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The attack has been claimed by the Sunni terror group Jundullah operating in Pakistan, a CIA funded ally in the war against Shi’a Iran. Will update the diary soon, the TTP terror group has claimed the attack, which is more likely than the Jandullah group which operates in Balochistan on the Iranian border.
Gunmen kill nine foreign tourists and their guide in scenic, northern Pakistan near China border
PESHAWAR, Pakistan (Dawn.com) – Gunmen stormed a hotel in Nanga Parbat, a remote part of northern Pakistan, on Sunday and killed nine foreign tourists and a Pakistani guide near the foot of one of the world’s tallest mountains, police and security officials said.
Five Ukrainians, three Chinese, a Russian and their guide were killed in the attack in a remote resort area near the base camp for the 8,125-metre snow-covered Nanga Parbat peak, a popular destination for adventurous trekkers, officials said.
“Unknown people entered a hotel where foreign tourists were staying last night and opened fire,” Ali Sher, a senior police officer in Gilgit-Baltistan province, told Reuters.
A Pakistani militant group known as Jundullah claimed responsibility for the attack.
“These foreigners are our enemies and we proudly claim responsibility for killing them and will continue such attacks in the future as well,” Jundullah spokesman Ahmed Marwat told Reuters by telephone.
The same group has claimed reponsibility for a series of attacks on members of the country’s Shia Muslim minority, in northern Pakistan, including an ambush in February 2012 when gunmen shot 18 bus passengers by the roadside.
The gunmen fled after the attack on the hotel, which took place at about 1 am on Sunday, Sher said. A senior government official said a large number of security personnel had been sent to the area.
“Since the area is very remote with no roads or transport, the bodies will have to be retrieved by helicopter,” the official said.
Gilgit-Baltistan, which borders China and Kashmir, had been considered one of the more secure areas of Pakistan, but has witnessed a spate of attacks by militants targeting members of Pakistan’s Shia minority in recent years.
It was the first time foreign tourists had been attacked in the province, which is famous for its natural beauty. Pakistan receives few foreign tourists, but a trickle of visitors is tempted by the spectacular mountain scenery in its northern areas, where the Hindu Kush, Karakoram and Himalaya mountain ranges converge.
Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and President Asif Ali Zardari have strongly condemned the incident.
END
{Update1} TTP Terror Group also Claim Killing of Foreigners
ISLAMABAD (Dawn.com) – Gunmen dressed as paramilitary police killed nine foreign tourists in an unprecedented attack in the Himalayas of Nanga Parbat on Sunday, in a security failure bound to embarrass the new government just weeks after it took office.
Spokesperson for the proscribed Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan, Ehsanullah Ehsan, talking to Dawn.com from an undisclosed location claimed that the Janud-e-Hafsa faction of the militant organisation had carried out the attack.
Ehsan said that the attack was carried out to “avenge the killing of their front-rank leader, Waliur Rehman, and to express anger at the international community for its continued support to drone strikes.”
Earlier Reuters had reported that another banned militant group Jundullah as claiming responsibility for the attack and had quoted the group’s spokesman, Ahmed Marwat, as saying “These foreigners are our enemies and we proudly claim responsibility for killing them and will continue such attacks in the future as well.”
While Gilgit-Baltistan has seen deadly sectarian violence targeting Pakistan’s Shia Muslim minority, foreigners have never before been targeted in such a remote part of the region, which officials said was inaccessible by road.
Helicopters were dispatched to recover the bodies, and that police and paramilitary had been ordered into the area, officials said.
Nisar told parliament that the attackers were dressed as Gilgit Scouts, a paramilitary police unit, and accessed the camp with the help of two guides whom they kidnapped.
“They abducted two guides and through them reached the area. One guide was killed in the shoot-out. One is alive. He is now detained and being questioned.”
The interior minister conceded there was no police or security escort for foreigners up in that area of the mountains. The top bureaucrat and top police official in Gilgit-Baltistan were on Sunday suspended, state TV said.
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Officials also spoke to the Chinese and Ukrainian ambassadors on Sunday to express their condolences, the foreign ministry added.“Those who have committed this heinous crime seem to be attempting to disrupt the growing relations of Pakistan with China and other friendly countries.”
Punjabi Taliban chief warns of Kashmit linked terror attacks in India
ISLAMABAD (PakistanNews) March 9, 2013 – The chief operational commander of the al-Qaeda linked Punjabi Taliban Asmatullah Muawiya has warned that India is set to become a major target of terrorist attacks once again, especially after the Allied Forces withdraw from Afghanistan.
