic majority in the federation of Pakistan, Punjabis have a greater share not only in the national parliament but also in other institutions of power including army, bureaucracy and judiciary, the majority of Punjabis however lack influence or participation in such institutions. A powerful elite manages to rule and represent the Punjab province, a state of affairs which is not much different from other provinces which are ruled by the Sindhi elite, the Pakhtun elite and the Baloch elite.

Yet, it remains a popular practice to blame Punjab and the Punjabis for the suffering, discrimination and high-handedness facing all Pakistanis, particularly those of minority ethnic backgrounds, e.g., Sindhis, Baloch and Pakhtuns.

Consequently, what remains widely ignored and invisible in the Pakistani and international media is the plight of ordinary Punjabis who are a convenient scapegoat and at times have to pay for their ethnic origin through loss of life, property or both. However, stories of their plight and persecution remain untold and neglected in the media and the parliament.

In support of Punjabi settlers in Balochistan

I am writing this post in support of my Punjabi brothers and sisters who are currently being slaughtered by a number of violent groups in Balochistan including but not limited to the misguided Baloch separatists; also some Punjabis are being killed by sectarian and jihadi terrorists of the Sipah-e-Sahaba and Taliban.

Malik Siraj Akbar writes in The The Baluch (www.thebaluch.com):

The activities of Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA), a key player in Balochistan trouble, have increased since the induction of the new government. The BLA has rejected the offer for negotiations. Asked how it viewed the proposed APC, a BLA spokesman told Daily Times it was “a sheer waste of time”. The BLA claims responsibility of the killing of a Punjabi professor last week saying he was a spy for intelligence agencies. The BLA has killed dozens of government personnel in Balochistan citing the same reason. Most of those killed are Punjabis.

http://www.thebaluch.com/042808_article.php?id=7675

According to same author, writing in The Hindu (2 Sep 2009):

Killing of Baloch leaders (by Pakistan Army has) led to an intensified campaign of target killing by Baloch insurgents against Punjabi settlers in the province, mainly of school teachers and government servants. Baloch militants warned that no school across Balochistan should hoist the Pakistani flag or play the national anthem. The threat was taken seriously only after half of a dozen Punjabi principals and teachers were murdered in broad daylight.

Baloch activists burned Pakistani flags and hoisted the flag of an independent Balochistan on major educational institutions, including at the University of Balochistan. The underground Baloch groups have threatened to kill anyone who removes these Baloch flags or resumes singing the Pakistani anthem at schools. Now even elite grammar schools in Quetta have stopped playing Pakistan’s anthem.

All this has engendered an atmosphere of fear. The Balochistan Residential College in Khuzdar district, for instance, has been shut for more than two months since the killing of its principal. When the issue was raised at Balochistan Assembly, the Education Minister expressed “utter helplessness.”

“Now that the killings have already started, we can not simply describe it as a ‘threat’ only. It is a reality that our teachers are facing and being killed. The government should take notice of this dire situation before the teachers give up their jobs because of fear,” was his only response.

A considerable number of teachers in Balochistan are Punjabis, and most of them have applied with the Education Department for their transfer outside Balochistan for security reasons. The Education Ministry says the number of such applications is too high to be entertained.

Punjabi officials in other government departments are equally reluctant to stay on in the province fearing they could become targets. According to Daily Aaj Kal, 10 government officials from Punjab agreed to serve in Balochistan only after they were offered double salaries, a four-month leave per year and promotions to the next grade.

http://beta.thehindu.com/opinion/op-ed/article13567.ece

Background

It was in August 2006 when Nawab Akbar Bugti was killed by General Musharraf in a military operation in Kohlu district. The tragic murder of Akbar Bugti gave birth to unstoppable target killings of Punjabi and other non-Baloch settlers in Balochistan as well as the destruction of national infrastructure. The Baloch insurgents, and certain other groups, are on a rampage sine then, not sparing any one from Punjab, be it a doctor, teacher, professor, barber, laborer or police official.

For example, on 25 October 2009, minister for education Shafiq Ahemd Khan was killed in an incident of target killing. three days later, secretary of education was killed. Previously, in April 2009, pro-vice chancellor of the University of Baluchistan was shot dead in front of the university. (Source)

Besides the killings of teachers mostly belonging to Punjab, barbers and other shop keepers of Punjabi origin are also being targeted. On a number of occasions, innocent laborers have been targeted, not to speak of the every day target killings of the Hazara (Shia) community, which the government links with sectarian violence by the Sipah-e-Sahaba / Taliban.

Some rare voices of protest

According to two fellow posters (from friends korner):

On the backing of Chief Minister Balochistan Aslam Raisani and baloch nationalist leaders including Bramdagh Bugti and Akhtar Mengal, Baloch terrorists kill yet another Punjabi professor in Quetta. This is the third such incident in the last 7 days. First, the Punjabi provincial education minister was shot dead 7 days ago, then the Punjabi secretary of education was shot dead 3 days ago and now another Punjabi professor has been killed in the open with the baloch leaders and baloch provincial government enjoying the massacre.

The Pakistani intelligence agencies have long become dynfunctional and the patronizing and support offered to these terrorist organizations like BLA by balochistan government has created enormous amounts of misery in the lives of punjabis in Balochistan.

….

1. The terrorist organization that has killed 1000 Punjabis during the last one year and which openly claims responsibility is called Baloch Liberation Army, not random terrorists and they are specifically targeting Punjabis.

2. You have NO idea how much hatred balochs express against punjabis in Balochistan regardless of whether the poor punjabis have been born/living in Balochistan. Punjabis are discriminated against in every department in Balochistan and now the provincial govt seems to be patronizing the target killers and you want us to keep quiet?

3. To keep quiet against zulm (oppression) is the biggest zulm. It is necessary to educate pakistanis and hopefully our incompetent agencies to do something about it.

http://www.friendskorner.com/forum/f137/news-balochs-kill-another-punjabi-professor-quetta-148103/

Aims of this post

Here is a brief archive of latest news and articles on the target killing of Punjabis in Balochistan. I hope that this post and the archive will help:

1. journalists and TV anchors to pay attention to this topic;
2. parliamentarians to demand a detailed (periodical) fact sheet by the Balochistan government on this issue;
3. Baloch separatists to rethink their approach to Baloch rights;
4. provincial administration to conduct a regular monitoring of the situation and the measures taken to curb this trend and to arrest and punish the killers;
5. provincial administration to arrange for the compensation and rehabilitation as well as security of the affected families and businesses.
6. leading political parties to demonstrate their support for ethnic harmony in Balochistan and to safeguard the interests of all ethnic groups including but not limited to Punjabi settlers.
7. federal and provincial governments to address genuine grievances of the people of Balochistan on an emergency basis.  (read more HERE)

The Islamofascist mafia in action—again!

Omar Khattab

Picture: Benazir Bhutto gazes towards a crowd of thousands of supporters at a campaign rally minutes before she was assassinated in a bomb attack December 27, 2007 in Rawalpindi

The debate on the 18th Amendment is ISI’s smokescreen to hide its role in Benazir’s assassination

By Omar Khattab in Islamabad

Suddenly the media has swept the entire nation into the vortex of an acrimonious debate between lawyers on the issue of the 18th constitutional amendment. Akram Sheikh, a Jamaat-e-Islami stalwart and an ISI-backed “leader” of the lawyer community, has been using extremely offensive language against the likes of Aitzaz Ahsan and Ali Ahmed Kurd. It appears that he has succeeded in enraging pro-18th Amendment people by making them use harsh language. The rest of the work is being done by anti-democracy and pro-ISI channels like Geo, Sama, and ARY. Islamofascist journalists like Hamid Mir, Dr Shaihd Masood, Kashif Abbasi, Talat Hussain, and Mahrukh Bokhari invite most anti-democratic “analysts” to undermine the authority of the parliament and give support to the morally bankrupt and professionally suspect judges of the Supreme Court. The entire anti-democracy mafia in Pakistan is urging the Supreme Court to strike down the 18th Amendment which the representatives of the 180-million strong people of Pakistan have made. The question is: Why?

The answer is very simple. The recently published United Nations report on the assassination of Benazir Bhutto has clearly blamed the ISI for not only facilitating her murder, but also hampering the investigation into the murder. Even without the UN report, the people of Pakistan believed that it was the ISI which killed Benazir Bhutto because for her refusal to obey the commands of the Army generals. The UN report, however, has a stamp of legitimacy and objectivity. This is why, no one, not even the Islamofascists of the Pakistan media and politics, have been able to question the credibility of the report. Now there is no legal hindrance for the government to take action against criminal generals of the Pakistan Army. But it is a known fact that the Army as an institution is above law. But the stature of Benazir is so high that it may be difficult for the generals to escape justice given Pakistani masses’ anti-Army and anti-ISI sentiments in the backdrop of Benazir’s assassination.

