US Encouraging Pakistani Nuclear Horn (Dan 8:8)

  
US military aid better situates Pakistan to wage war against India: Expert

Kashmir Monitor
THURSDAY, 21 MAY 2015

WASHINGTON: The American military assistance to Pakistan, a latest list of which was recently put out by the independent Congressional Research Service (CRS), better situates its military to wage a war against India and not to fight terrorists, a noted US expert on South Asia has said.

“This assistance better situates Pakistan to wage war against India while doing nothing to shape Pakistan’s will or capabilities to target terrorists and insurgents,” Christine Fair, author of several well-researched books on Pakistan and its military wrote in a recent article, days after the CRS in a report listed out the military hardware including fighter jets that the US has given to Pakistan.
“The items that Washington has conveyed to Pakistan have little utility in fighting insurgents and terrorists; rather, they enable Pakistan to better fight India, a democratic American partner that has long endured Pakistani predations,” Fair said.

A new American policy towards Pakistan, rooted in sober realism, is long overdue, she argued in her recent piece in National Interest.

Since 9/11, the United States has lavished Pakistan with nearly $8 billion in security assistance, $11 billion in economic assistance, and 13 billion in the lucrative programme known as Coalition Support Funds (CSF), she said referring to the CRS report.

Since then, Pakistan has availed of significant US weapons systems and armaments, including: a used Perry-class missile frigate; 18 new and 14 used nuclear-capable F-16s; an array of munitions (i.e 500 air-to-air missiles, 1,450 2,000-pound bombs); 1,600 kits that allow Pakistan to convert gravity bombs into laser-guided smarter bombs, 2,007 anti-armor missiles, 100 Harpoon anti-ship missiles, 500 Sidewinder air-to-air missiles, seven naval guns, 374 armored personnel carriers, and much more, she said.

A transfer of 15 reconnaissance unmanned aerial vehicles is also under way.

“This list suggests that Pakistan’s insurgents have developed air, naval and ground-force capabilities,” Fair said.

According to the US author, Washington provides Pakistan access to these weapon systems even despite Pakistan’s failures to comply with the numerous conditionalities which the US Congress has emplaced upon such assistance.

“Currently, the US provides this assistance under various waivers. In doing so, Washington erodes its own credibility, demeans its own laws, and rewards Pakistan for engaging in the very activities that the United States seeks to curtail.

Worse, given the fungibility of funds, the United States has subsidized Pakistan’s investment in its jihadi and nuclear capabilities,” Fair said.

 

Taliban Continue To Threaten Pakistan (Daniel 8:8)

