Islamachic

These shirts are big in Pok-E-Stan...

China Draws Line in the Sand

Not much was reported about this yesterday.  If I'm understanding this correctly, this is the most significant story of the year.

In the wake of the US raid in Abbottabad that killed Osama bin Laden, China has “warned in unequivocal terms that any attack on Pakistan would be construed as an attack on China”, a media report claimed today.

The warning was formally conveyed by the Chinese foreign minister at last week's China-US strategic dialogue and economic talks in Washington, The News daily quoted diplomatic sources as saying. China also advised the USa to “respect Pakistan's sovereignty and solidarity”, the report said.

Yet we're still giving Pakistan money. 

Why would China take this stance?

From June 14, 2010.

U.S. military officials and geologists have discovered mineral deposits in Afghanistan potentially worth over $908 billion, the Pentagon confirmed Monday.

Vast supplies of minerals such as iron, copper and gold, all with worldwide technological applications.

Meanwhile...

Indian intelligence agencies now have credible evidence of their own that several hundred of the Chinese working in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir are People's Liberation Army engineers. They are in the process of verifying if these Chinese military engineers are engaged in some sort of military construction like bunkers.

The startling confirmation that hundreds of Chinese military engineers are in PoK has come against the stout official denial by China that its military was not present on the Pakistan side of Kashmir. In the past, US intelligence has told India about Chinese military presence in PoK.

Isn't Way Past Time to Cut These Pajama Wearing Douches Off?

We send Pakistan billions.  They hide, enable, and encourage Islamic radicals and terrorists.  I know why we've been funding them.  I get that.  But there comes a time when the threat of turning their country into glass becomes a bigger motivator than bribery.  I think that time is now.

Yusuf Raza Gilani will seek to restore some dignity in an address to the nation after the humiliation caused when American forces killed Osama bin Laden at a compound close to Pakistan's main military academy in Abbottabad last week without alerting Pakistan.

A senior government source close to the prime minister said while Mr Gilani will take an aggressive stand to shore up the government's position.

The source said: "The Prime Minister will say that the United States should not have bypassed Pakistan. We have made a huge contribution in fighting terrorism. We've arrested close to 100 al-Qaeda people, including Khalid Sheikh Mohammed.

"We'll take appropriate action if any further violation takes place. We will defend our air space by any means we have."

Oh, by the way...SMART POWER!

What Kind of Evil is This?

Your daily update on the "religion of peace"...

The lifeless bodies of two tiny babies are being given their final bath before burial in Karachi, after they were left to die in the southern Pakistani city's garbage dumps.

"They can only have been one or two days old," says volunteer worker Mohammad Saleem, pointing at the two small corpses being gently washed by his colleagues at a charity's morgue. 

In the conservative Muslim nation, where the birth of children outside of marriage is condemned and adultery is a crime punishable by death under strict interpretations of Islamic law, infanticide is a crime on the rise.

More than 1,000 infants -- most of them girls -- were killed or abandoned to die in Pakistan last year according to conservative estimates by the Edhi Foundation, a charity working to reverse the grim trend.

The infanticide figures are collected only from Pakistan's main cities, leaving out huge swathes of the largely rural nation, and the charity says that in December alone it found 40 dead babies left in garbage dumps and sewers.

Kazmi recounts the discovery of the burnt body of a six-day-old infant who had been strangled. Another child was found on the steps of a mosque having been stoned to death on the orders of an extremist imam who has since disappeared, he says.

"Do not murder, lay them here," reads a sign hanging outside the charity's Karachi base where it has left cradles in the hope that parents will abandon their unwanted children there, instead of leaving them to die.

Hope and Change Comes to Pakistan - Thousands Protest Barack Obama

The air is coming out of the balloon. From Reuters:

Supporters of the Pakistani Islamist party Jamat-e-Islami protest in Karachi, January 25, 2009. The protest was organised by Jamat-e-Islami party against military operations and drone attacks in tribal areas. U.S. drones fired missiles into Pakistan late on Friday killing 17 people, intelligence officials and residents said, in the first such strike since Barack Obama became U.S. president.

Meanwhile...The Chinese have fashioned a voodoo doll in Obama's likeness and are using it for their own selfish gains. Here, the Chinese use the Obama doll to manipulate him into announcing a stimulus plan directing a trillion dollars be spent on worthless infrastructure projects.

