Eighteen Pakistani Official Mercenaries And Troops Killed As Militants Attack Khyber Checkpost

At least eighteen people were killed when Taliban militants attacked a checkpost manned by pro-government tribesman and security forces in northwest Pakistan, officials said on Sunday.

Armed with assault rifles and hand grenades, the militants killed four ethnic Pashtun tribesmen and a paramilitary soldier in the late Saturday attack.

Members of a tribal militia and security forces retaliated, killing 10 militants, said a senior government official in the Khyber region near the Afghan border, where the incident took place.

“A large number of weapons from the militants were also confiscated,” said the official, Rehan Khattak.

Pakistan’s Taliban have stepped up attacks on Pashtun tribes who have raised militias to help security forces.

At least 40 people were killed and 68 wounded when a suicide bomber attacked a funeral of a member of a pro-government tribe in the northwestern Lower Dir district on Thursday.

Militants also claimed responsibility for an attack on a school bus on Tuesday which killed five people, saying the children on the bus were from a pro-government tribe.

The Taliban are also holding more than 20 young men hostage from a pro-government tribe in an area straddling the Afghan border and have demanded the release of scores of prisoners and an end to support of military offensives against them.

Pakistani authorities have been encouraging the Pashtun tribes to revive traditional militias to counter the growing number of militants fighting the Pakistani state.

Under a centuries-old tradition, the tribes raise the militias, or lashkars, in their semi-autonomous regions to fight criminal gangs and enforce their tribal codes.

Pakistani Army And ISI Backed Militants Battle For Drone Wreckage

Pakistani soldiers fought with Taliban militants on Sunday over the wreckage of a remotely-controlled U.S. drone which crashed near the Afghan border, intelligence officials said.

The Pakistani Taliban militants, who are close to al Qaeda, claimed they had shot down the aircraft over the South Waziristan region on Saturday. Security officials could not confirm the cause of the crash.

The Taliban have previously made similar claims which were never confirmed. The United States usually does not comment on the drone program it says is highly effective against al Qaeda and other militant groups.

Pakistani security forces launched an operation against the Taliban on Sunday morning in a bid to recover the debris.

At least two militants were killed, security officials said. One army officer was injured.

Missile-armed drones have been playing a greater role than ever in U.S. counterterrorism operations in Pakistan's northwest, which President Obama has described as "the most dangerous place in the world."

Abu Hafs al Shahri, a Saudi national who had been the senior figure in al Qaeda's central command, was recently killed by a drone strike in the area, two U.S. officials said.

Drone strikes have been a major source of friction in ties between the United States and Pakistan, which are at their worst since U.S. special forces killed al Qaeda chief Osama bin Laden in a secret raid in a Pakistani military town in May.

While Pakistan publicly opposes the strikes, it has privately allowed them and cooperated with the United States in determining targets.

Pakistani Troops Massacred By The Talibs

At least 200 Taliban fighters crossed from Afghanistan into Pakistan and killed more than 25 soldiers and police, Pakistan's military says.

The fighters launched an early morning attack on seven military checkpoints in north-west Chitral district.The military said its troops fought off the attackers, killing 20 of them while the rest fled back into Afghanistan.

It is the latest in a series of cross-border raids that have raised tensions between Pakistan and Afghanistan.Pakistani officials said that these recurrent attacks have been launched from an area of eastern Afghanistan where the US has largely pulled out its troops.

The raids have increased tension between Pakistan, Afghanistan and the US.

Armed with heavy weapons, the militants seized control of a local village after attacking the security checkpoints in Chitral district, said local police official Nizam Khan. Pakistani forces responded to the raid and killed nine insurgents, he said.

In its statement, the Pakistani military blamed the attack on Pakistan and Afghan Taliban-linked fighters who have sought refuge in the Kunar and Nuristan provinces of Afghanistan, from which the US largely pulled out of a year ago.

It said the "scanty presence" of Nato and Afghan forces in the border areas allow "terrorists" to use those areas as "safe havens", from which they "have mounted repeated attacks against... security forces posts and isolated villages".The militants chanted ”God is great!” and ”Long live jihad!” as they fought, said Capt. Abdul Ghani, another member of the paramilitary forces.

Chitral is located across the border from the Afghan districts of Nuristan and Kunar, both of which house significant numbers of Afghan and Pakistani Taliban fighters.