Thus the ISI has gone back to its time-tested tactics: Create an issue and set corrupt media into action so that the real issue gets submerged in confusion. The likes of Akram Sheikh can sell their mothers to serve a cause which gives them a lot of material benefits. This is not the first time that the ISI has thrown up colorful rabbits up in the air to take people’s attention off a real issue like Benazir’s assassination. The second tactic of the ISI is to blame Benazir’s own People Party for her assassination. This too has started as we can see retired army officers and ISI-funded “analysts” and “journalists” churning out conspiracies against the leaders of the People’s Party.

Prediction: If history is any guide, the ISI/Army will once again succeed in confusing the situation. No Army man will be punished for the assassination of Benazir Bhutto.

How Pakistan’s judicial system promotes the Shia holocuast

Omar Khattab

Picture Source: Attack on a Shia funeral in D.I. Khan

Yesterday, the LUBP posted an article about Malik Ishaq, a most dangerous terrorist of Sipah-e-Sahaba, who is about to be released by Shahbaz Sharif’s government. Previously we have pointed to the sinister affiliation between various members of the PML-N’s government in Punjab, namely Rana Sanaullah (Law Minister) and the Lahore High Court Chief Justice Khawaja Sharif and various sectarian and jihadi groups. We have also witnessed Shahbas Sharif’s request to the Taliban to spare Punjab from their terrorist activities. All of this points towards two troubling facts, i.e., (1) PML-N, the second largest political party in Pakistan, has consistent affiliation with and soft corner towards jihadi and sectarian organisations, and (2) Punjabi judges (under the leadership ofKhawaja Sharif and Iftikhar Chaudhry) are working really very hard in order to set free any terrorists which are currently in police’s custody. (Abdul Nishapuri)

Here is an editorial on this topic published in Daily Times today:

Where terrorists walk free

Editorial

One of the founding members of Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, the notorious sectarian outfit, is reportedly going to be set free soon after 13 years. Malik Ishaq, self-confessed hitman of the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, who himself admitted to a local Urdu daily in October 1997 that he had been “instrumental in the killing of 102 people”, will be a free man if reports are to be believed. The plight of Fida Hussain Ghalvi is even worse than those hundreds of people’s families who have been killed by Malik Ishaq himself or at his behest. Ghalvi lost 12 family members when Ishaq and his seven allies attacked a majlis. Mr Ghalvi has been persistently fighting for justice since the last 13 years. In an exclusive interview with this newspaper, Mr Ghalvi recounted the hardships he has had to face in pursuing this case. From death threats to living a life in isolation, this journey has been an extremely painful one. The news of Ishaq’s release has obviously come as a shock to Mr Ghalvi and many others. It just goes to show how difficult it is for the victims of terror to get justice in a country where criminals walk free.

Pakistan finds itself between a rock and a hard place. Dealing with economic problems on the one hand and fighting the war on terror on the other has made things difficult for the state. On top of that we are now seeing a resurgence of sectarian terrorism in the country. Lashkar-e-Jhangvi is one of the most prominent sectarian militant groups in Pakistan. An offshoot of Sipah-e-Sahaba, the members of this group have unleashed terror against the Shia community for decades now. To see one of its founding members getting ‘freedom’ due to “lack of evidence” raises important questions about the system’s inadequacy to tackle cases related to terrorism. Malik Ishaq was charged with the murder of 70 people in 44 different cases but he could not be convicted because there was not enough evidence against him. This case indicates why there is virtually no conviction of terrorists in Pakistan. Eyewitnesses either did not come forward for fear of retribution, or when they did appear to testify, they were killed; police officials pursuing the case were threatened; judges were intimidated to change their verdicts.

If Pakistan is to rid itself of terrorists, it has to revamp its justice system. When cases against terrorists are brought to court, the reason many witnesses do not venture forth is due to fear. Pakistan needs a proper witness protection programme. Not many people are as brave as Mr Ghalvi. The police, the prosecutors, the judges and the witnesses in such cases need state protection. The next step would be to deal with the lacunae in the prosecution process, which cannot be done overnight. The police are already overburdened. A separate prosecution branch should be formed to deal with such cases with good investigators and highly competent lawyers to steer the cases through the courts. We also need proper forensic labs to collect and scrutinise evidence. When the courts are unable to convict these terrorists, it is mostly because the prosecution fails to prove its case beyond reasonable doubt. We have seen this in Hafiz Saeed’s case. There should be a special law for terrorism-related cases whereby it can be ensured that these monsters are not let loose on society and wreak havoc all over again. The hydra of terrorism has to be quashed or else this country will see many more cold-blooded murderers terrorising innocent citizens. *

Source: http://dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=20104\23\story_23-4-2010_pg3_1

“Genocide” Game in the South Caucasus

[The American/Israeli "genocide game" is either a political football, or a grenade, depending upon how you want to view the ongoing divide and rule tactic being deployed to gain full control of the region.  The author of the following report is correct that use of this strategy will not gain the Empire its objectives--only cooperation for mutual gain will create the necessary conditions to harvest the hydrocarbons for which the world hungers.  SEE:  The Peace Pipeline ]

Dr. Elnur Aslanov, Office of the President of the Republic of Azerbaijan, Head of the department of political analysis and information provision

(milliyet.com.tr) – The August war of 2008 showed the fragility of security in the Caucasus and that the unresolved conflicts were major threats to peace and stability in the region. Establishing an enduring peace in the region requires the resolution of these conflicts. The South Caucasus Cooperation and Stability Platform, proposed by Turkey in the aftermath of the August war and based on the idea of “cooperative security”, was not new for us. The late President, Heydar Aliyev, proposed a similar form of cooperation in the late 1990s. Its success entails, in the first place, the eradication of enmity between states and a clear willingness to compromise for a common future. Armenia, however, is holding up these two processes in the region.

Turkey has seen how difficult it is to expect a contribution to regional security from a country that labels the eastern territories of Turkey as “Western Armenia” in the 11th article of its Declaration of Independence, in so doing, violating the principles of international law on the integrity of borders, and that considers “the international recognition of the 1915 genocide” the principal duty of the state in the same article. It prefers blackmail to mutual understanding in Turkish-Armenian negotiations.

These issues have dominated the Turkish agenda for the last year. Azerbaijan, 20 per cent of whose territory is occupied, has seen Armenia’s unconstructive position in negotiations for more than 20 years. Today, the updated Madrid principles are on the negotiating table. Azerbaijan, despite its shortcomings, is willing to accept this proposal for the sake of peace and accord in the region. Armenia, on the contrary, is not constructive.  It does not accept the proposals, protracts the process and brings the negotiations back to square one with its absurd proposals.

We understand that the ideology of “genocide” is important to Armenia. This idea has been the crux and backbone of Armenian national existence for decades. Open discussion of this subject will reveal that it is not historical reality, but an ideological, made-up story, which may be tragic for Armenia. They understand this full well. The main reason behind Armenia’s unwillingness to sign the protocols and the manipulative processes associated with it is the fear that light will be shed on this ideological, made-up story. This is what Armenia is scared of, despite trying to create an image that “we are not scared of historical realities”, by signing the protocols in Zurich. The increased activity of the Armenian lobby for “recognition of the genocide”, while the protocol process is ongoing, is thus, understandable. The removal of the Protocols from the Armenian National Assembly agenda by the ruling coalition in parliament two days before 24th of April starkly reveals the true face of the Armenian leadership and its maneuvers.

The victims of the so-called Armenian “genocide” ideology are Azerbaijanis. It should not be forgotten that the violent massacre of Azerbaijanis, who have the same ethnic roots as Turks, in various Azerbaijani regions in 1918 and in Khojaly in February 1992, were the consequences of the hatred and revenge born of the “genocide” ideology and imposed on the Armenian nation for decades. Why don’t those talking about Armenians, who fled during the events of 1915, in their every step, do not mention about one million Azerbaijani IDPs who were expelled from their lands by Armenians in 1988-94?

The attempts to separate the occupation of Azerbaijani territories by Armenia from the protocol process are ludicrous. In a process, that pursues peace and stability in the region, the Armenian side perceives the occupation as part of regional security. Regrettably, some powers apply double standards to the occupation of Azerbaijani territories. The four resolutions on withdrawal from the occupied territories, adopted by the UN Security Council 15 years ago, remain unimplemented. To issue peaceful statements in the region on the one hand, and to support the invaders on the other, I believe, is sufficient proof of double standards.