Joe Biden Going to Pakistan to Defuse Tensions

Let me see if I understand this. America is going to repair its reputation of arrogance with Obama and Biden? Anyone else see something fundamentally wrong here?

United States vice-president-elect Joseph Biden will arrive in Pakistan on a two-day visit this week to defuse the tension between Pakistan and India after the Mumbai terror attacks, a private TV channel reported on Sunday.

The channel quoted diplomatic sources as saying that a high-level congressional delegation would also accompany Biden.

The delegation would meet President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani to discuss the war on terror in Pakistan, Pak-India relations and a $15 billion aid package for Islamabad.

The sources said the US delegation is likely to arrive in Pakistan on January 9.

Crank Call Fuels India-Pakistan Tensions

Those crazy Jerky Boys are at it again.

A man pretending to be India's foreign minister called Pakistan's president and talked in a "threatening" manner during the Mumbai terror attacks, prompting Pakistan to put its air force on high alert, a security official and a news report said Saturday.

The call by a man identifying himself as Indian Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee was put through to President Asif Ali Zardari on Nov. 28, said the security official, who declined to be identified, citing the sensitivity of the issue.

"India through diplomatic channels has informed the Pakistani Foreign Ministry that Pranab Mukherjee made no such call," he said. "Now what still needs to be checked is who made this threatening call."

Dawn newspaper said the country's air force was put on high alert in response to the telephone call. It said it came from a New Delhi number, but that Indian officials believed the caller ID could have been manipulated.

A day after the call, two Pakistani security officials warned the government would pull its troops from the anti-terrorism fight along the border with Afghanistan in order to respond to any Indian military mobilization.

During a briefing, one of those officials said someone from the Indian Foreign Ministry had called "a top Pakistani personality" and threatened military action if Pakistan did not cooperate with New Delhi.

Pakistan and India have fought three wars in 60 years, two over the disputed territory of Kashmir. Despite improved relations since 2004, mistrust on both sides remains high.

U.S. and Nato Vehicles Destroyed by Militants in Pakistan

Once again Pakistan shows us why it cannot be trusted in the war on terror.

Militants blasted their way into two transport terminals in Pakistan on Sunday and torched more than 160 vehicles destined for U.S.-led troops in Afghanistan, in the biggest assault yet on a vital military supply line, officials said.

The U.S. military said its losses in the raid near the northwestern city of Peshawar would have only a "minimal" impact on its operations against resurgent Taliban-led militants in Afghanistan.

Up to 75 percent of supplies for Western forces in landlocked Afghanistan pass through Pakistan after being unloaded from ships at the Arabian sea port of Karachi. NATO is already seeking an alternative route through Central Asia.

The attack at the Portward Logistic Terminal reduced a section of the vast walled compound to a smoldering junkyard.

Terminal manager Kifayatullah Khan said armed men flattened the gate before dawn with a rocket-propelled grenade, shot dead a guard and set fire to a total of 106 vehicles, including about 70 Humvees.

An Associated Press reporter who visited the depot saw six rows of destroyed Humvees and military trucks parked close together, some of them on flatbed trailers, all of them gutted and twisted by the flames.

Khan said shipping documents showed they were destined for U.S. forces and the Western-trained Afghan National Army.

The attackers fled after a brief exchange of fire with police, who arrived about 40 minutes later, Khan said.

The nine other guards who were on duty but stood helplessly aside put the number of assailants at 300, Khan said, though police official Kashif Alam said there were only 30.

UPDATE: Video report:

BREAKING: U.K and U.S. Had to Intervene to Keep India from Attacking Pakistan

It's a real powder keg over there right now.

BRIT and American officials had to intervene to prevent India attacking Pakistan in the aftermath of the Mumbai terror attacks, it was claimed today.

Wajid Shamsul Hassan, the Pakistani High Commissioner in London, said that he learned from his sources that India was about to launch a military strike to “teach Pakistan a lesson”.

Mr Hassan, who made his claim in an interview with the BBC, said that he had alerted Pakistan’s President Asif Ali Zardari to the threat.

He said that the President in turn urgently contacted high level British and American officials who intervened to calm the situation.

Rice to Pakistan: Act Now or America Will

Or maybe we should let India act. Still. Someone has to die.