The military said 25 paramilitary soldiers and police had been killed in Saturday's attack, but a local officials put the death toll at around 36.

Heavily Armed Afghanistan Militants Attack Pakistan Village

Huge number of heavily armed militants attacked a village in Bajaur tribal region in northwest Pakistan, they had crossed the border from Afghanistan on Thursday and stormed the village, killing five civilians, Pakistani officials said.

The militants targeted this village in Bajaur district, which borders the Afghan province of Kunar, despite the presence of Pakistani security checkpoints erected to check Taliban militants.

“Some 250-300 militants targeted civilians in Mamond. At least five civilians, including two women were killed,” according to local government official Fazle Akbar.

Akbar said three women were also wounded in the attack, which took place about 65 kilometres northwest of Khar, the main town in Bajaur.

“We have sent army and paramilitary troops to the area as we got reports that militants are still present there,” according to a security official. “Some militants were also killed when troops in the area responded, but we do not know the number of casualties yet,” the official said.

On June 1 and June 3, hundreds of militants besieged an area in Pakistan’s northwestern district of Upper Dir on the Afghan border, sparking prolonged fighting that killed at least 34 people.

Earlier in the day, a bomb attack on security forces severely wounded at least two security personnel in Upper Orakzai Agency, DawnNews reported. The bomb was said to be detonated through a remote-controlled device.

The militants also destroyed several schools, government buildings and mosques in the area. Pakistan has conveyed "strong concern" to the Afghan government over the cross-border attacks. During his recent visit to Islamabad, President Hamid Karzai said Pakistan and Afghanistan need to act "aggressively and effectively" to root out terrorists and their sanctuaries from both countries.

Six Killed In Afghanistan Car Bombing

A suicide bomber detonated a car packed with explosives in central Afghanistan on Wednesday, killing two policemen and four civilians, a spokesman for interior ministry said.

The attack happened in Kapisa province, northeast of the capital Kabul, spokesman Najib Nikzad said.

“A suicide attacker in a car wanted to attack the education department of Kapisa province, but he was stopped at a checkpoint, where he detonated his vehicle,” Nikzad said.

“Two policemen and four civilians have been martyred and three civilians and two policemen injured,” he added.

Can India Keep Ignoring Taliban After The Retreat Of Coalition Forces

Excellent article by Mr Shukla on the limited options India will be left after the retreat of the American led coalition troops.

© Broadsword Ajai Shukla

Taliban Has Shot Down U.S. Drone

A U.S. unmanned aerial vehicle has been shot down by Taliban forces in Afghanistan's eastern Kunar province, Taliban spokesman Zabiulla Mojahed said on 8th of June.

He said the UAV, brought down on Tuesday evening, is the second in the past two days.The International Security Assistance Force has yet to comment on the incident.And it is yet unclear which Drone have they shot down because the allied forces use variety of drones.

UAVs are used in Afghanistan for aerial reconnaissance, missile strikes, and ammunition deliveries to remote military garrisons.

(source RIO Novosti)

Twenty five Pakistani forces killed after cross-border raid

ISLAMABAD: Twenty-five Pakistani security forces have been killed in fighting in northwest Pakistan after about 200 militants crossed over from Afghanistan and attacked a security check post, a government official said on Thursday.

Skirmishes had been going on for 24 hours in a village in Dir region, Ghulam Mohammad Khan, a top local government official, said by telephone.

“We are preparing to evacuate 25 bodies from the village,” he said, referring to police and paramilitary forces killed in the fighting that spread to a forest. Khan said he had no figures on militant casualties.

Dir police official Dawar Ali said army troops had arrived in the area to support security forces. He said more details on the battles were hard to come by because communications had broken down in the area.

The militants had arrived in a pre-dawn operation on Wednesday dressed in military uniforms and killed one policeman.

Pakistan’s Taliban movement, which has close ties to al Qaeda, has stepped up pressure on the US-backed government after vowing to avenge the killing of Osama bin Laden by US special forces on May 2 in a Pakistani town.

It has stepped up suicide bombings, attacking paramilitary cadets, a naval base, a US consulate convoy and other targets.

After the bin Laden raid, the United States reiterated its call for Pakistan to crack down harder on militancy, especially on groups that cross over to Afghanistan to attack Western forces.

It’s not clear which militants had taken on security forces in Dir, but groups along the frontier are closely linked.

