Pakistani internal security (catch all)

[davidbfpo]

Readers of this thread will recall my use of 'Stop, Go and now is it GO?' or similar. The following report suggests that some jihadists may have adopted 'Stop, selective Go and be nice'.

One of Pakistan's most deadly Taliban groups (The Punjabi Taliban) has abandoned its armed struggle and announced it will focus on a peaceful campaign calling on the country to adopt Islamic sharia law.

The Punjabi Taliban is believed to have carried out a number of significant terrorist attacks, including the 2009 assault on the Pakistan army's general headquarters in Rawalpindi, in which nine soldiers were killed; the commando raid on the Sri Lankan cricket team in the same year, and the 2011 attack on the naval airbase at Mehran in which 18 servicemen and two US-donated aircraft were destroyed.

.. the organisation would now limit its use of force to "infidel forces" and would focus on promoting sharia law....would continue to operate in Afghanistan but would focus on "Dawat Tablig" preaching and called on other Taliban factions to abandon their insurgencies in Pakistan.

Link:http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worl...-Pakistan.html

I am sure the causes of this apparent change are many. Including the tradition of temporary compromises on both sides, with ceasefires, compensation, prisoner releases and the like. Now do we see the "hand" of ISI here?

[omarali50]

Asmatullah Muavia is the guy who claimed responsibility on behalf of his faction of the Taliban for the slaughter of foreign climbers at a Nanga Parbat base camp. I wonder if that crime can now be forgiven in exchange for future good behavior east of the Durand line? (lower level jihadis involved in the massacre are said to be in custody...whether serious custody or not is hard to say).


See my article on that atrocity here:
http://www.outlookindia.com/blogs/po...ssacre/2996/38

and more detail here:
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/2013_Na...urist_shooting

[davidbfpo]

An article from Kings War Studies other blog Strife, by a PhD student Zoha Waseem: 'The arrival of IS in Pakistan and the politics of the caliphate':http://strifeblog.org/2014/09/26/the...the-caliphate/

She draws together a variety of sources and her own knowledge. As if Pakistan didn't have enough problems already, along come the well-funded IS trying to make an impact.

[davidbfpo]

A welcome BBC article, which opens with:

The sacking of Pakistani Taliban (TTP) spokesman Shahidullah Shahid for supporting Islamic State is the latest sign of divisions in an already fragmented militant movement. Over the years Pakistan's insurgents have spawned a bewildering array of splinter groups and factions, reports M Ilyas Khan.

Link:http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-29724771

[davidbfpo]

Once again Pakistan takes the US$ and condemns the USA, even when it strikes 'militants' who kill hundreds, thousands of its citizens, including a number of ISI staff and security forces:

Yesterday, after the US launched a drone strike in South Waziristan that reportedly killed a Haqqani Newtork commander known as Abdullah Haqqani and an al Qaeda leader, the spokeswoman for Pakistan's Foreign Ministry condemned the attack.

The Pakistani government even denounced a US strike that killed Hakeemullah Mehsud, the previous leader of the al Qaeda-linked Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan who was responsible for the deaths of thousands of Pakistanis.

Read more:http://www.longwarjournal.org/threat..._strike_1.php?

[omarali50]

Par for the course, but the really interesting questions are:
1. Does the US regard such condemnations as ritualistic and perhaps necessary for public consumption, while General Bobby and friends happily cooperate with the US where it matters?
or
2. The US regards these condemnations as hypocritical and at least mildly harmful, but bites its lip in the interest of X or Y higher cause; the overall situation still being positive?
or
3. The US hates these condemnations and would shut them down in a minute if it could, but its badly stuck and is desperate for a face-saving exit. So a man's gotta do what a man's gotta do.

Inquiring minds want to know (but probably wont be told openly by anyone who matters).

[davidbfpo]

One of the rare reports from North Waziristan, yes by a Pakistani reporter and one must assume either embedded or hosted by the Pakistani Army, It opens with:

Once described as the “epicentre of terrorism”, Miramshah is now reduced to mere rubble. The long row of hotels that had sprung up over the last few years and had been used by foreign militants as rest and relaxation centres have been blown up by air strikes and heavy artillery fire.

It ends in part with:

But unfortunately, it is a forgotten war for our political leadership. As one officer lamented: “It is painful to pick up every day the bodies of our fellow soldiers and young officers often blown into pieces by IEDs, but it is more agonising to hear some politicians sympathising with the killers.”

Link:http://www.dawn.com/news/1145359