Gunmen kidnap seven Pakistani police in Punjab attack

LAHORE/PESHAWAR, Pakistan | By Mubasher Bukhari and Jibran Ahmad

(Reuters) – Dozens of gunmen from criminal gangs kidnapped seven Pakistani police from a checkpoint in the normally peaceful province of Punjab on Sunday, officials said.
The kidnapping, and further fighting between insurgents and the military in the northwest of the country, underscored the range of security problems facing Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif.
Pakistan, a nuclear-armed nation of 180 million, is beset by a Taliban Islamist insurgency in the northwest and a separatist insurgency in the west. Murders, kidnappings and extortion by criminal gangs are common. Sectarian violence is growing.
Sunday’s attack, by gunmen from different gangs, targeted a police checkpoint in Obaro, inside Punjab but at the intersection of three provinces, said District Police Officer Sohail Chatha.
“We have launched a rescue operation,” he said.
A statement from Sharif’s office said he took “serious notice” of the kidnapping.
Police are poorly trained, paid and equipped. Rather than instituting reforms, Sharif’s government has handed much of the responsibility for security to the powerful military, which has a history of mounting coups and is frequently accused of extrajudicial killings.
In separate developments, the military said air strikes killed 44 insurgents on Saturday in Khyber and North Waziristan, two remote, mountainous northwestern areas bordering Afghanistan.
The military said five soldiers and 27 militants were killed in fighting in Khyber on Thursday. Access to the areas is restricted and it is difficult to independently verify casualty figures.
Tirah Valley in Khyber is a key smuggling corridor into Afghanistan where militants have many small bases. North Waziristan was the Taliban’s last major stronghold until the military launched an offensive there last June.
Residents and officials confirmed at least nine deaths from the bombing in Tirah and seven in North Waziristan.
“‎Two fighter jets started bombing in Tirah valley on Saturday morning for two hours,” said 58-year old tribal elder Sakhi Jan.
He said his family fled but his younger brother remained to stop militants from occupying the house. The brother said residents saw militants bring out nine bodies and 13 injured militants.
A local government official quoting tribal elders said around a dozen people were killed in Tirah valley.
In North Waziristan, Pakistani air strikes killed seven militants in two locations, a resident said.
“Local, Punjabi, Afghan and foreign militants are living here,” he said. “Sometimes the war planes target their positions but militants have become very clever and don’t get together in large numbers.”
A security official in Mir Ali, North Waziristan, said around a dozen militants had been killed.
(Writing by Katharine Houreld; editing by John Stonestreet)

Pakistan Continues To Encourage Terrorism (Dan 8:8)

 

Pakistan court grants bail to alleged leader of Mumbai terror attack

Jon Boone in Islamabad 
Thursday 18 December 2014 15.25 EST

One day after Pakistan’s prime minister vowed to crack down on terrorism, a court has granted bail to the man accused of masterminding the deadly 2008 assault on Mumbai.

The decision by an anti-terrorism court in Rawalpindi to release Zaki-ur-Rahman Lakhvi after finding insufficient evidence to link him to the attacks drew sharp criticism from New Delhi.

The country has long demanded action against Lashkar-e-Taiba, the terrorist group co-founded by Lakhvi that was behind the three-day assault by 10 young “fidayeen” suicide fighters in which 166 people died.

Investigators have copious amounts of evidence provided by Ajmal Kasab, the sole survivor of the attack team, and David Headley, a Pakistani-American extremist who conducted surveillance operations on the Taj Mahal Palace hotel and other targets in Mumbai.

The Indian home minister, Rajnath Singh, called the decision “very unfortunate”. “India has given enough evidence [against Lakhvi]. We expect the Pakistan government to appeal at the earliest,” he said.

Lakhvi’s lawyer said his client had been granted bail on the basis of surety bonds of more than £6,000 and could be free in under a week.

Following the massacre by the Pakistani Taliban of 141 people at a school in Peshawar this week, Pakistan’s prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, vowed his country would “continue the war against terrorism until the last terrorist is eliminated”.

He promised there “will be no differentiation between ‘good’ and ‘bad’ Taliban”, a reference to the long history of Pakistan’s clandestine support for anti-India militant groups, such as Lashkar-e-Taiba.

Pakistani Horn Once Again Harbors Terrorism

Pakistan court grants bail to alleged Mumbai attacks mastermind

By Afp

Published: 09:49 EST, 18 December 2014 | Updated: 09:50 EST, 18 December 2014

 

An Indian soldier aims his weapon towards The Taj Mahal Hotel during the 2008 terror attacks in Mumbai, which killed 166 people and was blamed on the Pakistani militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba ©Pedro Ugarte (AFP/File)

A Pakistani court Thursday granted bail to the alleged mastermind of the 2008 terror attacks in Mumbai, lawyers told AFP, prompting India to demand an appeal.

The 60-hour siege on India’s economic capital left 166 people dead and was blamed on the banned Pakistani militant group Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT).

Relations between the two nuclear-armed rivals worsened dramatically after the carnage, in which 10 gunmen attacked luxury hotels, a popular cafe, a train station and a Jewish centre.

Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi, accused of masterminding events, was granted bail by a judge in the capital Islamabad.

