Shakirullah Shakir, a spokesman for the Fedayeen-e-Islam, a terrorist group in Pakistan, recently claimed that his group has trained more than 1,000 suicde bombers at camps in North Waziristan. From The Express Tribune:
Pakistani Taliban have claimed that they are running three secret camps in South and North Waziristan tribal regions close to the Afghan border to train potential suicide bombers with their total strength exceeding 1,000.
“We have three facilities exclusively for fidayeen (suicide bombers). Each one has more than 350 men being trained in it,” a purported spokesperson for the little-known Fidayeen-e-Islam Group of the Taliban, told The Express Tribune from a secret location in North Waziristan.
The man, who identified himself as Shakirullah Shakir, added that the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) led by Hakimullah Mehsud had recently separated the operations of suicide bombers from the overall activities of the group.
“Fidayeen-e-Islam is a part of the overall chain of command of the TTP but it works separately and has its own structures,” Shakir said but gave little details of the working relationship between the mainstream Taliban leadership and the group handling suicide bombers.
Shakir confirmed a statement from a would-be child suicide bomber who was captured before he could detonate at a Sufi Shrine in the district of Dera Ghazni Khan in Punjab province. On April 8, the teenage boy claimed he trained at a camp near Mir Ali in North Waziristan.
Shakir has emerged once in the past to claim credit for a pair of suicide attacks on Shia worshippers in Lahore and Karachi on Jan. 25.
The Fedayeen-e-Islam is an alliance between the Pakistani Taliban, the anti-Shia Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, and Jaish-e-Mohammed. For more on the terror group, see LWJ report, Suicide bombers kill 16 Pakistanis in attacks in Lahore, Karachi. Qari Hussain Mehsud, the so-called trainer of suicide bombers who instructed the failed Times Square bomber, is a top leader of the Fedayeen-e-Islam.
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9 Comments
And the Pak Army wont invade North Waziristan because?
With the wave of suicide attacks in the last week or so I wonder if this is where they are coming from?
The duplicity of the Paki plutocracy is beyond tiresome.
If the Pakistanis can’t (or won’t) tame FATA – we will have to. If we continue to permit our lethal enemies to train and regroup in that protective environment our investment of blood and treasure in the Afghan campaign will be for naught.
I don’t know that there currently exists the political courage in Islamabad or D.C. to do what is required. It’s depressing at times.
I heard through unofficial rumor mills that the drone strikes are now on a “long-term” pause for review because of fear about Pakistani anger. Vietnam and worse?
Why wont the Pak Army invade North Waziristan?
With perseverance and patience on our part, they will “exhaust” (or at least greatly deplete) their “reserve” of suicide bombers.
This is exactly what happened in Iraq.
Also, I have faith that with the proper assistance from US, the Afghan police will overcome this situation.
From what I’ve seen, the U.S. only seems to have confidence in Afghan commandos. The police are viewed as corrupt and illiterate, and the army as lazy, scared and inept. The commandos are seen as the only dedicated Afghans that can provide security. That’s why, if anybody remembers, whenever the U.S. pulled out of outposts in Kunar and Nuristan, they would put Afghan commandos in the area to try to hold it once they are gone.
But even the Afghan commandos have proven not to be a good match for the local Afghan Taliban, or the foreign fighter jihadists.
We may need to stay another 10 years to train the Afghan security to at least a somewhat acceptable level.
Good time for the announcement (gloat?), now that Pakistan has their back on drone strikes. We won’t be hitting their camps anytime soon.
What an achievement on this earth, indoctrinating impressionable youth to kill themselves along with random men, women and children. God/Allah surely is paying attention and will reward them justly – and eternally.
Soccer, actually, I recall numerous articles from Bill awhile back where the local Afghan police successfully repelled several [seemingly] sophisticated [albeit frontal] attacks by the Taliban.
Of course, this just further bears out what a sick joke it is to call those taliban “soldiers,” since that they can’t even win a true battle (on a battlefield), even when they launched against a local police force.
In my honest assessment, if there is to be any suspicion or doubt pertaining to Afghan performance repelling the taliban, it should be more directed at the ANA; especially those units coming from Kabul or having any association(s) with Karzai.
Also, this claim of 1,000 suicide bombers may well be grossly inflated, as are the taliban’s repeated claims of significant casualties of coalition forces have repeatedly proven to be.