US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice has told Pakistan that there is ‘irrefutable evidence’ of involvement of elements in this country in the Mumbai terror attacks and it had no option but to act urgently and effectively to avert a strong international response.

Rice ‘pushed’ the Pakistani leaders to move against the perpetrators of the terror strikes warning that ‘otherwise, the US will act,’ the 'Dawn' reported on Saturday.

The clear message was conveyed to Pakistan's top leadership by Rice during her brief stopover in Islamabad on Thursday, diplomatic sources said, giving credence to the report.

India Has Proof that Mumbai Terrorists were Trained by Pakistani Intelligence Agency

Things could get out of hand real quick.

More than a week after the Mumbai attack, sources have told NDTV that India has proof that the ISI mastermined the Mumbai attack. Sources in fact say that they are 100% certain that the attack was authorised by Pakistan's intelligence agency. They say the attack was very well organised, with sophisticated equipment and logistics.

Sources say India has specific evidence on the ISI's role -- the names of the ISI trainers and the names of the places where the terrorists were trained. In fact sources say it doesn't appear that the terrorists simply took a chance and hijacked an Indian boat to come to Mumbai. There was definitely more planning than that.

Sources say that given the close links between the ISI and the army, they find it hard to imagine that the army wasn't aware of this plot. But here's a crucial point. They say they don't believe President Asif Ali Zardari's civilian government is involved. In fact they described Zardari as irrelevant -- even as a power tussle takes place between him and the army-ISI combine.

Sources say the Mumbai attack could have been one way of the army and the ISI reasseerting that they call the shots and that there could be a strategy by the army to take over power if tensions with India significantly rise.

The other important information is that Admiral Mike Mullen, the head of the US joint chiefs of staff, has told Islamabad they have to arrest Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) chief Hafeez Sayeed. And that there is no point denying it. The Americans have evidence. Sources in fact say America has a lot of evidence on the attacks and has shared that information with India.

Meanwhile:

India on Wednesday warned that all options were open in dealing with Pakistan after last week's attacks on Mumbai, as the United States pressured Islamabad to show urgent cooperation with the probe.

Speaking at a joint news conference with visiting US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice, Foreign Minister Pranab Mukherjee said there was "no doubt" that the militants had come from and were coordinated from Pakistan.

"What action will be taken by the government will depend on the response we have from the Pakistan authorities," he said, referring to India's demand that Pakistan hand over 20 terrorist suspects.

"I am expecting the response, (and) after obtaining the response, whatever the government considers necessary to protect its territorial integrity, safety and security of its citizens, the government will do that," he warned.

He said he had told Rice "that there is no doubt the terrorists were individuals who came from Pakistan and whose controllers are in Pakistan."

Save the world Obama!

Pakistan Bracing for Airstrike by India

Dogs of war and whatnot:

PAKISTAN was bracing last night for a retaliatory airstrike by India against the sprawling headquarters of the al-Qa'ida-linked Lashkar-e-Toiba terrorist organisation near Lahore.

As Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari warned the LET militants "had the power to precipitate war in the region", India demanded that Islamabad hand over a list of about 20 people, including India's most-wanted man Dawood Ibrahim.

India's military chiefs were exerting strong pressure on the country's political leaders to give permission to attack the headquarters, an 80ha site at Muridke, close to the Punjab capital of Lahore, just across the border from India.

Indian Army Official: Mumbai Terrorists Came from Pakistan

This will not be good for India/Pakistan relations. Not good at all.

Militants who staged multiple attacks in the Indian city of Mumbai, killing at least 125 people and injuring hundreds more, came from Pakistan, a senior military official said on Thursday.

"They are from across the border and perhaps from Faridkot, Pakistan. They tried to pretend that they were from Hyderabad," Major General R.K. Hooda, leading the military operation to flush out the extremists, told reporters.

And this from the Times of India:

Strategic gurus and security analysts in the US and from across the world are examining Pakistan's role in terrorism following yet another terror episode in India ending with fingers pointed at its widely-reviled neighbour.

While initial reports from India suggested the Mumbai carnage was a localised attack by militant malcontents in India because of the "Deccan Mujaheddin" decoy that was used to claim responsibility, evidence cited by Indian army and security experts based on phone intercepts, nature of weaponry, mode of entry by sea etc., has quickly focused the attention on Pakistan.