Bravery Medal For Gurkha Who Fought Taliban

A Gurkha who fought off an attack by at least a dozen Taliban insurgents has been presented with the UK's second highest bravery medal by the Queen.

Cpl Dipprasad Pun, 31, of Ashford, Kent, said he was "very proud" after receiving the Conspicuous Gallantry Cross at Buckingham Palace.

He said he thought he was going to die and so had nothing to lose when his checkpoint was ambushed in Afghanistan.

Out of bullets, he used the tripod of his gun to beat one militant away."I was sentry at night on the checkpoint and suddenly I noticed there were many Taliban surrounding that checkpoint in position to attack," he said after the ceremony."I opened fire on them and we fired at each other. There were many, I was alone."

He said at one point his weapon failed and he resorted to using his machine gun tripod to knock one insurgent off the roof of the compound."I had so many of them around me that I thought I was definitely going to die so I thought I'd kill as many of them as I could before they killed me," he said.

"That incident happened in the middle of my tour and after that I thought nobody can kill us now - when we met the enemy, I wasn't scared."I thought the Taliban did not have the capacity to fight with us."

The Gurkha, who was an acting sergeant with the 1st Battalion the Royal Gurkha Rifles at the time, said he saw some Taliban trying to plant bombs beside the compound's gate.He came under fire from rocket-propelled grenades and AK-47s for more than 15 minutes during the attack near Babaji in Helmand province last September.

In total he fired more than 400 rounds, launched 17 grenades and detonated a mine.His gallantry award is second only to the Victoria Cross - the highest honour for bravery whilst facing the enemy.After the ceremony, which recognised the bravery of several soldiers, guests queued up to shake Cpl Pun's hand.

The married soldier, whose father and grandfather were also Gurkhas, is originally from Bima in western Nepal.His medal citation said he saved the lives of three comrades at the checkpoint and prevented the position being overrun.

"Pun could never know how many enemies were attempting to overcome his position, but he sought them out from all angles despite the danger, consistently moving towards them to reach the best position of attack," it read.

Fearful Of Heavy Losses Pakistani General Rules Out North Waziristan Offensive

A top Pakistani army commander said Wednesday that his military has no imminent plans to launch an offensive in a tribal region home to numerous militants who focus on attacking U.S. and NATO forces in neighboring Afghanistan.(Pakistan wary of North Waziristan)

The statement by Lt. Gen. Asif Yasin Malik contradicted rampant media speculation that an operation in North Waziristan was in the works after years of requests for it from the United States.

Malik's dismissal came as police said a cross-border insurgent attack elsewhere in the northwest killed five security troops on Wednesday.

The general oversees military operations in the tribal areas and other parts of the northwest bordering Afghanistan. He spoke to reporters on a military-hosted trip to Mohmand, one of the tribal regions where the army has attacked Taliban and other Islamist extremists.

His reasoning for holding off on an offensive in North Waziristan was the same advanced by other army officials in recent years - that Pakistani troops are too stretched going after insurgents elsewhere.

Pakistani Army Walking Into A Hornet’s Nest In Northwest

Author Sanjeev Miglani

The United States has a set of expectations that it wants Pakistan’s government to meet, Secretary of State of Hillary Clinton said ahead of her short trip to Islamabad last week, the kind of language Washington has frequently employed to bring its conflicted partner in the war against militant Islam to heel, each time there has been a crisis. Clinton didn’t elaborate, saying only at the end of her meetings in Islamabad that she expected Pakistan to take decisive steps in the days ahead.

But on Monday, Pakistan’s The News reported that the military was preparing to launch an air and ground offensive against militants in North Waziristan, a demand that the United States has repeatedly made over the last two years. It said the decision was taken during discussions that Clinton and the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of State Admiral Mike Mullen had with Pakistani government and military leaders.

North Waziristan is a redoubt of the Haqqani network, the most powerful of the insurgent groups in eastern Afghanistan and in and around Kabul where it has carried out a wave of bombings against civilians as well as foreign forces. Pakistan has held off going into the forbidding mountains saying it needed to consolidate its operations in southern Waziristan following the offensive there in 2009.

But in the wake of the international opprobrium Pakistan’s military has come under following the killing of Osama bin Laden deep inside Pakistan, its space for manouevre has become less. The Wall Street Journal reported earlier this month U.S. officials as saying they hoped to use Islamabad’s embarrassment over failing to find bin Laden—he was killed in a house a short distance from the country’s elite military academy—to press for tougher Pakistani action against the Haqqanis and other militant groups that are focused on attacking U.S. forces in neighboring Afghanistan.

