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The Pakistan army has taken the initiative to push back the Taliban forces from their recent gains outside of Swat Valley. Civilians flee the war zone and up to 500,000 refugees are expected, many crossing the border into Afghanistan! The Taliban in recent days have massacred civilian government employees and ransacked buildings and police posts. Pakistan have pulled 6,000 troops from the Indian frontier to fight the Taliban in Swat Valley.
MINGORA, Pakistan (Reuters) – Pakistani forces attacked Taliban fighters in the Swat valley with artillery and helicopters after the United States called on the government to show its commitment to fighting militancy.
Expanding Taliban influence in nuclear-armed Pakistan has spread alarm at home and abroad and will be a core issue when U.S. President Barack Obama meets his Afghani and Pakistani counterparts in Washington later on Wednesday.
A February peace pact aimed at ending Taliban violence in Swat is in tatters and thousands of people fled from Mingora, the region’s main town, after a government official said fighting was expected.
The militants have captured several important government buildings in the town, 130 km (80 miles) northwest of Islamabad, and took positions on rooftops.
While a curfew kept people off the streets, government forces attacked in and around the town, including at an emerald mine the Taliban have taken over.
“Security forces have engaged militants’ positions at an emerald mine and helicopter gunships are also being used to flush militants out of Mingora,” said a military spokesman.
MINGORA, Pakistan – Taliban militants and security forces battled for control of a northwestern Pakistani town as residents hunkered down in their homes ahead of an expected major offensive.
Thousands of men, women and children have fled Mingora and surrounding districts, the first wave of a refugee exodus the government fears could reach 500,000.
The collapse of a 3-month-old truce in the Swat Valley with the Taliban means Pakistan will have to evict the insurgents by force, testing the ability of its stretched military and the resolve of civilian leaders who until recently were insisting the insurgents could be partners in peace.
Dawn News reported that helicopter gunships were attacking militant positions in the town and that more troops had been deployed there.
Fearing that war could consume the region, thousands fled the main Swat town of Mingora. Refugees clambered onto the roofs of buses after seats and floors filled up. Children and adults alike carried belongings on their heads and backs.
“I do not have any destination. I only have an aim — to escape from here,” said Afzal Khan, 65, who was waiting for a bus with his wife and nine children. “It is like doomsday here. It is like hell.”
Shafi Ullah, a student, said the whole town was fleeing. “Can you hear the explosions? Can you hear the gunshots?” he said, pointing to a part of town where fighting was continuing.
Army spokesman Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas declined to say whether the events heralded the start of major operations, saying only that “all the contingency plans are worked out” for carrying one out.
Pakistani men took to the streets of the capital Islamabad at the beginning of the week to demonstrate against the Taliban. Not a single woman joined in the protest and in all there were only a few hundred demonstrators. Nevertheless, this demonstration shows that something has changed in the country.
The demonstrators stuck green stickers to their clothing, the colour of Pakistan, with white letters saying “Leave Taliban, leave’ and “Leave US, leave”. Until a couple of weeks ago it was unthinkable that cries of protest could ring through the streets of Islamabad. Only in the lawless regions bordering Afghanistan, where the Taliban do not allow women to leave their houses and men to shave their beards, do people come out in protest now and then.
Pakistani Islamists shout slogans as they march during an
anti-Taliban and anti-US protest rally in Islamabad.
Further reading Steven D’s fp story – More Thoughts on Pakistan
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KABUL — The international Red Cross said Wednesday that its officials saw women and children among dozens of dead bodies in two villages in western Afghanistan targeted in U.S. bombing runs.
A team from the International Committee of the Red Cross traveled to two villages in Farah province, where the team saw “dozens of bodies in each of the two locations that we went to,” said spokeswoman Jessica Barry.
“There were bodies, there were graves, and there were people burying bodies when we were there,” she said. “We do confirm women and children. There were women and children.”
Afghan President Hamid Karzai ordered a probe into the killings, and the U.S. military sent a brigadier general to Farah to head a U.S. investigation, said Col. Greg Julian, a U.S. spokesman. Afghan military and police officials were also part of the investigative team.
Karzai, currently in the United States, will raise the issue of civilian deaths with Obama, a statement from Karzai’s office said. The two presidents were scheduled to hold their first face-to-face meeting later Wednesday.
Karzai called civilian casualties “unacceptable.”
Civilian deaths have caused increasing friction between the Afghan and U.S. governments, and Karzai has long pleaded with American officials to reduce the number of civilian casualties in their operations. U.S. and NATO officials accuse the Taliban militants of fighting from within civilian homes, thus putting them in danger.
Local officials said that bombing runs called by U.S. forces killed dozens of civilians in Gerani village in Farah province’s Bala Buluk district.
The fighting broke out Monday soon after Taliban fighters — including Taliban from Pakistan and Iran — massed in Farah province in western Afghanistan, said Belqis Roshan, a member of Farah’s provincial council. The provincial police chief, Abdul Ghafar, said 25 militants and three police officers died in that battle near the village of Ganjabad in Bala Baluk district, a Taliban-controlled area near the border with Iran.