The statement by India's normally cautious and restrained prime minister, Manmohan Singh, that groups based across the border, a thinly-disguised reference to Pakistan, has also galvanized the strategic and security community into examining Islamabad's role in the region that has already been subjected to scrutiny in the past.

The report also said the apparent focus on killing or capturing foreign businesspeople, specifically US and UK nationals, which has never occurred before, also suggested "a wider global anti-Western agenda." This stands in contrast to the national issues that appeared to motivate Indian Mujahideen, it said.

Experts also said the heavy weaponry, grenades, and the sustained attack pointed to intense training and planning beyond the scope of indigenous groups.

Pakistan and U.S. Have a Deal on Airstrikes

I think this arrangement has been obvious for some time considering the Pakistanis don't do anything but whine every time we kill people inside their borders. I mean, they don't shoot at us anymore. It also explains the neophyte Obama's comments during the debate that he would strike Al Qaeda in Pakistan even without Pakistan's permission. That is to say, he already knew we had their permission. He was just acting all John Wayne for the cameras. By the way, it doesn't make feel all that safe when Obama and the Washington Post announce our foreign policy strategies to the public.

The United States and Pakistan reached tacit agreement in September on a don't-ask-don't-tell policy that allows unmanned Predator aircraft to attack suspected terrorist targets in rugged western Pakistan, according to senior officials in both countries. In recent months, the U.S. drones have fired missiles at Pakistani soil at an average rate of once every four or five days.

The officials described the deal as one in which the U.S. government refuses to publicly acknowledge the attacks while Pakistan's government continues to complain noisily about the politically sensitive strikes.

The arrangement coincided with a suspension of ground assaults into Pakistan by helicopter-borne U.S. commandos. Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari said in an interview last week that he was aware of no ground attacks since one on Sept. 3 that his government vigorously protested.

Officials described the attacks, using new technology and improved intelligence, as a significant improvement in the fight against Pakistan-based al-Qaeda and Taliban forces. Officials confirmed the deaths of at least three senior al-Qaeda figures in strikes last month.
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Zardari said that he receives "no prior notice" of the airstrikes and that he disapproves of them. But he said he gives the Americans "the benefit of the doubt" that their intention is to target the Afghan side of the ill-defined, mountainous border of Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), even if that is not where the missiles land.

Here's a really cool video that details how the U.S. military works those drones.

PAKISTAN AIR STRIKES KILL 60 MILITANTS

Let's hope this is a sincere effort. It appears Pakistan may be putting an end to its double game.

Pakistan's military says its warplanes have killed about 60 Islamist militants in a strike in the northwestern Swat Valley.

A spokesman for the military says fighter jets bombed a big militant training camp and Taliban cave hideouts deep in the mountains.

He says sources from the area have confirmed that 60 militants have been killed.

FLORIDA COLLEGE STUDENT ARRESTED IN TRIBAL REGIONS OF PAKISTAN

No doubt spreading the word that hope and change are coming.

A U.S. citizen was arrested on unspecified charges Monday in a rugged tribal area of Pakistan that borders Afghanistan and is forbidden to most foreigners, a Pakistani official said.

Jude Kenan, a Florida college student, was arrested in Shabqadar, in the Charsadda district of the Mohmand Agency in North Waziristan, said Pakistan Police Station House Officer Qayum Khan.

Kenan was leaving the tribal areas through the Yakaghund police checkpoint when he was arrested, Khan said.

The only foreigners allowed in the district are those permitted by the Interior Ministry.

Authorities said Kenan had a U.S. passport as well as a camera, laptop and dagger. Kenan said he was in the region to meet "Habibullah," the police official said.

Habibullah is a proper name in Afghanistan and is the name of an Afghan detainee who died in U.S. custody in 2002. The name means "God's beloved" or "God's favorite" in Arabic.

Kenan has been moved to the Shabqadar police station for further questioning, Khan said.

RISING TIDE OF IMMIGRANTS UNSETTLES ATHENS

Another battle in the war to end all wars seems lost.

About 80,000 migrants have traveled to Greece this year and decided to stay illegally, according to the authorities, who say the country can no longer handle the task of guarding the European Union's southeast flank.