How is it possible that the West supports Armenia, which avoids research into historical facts and makes baseless claims, and does not demand that Armenia revert to the legal situation, let alone impose sanctions on a country that has violated the principles of international law? The OSCE Minsk Group, mediating the negotiation process between Azerbaijan and Armenia, has come up with initiatives for years, but cannot deal with the occupiers – Armenia (or maybe they do not want to).

Armenia occupies the territories of a neighboring country, commits ethnic massacres, has territorial claims against the other two neighbors (Turkey and Georgia), uses every possible mean to promote the so-called “genocide” (except the research into historical facts), and, last but not least, gets support from the West.

Unfortunately, today, the South Caucasus needs two factors: a fair international approach to the process and a responsible and peaceful Armenia.

US Agents Detained Pakistanis In Peshawar Consulate

Security forces stand at the site of the Pakistani Taliban attack outside the U.S. consulate in Peshawar, Pakistan, on April 5, 2010

Faisal Mahmood / Reuters

By SYED FAWAD ALI SHAH

WWW.PAKNATIONALISTS.COM

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan–Private US defense contractors held Pakistani and Afghan citizens kidnapped from Pakistani tribal territory inside the building of the US Consulate in Peshawar when it was attacked by armed men on April 5.

Immediately after the attack, US diplomats and employees in the consulate were shifted to the American-run Khyber Club in the University Town suburb of Peshawar. US military and intelligence personnel moved the detained Pakistanis and Afghans to Islamabad, either to the US Embassy building or to one of its several safe houses in the Pakistani capital.

The Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack. The group has been attacking Chinese, Sri Lankan and Pakistani citizens during the past five years. This was a rare attack against US interests by the group.

Sources in several Pakistani security agencies in Peshawar knew of US activities and considered them part of US help to Pakistan to fight terrorists. But it is not clear if US personnel had the authority to nab Pakistani citizens or any other nationals on Pakistani soil.

US private security contractors maintain a spy network in Pakistan’s tribal belt, first allowed by former President Musharraf but expanded during the two years of President Zardari’s government.

US agents are on the lookout for leads to Afghan Taliban contacts.  But in recent months they have developed a new enmity with the Pakistani Taliban, which spared the Americans during the past five years.

The shift in Pakistani Taliban’s position took place after the Pakistani military forced the US to end the CIA practice of sparing Pakistani Taliban targets using its unmanned drones. The final blow was the attack against a CIA base in Khost near the Pakistani border for which Pakistani Taliban took responsibility.  It was the first attack by Pakistani Taliban groups against the US.  Until then, CIA agents and other third country intelligence operatives have been in contact with the Pakistani Taliban for the past five years, considering the group a possible silent partner inside Pakistani territory.

ANP SUPPORT

Peshawar is also one city in Pakistan where US is expanding its presence. According to sources close to the ANP, the ruling party in the Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province, the provincial government has allowed US government and military special facilities at the Peshawar international airport where US cargo and personnel can enter and exit the country with minimal interference from Pakistani civil aviation and security authorities.

The move seems to undercut a decision taken by Pakistani security officials in the federal government to end similar concessions given to Washington by former President Musharraf. These concessions were quietly withdrawn in summer 2009. At the time instructions were also given to the Pakistan Foreign Office to inform the US Embassy in Islamabad that all US cargo into Pakistan must enter through the Benazir Bhutto International Airport in Islamabad and not through any of the four provincial capitals: Peshawar, Quetta, Karachi and Lahore.

All the three coalition partners in the federal government – PPPP, ANP and MQM – maintain close and direct ties with Washington.

© 2007-2009. All rights reserved. AhmedQuraishi.com & PakNationalists

Guernica

more about “Guernica“, posted with vodpod

Fallujah : America’s Guernica

by
Hector Carreon
La Voz de Aztlan

Los Angeles, Alta California, November 10, 2004 – (ACN) On April 26, 1937, the Nazi Luftwaffe dropped 100,000 pounds of bombs on the peaceful Basque village of Guernica, Spain on the urging of the Fascist Generalisimo Francisco Franco. At the end of the day, Guernica was in total ruins and 1,654 Basque civilians had been slaughtered and 889 wounded. The world in those days was horrified by the deed. Generalisimo Franco initially denied to the press that the raid ever took place. Later, when photographs of the massacre were published, the Fascist Franco blamed the destruction of Guernica and the killings on those who defended it.

The brutal attack on the Basque civilians by massive and indiscriminate bombardment was immortalized by the Spanish artist Pablo Picasso in his 1937 painting titled “Guernica”. The painting “Guernica” has now become a worldwide symbol of the horrors of war waged by evil fascists and dictators who place no value on human life in their pursuits of political goals and conquest of natural resources. Thomas Gordon and Max Morgan in their book, “Guernica: The Crucible of World War II” quotes a survivor, “The air was alive with the cries of the wounded. I saw a man crawling down the street, dragging his broken legs…. Pieces of people and animals were lying everywhere…. In the wreckage there was a young woman. I could not take my eyes off her. Bones stuck through her dress. Her head twisted right around her neck. She lay, mouth open, her tongue hanging out. I vomited and lost consciousness”.

“Guernica” is back. This time it is not about the Nazi Luftwaffe dropping bombs on a village in Spain but about the USA dropping bombs and massacring hundreds of civilians that include women and children in the town of Fallujah, Iraq. As Franco in “Guernica”, the USA military is denying that it is targeting civilians, but censored reports are filtering out of Iraq that say that over half of the Mosques in the city lie in ruins and that US Marines are utilizing outlawed lethal gasses against the city’s defenders which are also causing massive casualties among the civilians that remain in the city. Other reports in the Arab media talk about hundreds of civilian casualties under the rubble of homes that were hit by USA bombs during the initial military “softening” of the city. Gruesome photographs of the dead are reminiscent of the survivor’s account of “Guernica” as quoted above.

It is ironic that in February 5th of 2003, when Secretary of State Colin Powell was making a call for war against Iraq before the United Nations Security Council in New York City, that the copy of Picasso’s “Guernica” on the second floor of the UN building was “covered” with a large drape. Just 24 hours after Powell failed to convinced the doubtful U.N. Security Council members, President George W. Bush declared “The game is over” and launched the brutal Zionist inspired “Shock and Awe” attack against Iraq. The number of Iraqi civilians that have been blown to pieces by USA bombs and missiles since then are still being counted.

Fallujah today is America’s Guernica and the USA media is covering up the criminal murderous military operation under way. In addition there is absolutely no outcry from the USA political establishment. This points to a deep spiritual and moral malaise among Americans and decay in the leadership of the USA.

The media is not raising any objections to the war crimes in Fallujah but instead make the savage military operations as if they were normal. The media reports conceal from Americans the true character of the vicious military assault which is to destroy a significant source of opposition to the USA colonialist occupation and its puppet regime.

Like Generalisimo Franco in Guernica, Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld is lying to the American public about the number of Iraqi civilian casualties in Fallujah. There are about 30,000 civilians left in Fallujah and many of these have already been killed. The rest are “fair” targets in the house to house US Marine assaults. It will take months if not years to determine the extent of the civilian massacre.

Fallujah is America’s Guernica! Who would have foreseen that the country that liberated Europe from those responsible for Guernica would today take their place? Bloodthirstiness now pervades the USA media, the political establishment and large portions of the American people. One shudders to think were all this will lead. Armageddon perhaps?

Greece, a crisis born of neo-liberal madness

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The Following is Self-Explanatory

[The following could soon become a common sight in your neighborhood.]

