let him have his fun. Not gonna change anything anyway.

The BLA and theior cohorts have been sent to hell by the FC. Its the Afghanis up to their old tricks again.

Taliban flee battle using children as shields: NATO

By Terry Friel
February 14, 2007

KABUL (Reuters) - Taliban fighters used children as human shields to flee heavy fighting this week during an operation by foreign and Afghan forces to clear rebels from around a key hydro-electric dam, NATO said on Wednesday.

The Taliban have used human shields before, but never children, local residents say.

The fighting occurred during Operation Kryptonite on Monday, an offensive to clear insurgents from the Kajaki Dam area in southern Helmand province to allow repairs to its power plants and the installation of extra capacity.

"During this action ... Taliban extremists resorted to the use of human shields. Specifically, using local Afghan children to cover as they escaped out of the area," Colonel Tom Collins, a spokesman for the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), told reporters in Kabul.

The Kajaki Dam fighting was in an area where 700 mainly foreign fighters, including Chechens, Pakistanis and Uzbeks, arrived from Pakistan this week to reinforce Taliban guerrillas.

NATO also said it killed a senior local Taliban commander and several comrades in a pre-dawn air-strike on Wednesday between the dam and the rebel-held town of Musa Qala to the west, but denied residents' accounts civilians were also killed.

TARGETING REBEL LEADERS

The leader, identified by police and tribal elders as Mullah Manan, was involved in the capture of Musa Qala 13 days ago and clashes around Kajaki.

NATO said its soldiers saw 11 bodies, all fighting-age males, dragged from the wreckage by Taliban fighters. Provincial police said Manan and at least eight more Taliban were killed and that they had no word of civilian casualties.

But local residents and elders said civilians also died.

"It is a well-known enemy tactic to try to blame civilian casualties on ISAF forces," Collins said in a statement.

"We continue to conduct specific shaping operations -- to go after specific Taliban extremists, the leadership who are impacting the enemy's operations," he told reporters later.

The Interior Ministry said it has also arrested a Taliban leader in the province of Khost.

The Kajaki dam has seen major fighting in recent weeks between the Taliban and NATO forces, mainly British and Dutch.

NATO-led forces have been conducting operations in the area for several months to allow reconstruction on the dam and the power transmission lines to boost output, after fighting halted repair and development work last year.

The Taliban cannot destroy the dam, which would also flood a large area of the Helmand Valley, but its tactics are aimed at making it too unsafe for work to go ahead.

The dam was first built on the Helmand river in the 1950s.

Its hydroelectric plants, with a generating capacity of 33 megawatts, were installed in 1975. Once fully operational, the dam will bring electricity to 1.8 million people, NATO says.

Militants put squeeze on Musharraf

M Ilyas Khan
BBC News, Karachi
Wednesday, 7 February 2007

Islamic militants have struck in Pakistan's capital, Islamabad, for the second time in a fortnight, bringing a feeling of d�j� vu.

In December 2003, two attacks in as many weeks on the country's president and army chief, Gen Pervez Musharraf, shook Islamabad and the world.

But analysts believe recent attacks foreshadow worse times ahead than did the previous ones.

Three years ago, the militants were still struggling to consolidate their position and needed a high-profile target to establish their credentials.

Those attacks propelled Gen Musharraf into a position of strength, with Western powers lining up behind him to prevent the anarchic Islamist forces from capturing Pakistan's nuclear arsenal.

This goodwill enabled Gen Musharraf to authorise a series of peace deals with the militants in 2004-05, thereby creating room for Islamabad to win back its estranged former allies in Afghanistan and the border region.

'New breed' of militant

The present attacks come at a time when Gen Musharraf is under increasing Western pressure to eliminate militant sanctuaries that have come to exist as a result of those deals.

A frequently-asked question in Pakistan is; is the peace deal with the militants still on?

While both Pakistani officials and the militant leaders insist that they want the deal to work, the situation on the ground tells a different story.

Since 22 January, militants have hit eight targets in northern Pakistan, killing at least 24 people.

Among the attackers are five suicide bombers, and their victims include five military personnel and nine personnel from other security units including the police.

Police investigators say the attacks were launched by a "new breed" of militant linked to Baitullah Mehsud, a Taleban commander from South Waziristan and a signatory of one of the peace deals.

Mr Mehsud vowed revenge following a Pakistani air strike that killed eight people in South Waziristan's Zamzola area on 16 January.

He called it a breach of the peace deal and said its future now depended on the actions of the Pakistan army.

'Safe havens'

Analysts believe the attacks are a warning that if Pakistan scuttles the peace deal, it will have to suffer the consequences.

But can Pakistan withstand Western pressure and hold peace in the tribal region?

Although President Musharraf has been defending the peace deals as a means of isolating al-Qaeda and Taleban militants, he has also shown occasional signs of cracking under Western pressure.

During his visit to the US late last year, he said that while the Pakistani intelligence agency ISI was not helping Taleban, some former ISI officials may have done so.

More recently, he has further conceded that he knew of some incidents at some Pakistani border posts where a "blind eye was being turned" to Taleban movements.

Apparently, Gen Musharraf is trying to come clean with the Western powers on the issue at a time when the US administration is upping the ante.

Pakistani officials were ruffled when John Negroponte, the director of US national intelligence, told a Senate intelligence committee on 12 January that al-Qaeda was re-establishing its global network from safe havens in Pakistan.

Further pressure came in the shape of a new US Congress bill linking military assistance for Pakistan to its commitment to fighting terrorism.

There may be some bargaining positions involved, but the bottom line seems to be a hammer-and-anvil operation involving Nato and Pakistani troops to crush tribal militants.