It puts the Pakistani military in a spot , as has happened so often since it reluctantly joined the U.S.-led war on al Qaeda and the Taliban following the Sept 11, 2001 attacks. The Haqqanis are long seen as a prized asset of the Inter-Services Intelligence, the Pakistani spy agency, beginning from the 1980s when it along with the CIA – ironically- funded them to fight the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. Jalaluddin Haqqani, the family patriarch, acquired legendary status among supporters for his exploits against the Red Army. Like the Lashkar-e-Taiba, the Punjabi group focused on fighting Indian forces in Kashmir and elsewhere in India, the Haqqanis have never carried out an attack on Pakistani soil.

An offensive against them in their Waziristan base carries the risk of a backlash that the Pakistani military is already facing from other militant groups it once nurtured like the members of the Pakistani Taliban. They turned against the state following the army’s operation to clean up the Red Mosque in Islamabad, and today, the Pakistan Taliban are at the forefront of the campaign against the military, claiming responsibility for some of the biggest attacks including the daring raid on the Karachi naval base attack last week to avenge bin Laden’s death.

Indeed, the military either by its incompetence or having been outmanoeuvred by its U.S. partner, faces a double backlash. While the rest of the world suspects it to have had a role in hiding bin laden all these years and so the U.S. kept it out of the May 2 raid to kill him in his lair, the militants operating inside Pakistan believe the military had a role in his killing. They have turned their wrath on the state, and more than any other country,Pakistan has become the main battleground for attacks to avenge the al Qaeda leader’s death.

Further out, by pushing the Pakistan military to sever links with the Haqqanis, the United States is hitting at one of the central planks of the Pakistani strategy to retain influence in Afghanistan as the end game builds up. Pakistan saw the Haqqanis as part of a future power structure in Afghanistan with their influence in the east, and as recent as this month, an ISI official told the Wall Street Journal the group could one day be a ”force for peace” in Afghanistan.

Launching an attack against them is almost certainly going to deprive the ISI of one of its biggest strategic assets. One escape door, as has happened so often in this troubleed relationship with the CIA, is that the core Haqqani network may not be in North Waziristan anymore, which has been targeted heavily by U.S. drones over the past two years. In any case repeated talk of an impending operation may have led the network to move its forces to other parts of the Pakistani northwest.

So, as journalist and top expert on the insurgency in the Pakistani northwest, Rahimullah Yusufzai, wrote in Newsline last week, the Pakistan militarymay well go into North Waziristan but their immediate target will be the Pakistani Taliban which have found sanctuary there following the operations in the south. As for the Haqqanis, the military will likely argue that they are not based in North Waziristan and that its fighters and head, Commander Sirajuddin Haqqani, the son of Jalaluddin, are all fighting across the border in Afghanistan

But America is “obsessed” with the Haqqanis, and it won’t be satisfied, Yusufzai says.

There is not much likelihood that the US and Pakistan will be able to narrow down their differences regarding the endgame of the Afghan conflict. One should, therefore, expect more of the same with the CIA and the ISI playing games to outwit each other. And the raid on Osama’s compound in Abbottabad has made it clear that the US is not afraid to play bigger games on Pakistani soil, no matter the embarrassment to their coalition partner at home or abroad.

UK General Warns Against Afghanistan Pullout

Britain's most senior general in Afghanistan says that there must be no significant pullout of troops from the country until late 2012.

Gen. James Bucknall said in an interview with The Daily Telegraph that U.S. reinforcements that arrived last year should stay for two more summer fighting seasons to hold gains against the Taliban.

He said any significant withdrawal of troops would send conflicting signals on commitment to the campaign there.

Prime Minister David Cameron recently said that Britain will pull out 450 troops from Afghanistan in the next year.

Bucknall predicted heavy fighting this summer in places like Helmand, where British troops are stationed.

Some argue that Osama bin Laden's death means that allied forces should speed up the pullout from Afghanistan.

On the other hand the news is Americans are holding truce negotiations with Taliban in Germany, the idea is to allow America to withdraw honorably and Taliban to take over the administration after a cooling down period so that it does not look like a disaster.

Afghan Security Forces Infiltrated By Taliban

For the past few months it has become increasingly clear that the Taliban has changed tact. It has realized that it is no match for the fire power of NATO forces. Thus it has started avoiding large scale fire-fights except in one or two cases. Even then they picked up the fight in the province of Nuristan where the coalition troop have no permanent base.

