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| India-Pakistan |
| 300,000 flee as jihadis attacked |
| 2008-08-17 |
| A HUMAN tide of more than 300,000 civilians has fled the al-Qaeda badlands, amid indications that the fighting there has reached unprecedented levels, with the Pakistani army using massive firepower to attack jihadi militant strongholds. Helicopter gunships, fixed-wing strike aircraft, tanks and heavy artillery have been used in the onslaught that follows the visit last month by Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani to Washington, where he was berated for Pakistan's failure to wipe out the militants. The offensive runs counter to perceptions that Pakistan's new civilian Government is "soft" on Islamic extremism, The Australian reports. This will reassure Washington, whose ally in the war in terror for the past nine years, President Pervez Musharraf, was given by the Coalition Government until midnight last night (4am today AEST) to resign or face impeachment proceedings beginning tonight in the National Assembly. Pakistani television showed thousands of civilians caught in the crossfire streaming out of the Bajaur, Mohmand and Kurrum agencies in the fighting estimated to have killed more than 500 militants. Tens of thousands of people are camping on the perimeter of Peshawar, the capital of the North West Frontier Province, and some have reached Rawalpindi, the garrison city adjoining Islamabad. New security csar Rehman Malik, the architect of the get-tough policy against the militants who have over-run the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, said at least 220,000 civilians had been displaced. But welfare agencies said the figure was probably well in excess of 300,000. An NWFP government official appealing for federal assistance said yesterday: "There are hundreds of thousands of people waiting for help and we don't have the wherewithal to deal with the situation." In a speech to the National Assembly on Saturday, Mr Gilani declared the Government was determined to re-establish control in the tribal areas bordering Afghanistan. "We will establish the writ of the Government at all costs (as) a parallel government cannot be tolerated," he said. The offensive, launched without fanfare to avoid conveying the notion it was done at the insistence of Washington, is targeting primarily Bajaur, slated as the most likely hiding place of Osama bin Laden. Fierce fighting is also under way in areas of the NWFP where many of Pakistan's nuclear weapons are believed to be based. |
| Posted by:phil_b |
| #4 more Paki smoke and mirrors, ...But If 5000 Talibs and Hostile jihadis were definatley confirmed Deader than Doornails and another 5000 Doomed Islamics were minutes away from certain Death; Then and only then would I begin to believe. |
| Posted by: Red Dawg 2008-08-17 22:30 |
| #3 I've been telling Guam locals that Guam has a stake in whether the USA wins or loses the WOT, including as per OWG-NWO, and that it will likely face VARIOUS, MULTI-DIMENS, SERIOUS TO CATASTROPHIC INTERNAL + EXTERNAL PRESSURES AS PER CHINESE AMBITIONS, THE RADICAL ISLAMIST THREAT TO ASIA-PACIFIC, + GLOBAL WARMING INDUCED/RELATED PAN-ENVIRO CRISES [Oil, Food, Resources] INCLUD EARTH/LAND CHANGES + MULTI/TRANS-REGIONAL POPULATION DISPLACEMENTS [ripple/domino?] SUCH AS THIS ONE ONLY WORSE, ESPEC AFTER 2010. These factors can detrimentally, even protractively alter Guam's "status quo" Establishment-Order, + CNMI-MICRONESIA-OCEANIA, as the present generations know it to be. As per normal USDOD MilPlanning, the anticipated relocation of US Marines from OKINAWA IS NOT INCONSISTENT WID US PLANS TO MILPOL LEAVE THE WESTPAC/ASIAN REGION(S) IFF SO REQUIRED - this is exclusive of any effort by JAPANESE-OKINAWAN, SOKOR, or other Regional Pols to try and have US Milfors stay = leave their countries. And OTHERS... *LEST WE FERGIT > BESIDES ASIA-PACIFIC, CHINA HAS DECLARED 1/2 [and ideally more]OF CONUS-NORAM PER SE AS FUTURE CHINESE TERRITORY VV "LIVING SPACE". * GUAM SELF-DETERMINATION > MANY US POLITICIANS + ORDINARY CITIZENS ARE NOT GOING TO FAVOR GIVING GUAM ANY SORT OF IMPROVED POLITICAL STATUS [Guam Pols > read, $$$ Budget] - COMMONWEALTH [any] + STATEHOOD + INDEPENDENCE - WITHOUT ANY EMPIRICAL EVIDENCE OF A VOTER-BASED POPULAR REFERENDUM(S). The USA, despite its hyperpower-plus status is NOT IMMUNE, INVULNERABLE, NOR IMPERVIOUS to same. WAR FOR OWG-NWO > US DOMINATION IS NOT ABSOLUT ASSURED DESPITE GLOBAL ENTRENCHMENTS, RADICAL ISLAM IS NOT ABSOLUT DEFEATED DESPITE IS DEFEATS AND IS IN FACT ATTEMPTING TO NUCLEARIZE. MSM-NET > COME NOW "THE BEAR"??? Guam needs to SOUL-SEARCH and decide what it whats to be vv the USA-World, + WHILE IT STILL HAS A SAY HOWEVER IMPERFECT. 9-11/WOT > THE "STATUS QUO" = POLITICS-AS-USUAL, "CRITICAL MASS", etc. IS NO LONGER ACCEPTABLE OR TOLERATED, BY ANY CAMP, IDEO, and -ISM! |
| Posted by: JosephMendiola 2008-08-17 20:30 |
| #2 Oh dear. More poor men to kill their families when they can't afford to feed them, more divorcees to clutch their infants to their breasts as they jump in front of trains in their despair, more to sell their sons and daughters into slavery for a handful of pulses -- not even a chicken. The vultures and the rats will feast, the trains will be unable to leave the stations... and the Indian army will perforce come across the Line of Control to rescue the Pakistanis from their self-imposed chaos. The horror! |
| Posted by: trailing wife 2008-08-17 19:59 |
| #1 uh huh....and how long before the "500 dead" are revived by the ISI? Call me a cynical bastard, but also a realist |
| Posted by: Frank G 2008-08-17 18:07 |