Muawiya’s statement has been released on an al-Qaeda and TTP-linked jehadi website – Jamia Hafsa Urdu Forum– in which he has also praised two terrorists – Ajmal Kasab of the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) and Afzal Guru of the Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) who had been sent to the gallows in recent months by the Indian government for their roles in the November 2008 Mumbai terrorist attack and the December 12, 2001 fidayeen attack on the Indian Parliament in Delhi. Muawiya’s latest threat of terrorist attacks in India comes two months after he made a conditional ceasefire offer to the Pakistan government which envisaged an end to Islamabad’s participation in the Afghan war and the reshaping of the Constitution and foreign policy according to the Quran and Sunnah. The ceasefire offer was made through a letter which was later endorsed by the TTP spokesman Ehsanullah Ehsan, saying it had the full backing of the TTP leadership.
The ceasefire offer was made on December 27, 2012 – on the fifth death anniversary of Benazir Bhutto – whose assassination was blamed on TTP’s founder Baitullah Mehsud. Muawiya’s letter said the TTP was dragged into a war with Pakistan from the Afghanistan and Kashmir fronts, for which the Pakistan army was mainly responsible. “Instead of taking out guns against the Muslims, the Pakistan Army should prepare to take revenge for the 1971 war with India. This will also add the potential of Kashmiri mujahideen to our forces”, said Muawiya in his letter. He explained that the Taliban were not targeting the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz, the Jamaat-e-Islami and the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl because they don’t consider them as their enemies. But Interior Minister Rehman Malik had rejected Muawiya offer of a conditional truce, saying the offer seemed to be a tactical ploy to buy time to revive the organisational strength of the Taliban in Punjab.
In his latest anti-India statement, Muawiya, a former commander of Jaish-e-Mohammed who runs the enormous network of the Punjabi Taliban, praised Ajmal Kasab, saying: “He was a true mujahid. He was amongst us; he was ours, a native of Pakistan”. Kasab was hanged in India in November 2012.
Muawiya then praised Afzal Guru in his statement, saying his blood will multiply the rise of the jehadi tide. Guru was hanged in February 2013. “Their executions will only strengthen the jehadis’ resolve to attack India and liberate the state of Jammu Kashmir. The attacks in India will increase as jehadis shift their focus from Afghanistan to India and Jammu Kashmir after the US withdraws from the region. Out of their love for Kashmir, and their religious fervour, the mujahideen will opt for Jammu Kashmir and the Americans will not be in position to influence the events in the region this time. This time when the jehad rises in Jammu Kashmir with new courage and dedication, it will be pure from the ISI’s cursed shadow”.
The earlier info about the Jundallah links to CIA funding, below the fold …
Assessing Iran’s Capture of Jundallah Leader Abdelmalek Rigi
(The Jamestown Foundation) – Iranian security forces pulled off a major coup on February 23 by capturing the enigmatic militant leader Abdelmalek Rigi (Press TV [Tehran], February 23; IRNA [Tehran], February 23). The 31-year-old founder and leader of Jundallah (Soldiers of God), an ethnic Baloch nationalist group, is responsible for leading a campaign of violence, criminality, and terrorism in Iran’s southeastern province of Sistan-Balochistan since 2003.
Rigi and his followers have been a thorn in the side of Iran’s security services and, when considered in the context of the myriad domestic and international challenges facing Tehran, a threat to the overall stability of the Islamic Republic.
In its self-anointed mission to act as an advocate on behalf of Iran’s predominantly Sunni ethnic Baloch minority, Jundallah has targeted Iranian security forces and official symbols of the state. Jundallah’s use of beheadings and suicide bombings targeting both the Iranian security services and civilians are reminiscent of attacks executed by radical Sunni Islamists elsewhere in the region and have stoked fears of the spread of violent Sunni extremism in predominately Shi’a Iran.
Special-Ops and covert military action in rivalry between Langley and Pentagon
(UPI) The secret directive came to light with a May 24 New York Times report that said the order was signed Sept. 30, 2009, by Gen. David Petraeus, head of the U.S. Central Command.
Officials stressed that the directive, the Joint Unconventional Warfare Task Force Execute Order, permits operations that could pave the way toward possible military attacks against Iran if the confrontation over Tehran’s nuclear program worsens.
My diary – Bush Funded CIA Operations of Jundallah, Not Mossad