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President Obama Proposes Drilling Off Md. Coast

Iceland Volcano, Weather Modification, Resistance to Rothschild Cabal

The Goldsmiths—Part CXXXVIII

Source: GoldSeek.com By R. D. Bradshaw The prior Goldsmiths (137) was on Iceland and its bout to break free of the power of the Rothschild Cabal bankers in Britain which are obsessed with the idea that the people of Iceland must be excessively taxed to pay off the losses in the Cabal owned/controlled Icelandic banks, just like the suckers in North America and Europe are doing.  While still in a preliminary vein, it is prudent to look at some history and current events now affecting perhaps every person in Americaas well as in the rest of the world. For a start, let’s revisit some more troubling events from little Iceland.  Here, the London Guardian of Mar 21, 2010 had this by Gudjon Helgason on Volcano erupts in Iceland, hundreds evacuated:  “Authorities evacuated hundreds of people after a volcano erupted beside a glacier in southern Iceland, Iceland’s civil protection agency said Sunday, but there were no immediate reports of damage or injuries.  The eruption occurred around 11:30 p.m. Saturday (7:30 p.m. EDT) beside the Eyjafjallajokull glacier, the fifth largest in Iceland.  Authorities initially said the eruption was below the glacier, triggering fears that it could lead to flooding from glacier melt, but scientists conducting an aerial survey in daylight located the eruption and said it did not occur below ice… “A state of emergency has been declared in communities near the 100-square-mile (259-square-kilometer) glacier, and three Red Cross centers were set up for evacuees in the village of Hella…  A European volcanic island in the North Atlantic, Iceland is largely an arctic desert with mountains, glaciers and volcanoes and agricultural areas in the lowlands close to the coastline.  The last time the volcano erupted was in the 1820s.” The London Telegraph of Apr 14, 2010 had a follow up story on Iceland volcano: hundreds evacuated over eruption risk.  The article said that some 800 people near the Eyjafjallajokull volcano were evacuated after seismic activity suggested it erupted for the second time.  The volcano, 75 miles east of Reykjavik, erupted on March 20, after almost 200 years of silence.  The report said that the volcano is under a glacier.  If a serious eruption happens, there could be bad flooding. Already, volcanic ash covers much of Europe to delay or halt airline traffic (this is bringing huge economic losses to Europe and especially with the airlines).  As far as Iceland, the eruption is proving to be even more terrible.  The toxic fumes from the eruptions present major health problems to both humans and animals inIceland.  People and animals must stay indoors as much as possible.  Many crops have been hit hard.  The Icelandic economy has been and will be further devastated if the eruption continues or intensifies. There were a couple of other news reports this past week which also seem to have a bearing on what is going on with Iceland’s volcanoes.  First, a report from Yahoo News of Apr 20, 2010 addressed some strange mysterious lightning associated with the eruption.  The article said that the Eyjafjallajokull volcano “continues to produce spectacular visual effects.  Photographers have captured images of lightning, seemingly erupting directly from the volcano. The bolts may look like Hollywood special effects, but they’re very much the real deal.  No CGI required.  But as LiveScience reports, they’re also still a ‘bit of a mystery.’” There is another interesting issue involved with Iceland.  Drudge of Apr 21, 2010 had a report that the Eyjafjallajokull volcano has a nearby sister volcano even larger named Katla.  There is concern that it may too explode.  It’s even larger and with a much larger glacier.  It would really create havoc in worldwide ash if it erupts. But along with Iceland, there are a handful of other nations which too are balking at taking orders from the Rothschild Cabal bosses in London.  Probably, the most important of these are Iran and Venezuela (with some increasing recent concern about China since she has been a big Iran supporter).  Almost regularly, the Rothschild controlled media is bombarding the public about the evils of Iran andVenezuela and their leaders. Iran The one receiving the most attention has been Iran.  Along with telling us about the evils of Iran and why she must be bombed into oblivion, the Rothschild media has also revealed numerous reports of internal protests and opposition from some part of the Iranian people over their government and its leaders. Long ago, I learned that anytime one of the non-Rothschild controlled nations starts having internal political trouble, and particularly from student protests (students are always easy to motivate to protest), there is a high probability that the funding and direction of the protests are coming from the Rothschild Cabal powers with the CIA, MI 6 (from Britain) and the Mossad (from Israel). These spy agencies all work for and serve the Rothschild Cabal masters.  The USgovernment, thru the CIA, funds most of their activities. Along with the internal problems in Iran, the Rothschild media has told us about another interesting little development in Iran.  It is the almost continuous state of drought the nation has faced in the last several years. On Iran’s drought problems, The USDA FSA had this report on IRAN: Another Disappointing Wheat Harvest Ahead in 2009/10:  “The widely dispersed winter grain production regions in Iran have generally experienced more favorable growing conditions in 2009/10 than during last year’s extremely severe drought. Normal to above normal rainfall in the important rain fed wheat growing areas of northwest Iran has helped improve overall grain production prospects this year. However, drought conditions have persisted in important southern and western irrigated growing areas, ensuring the nation will have another below-average national grain harvest in 2009/10. “The dwindling supply of irrigation water in several major producing provinces has resulted in regional declines in grain area and much reduced crop yield potential in the affected areas.  Despite regional drought, total wheat production is expected to increase roughly 20 percent over last year, though still resulting in the second lowest harvest in the past six years.  The disappointing 2009/10 wheat harvest could lead to significant additional grain imports, following on the record 8.5 million tons estimated to have been imported in 2008/09.” Venezuela and Chavez Along with the huge number of internal problems now occurring with Iran, Venezuela seems to also have more than its fair share of troubles—including a catastrophic drought which now is causing political troubles for Chavez. Mongabay.com had a March 22, 2010 report on the crisis in Venezuela in an article by Nikolas Kozloff on El Nino in Venezuela: Hugo Chavez’s Katrina Moment? Kozloff’s article addressed the Venezuelan drought and likened it for Chavez to the Katrina crisis for George W. Bush of some years ago.  He noted that Venezuelan President Hugo Chávez has been in power for more than ten years, during which time he has deflected “numerous electoral challenges, a recall effort, a coup d’etat and even an oil lock out.”  Yet, he has demonstrated enormous staying power throughout all of these political crises. But, per the story, some say that Chávez’s “luck” may have finally run out because this current devastating drought has ravaged Venezuela and the government has been forced to undertake conservation measures for water and electricity.  Some are holding Chávez responsible for the energy crunch.  Some say that the drought could exact a heavy toll on the Venezuelan president in September’s legislative elections. The article then asked what was causing the crisis and said:  “There may not be a clear cut answer to this question, and different people provide differing interpretations.  Chávez critics say that the government has neglected the power grid and failed to invest in hydrology systems and aqueducts in order to expand power production and satisfy increased consumption.”  However, Chavez blames weather changes from El Niño as the cause. Currently, state-owned oil, aluminum and steel companies are obliged to “rationalize” their electric use.  Steel company Sidor, a large manufacturer, has been running at less than 50 percent capacity.  In Caracas, the city’s main water utility announced it would reduce water supply by 25 percent per person. Chávez has urged the public to limit its showers to three minutes.  ”Some people sing in the shower, in the shower half an hour,” he said.  ”No kids, three minutes is more than enough.  I’ve counted, three minutes, and I don’t stink.” The article notes that “thousands have taken to the streets to protest the water and electricity crunch.  Some have burned electricity bills while others brandish surge-damaged blenders, televisions and stereos outside the state utility company.  What’s more, the energy crunch has now had a serious political spillover effect: in a daring move, former Chávez aides such as Defense Minister Raul Isaias Baduel have signed a petition asking for the President to resign.”  The statement said that after 11 years in power, “it was important for Chávez to resign so as to protect the country from a continuation of various ‘ills.’” China As long as the Chinese were accepting US dollars and IOU paper for the sale of its goods to the Rothschild controlled US, everything was peaches and cream with China.  But since the Rothschild Cabal imposed deflation and depression, most Americans have not had the money to be buying many Chinese goods. Accordingly, China is beginning to backtrack in its purchases of US debt paper. Cabal agents like Tim Geithner have been making frequent trips to China to beg her/force her to keep buying US paper. But China too is having her problems with rain and earthquakes.  Most of Southern China is in a serious drought which may soon prove to be catastrophic in food production.  Reportedly, the drought there started in 2009.  It is the worst in 100 years.  Some 61 million people are affected and the government is hauling in water by trucks to dispense to people who line up with containers to get the water. Sina.com had a report on Dry Spell Hits where it hurts which said:  “Drought is sparking fears of inflation and food shortages in Southwest China, report Wang Huazhong in Guizhou, and Peng Yining and Li Yingqing in Yunnan…  The ongoing drought, which has lasted since last autumn and been dubbed the worst in a century, has dried out all of the village’s water tanks.  Zhu’s wife must walk three kilometers on snaking mountain paths to fetch turbid water three times a day for her family and cattle… “By the end of March, Guizhou had seen more than 916,000 hectares of crops affected by drought, causing a direct loss of almost 3 billion yuan ($440 million), according to figures released by the provincial agricultural commission.  The commission’s publicity director, Zheng Chuanlou, also told China Daily that crops to be harvested this summer, such as rape and wheat, are “doomed”, with most areas likely to see dramatically reduced or even zero output.  Already about eight million people just in Yunnan province are suffering a grain shortage, said Wang Shufen, director of the Yunnan provincial civil administration, who told China News Service that five million had ‘no financial income and are relying on government handouts’. “The situation has prompted fears among analysts that low output of cash crops – rapeseed, medicinal materials, tobacco, sugar, tea and flowers – will push up prices nationwide.  To stabilize prices and curb the potential inflation, the central government ordered the transfer of 1.7 million tons of grain reserves to the drought-hit region, Shen Leihai, a senior State official responsible for China’s food security, told Southern Weekend, a newspaper based in Guangzhou… “However, time is running out.  Although meteorology authorities predict the drought will last until the end of May, in just four weeks China will enter a long, hot summer, by which time it will be too late to plant.  Farmers say getting seedlings ready to be replanted in the fields takes 40 days.  Even if the seedlings are successfully planted, the drought is also sparking conflicts over how much of the region’s limited water resources should be used to irrigate them.” Along with the impact of drought, China has just been hit with a severe earthquake about Apr 13, 2010, per a story by Malcolm Moore in the London Telegraph.  This one, at 7.1 magnitude, struck in Western China near Tibet. Reports say 1,200 people were killed and 12,000 injured. Just as the people of Iceland, Venezuela, Iran and China are all asking what is causing their problems with supposed nature, there are issues which are simply not discussed or even broached in the Rothschild controlled media.  One has to do much research with alternative media sources to even begin to arrive at some ideas on what is happening around the world to cause such enormous trouble with the several nations which thought to speak out and oppose the ruler ship of the Rothschild Cabal masters and their US puppet.  For some possibilities, let’s review some history. Secretary of Defense William Cohen On April 28, 1997, Secretary of Defense William Cohen attended a counterterrorism conference at the University of Georgia in Athens, Georgia, as sponsored by former US Senator Sam Nunn.  