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| India-Pakistan |
| Dark omens in south Waziristan |
| 2003-01-02 |
| More confused details on the bombing of PakAfganistan, I think Following persistent and widespread speculation in North West Frontier Province (NWFP) and the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) of Pakistan about a bloody clash between United States and Pakistani forces near the border of Afghanistan with the FATA, reports from Washington DC have quoted the Pentagon as confirming that a clash, albeit of a minor nature, did take place on December 29, 2002, near the Afghan village of Sikhin, in which two Pakistanis were killed and an American was injured. During the clash, an American F-16 dropped a bomb, hitting a madrassa (Muslim religious school) in the south Waziristan area of the FATA in Pakistani territory. Now the story gets confused From the welter of reports on the incident coming from the NWFP and the FATA, it has been possible to reconstruct the following: Unidentified elements, suspected to be from al-Qaeda or the Taliban or both, opened fire on a US patrol near the Pakistan border in Paktika province of Afghanistan last week. In the ensuing exchange of fire, the US patrol killed one Said Muhammad, a resident of Wana, the headquarters of the South Waziristan Agency. U.S.-1 Bad Guys-0 Hundreds of people shouting slogans against the US and Pakistani President General Pervez Musharraf, including some Islamic fundamentalist members of the newly elected NWFP Legislative Assembly, attended his funeral at Wana. On December 29 (some reports say that it was actually on December 30), another US patrol in Afghan territory adjoining the FATA came under fire from some elements in Pakistani territory. The firing stopped after a while. The head of the US patrol then asked the leader of a Pakistani paramilitary unit called the South Waziristan Scouts, which consists largely of Pashtun tribals recruited in the area - many of whom are related to members of the Taliban and who are responsible for security in the affected area - to trace those who had fired on the US patrol and hand them over for interrogation. Right, like that's going to happen The head of the Pakistani unit denied any knowledge of the identity of those responsible or their whereabouts. The South Waziristan Scouts allege that thereupon the US patrol tried to enter Pakistani territory to search for the assailants. The South Waziristan Scouts resisted this by opening fire on the US patrol. There was a heavy exchange of fire, during which the South Waziristan Scouts claim to have killed at least seven Americans, but American fatalities have not been admitted by the US authorities. Thwarted in its attempts to arrest the assailants, the US patrol called for an air strike. US helicopter gunships dropped three bombs on a double-storey madrassa-cum-mosque complex at a place called Angoor Adda, run by Maulana Muhammad Hassan, of the Taliban, who is alleged to be related to Said Muhammad. Only two bombs struck the madrassa, severely damaging it, while the third fell in an empty plot of ground nearby. According to the South Waziristan Scouts, nobody was in the madrassa complex, and hence the US bombing was uncalled for. OK, that's their story, what's ours? A statement on the incident issued by the US Army headquarters at the Bagram air base in Afghanistan said that an American soldier was wounded in an exchange of gunfire with a Pakistani border patrol, prompting the US to drop a bomb on the border area. It claimed that the American was part of a unit conducting a routine mission with Pakistani forces along the Afghan border when a disagreement appeared to break out. It added, "A Pakistani border scout opened fire with a G3 rifle after the US patrol asked him to return to the Pakistan side of the border. That individual and several others retreated to a nearby structure. Close air support was requested and one 500-lb bomb was dropped on the target area. We are working with the Pakistanis for an accurate battlefield damage assessment from the incident." Second version, same as the first According to another version given by Major Stephen Clutter, an Afghanistan-based spokesman of the US Army, the incident occurred on December 29 near the Afghan town of Sikhin along the border with Pakistan. A US F-16 fighter attacked a building after a man who injured a US soldier ran inside it. According to him, American and Pakistani troops were working together at the time to blow up a cache of munitions, when the shooter was told to leave the area. Instead, he crouched and began firing. Clutter said that the attacker might have been impersonating a Pakistani border guard. "I can't speculate what was in his mind." However, Pakistani officials have admitted that the attacker belonged to the South Waziristan Scouts. Clutter added, "Pakistan has been a loyal ally and I'm sure they're just as concerned about [this incident] as we are, if in fact he [the attacker] was a member of their force." Being a PAO, I'm sure he managed to keep a straight face Captain Alaine Cramer, another US Army spokesperson, claimed that the bomb had landed within Afghan territory, about 300 meters from a Pakistani border post. Major General Rashid Quereshi, the Islamabad-based spokesman of Musharraf, also claimed that the US plane attacked a target in Afghan and not Pakistani territory. Methinks someone needs to decide where the border is. Locals say we bombed Pakland, the offical spokesdrones say it was in Afghanland. I'd wager its just over the line in Pakistan The incident has caused considerable anger against the US and Musharraf in the Pashtun tribal belt. On January 1, the NWFP Legislative Assembly, where anti-US and pro-Osama bin Laden and pro-Taliban members of the Muttahida-Majlis-e-Amal (MMA), the six-party fundamentalist coalition, are in a majority, unanimously passed a resolution condemning the alleged US bombing of a madrassa-cum-mosque in Pakistani territory. The Jamaat-e-Islami has also condemned it. Before the national elections of October 10 last year, Musharraf, in his anxiety to break Benazir Bhutto's Pakistan People's Party (PPP) in the NWFP, caused a split in the PPP and withdrew charges under the anti-terrorism act and other laws against many Islamic fundamentalist elements in the province to enable them to contest the polls. The result: Islamic fundamentalist elements, many of them relatives of Taliban leaders and cadres, won a majority and are now in power in this area, which is vital for the US war against the Taliban and al-Qaeda. It has been reported that since the cabinet of the fundamentalist parties was sworn in, many members of al-Qaeda and the Taliban, who had taken shelter in Karachi, have drifted back to the NWFP and taken refuge in the madrassas there. The FATA is directly administered by Islamabad and the fundamentalist government now in power in Peshawar does not have control over the administration there, but there, too, the fundamentalist parties have a strong presence. The Waziristan area has seen intense searches by the Pakistani security forces, assisted by experts from the US National Security Agency and the Federal Bureau of Investigation, since the beginning of last year since many fleeing al-Qaeda, Taliban, Chechen and Uzbeck terrorists had taken shelter there. While the Taliban and al-Qaeda elements dispersed to other parts of Pakistan, including Karachi, the Chechen and the Uzbeck elements, many of them married to Pashtun women, have stayed put, merged into the local population and have been harassing the US forces on the Afghan side of the border. They have recently been joined by the Pashtun members of Gulbuddin Hekmatyar's Hizb-e-Islami. Guess those Pashtun babes are pretty hot, if the Chechen and Uzbeck guys are staying around for them. |
| Posted by:Steve |
| #1 Yeah, NWFP is a jihadi center. And the MMA won in spite of its prohibition of female voting. |
| Posted by: Anonymous 2003-01-02 20:37:40 |