A suicide bomber killed five Pakistani policemen in an attack on a police station in a region beset by Taliban attacks.
A Taliban suicide bomber rammed a vehicle packed with explosives into a police station in the district of Hangu in the northwestern province of Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa. Five policemen were killed in the attack, and 25 more were wounded, Geo News reported. The death toll may rise, as more policemen are feared to be trapped in the rubble.
The Taliban later claimed the attack, and promised more. “We will continue our attacks against security forces,” Taliban spokesman Ahsanullah Ahsan told The Associated Press.
The Taliban previously targeted police in Hangu in a suicide attack on March 8, when a bomber detonated his car at a checkpoint, killing four policemen and five civilians. The Taliban also blew up a bus on Jan. 17, killing 17 people. In addition, the Taliban have carried out several other small-scale ambushes and IED attacks against security forces in the district.
The Taliban have stepped up terror attacks against civilian and military targets in the districts and tribal agencies near Peshawar, the provincial capital, since the beginning of January.
Commander Tariq Afridi is the leader of the Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan in Hangu, as well as in regions in Peshawar, Kohat, Arakzai, and Khyber. Afridi was named the terror group’s commander of Khyber in November 2009. He is also the leader of the Commander Tariq Afridi Group. This Taliban outfit is considered the most powerful terror group in Arakzai, and is based in Darra Adam Khel. The Tariq Afridi Group conducts attacks on Pakistani security forces in Arakzai, Kohat, and Hangu. His fighters were responsible for closing down the Kohat Tunnel twice in 2008, as well as several attacks against the tunnel earlier this year.
7 Comments
Is it not just a matter of time before the Paki’s ask for help from the US special forces to take care of these vermin?
If this writer is to be believed, “Now, the military has put its foot down to stop drone attacks after several years of silent acquiescence.”
http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2011%5C03%5C23%5Cstory_23-3-2011_pg3_3
My last post was the bad news. and now for some good news:
–Central Asia Stands To Gain As NATO Shifts Supply Lines Away From Pakistan
http://www.rferl.org/content/central_asia_supply_lines_afghanistan/2345994.html
–Russia endorses NATO success in Afghanistan
http://www.tolonews.com/en/afghanistan/2207-russia-endorses-nato-success-in-afghanistan
and for those who missed this
–Why Afghanistan Is Far from Hopeless
http://www.time.com/time/specials/packages/article/0,28804,2059521_2059653_2059652,00.html
If these 2 keys issues are solved, ie the supply line and second, a stronger alliance including Russia and India, with or without China, then Pak can really be sorted out of their slumber.
Pakistan is the problem and not the solution. Like the warmongering Prussian and Imperial Japanese militocracies of the early 20th century, there will be no peace or freedom from terrorism in this century until the Pakistani Punjabi war machine is crushed and their WMDs eliminated. When they are de-fanged the Taliban will essentially disappear just like al-Qaeda-in-Iraq did when they didn’t have Iraqi Sunni support.
This, however, is not just the US’s or Europe’s problem; it involves Russia and India as well. On the plus side, such an alliance under the US’s leadership would serve in the future to contain the other rising threat to global stability, totalitarian China.
Charu,
On the Pak Army you say, “When they are de-fanged the Taliban will essentially disappear just like al-Qaeda-in-Iraq did when they didn’t have Iraqi Sunni support.”
I agree with you that Pak, esp the Army are the problem and hence not the solution.
The problems as i see them are:
* Pak is a massive country, population-wise–180m people breeding even faster than their nuclear reactors. With a common hatred of America (i imagine the whole of the West), India and Russia–the whole world one could almost say, save China (for whom they have a mercenary love) and the Arab world. IE a difficult country to occupy, hold and bring into the global fold.
* Massive culture of Islamized violence and an inexplicable love for their Army. IE a hotbed for recruitment into the terror machine.
* An Army that has a mass of foot-soldiers that would easily be absorbed by the the Taliban and AQAM should the Army start to disintegrate. (See this article–All Kayani’s Men)
http://nationalinterest.org/article/all-kayanis-men-3445
The writer argues:
“The Pakistani army is a highly disciplined and professional institution, and the soldiers will continue to obey their generals’ orders. Given their basic feelings, however, it would be unwise to push the infantrymen too far. One way of doing this would be to further extend the U.S. drone campaign by expanding it from the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) to Baluchistan. Much more disastrous would be any resumption of U.S. ground raids into Pakistani territory, such as occurred briefly in the summer of 2008.”
