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| India-Pakistan | ||
| Pakistan foils coup plot | ||
| 2006-10-14 | ||
| KARACHI - A plot to stage a coup against Pakistan's President General Pervez Musharraf soon after his recent return from the US has been uncovered, resulting in the arrest of more than 40 people. Most of those arrested are middle-ranking Pakistani Air Force officers, while civilian arrests include a son of a serving brigadier in the army. All of those arrested are Islamists, contacts in Rawalpindi, where the military is based, divulged to Asia Times Online. The conspiracy was discovered through the naivety of an air force officer who this month used a cell phone to activate a high-tech rocket aimed at the president's residence in Rawalpindi. The rocket was recovered, and its activating mechanism revealed the officer's telephone number. His arrest led to the other arrests.
Other rockets were then recovered from various high security zones, including the headquarters of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) in Islamabad. According to Asia Times Online sources, more arrests can be expected, both military and civilian.
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| Posted by:Steve |
| #5 Air forces are often the most dangerous to the central power SteveS. More education and exposure to different memes. That and it's rare that an armoured crusier is parked downtown anymore. |
| Posted by: Shipman 2006-10-14 17:25 |
| #4 Is it my imagination or are the Air Force boys always the ones staging the coups? |
| Posted by: SteveS 2006-10-14 15:46 |
| #3 We need to be ready. If there is a coup, take it as an oppurtunity to destroy North-Waristan province. |
| Posted by: plainslow 2006-10-14 13:00 |
| #2 Again, I would use this to point out how very precarious is Musharraf's presidency. Every one of his actions with US help has had to have been calculated to also increase his power and rule of his country, and at the expense of his Islamist enemies. But it must be very gradual, incremental. Or else Musharraf will be overthrown and most likely replaced with some Islamist radical. Already his has purged his military and ISI of its worst offenders, now, it seems, he has an excuse to clean its second tier Islamists as well. |
| Posted by: Anonymoose 2006-10-14 10:53 |
| #1 "He says retired ISI officials are involved in supporting the Taliban. Justa hobby, what's the big deal? |
| Posted by: Shipman 2006-10-14 10:41 |