Pressure

This will entail grave political risks for Gen Musharraf and his regime. A similar operation in June 2004 led to upwards of 300 military casualties and made the army permanently unpopular in the region.

But skirting commitments on the "war on terror" may create its own set of problems.

Western officials believe that in economic terms, various aid and arms agreements between the US and Pakistan are crucial for the survival of the regime.

A harsh Congress law requiring annual waivers by the US president would therefore put a squeeze on the Pakistan military's supply line.

This could lead to political problems for Gen Musharraf, who observers say is surrounded by a group of political turncoats that are likely to melt away at the first sign of trouble.

And as the spring approaches, there is a sense of urgency in the air.

The Americans have already shown their resolve to carry the war into Pakistani territory by bombing suspected militant hideouts in the border regions.

To prevent that, Pakistan is likely to try harder to meet the demands of Nato troops.

Pakistan's willingness to accept responsibility for the strikes in Bajaur last November and in South Waziristan's Zamzola area on 16 January may be an indicator of which way the air is going to blow in the coming weeks and months.

The reporter had repeated communications with ISI and she chose to ignore them. The thing about visas is they can be revoked at any time and if any official with authority wants to they can restrict any reporter at any time from operating in any zone deemed to be off limits. If she didnt understand that then she is extremely dumb. If she is not dumb then she deliberately staged the whole incident.

And I am sure the Taliban have many hubs. Quetta might be just one of the hub but their world headquarters is Kandahar. Thats where their central soul is located. Why do you deny that and create 4 page threads with snippets of anti paki propaganda making them look like they are some sorta undercover paki operatives lol.

Originally posted by Afghanan   Its not reporters in Kandahar who are running for their lives when talking to locals, its in Quetta

Oh yeah? If any of these reporters in Kandahar tried to investigate the KHAD supported Pakhtoon drug lords who finance militias I can assure you they will be running for their lives. The only reporters that are allowed to function in Kandahar are the shills sent there pre approved by Mayor Karzai who places restrictions on all reporters.

And if you are talking about the female reporter who was beaten up in Quetta by the ISI, she KNEW she was in a restricted zone without permission. In fact I would not be surprised if she stages the whole incident how stupid are we expected to believe someone is that they walk around in a war zone without permission from the appropriate authorities when the law clearly states such permission is needed. Its not rocket science you know.

What Xenophobia? I am just telling a simple fact that KHAD the Afghan secret service has been sending suicide bombers into pakistan for decades and decades and has no intention of stopping. You make no mention of that instead you come up with these one sided news reports that completely distort the whole picture.

Why doesnt KHAD stop supporting people like Bugti? Does Afghanistan have a problem stopping open financing and suport for terrorists like Bugti? And then people like you cry when he gets killed

Why doesn't KHAD stop exporting Heroin and Opium? Why doesnt Karzai do something about that? Afghanistan is now the world's #1 heroin producer--blame that on paki madrassas too? So a few fundies fire some firecrackers in kandahar and they get accused of being from Quetta, maybe some did come from there,  big deal thats not the whole picture. Most of the people blowing things up in Afghanistan have nothing at all to do with pakistan why don't you accept that fact?

Its also a fact that almost all the people blowing things up in Pakistan are backed by KHAD or RAW. There are no large organised separaratist groups in pakistan that the ISI does NOT control. In Afghanistan its different--but you are the one who likes to blame pakistan 100% for it. Take a look and see which country is in anarchy and which country is stabalized. The hub of Taliban is in Kandahar not Pakistan. 

4 pages of utter deceptive trash just to push onesided distorted pictures of what is really going on LoL.

No I am justifying the paki ISI and the paki Army engaging people who are attacking targets within pakistan and also attacking paki interests abroad. And KHAD has been terrorizing pakis since the 1980s but instead of whining about it pakis just took them on and ended up neutralizing KHAD and KGB even though it cost the lives of many generals and a president.

I used to feel sorry for people like Bugti who get killed but now I am thinking what do idiots like that hope to accomplish, I mean the guy armed himself to the teeth and thought he would become the new puppet ruler of seceded Balochistan. He asked for war. Did he expect the ISI to recruit some boy scouts with chloroform and fire extinguishers to hose him, snuff him and package him up for house arrest?

And what do you mean Pakistan is the world hub of terrorism. Pakistan has nothing to do with any country when it comes to disputes except its two neighbors who have sworn to wipe it off the face of the earth. There is plenty of RAW and KHAD action going on in Pakistan, don't claim its not because everyone knows both Bharat and Afghanistan dream about cutting up pakistan. Its a 60 year dream for both of you and you are both probably bitter that  pakis made your dreams into  a nightmare.

Well doh that means its people coming from Afghanistan and blowing things up in Pakistan like they have been doing since the 80s. You think they got the divine right to do that or something? And the ISI and paki army should just sit by and do nothing about it except watch that puppetzai do his barking?

Who exactly is blowing up things in Pakistan then? Is it the ISI that is turning in on itself? Why are all these media agents and military parrots completely silent on KHAD operations in Pakistan...why are they only barking about "suspected" hideouts in pakistan and collusion of minor border guards who could very well be getting bribed by people on the Afghan side. This is such one sided crap from Asia Times. Its a hindutva news source no wonder.

And first you say these tribal invasions are from "pakistan" and then you have a paragraph that says they are from Waziristan. Well Waziristan is an independent Emirate inside pakistan is it not? And was the Paki Army themselves not fighting militants in Waziristan---so you are blaming the very people who fought, killed and got killed by Waziristan based militants?