In summary, it kinda looks like we’re damned if we do breach this terror machinehead of Pakistan, and damned if we don’t.
And then politically, who has the courage to take on this venture which, necessarily, even if successful, would come at a mind-boggling cost. Even the President who articulated that this was the “good war” is very reluctant to take on this nightmare state.
Charu, i read your sensible comments regularly. I struggle to comprehend where all this is going. Do you reckon that upping the ante with an alliance that includes Russia and India, supported by a strong UN mandate could be the answer? Would China resist and risk being the last man standing? What about the nuclear risks if Pak is cornered? What about their integrity if their Army is disintegrating? Would India be willing to harden its stance and be in the front-lines? Where do you see all this going? Is there another way?
Its questions like these that make one very uncomfortable that 2014 makes any sense at all. Unless we are saying we’ll fight half the war and take the next level later in the decade.
Villiger, thank you for the kind compliment; I am, however, aware how easy it is to play armchair general.
I had earlier read the article that you linked and had dismissed it because the author was clearly sucking up to the Pakistani military to further the book that he was writing. While the Pakistani army may be the most professional institution in that country, and it has been very successful in brutally putting down civilian insurrections, it also has repeatedly shown itself to rather inept and incompetent in battles with trained soldiers (regular army and irregulars such as the Pakistani Taliban) over the years. It also is, arguably, one of the key factors in the failure of the Pakistani state having stifled all chances of democracy and the equitable distribution of land and wealth, and its role guarantees the eventual takeover of the country by the Taliban.
I am a fan of Samuel Huntington’s prescient The Clash of Civilizations. While he may not have anticipated the current turmoil in the Middle East (and it is too early to tell what form of government will stem from these “people’s revolutions” but the Muslim Brotherhood taking power is a distinct possibility), Pakistan appears to march in step with his predictions. I believe that a US defeat in Afghanistan will hasten Huntington’s thesis. However, it may be possible to reduce the possibility of Huntington’s clash coming into fruition (in AfPak at least) if the Pakistani military is reduced to preserving a landlocked Punjabi state from the united Pashtuns; giving the Baluchis and the Sindhis space to do grow (like the economically-thriving Iraqi Kurdistan today). The Punjabis would resist any encroachment of Pashtuns into their rump state, and they could keep their family jewels, their nukes, in exchange for not being taken over and occupied by the allies.
The fly in the ointment is that the Punjabi Taliban would take over this weakened Punjabi rump state and ally with al Qaeda to use nukes in global terrorism. This is why the Western-Russian-Indian alliance must be prepared to denuclearize Punjab and crush the Taliban should this happen. I wish there was another way, but the current path would lead to the Taliban take over of the whole Pakistani nation and much of Afghanistan, which would be an exponentially greater problem to battle.
Charu, thanks for your reply. I’ve appreciated our exchange and i think its very important that the media engages the public in a conversation so that there is a wider appreciation all round.
This problem of Pakistan harbouring, aiding and abetting terrorists is not going to go away no matter how much in God the American people trust. And america continues its aiding, if not abetting, of Pakistan so it all comes back to the White House and the American people.
We could go on in refining our exchange, but i agree with you that some sort of controlled implosion of the Pakistani State is the way to go. Nothing sovereign about it.
Maybe its good if Obama gets down there and personally delivers the message that the game’s up.
We spent all of 2010 figuring out that the US’s stated strategy for AfPak was fatally flawed, since it just ducked the Pak problem altogether. Now we’re spending all of 2011 playing silly-season games with Pakistan. (Note no drones for 10 days now despite great weather. And rumors that 300+ US personnel in/under the Islamabad embassy having to leave Pak, post-Davis.) Then we’ll have to string things out to the 2012 election. All the while the cost of the Af War is $7billion+ pm or around $240 million a day which translates to $10million an hour 24/7. And that excludes the spend on maintaining the Pak concubine as an ally. How is this bang for your buck?