Reuters and a number of sources quoted the DoD News Briefing, with Secretary of Defense William S. Cohen, Q&A at the Conference on Terrorism, Weapons of Mass Destruction, and U.S. Strategy (Subsequently, the DOD reportedly deleted this page and quotation in its sources; but the quotation was heavily covered in the media at that time, to now include cnet news which reportedly confirms it). Thememoryhole.org has this on the verbatim transcript of the question and answer session as posted at the DOD web site: “After some introductory remarks about the conference, Cohen takes questions from the media in attendance.  A reporter asks a question based on the fake anthrax letters that had recently been sent to B’nai Brith.  Cohen gives a strange answer, using the occasion to mention the exotic weapons being developed by terrorists (as well as–one would assume–governments).  Here’s the exchange, taken verbatim from the transcript posted on the Defense Department’s Website: “Q: Let me ask you specifically about last week’s scare here in Washington, and what we might have learned from how prepared we are to deal with that (inaudible), at B’nai Brith. “A: Well, it points out the nature of the threat.  It turned out to be a false threat under the circumstances.  But as we’ve learned in the intelligence community, we had something called — and we have James Woolsey here to perhaps even address this question about phantom moles.  The mere fear that there is a mole within an agency can set off a chain reaction and a hunt for that particular mole which can paralyze the agency for weeks and months and years even, in a search.  The same thing is true about just the false scare of a threat of using some kind of a chemical weapon or a biological one.  There are some reports, for example, that some countries have been trying to construct something like an Ebola Virus, and that would be a very dangerous phenomenon, to say the least.  Alvin Toeffler has written about this in terms of some scientists in their laboratories trying to devise certain types of pathogens that would be ethnic specific so that they could just eliminate certain ethnic groups and races; and others are designing some sort of engineering, some sort of insects that can destroy specific crops.  Others are engaging even in an eco- type of terrorism whereby they can alter the climate, set off earthquakes, volcanoes remotely through the use of electromagnetic waves. “So there are plenty of ingenious minds out there that are at work finding ways in which they can wreak terror upon other nations.  It’s real, and that’s the reason why we have to intensify our efforts, and that’s why this is so important.” Well, all this Goldsmiths can say here is that if it’s going on (and it is, per former Secretary of Defense Cohen), we can bank on that the Rothschild Cabal and the US DOD’s DARPA agency are actively involved.  Whatever can be said of Cohen, he was no fool.  He knew what he was talking about.  It is manifestly clear that he knew what was happening because of firsthand knowledge from his work in the Pentagon. Some More History But Cohen was not the Lone Ranger on this theme.  Long before he came along, others addressed the idea of using several different forms of technology to be able to create man-made earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and weather alterations.  Without burdening the reader with this host of reports, here are just a few as taken from an article by Ray Bilger on Human Engineered Earthquakes at rense.com: One of the earliest forms of this idea surfaced in the writings and perhaps even some experiments by Nicola Tesla on Controlled Earthquakes in 1935.  Per Bilger, they were labeled by Tesla as “the art of telegeodynamics.”  Tesla was able to cause “rhythmical vibrations to pass through the Earth with almost no loss of energy,” and he could “convey these mechanical effects to the greatest terrestrial distances and produce all kinds of unique effects.” Next, Bilger transitioned his discussion to a US Senate Sub-Committee hearing in 1975 where the Chairman, Senator Claiborne Pell, said:  ”We need a treaty now… before the military leaders of the world start directing storms, manipulating climates and inducing earthquakes against their enemies.”  As Bilger concluded, Pell must have known something on this subject to prompt his words. Going forward to December 10, 1976, Bilger wrote:  “the General Assembly of the United Nations approved the ‘Convention of the Prohibition of Military or any Other Hostile Use of Environmental Modification Techniques,’ and issued a report.  Again, such a report would not have been issued if there were not technology in place capable of environmental modification, including the ability to induce earthquakes.” Bilger then quoted the June 5, 1977, New York Times which described the great earthquake which destroyed Tangshan, China on July 28, 1976, and killed over 650,000 people.  The Times said:  “Just before the first tremor at 3:42 am, the sky lit up like daylight.  The multi-hued lights, mainly white and red, were seen up to 200 miles away.  Leaves on many trees were burned to a crisp and growing vegetables were scorched on one side, as if by a fireball.”  Bilger then raised the question if these lights could be associated with Tesla technology?  (On this question, it must be noted that the Icelandic volcano at Eyjafjallajokull has been having associated lightning with it.  Live Science/Yahoo news called the lightning phenomenon a mystery.) Next Bilger came to January of 1978, when Dr. Andrija Puharich, MD, LL.D, issued a detailed research paper entitled “Global Magnetic Warfare – A Layman’s View of Certain Artificially Induced Unusual Effects on The Planet Earth During 1976 and 1977.”  In his paper, Dr. Puharich stated, “Of the many great earthquakes of 1976, there is one that demands special attention – the July 28, 1976 Tangshan, China earthquake.”  The January 1978 edition of Specula magazine ran an article which described an incredibly profound phenomenon that could be produced within the Earth by what is called the “Tesla Effect.” According to the article, “electromagnetic signals of certain frequencies can be transmitted through the Earth to form standing waves in the Earth itself.  In certain cases, coherence to this standing wave can be induced wherein a fraction of the vast, surging electromagnetic current of the Earth itself feeds into and augments the induced standing wave.  In other words, “much more energy is now present in the standing wave that the… amount being fed in from the Earth’s surface.”  By interferometer techniques, giant standing waves can be combined to produce a focused beam of very great energy.  This can be used to produce earthquakes induced at distant aiming points.” Bilger then cited Dr. Peter Beter (a former official with the Kennedy Administration), who said that, by 1977, “the Russians had placed fission-fusion-fission superbombs in certain deep undersea trenches around the Philippines.”  A related source believes that the Philippines are in the position of a “keystone” within the giant Pacific Tectonic Plate.  Russia had already been setting off lower yield undersea weapons in other areas around the Pacific Ocean causing strong earthquakes. Dr. Beter suggested that the intention was to relieve tensions all around the Pacific plate, except the Philippines where stresses would build to tremendous levels.  Then, at a certain point, the bombs around the Philippines will be set off. It is expected that this will cause incredible earthquakes and tidal waves and ultimately devastate the American West Coast.  Volcanoes erupting in the Philippines are an indication that stresses are building in the area.  (Bilger adds that readers need to understand that earthquakes and volcanoes are intimately connected and work hand in hand, with the one sometimes triggering the other, and sometimes the reverse.  An earthquake can open vents deep in the Earth which allow lava to flow up.  In other cases, the stresses driving volcanic activity can also cause earthquakes). Bilger then took note of a January 30, 1981 article in the Washington Post which reported that in 1979 there were 56 significant earthquakes in the world, and that by 1980 the annual figure was up to 71.  He then added:  “Coincidentally, in 1980 there was an increase in ELF transmissions by both Russia and the United States.” Going forward to 1981, Bilger cited Lt. Col. Thomas Bearden, a nuclear engineer and the leading Tesla researcher in the U.S.  He gave a lecture before the U.S. Psychotronics Association where he spoke of the standing waves produced by Tesla Magnifying Transmitters that were also discussed in Specula magazine in 1978.  Bearden was, per Bilger, describing how HAARP works. Bearden stated in part:  “Then, what you do is change the frequency.  If you change the frequency one way (by dephasing it), you dump the energy up in the atmosphere beyond the point on the other side of the Earth that you focused upon.  As you start ionizing the air, you can change the weather flow patterns, the jet stream, etc.  If you dump it gradually, real gradually, you influence the heck out of the weather.  It’s a great weather machine.   If you dump it sharply, you won¹t get the little ionization like that.  You will get flashes and fireballs (plasma) that will come down to the surface of the Earth.  You can cause enormous weather changes over entire regions by playing that thing back and forth.” Nicola Tesla The above references to Tesla prompt these remarks.  Niocola Tesla (1856 to 1943) was an 1884 immigrant to the United States from Serbia.  He gained fame as perhaps the world’s most important inventor of electrical and electromagnetic applications.  Today’s AC current used to power thousands of appliances (including our computers) came from his brilliant mind. One of his most devoted projects was to take electricity from the heavens and make it freely available to people with minimal costs.  In 1899, he went out to the mountains near Colorado Springs, CO and hooked up his free electricity scheme to the nearby town of Colorado Springs.  Reportedly, his first experiment was so powerful that it blew the electric lights out in the town. But 19th century and early 20th century inventor Thomas Edison was also busy on electricity as well.  But Edison had the advantage because he was financed by the fat cat bankers, including the Rockefellers/Roggenfelders.  This combine didn’t like what Tesla was doing so he was characterized by the controlled media as a “Mad Scientist.”  Unable to get financing, Tesla’s plans for free energy died out.  Edison and his money partners prevailed to establish electric power companies to sell energy commercially to the American people. Tesla died a pauper in 1943.  But both the old Soviet Union and the United States commenced a dedicated effort in WWII to locate, retrieve, secure and hide all of Tesla’s writings on electricity.  His work quickly transitioned into Top Secret military projects.  So his work passed out of the lime light for the next many years until the 1990s when the US HAARP program commenced, allegedly based on Tesla technology. HAARP This backdrop takes us to this believed Tesla technology called HAARP.  In the last dozen years or so, a number of writers have discussed HAARP at length and have suggested all kinds of possibilities on what it is doing with its huge field full of large antennas in Alaska beaming millions of watts of energy into the heavens for some ostensible purpose.  I have read material by Nick Begich, Dick Eastman, Jesse Ventura (former Governor of MN), etc discussing the different theories. One of the best reports I read was by an unnamed author who wrote at euro-med.dk in an article on Do Devils Play this HAARP?  On HAARP (the US High Frequency Active Auroral Research Program in Alaska), the report cited HAARP´s homepage and said:  “HAARP was started in Alaska in 1993.  HAARP will very quickly heat the ionosphere, which is the upper part of the atmosphere, with a focused and steerable electromagnetic beam.  By suddenly lifting the ionosphere to high altitudes it can destroy incoming rockets.  It is an experiment on the atmosphere and no one knows what it leads to. “HAARP is for military purposes, being said to be able to wipe out communicationover a wide area, penetrate the earth for many kilometers to search for tunnels,minerals, oil, subterranean military plants, detect low incoming planes.  The Prime Argus Project looked into ways to cause earthquakes through deflection of the focused electromagnetic beam from the ionosphere on to a spot, where the land plates are pressing above each other, i.e. predilection earth quake zones.” The report quoted an article of 25 years ago by Zbigniew Brzezinski that “HAARP can produce changes in the composition of the atmosphere and thus change the performance of the brain in very large populations –even make them uncapable to fight.  Brzezinski had this in mind, too, writing on the Technetronic Era, where everybody will be controlled by a small elite.  This is said to be brought about by Extremely Low Frequency ELF) waves, which is said to have been proved in thousands of experiments.”  A Mr. Eastlund was also quoted that through the HAARP system they can change the weather, by sending ELF waves into the Van Allen Belts (the sun´s electromagnetic fields deflect cosmic radiation, thus influencing the formation of clouds). The Danish writer then proceeded to bring up the recent Haiti earthquake and asked if it could be the work of HAARP?  The story cited the Boston Globe of Jan 13, 2010 and its remarks on a light seen over Haiti the night before. But My Purpose As far as the speculations of Zbigniew Brzezinski, of some 25 years ago, this is very plausible.  My check of Wikipedia on HAARP says that work on the HAARP Alaskan station started in 1993 and it was completed in 2007.  Brzezinski could have known about the project and its purposes 25 years ago.  