“We had moved a bail application with the Islamabad anti-terror court on December 10, today the judge granted bail to my client after hearing arguments from both sides,” Lakhvi’s lawyer Rizwan Abbasi told AFP.

Prosecutor Mohammad Chaudhry Azhar confirmed the court had granted bail.

Indian Home Minister Rajnath Singh said the decision was “very unfortunate”.

“India has given enough evidence (against Lakhvi). We expect the Pakistan government to appeal at the earliest,” he told journalists in Delhi.

The court’s ruling comes a day after Pakistani Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif vowed to crack down on terror groups in Pakistan, after Taliban gunmen massacred 148 people, mostly teenagers, at a school.

Sharif on Wednesday announced that a six-year moratorium on the death penalty would be lifted for those convicted of terror offences.

The horror of the Mumbai carnage played out on live television around the world, as commandos battled the heavily-armed gunmen, who arrived by sea on the evening of November 26.

It took the authorities three days to regain full control of the city and New Delhi has long said there is evidence that “official agencies” in Pakistan were involved in plotting the attack.

- Traumatic attacks -

Islamabad denies the charge but LeT’s charitable arm Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD), seen as a front for the militant group, operates openly in the country.

LeT founder Hafiz Saeed also leads a high-profile existence despite a $10 million US government bounty offered for his capture, regularly appearing on TV and addressing large public gatherings of his followers.

As well as Mumbai, LeT is also accused of involvement in militancy in Kashmir, the disputed Himalayan region that is the source of much of Pakistan and India’s friction.

Seven Pakistani suspects have been charged with planning and financing the attacks but the failure to advance their trials has been a major obstacle to normalising ties between Pakistan and India.

Delhi has accused Islamabad of prevaricating over the trials, while Pakistan has claimed India failed to hand over crucial evidence.

The sole surviving gunman from Mumbai, Pakistani-born Mohammed Ajmal Kasab, was hanged in India in 2012.

The attacks traumatised India, exposing the antiquated weapons and methods of the local police force and revealing crucial gaps in the country’s defences.

They also derailed a nascent peace process between nuclear-armed India and Pakistan.

In the wake of the Peshawar massacre on Tuesday, Sharif said Pakistan would not distinguish between “good Taliban and bad Taliban” as it seeks to crush the scourge of homegrown Islamist militancy.

But scepticism will remain, particularly in India.

Analyst Pervez Hoodbhoy said Thursday’s development would hurt ties with India.

“After the Peshawar massacre there was an outpouring of sympathy for Pakistan from many countries, including India. But this will pass soon,” he told AFP.

“By selectively attacking the ‘bad’ terrorists in Waziristan, while protecting those who have committed atrocities in other countries, Pakistan is on a weak wicket.”

Pakistan has long been accused of playing a “double game” with militants, supporting groups it thinks it can use for its own strategic ends.

Many Pakistanis regard the struggle against what they see as India’s “occupation” of Kashmir as a just fight, and are prepared to tolerate groups engaged in it.

Pakistan and India both control part of Kashmir but claim the whole of the territory and have fought two of their three wars over it since independence from Britain in 1947.

Ten gunmen went on the rampage and attacked luxury hotels, a popular cafe, a train station and a Jewish centre in Mumbai

Supporters of Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) shout slogans against India and the US during a 2012 rally in Lahore ©Arif Ali (AFP)

The United States has offered a $10 million bounty for the capture of Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) founder Hafiz Saeed, seen here addressing a rally in Lahore, on May 25, 2012 ©Arif Ali (AFP/File)

Pakistan has declared three days of national mourning over the school massacre in Peshawar, which has sparked national outrage and candlelight vigils in major cities such as this one in Karachi, on December 17, 2014 ©Asif Hassan (AFP)

 A Pakistani soldier stands guard at the site of the militants’ attack on a school in Peshawar, on December 18, 2014 as Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif vowed to crack down on terror groups ©A Majeed (AFP)