While initial problems with the flood of migrants from Africa and the Middle East who are desperate to enter Europe centered on the Aegean islands, migrants are now wreaking havoc in the capital.

The historic center of Athens has been riven by several street battles in recent months, involving what the police characterize as rival groups, often involved in dealing drugs, from Afghanistan, Iraq and war-torn African countries wielding swords, axes and machetes.

After 11 people were hurt in one such brawl in late August, the police began 24-hour patrolling of the area. Store owners and residents are leaving the busy central shopping and restaurant district.

The unrest in Athens has triggered a backlash from the far-right party Laos, whose popularity has jumped to 5.4 percent in opinion polls from 3.5 percent when it entered Parliament a year ago.

"The city center has been taken hostage by gangs of illegal immigrants with knives - isn't it about time we asked ourselves if we have too many of them?" a Laos legislator, Antonis Georgiadis, said during a recent television debate. He is not related to the immigration official.

Police figures show that most immigrants arrested on drug-related charges in central Athens this year were from war-torn states like Sudan, Afghanistan, Iraq and Pakistan.

PAKISTAN AWAKENING: TRIBES TURN AGAINST TALIBAN

Shades of Iraq:

Intensive Pakistani military action in the border areas has emboldened several tribes to turn against Taliban militants.

The Salarzai tribe in Bajaur, where the military is conducting a bloody campaign against militants, has formed a militia to throw the Taliban out of their area.

The operation in Bajaur has caused heavy civilian casualties and forced 300,000 to flee their homes. But the intensity of the fighting has sent out a strong message of the military’s determination, and made tribal leaders realise that even staying neutral may invite the wrath of the authorities.

On Friday about 400 men brandishing weaponry that ranged from rocket launchers and Kalashnikovs to ancient rifles gathered in the Bajauri town of Raghagan to chant support for the Pakistani government.

The Lashkar, or militia, had gathered to meet a group of journalists taken to Bajaur by the military to show that their operation had the support of locals.

The Salarzai militia is at the vanguard of several tribes on the Pakistani-Afghan border that have formed militias to keep the Taliban – and hence western-backed military operations against them – out of their areas.

Last week they burnt the offices of local Taliban commanders and killed half a dozen fighters.

Many people interviewed in the frontier areas said they had suffered enough of the Taliban’s summary justice. Many thought that local criminals had adopted the dress of the Taliban.

Military officials said tribesmen in other districts of Bajaur were raising militias to expel foreign militants. The next militia expected to be raised may be from the Mamund district even though some Arabs linked to al Qa’eda had family links with the valley.

When thousands of al Qa’eda and Taliban militants fled the US-led invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, the tribes sheltered them, viewing them as successors of the mujahideen who fought the Soviet occupiers of Afghanistan in the 1980s.

In 2003, Islamabad launched army operations at Washington’s behest in the tribal belt, especially the notorious Waziristan area, but civilian deaths helped to radicalise and fire up many more tribesmen against the government.

FATWA AGAINST PAKISTANI PRESIDENT FOR "FLIRTING" WITH SARAH PALIN

Islamic extremists and Democrats. Not seeing a whole lot of difference here.

Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari seems to be heading towards fresh trouble as the prayer leader of the Lal Masjid in the heart of Islamabad has issued a fatwa against him.

Maulana Abdul Ghafar, the prayer leader, seems to be irked by Zardari's "you're gorgeous" compliment to US vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin during a meeting.

When Zardari was asked to keep shaking hands with Palin for the cameras, he said, "If he's (the aide) insisting, I might hug you."

He said the act was un-Islamic and unbecoming of a head of state of a Muslim country.

Maulana also said that Zardari shamed the entire Pakistani by publicly making indecent gestures towards Palin in Washington last Thursday.

PAKISTAN TROOPS FIRE ON U.S. CHOPPERS!

"A US military incursion into the Taliban-controlled tribal agency of South Waziristan on Monday was aborted after Pakistani troops opened fire on the force, reports from Pakistan indicate.
At least two American helicopters were fired on after crossing the Pakistani frontier near Angoor Adda in South Waziristan, Geo TV reported. "The U.S. choppers came into Pakistan by just 100 to 150 meters at Angor Adda. Even then our troops did not spare them, opened fire on them and they turned away," an anonymous security official told Reuters."

Are you effing kidding me?! They're gonna regret this when Obama invades!

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