As to earlier prototypes and their work of bombarding the heavens, who knows when and how this effort started.  For sure, it was all clouded in a Top Secret classification so there is no way we can be sure of the backdrop on HAARP. But my purpose here is not to get into any speculation on Brzezinski or what may have caused the Haiti earthquake.  For my part, it could have been manmade or it could be strictly a phenomenon of nature.  For the time being, I will leave that question as unresolved.  But for purposes here, let’s digress to the situation in Iceland, Iran, Venezuela, and China which are the theme for this Goldsmiths. Now Back to the Wisdom of Former Secretary of Defense William Cohen Here, let us revisit Iceland once more about her new trouble with an erupting volcano.  Based on the reports made by William Cohen and the many others cited above, is it possible that the tiny nation of Iceland is now faced with an erupting volcano because of its decision to oppose the Rothschild Cabal demands that Iceland pay them off for their losses?  Thus, could this volcanic eruption problem in Iceland be tied to its decision to refuse to pay off the Rothschild Cabal masters? Next, let’s motorize over to Iran, Venezuela and China and their tragic state of drought.  This writer is not completely certain of what all the Rothschilds and their puppet states like the US are doing to manipulate weather and natural forces on earth; but I’m sure the present droughts in Venezuela, China and Iran are not the work of nature.  There is something going on behind the scenes on these enemies of the Rothschild Cabal masters who rule Europe, North America and much of the rest of the world.  Isn’t it strange that Rothschild puppet nations are doing good on rain while these three Rothschild Cabal enemies are in some of the worst droughts that they have had in a hundred years.  To this list, we can also add the recent earthquake in China.  Is there a connection? Consequently, when Rothschild agent Geithner arrives in China in April, does he come to tell China what might happen if she refuses the Rothschild demands?  In the case of Afghanistan and Iraq, Rothschild/US agents visited both of them in advance and told them in blunt terms either surrender their sovereignty or the US would invade and destroy them.  Thus, I am old enough and watched events enough through the years that I would not put anything past Plato’s envisioned gold and silver rulers.  The best thing to do is expect the worse and be happy if it doesn’t get that bad. More on Weather I have already cited the weather problem in various Goldsmiths over the years. In the Goldsmiths 99 (published Sep 10, 2009), I reported that the Cabal owned and directed puppets with the US government and the US government sponsored and directed weather modification program (under DARPA—the Defense Advanced Research Projects) began bringing drought and bad weather to nations that do not play on the Cabal team.  There is much documentation establishing that DARPA is working on weather alteration/control (thru HAARP, chem-trails, etc).  I have outlined some of this data above. Rense.com has had numerous stories saying the plan is that by 2020 the US will control weather worldwide (this is the backdrop for the periodic El Nino and La Nina events—which by the way were unheard in the US until the arrival of modern history in the last ten years or so).  My own take right now is that DARPA is busy bringing drought to nations which do not play on the US team (which translates to the Rothschild Cabal team since it is synonymous with the US team). The chief beneficiary/curse of this focus by the Cabal and its colleagues at DARPA has been the Iranians.  In this vein, Iran has had a series of very significant droughts which have greatly hurt agricultural production.  I could also give numerous reports of news stories of awful drought and grain diseases in other non-Cabal controlled nations (to include Russia which has had her weather problems as well, complements of the Rothschild Cabal and its lackeys at DARPA). One of the main points of the Mickey Mouse document (cited in Understanding Money and War XIV at www.analysis-news.com) was the capability and indeed the practice of the plutocratic bankers involved to cause wars and bring on attacks on nations which do not submit to the Cabal’s plutocratic rule.  Iran, Iceland, Venezuela and China are four of those nations.  I don’t have any problem seeing weather/volcanic/earthquake warfare as being used by the Cabal to attack and hurt nations around the world which do not submit to Cabal control. In publishing the Goldsmiths 99, a reader wrote me and said:  “Mr. Bradshaw:  In recent commentaries, you opined that the cabal might be altering the weather.  I find this hard to believe.  Science has recently discovered that hot ionized solar plasma, galactic cosmic rays (charged protons from exploded stars) and other influences from outer space play a major role in determining cloud formation and weather on earth.  I doubt that the cabal is able to exert any control over these awesome cosmic forces.” While it may or may not be true that galactic cosmic rays play a major part on earth’s weather, it is true that DARPA has a weather control plan underway involving HAARP which attempts to guide and direct the jet stream across North America to bring moisture to various parts of the continent as desired.  And what are chem-trails doing?  Well, for one thing, they are polluting the atmosphere. One of the purposes of rain is to clean the air of pollutants.  I submit that among other things, one of the fallouts of the chem-trail spraying operation is to produce rain in some areas. As for as galactic powers to influence weather, I am in no position to judge how influential these forces could be.  I know about HAARP and chem-trails.  I also know that cloud seedings to make rain have been around for the last 70 or 80 years; and they are only the tip of the iceberg.  I also know about DARPA’s plans; and I am assured that if DARPA has this capability, we can bank on it that the Rothschild Cabal controls it in some way since the Cabal controls the US government. With this control, the Cabal is or will be in the position to determine which nations get rain and which do not.  In this context, it is logical that they will be sure that rain falls on land that they own/control; and drought is destined in areas which are in revolt from their ruler ship. Dick Eastman In support of my comments above, here are some comments from Dick Eastman of Yakima, WA who has done extensive research on weather modification and its purposes.  Here below are some excerpts from his Jan 2, 2010 article at rense.com on Telsa-Style Weather Control Since the Early 1990s. In discussing chem-trails, he said that “there are those who argue that the laying of ionized cloud is part of a benevolent plan to save the earth from global warming due to greenhouse-effect-producing gases in the atmosphere.  While it is true that physicist Edward Teller did make such a proposal, the last thing you should think is that weaponized weather modification has anything to do with the government secretly saving us from global warming.  Global warming (is) a deception, the result of selecting the research, suppressing research, and differentially rewarding researchers for the conclusions they reach. “Global warming is a cover for the use of weather technology by the most powerful people in the world for their own economic and geopolitical benefit. Global warming is more real than space aliens at Roswell or ray guns bringing down the twin towers of the WTC.  Increased carbon dioxide is not a threat, but a potential boon to mankind.  The global warming deception both conceals weather crimes (unlegislated crimes against humanity) for profit and it is used as an excuse for international agencies (controlled by the weather atrocity perpetrators themselves) to take over more of the economic activity of the human race… “The conspiracy is that El Niño and other high-impact weather events really are under control of powerful private interests… “One more thing: The people who are controlling the weather are more interested in destroying crops for geopolitical purposes (weaponized weather modification) and for economic purposes than for ‘benefiting farmers.’  If you buy agricultural commodities futures (rights to buy farm products in the future at a given price) and then destroy this crop around the world using CWM to raise the price (supply and demand) you really ‘make a killing’ in every sense of the word… “The Rothschild Mafia has used weaponized clandestine weather modification, to create weather disasters which have been as profitable for lending to government financing emergency spending and reproduction as it has for positioning to profit from foreknown weather shocks to agricultural futures markets, energy use and so forth.  But now the need is to disable the American population in the finishing strokes of a war of hidden sabotage (false-flag weather-catastrophes blamed on Mother Nature — just as the Kleptastrophe has been blamed on impersonal market forces). “Remember, the Rothschild Mafia can never be caught attacking anyone.  That is why they have developed these indirect means made possible in the age of knowledge-advantage warfare that people don’t even recognize as weapons being wielded by men.  (The technologies available to the Rothschild Mafia with all the defense research and development corporations in every industrial country they control and with financial resources commensurate with the trillions they have been taking in from the bogus War on Terror and the Kleptastrophe operations against us that have drained us dry)… “Discovering that global warming has been a fraud has helped us, although we have not been able to translate our discovery into the rollback of disinformation and bad legislation.  Now bear in mind that global warming has just been a cover for the increased weather disasters from weaponized clandestine weather modification — they needed something to blame for all of unusual death and destruction they have been causing. “We have failed to come to agreement about 9-11, the Kleptastrophe, and the conspiracy of Zionist Bankers — so I suspect that most people will be willing to let their minds wander far from what the mainstream news tells them…  Last point: I am about 80 percent confident that the predicted record cold snaps are not just pure Rothschild Mafia luck…  Hey, we made it through 2009.  A year in which we learned a lot that will help us do better against the Rothschild Mafia next year…” Eastman has researched and written about both chem-trails and HAARP.  While he recognizes those applications by DARPA for military purposes (which he documents), he also came to the above conclusions on the use of weather warfare to benefit the powerful Rothschild connected bankers in their manipulation of the financial markets (so if the Icelandic volcano eruptions were man-made by the Cabal, what will the volcanic ash clouds worldwide do to agricultural food production this year and who will profit accordingly?).  Though Eastman’s conclusions were on the present Rothschild use of weather manipulations to make current profits, my take is on a more sinister use in the future by the Cabal to completely control the worldwide production of food. The Bottom Line So the place we must come to is it possible that the Rothschild Cabal masters, using their puppets at DARA, are now in the process of taking over nature to bring on natural calamities to nations which do not toe the line as the masters in London demand?  Could the Cabal masters be behind the troubles now in Iceland, Iran, Venezuela and China?  Along with punishing Rothschild Cabal enemies, would such events also open the door for some huge profits for Cabal insiders?  Thus, if an insider with the Cabal had advance knowledge of the coming Icelandic volcano eruptions and resulting ash, could he have sold airline stocks short and made a barrel of profits (as interestingly happened in the 9/11 thing some years ago)? In the way of a postscript, the latest news from Iceland has it that the IMF and Nordic states have jointly approved a loan to Iceland.  While the backdrop on this development has not been revealed, it suggests that the way has been paved for Iceland to join the EU and make payments to the bankers as demanded by Rothschild ruled Britain and Holland.  My guess is that slowly in the coming days the Cabal owned media will tell us what Iceland will do to get the loans being made.  There is a high probability that the people of Iceland got the word that the Cabal will destroy them if they try to continue opposing the demands from the Rothschild Cabal masters.  My take is that Iceland has or will surrender. By the way, subscribers to www.analysis-news.com can attest to the fact that I had reported some predictions weeks ago from one Cabal source about a big fall in April with the big drops coming around April 15-22.  I had to almost apologize to subscribers on April 15th when we had not yet had any really big falls (though bonds and most commodities had taken a beating as predicted).  But sure enough, April 16 came through with a hard drop in most everything but the dollar. Putting these facts together, informed observers can verify that the evidence is substantial that the Icelandic volcano problems were pre-known.  We can bank on it that Cabal insiders were already positioned to make a barrel of money on this deal.  So, let me repeat the above question.  Is there a connection between the troubles in Iceland, Iran, Venezuela and China and the demands of the Rothschild Cabal masters? The bottom line here is that in this age of uncertainty and Rothschild Cabal fiat money manipulations, more and more people seem to be turning to gold.

