dagblog - Comments for "Taliban attack Pakistani military in Rawalpindi, Bannu"

Uzbeks, Germans reported

artappraiser — Thu, 23 Jan 2014 10:47:19 +0000

In reply to Taliban attack Pakistani military in Rawalpindi, Bannu

Uzbeks, Germans reported killed in Pakistan airstrikes
By Bill Roggio, Long War Journal, Jan. 22, 2014

Pakistani security officials claimed that 33 Uzbek fighters and three German jihadists were among the 40 people killed in yesterday's airstrikes in the Mir Ali and Datta Khel areas of North Waziristan. The report is unconfirmed, but if true, the Uzbeks and Germans are likely members of the al Qaeda-linked Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan or the splinter Islamic Jihad Union.

"Important commanders were also among those killed in the onslaught," Dawn reported. "These include Wali Mohammad and Asmat Shaheen. Maulvi Farhad Uzbek and Shaheen Betini were also among those killed." [.....]

The Pakistani Air Force launched the punitive airstrikes in North Waziristan against "militant hideouts" after the Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan carried out two suicide attacks over the past several days in Rawalpindi and Bannu that killed 31 soldiers and Frontier Corps troops, as well as five civilians.

On multiple occasions over the past several years, the Pakistani military has promised the West that it would launch an offensive in North Waziristan to clear the tribal agency of the Taliban and al Qaeda, but it has failed to do so. Groups such as the Haqqani Network and Hafiz Gul Bahadar's Taliban faction operate in the open in North Waziristan, and are considered "good Taliban" by Pakistan's military and intelligence establishment as they do not openly support jihad against the state. Many Pakistani officials view these two groups, and a number of others, as "strategic depth," or proxies to be used against India, the US, and Afghanistan [....]

Taliban groups launch attacks

artappraiser — Tue, 21 Jan 2014 06:38:23 +0000

In reply to Taliban attack Pakistani military in Rawalpindi, Bannu

Taliban groups launch attacks in Pakistan and Afghanistan
Suicide bomber kills 13 in Pakistan city of Rawalpindi and insurgents attack Nato base in Zhari, Afghanistan
By Jon Boone in Lahore and Emma Graham-Harrison, theguardian.com, 20 Jan., 2014

[....] Also on Monday, insurgents tried to fight their way into a Nato base in Zhari, a rural district bordering Kandahar in southern Afghanistan. Afghan and foreign military officials said a suicide bomber in a car filled with explosives attempted to punch a hole in the wall of the base before eight armed attackers wearing foreign military uniforms and suicide vests tried to rush inside. A spokeswoman for the Nato mission in Afghanistan played down the incident, saying: "There was moderate damage to the outer perimeter of the base, but as soon as they attempted to breach it they were all killed."

Zhari – once the home of the Taliban's one-eyed leader Mullah Omar – has particular symbolic value for the movement. In the early 1990s, before the then obscure movement began its conquest of Afghanistan, Omar presided over a mosque in the area.

The US put considerable resources into attempting to dislodge the Taliban from the district as part of Barack Obama's troop surge, but a recent US intelligence report warned many of the military gains made in recent years could be lost by 2017.

Although both the TTP and the Afghan Taliban pledge allegiance to Mullah Omar, the two organisations are distinct. However, they both enjoy sanctuary in Pakistan's troubled borderlands and there is considerable operational overlap between the two [....]