Villagers told Afghan officials that they put children, women, and elderly men in several housing compounds in the village of Gerani — about three miles to the east — to keep them safe. But villagers said fighter aircraft later targeted those compounds, killing a majority of those inside, according to Roshan and other officials.
(CBS News/AP) Nov. 18, 2008 – Pakistani and U.S. officials have applauded efforts by some tribal leaders to establish militias to fight Taliban and al Qaeda militants blamed for attacks on foreign troops in Afghanistan as well as targets in Pakistan.
NATO said it fired the rounds into Pakistan after insurgents attacked its troops in Afghanistan’s eastern Paktika province with rockets from across the border. “The artillery fire caused a secondary explosion at the rocket launch site, which indicates additional munitions in the location,” the NATO statement said.
Pakistan has been complaining about unilateral missile strikes conducted by U.S. forces into its tribal areas. Pakistani officials say the U.S. strikes violate their country’s sovereignty.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."There are no good solutions available to Obama. I fear he is making the same mistakes JFK made re: Vietnam in Afghanistan and Pakistan — relying on generals still fighting the past war. Limiting air strikes to a bare minimum would do a world of good. I also fail to see why bribing/recruiting Taliban leaders who are Pakistanis to police their own territory and fight/evict Afghan Taliban groups isn’t a viable option.
Indeed, I’d seriously consider making Waziristan an autonomous region with guarantees of non-interference in their affairs so long as their territory wasn’t used as a haven/base for terrorist groups to attack India, Afghanistan, US and NATO forces, etc. However, I suspect even that wouldn’t work for long. The ISI is riddled with Islamic extremists and others who have an interest in maintaining the status quo in order to undermine the current government. The best outcome may simply be international isolation and prevention of nuclear war breaking out between India and Pakistan. Not a great outcome by any means, merely the least bad likely future.
I do know that relying on the Pakistani military to enthusiastically prosecute a war against fellow Muslims in NW Pakistan is unlikely to be a winning strategy. Yet by accounts that is the strategy Obama will be promoting to Pakistan’s President on the advice of his foreign policy team.
“There are no good solutions available to Obama”.
I get it.. but that hardly means he proceed with the most stupid/inefficient solution.. which appears to be the “death from above”, missile-firing Predators flying around sensitive areas– the “strategy” advocated by the geniuses running the pentagon.
this more or less the same “strategy” employed by Israel for decades now.. it’s a massive failure there and will be a massive failure here.
dozens of women and children DEAD? great way to win hearts and minds!!
weak, very weak.
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Hillary Clinton was deeply moved as she headed a interdepartmental meeting with both presidents at the table: Zandari of Pakistan and Karzai of Afghanistan. I watched a LIVE broadcast on BBC. She promised to do better.
Opening a meeting with the presidents of Afghanistan and Pakistan at the U.S. State Department in Washington, Clinton said that any loss of innocent life was “particularly painful.”
Afghan President Hamid Karzai, in Washington for his first meeting with President Barack Obama, thanked Clinton for “showing concern and regret” and said he hoped the countries “can work together to completely reduce civilian casualties in the struggle against terrorism.”
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence.".
WASHINGTON – The Obama administration took on high-stakes diplomacy with the leaders of Afghanistan and Pakistan, seeking more cooperation against Taliban militants while apologizing for a U.S. bombing strike that Afghans said killed dozens of innocent civilians.
Meeting with Afghanistan President Harmid Karzai and Pakistan’s Asif Ali Zardari in a prelude to their talks with President Barack Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Washington “deeply, deeply” regrets the loss of life, apparently as a result of a bombing there on Monday.
“Any loss of innocent life is particularly painful,” Clinton said. Karzai responded before the cameras that he appreciated Clinton “showing concern and regret.” The visiting leader also said he hoped Washington and Kabul could “work together to completely reduce civilian casualties in the struggle against terrorism.”
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."I get it, but the “honoring the dead”, “apologizing for the dead” is getting old, very old.
I’m into keeping people alive.. and with a high quality life.
A high quality of life in that region is currently beyond the range of available options for us to provide.
Indiscriminate death from the skies however, is a path to nowhere but I don’t know what else to do. Any kind of peace deal wouldn’t work, the Taliban would swarm out of whatever borders they agreed to. I suppose we could try and guarantee them that India wouldn’t stab them in the back but I’m not sure how much leverage we have against India.
“A high quality of life in that region is currently beyond the range of available options for us to provide”.
Since WHEN is it our responsibility to provide this?
how about providing a quality of life for OUR people here in the U.S.?
seen the number of kids killed by gangs in Chicago the past few months? horrendous.
let’s get our priorities straight, please.
She feels their pain.
Have to go vomit now.
Pakistan’s forgotten casualties of war-http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/05/05-2
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Amir Mir reports in The News that the 60 US drone attacks in Pakistan have killed 687 civilians for the 14 al-Qaeda suspects they were targeting. If you’ve ever wondered why so-called `human rights’ groups are treated with such scepticism (if not disdain) outside the US and EU, see this statement from a New York Times report on the drone attacks: “Marc Garlasco, a former military targeting official who now works for Human Rights Watch, the international advocacy group, said the drones had helped limit civilian casualties in Afghanistan and Iraq, where the Air Force uses them to attack people laying roadside bombs and to attack other insurgents.”