US 911 Commission Offshoot Revives Idiotic “Give Militants Nukes” Scenario for Pakistan

[It seems that the desperate American controllers are reviving all the same lies that worked previously to invade Iraq, to use them once again against Pakistan and Iran.  The Graham/Talent WMD Commission is a legacy of the failed 9/11 investigation, building the same fabricated edifice of half-truths and omissions to make a case for going to war against the wrong people for the wrong reasons, instead of investigating the real authors of the attacks.  The power-mad American leadership needs a major league excuse for pushing Pakistan to accept a renewed military dictatorship under the reliable hand of Gen. Kayani, even if this requires the overpowering incentive of a massive "false flag" excuse.  US leaders warning Pakistan and India about what might happen if they  don't accept America's "gift" of  high-tech security systems for their weapons  should be taken as a threat.]

‘Pak may use surrogate Taliban to use nukes against India’

Pak may slip over nuclear weapons to the Taliban for use against India, a non-proliferation US commission has said.

Pakistan may slip over nuclear weapons to the Taliban for use against India in the event of escalated tension or war between the two neighbours, a non-proliferation US commission has said.

“If something broke out in Kashmir that reignited the vitriol between India and Pakistan, that could be an incident that could cause someone to make the decision.

“We don’t want to use these weapons, but we’re going to let our surrogate Taliban have access to these weapons and they’ll do our dirty work,” Bob Graham, head of US Commission on the Prevention of WMD proliferation and terrorism told US lawmakers at a Congressional hearing.

Graham was responding to questions from anxious lawmakers who expressed concern over the safety and security of nuclear weapons in Pakistan at a hearing convened by the House Homeland Security Committee.

“I think one of our recommendations was to work with India and Pakistan to develop some fail-safe procedures. Unlike, the US and the Soviet Union during the Cold War, where although we were strong adversaries and had the capability of destroying each other.

“We understood that we didn’t want to allow a misstep or an accidental event to become the ignition for such a war.

So we set up the red phone in the Oval Office and a whole protocol,” Graham said referring to the report of the commission released early this year.

“None of that exists between India and Pakistan. I have felt that this may be an area in which the US and Russia together, since we developed these protocols for our own benefit and the world’s benefit, might work together with India and Pakistan to try to get them to develop,” he said.

“I was encouraged that within the last month India and China have started to develop some of those fail-safe procedures. But there’s almost nothing that has been done in a similar vein between the real adversaries, which are India and Pakistan,” Graham said.

Pak Minister Charges Third party behind blame-game

Third party behind blame-game: Pak minister

Press Trust Of India

India and Pakistan blame each other for their internal security problems because of some “third interest”, Pakistani minister Firdous Ashiq Awan suggested on Wednesday and said the two countries should sit together to address “communication gaps” and “trust deficit”.

Awan, Minister for Population Welfare, said the two countries could address their concerns over terrorism through talks.

“Whatever happens in Balochistan, our people blame India and similarly whatever happens here in India, people here blame Pakistan. There is some third conspiracy also and we have to pin-point that third interest-based conspiracy,” she said during an interaction with FICCI but did not elaborate.

She said people of the two countries love each other as they have “some sort of inherited relation” but “unluckily due to trust deficits, certain communication gaps and a lot of problems related to the vested sections across the board, there are certain issues that have to be elaborated more.”

On the issue of terrorism which India says is the “core” concern vis-a-vis relations with Pakistan, Awan said her country should not be blamed as it also was a victim of the “global phenomenon” of terrorism.

“Each day, we are facing 2-3 blasts in different cities in Pakistan. This is not localised to India. Even Pakistan is going through the same turmoil,” she said.

“How we have to handle that and how we have to address this issue is another challenge for both the countries and the best way to handle that is that we should sit together,” the Pakistani minister said and pitched for resumption of the Composite Dialogue.

“We should address each other’s mindset — that we are blaming India, India is blaming Pakistan,” she said.

On the run, militants find new haven

In this image taken on Nov. 17, 2009, Pakistani troops walk through the damaged market in Sararogha, a town of the troubled Pakistani tribal region of South Waziristan along the Afghan border. – AP

ISLAMABAD: They were never routed, no matter what Pakistan claimed. Instead, the Taliban and al-Qaida fighters have merely relocated. They’re still near the Afghan border.

Months after Pakistani troops chased them from South Waziristan, these militants have established a new base farther north under the protection of an insurgent leader who has cut past deals with the Pakistani army, according to residents, militants and reports from Associated Press correspondents who visited recently.

The fighters — including Arabs, Chechens and Uzbeks — roam through markets, frequent restaurants and watch jihadi movies or surf the web at Internet cafes, their weapons propped up against the table. Pakistani troops wave them through checkpoints even though they’re armed with assault rifles and rocket launchers.

These are the new VIPs in Pakistan’s most dangerous region, North Waziristan.

The influx of these militants in North Waziristan in recent months adds to pressure on the army to launch an offensive there, and raises questions over its policy of making agreements with Gul Bahadur and other insurgent commanders who threaten US forces in Afghanistan but do not attack targets in Pakistan.

Bahadur agreed not to help his fellow militants during last year’s offensive in South Waziristan as part of an understanding reached with the army. In exchange, the army would not attack his territory to the north. Now it appears that this pact has backfired on the army, enabling militants whom Pakistan considers a threat to its security to regroup on Bahadur’s lands.

The military says it is not moving into North Waziristan because it does not have enough troops to do so effectively. Critics say the force is holding back because it does not want to sever alliances with militant factions fighting just across the border in Afghanistan, believing they will one day serve Pakistan’s interests there.

That makes North Waziristan an enticing destination for extremists, even with US missiles regularly pounding the region. All but two of the 27 missile strikes fired from unmanned drones since January have hit targets in the north, according to a count by the AP.

Newly arrived Pakistani Taliban, Arab and Uzbek militants from South Waziristan are now commonly seen in the north’s major towns, Mir Ali and Miramshah, which are under the control of Bahadur, according to residents there and two AP reporters in the region.

The Pakistani Taliban has set up a command and control center in Mir Ali bazaar, where it communicates by radio with other groups in the tribal belt, witnesses say.

All those interviewed declined to give their names, citing fear of retribution by either the Taliban or Pakistani security forces. The AP reporters also asked to remain anonymous for the same reason.

“Under tribal customs and traditions, we are bound to host brothers from South Waziristan. We are like brothers and we support each other,” said a close aide to Bahadur. “We have no concern that our attitude toward the Pakistani Taliban in our area will invite an army offensive. Why should it? Neither we nor the Pakistani Taliban men have caused any problems for the army in North Waziristan.”

Before launching the offensive in South Waziristan, the Pakistani army acknowledged striking the deal with Bahadur.

On Wednesday, army spokesman Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas denied the force had any ongoing deal with Bahadur not to attack his territory, saying the local administration may have an arrangement with tribal leaders in the area to ensure peace there.

But security analysts and residents disputed this, saying there was clearly a truce of some sort in the region.

Abbas insisted the army had not ceded the north to militants, saying the army had about 25,000 troops stationed there that carry out small-scale, targeted operations against insurgents.

Any such operations are rarely reported.

Despite the remarks by Bahadur’s aide, there are signs the new arrivals may be straining relations with their hosts.

The Pakistani Taliban circulated a leaflet two months ago calling on their fighters to avoid any “criminal activity” and interference in the internal affairs of the region.

The army began its operations in South Waziristan in October against the Pakistani Taliban, an umbrella grouping of militants that has claimed responsibility for many of the hundreds of suicide bombs to hit the country over the last two years.

It retook the area in about two months, but most of the insurgents fled rather than fight and none of the top commanders were captured or killed.

In Washington, a senior military official confirmed that fighters scattered from South Waziristan, including some to the north and others into Afghanistan. They included foreign fighters, he said on condition of anonymity because it involves intelligence.

The army has since launched air and ground operations in the Orakzai tribal area, where it says many of those who fled South Waziristan have ended up. But several analysts said they believed North Waziristan was home to most of the insurgents, including their leaders.

“The Taliban are receiving undeclared protection and shelter there in North Waziristan. The issue is now for how long this can be sustained,” said Imtiaz Gul, director of the Center for Research and Security Studies in Islamabad. “If you look at the growing convergence between the Pakistan and the US military, it will be difficult for Gul Bahadur to keep these people and not be disturbed.”

Bahadur, whose forces do not carry out attacks within Pakistan, is regarded as “good Taliban” by Pakistani security agencies. But he and other allied insurgents leaders in the north, among them Jalaluddin Haqqani, regularly dispatch men to fight US and Nato troops in Afghanistan.

US officials have praised Pakistan’s actions against the Taliban in the northwest over the last 18 months, a change from two years ago when their refrain was a near constant “Pakistan must do more.” They have also said they understood Pakistan’s reasons for not going into North Waziristan immediately.

But an uptick in bombings in recent weeks in Pakistani cities after three month of relative calm will add to calls for action in the north.

“The strikes over the last couple of days mean the Taliban have reorganized,” said Mahmood Shah, a former security chief for Pakistan’s tribal regions. “I understand the complexities of launching an operation in North Waziristan, but I think it will become a compulsion.”

Some residents said they saw signs that a military offensive might come — from soldiers repairing checkpoints on previously abandoned roads, to Pakistani Taliban fighters using the north as a base.

“After the military operation in South Waziristan we have seen Arabs, Uzbeks and Pakistani Taliban in Miran Shah market,” said a school teacher in that town near the Afghan border. “I am happy with the agreement between Gul Bahadur and Pakistan, but I fear another military operation in our area when I see these people having free movement.”

The owner of a pharmacy in the same town had similar fears.

“I am not hopeful about the future of the Gul Bahadur agreement when I see what’s happening on the ground,” he said.

The Guy Who Filmed the Polish Plane Crash Was Allegedly Assassinated In Kiev

The guy who filmed the shots fired at the POLISH PLANE CRASH

WAS ASSASSINATED

” Author of the video seen by everyone by now has been stabbed near Kijow on 4.15 and transported in critical condition to the hospital in Kijow. On 4.16 three unidentified individuals unplugged him from life support system and stabbed him 3 more times. Andrij was prenounced dead that afternoon. Russian government claims it was a coincidence. “

more about “Polish Crash Site–Gunshots heard“, posted with vodpod