≈ Earlier comment in Steven D’s diary — War Crimes on Obama’s Watch? ≈
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence.".
MINGORA, Pakistan – Helicopter gunships and mortar teams pounded militant strongholds, killing dozens outside emerald mines, the military said, as Taliban reinforcements poured down from their mountain hide-outs and seized homes and government buildings.
The army began taking the fight to militants entrenched in both the Swat Valley and in Buner, just 60 miles (100 kilometers) from the capital, as Pakistan’s leader prepared to hear demands from President Barack Obama for forceful action from a struggling ally.
The latest actions will please Washington, which is urging Pakistan to crack down on militants blamed for rising violence at home and in Afghanistan.
Since fighting broke out Tuesday, thousands of men, women and children have fled Swat’s main town of Mingora and surrounding districts, fearing an imminent major military operation. The government said it believes refugees could reach 500,000.
“It is an all-out war there. Rockets are landing everywhere,” said Laiq Zada, a 33-year old who fled the valley late Tuesday and was now in a government-run tent camp out of the danger zone. “We have with us the clothes on our bodies and a hope in the house of God. Nothing else.”
The clashes followed the collapse of a 3-month-old truce in Swat that was widely criticized in the West as a surrender to the militants, who had fought the army to a standstill in two years of clashes that saw hundreds of civilian casualties.
France24TV – Taliban Impose Sharia Law in Swat Valley
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."Headed your way. Will e-mail you soon.
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I found a nice essay, Dutch society seen through the eyes of an American writer: Going Dutch.
“America is the land of the free. But I think we are freer.”
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."Yes still mentally constrained. There was a recent discussion about that over at Yglesias’ place and with Drum on the fact that the Dutch see individualism as wrong and are extremely uncomfortable with anything but group dynamics (seriously, according to Drum they got really upset when he was pushing an individual competition on sales as opposed to a group).
Someone remind me why we are attacking Taliban?
At one time they wanted to deal on an oil pipeline, “we” turned them away…
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Despite the activity of dozens of aid groups, an influx of international money and relief, and the promise of hundreds of millions of dollars from oil companies and the war on drugs, the Taliban remained unfazed to world opinion and human rights. Indeed, the most sordid manifestation of Taliban ruthlessness and fanaticism had been a psychopathic spectacle which took place every Friday in the dilapidated former sports stadium in Kabul, where tens of thousands of Muslims — men and boys, mostly — fill the stands to witness public whippings, beatings, and executions.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."rights is just cover–a pleasing story for the sheep.
It’s geopolitics.
Specifically, the price of opium has to be driven up to bail out the big banks.
The war will drive the price up.
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If possible prefer to leave them isolated as an indigenous tribe like the Papoea’s of West New Guinee or the Indians of the Americas. The hunger of the “civilized” world for natural resources is the engine for our policy to “civilize” these folks. Or else we advocate pre-emptive strikes for home security. Heck, 100,000 deaths in Iraq was worth it … or not. The dead have no voice. Human rights is for other parties to adhere to.
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."Did one cause the other?
And there was a time Taliban held opium product in check.
Only real solution is to legalize opium for morphine and let pharma buy it.
After US Strikes, Afghans Describe ‘Tractor Trailers Full of Pieces of Human Bodies;’ Meanwhile, Obama Readies 21,000 More Troops.
As rage spreads in Afghanistan after US bombing that killed up to 130 people, unnamed Pentagon officials are spinning another cover-up.
Defiant Obama moves ahead with troop increase.
http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/05/07-3
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(AP) – Abdul Basir Khan, a member of Farah’s provincial council who said he helped the joint delegation from Kabul with their examination Thursday, said he collected names of 147 dead — 55 at one site and 92 at another. Khan said he gave his tally to the Kabul team.
Investigators on visited the scene of the violence, where sobbing relatives showed them graves and the demolished buildings where they said the victims had sheltered.
Preliminary findings of the joint U.S.-Afghan investigation into the deaths in the villages of Ganjabad and Gerani in the western Farah province could be released as early as Friday, but they have yet to schedule an announcement.
Is the West losing the Pashtuns?
"But I will not let myself be reduced to silence."Short but powerful read by Robert Fisk-
http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/05/07-17
Do Afghan childen scream when the bombs fall if there is no one in the White House to hear them?
White phosphorous used in Afghanistan-
05.09.09 – 11:18 AM
The Victims
More horrors from Afghanistan, where we should not be.
The first known civilian casualties of phosphorous use, which is illegal, are 8-year-old Razia and her family.
“The kids called out to me that I was burning…” said her father Aziz Rahman.
“And then my wife screamed ‘the kids are burning’ and she was also burning.”
Discuss…
Article from Reuters on the use of White Phosphorous in Afganistan-http://in.reuters.com/article/southAsiaNews/idINIndia-39498520090508?sp=true