They have lost the two main opium producing provinces of Kandhar and Helmand which were their seat of power and generated cash through drug sales to keep them going. If they are to sustain themselves it is imperative that they do something to win it back.

Thus military and NATO officials, including the top commander in Afghanistan, Gen. David Petraeus, have predicted heavy fighting this summer. They have also predicted the Taliban will continue its campaign of terror and assassination. That campaign targets anyone who backs the Afghan security forces, peace talks with insurgents, or the Afghan government's reintegration program designed to lure Taliban foot soldiers back into their communities with offers of economic development for their villages.

"This is going to be a tough fighting season. The Talibs are not going to take these security gains laying down, and we have already seen them trying to come back. There are no certainties here," said British Maj. Gen. Phil Jones, a veteran of four tours in Afghanistan and NATO's point man on efforts to reintegrate Taliban fighters back into society.

To make high profile but small scale attack they have to get near high value targets. To do so they need to infiltrate the rank and file of the new Afghan National Army. Indications are that they might have already achieved this goal. Here is an example of what happened a few months back. A car with the license plate of a high-ranking Afghan general approached the gates of the Defense Ministry in Kabul last month. A special "A" pass also was on its windshield, so guards quickly waved it through.

Once inside, a man in an army uniform jumped from the car and stormed the ministry's main office building, an Afghan government official said. He gunned down two Afghan soldiers before being killed. The gunman also wounded an Afghan army officer, who died later at a hospital.

The man who drove the car with heavily tinted windows into the facility was the nephew of the general, the government official told The Associated Press. The official spoke on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to disclose the information.

The Afghan army would never stop or search a vehicle driving into the ministry with a special pass on its windshield, the official said, adding that the general had not yet been told about the car or the involvement of his nephew, who is believed to have fled to Pakistan where many insurgent groups have safe havens.

The official said the investigation was still under way, and he would not elaborate as to why the general had not been questioned, or whether he even knew that a vehicle assigned to him by the ministry was used in the attack.

Another classic example of people inside the force helping and supporting Taliban effectively happened on the 21st of May, Afghan intelligence service said a soldier serving with the security unit at the main military hospital in Kabul picked up a Pakistani national and drove him to a mosque in the capital. There, inside a restroom, the man slipped an Afghan army uniform over a suicide explosives vest and got back into the soldier's official vehicle.

He was then easily driven through the gates. The attacker blew himself up in a tent being used as a cafeteria. The explosion killed six Afghan students and wounded 23 others. No foreigners were injured.

Police later arrested the driver - a soldier who had been in the army for eight months. NATO said the Taliban-affiliated Haqqani network was responsible.

"The enemy is making huge efforts to infiltrate Afghan security organizations," Gen. Abdul Rahim Wardak, the Afghan defense minister, recently told parliament.

The Taliban claim that indirect tactics, such as suicide attacks, assassinations and infiltration, are part of their new strategy against the government.

"The mujahedeen are able to infiltrate into the ranks of the enemy and are using these opportunities to attack," Taliban spokesman Zabiullah Mujahid said after the attack.

Since September 2007, the coalition has recorded 21 incidents in which a member of the Afghan security forces - or someone in a uniform used by them - have killed coalition forces. Forty-nine coalition troops, including at least 35 Americans, have been killed. At least six members of the Afghan security forces also died in the incidents.

Now it remains to be seen as to the way Taliban takes on Coalition troops this spring because it is quite clear that the Americans have failed to annihilate or reduce the fighting ability of the Taliban and it is believed they are lying low for the time being waiting for the Americans to move out . The second part of the strategy is to dis-credit the Afghan government by hitting high value targets, thus the general public will believe that the Afghanistan government is not in control and Taliban is the main power which can stabilize Afghanistan.

Suicide Car Bomber Kills 25 In Pakistan

PESHAWAR: A suicide car bomb struck Pakistani police on Thursday, killing 25 people in the second attack in as many days in the northwest as the Taliban vow to avenge the US killing of Osama bin Laden.

“It was a car suicide attack targeting a city police station. The bomber blew up the car at a checkpoint close to the police station,” said police deputy inspector general Masood Khan Afridi.

Regional police spokesman Fazal Naeem said, “(The bomber) wanted to blow up the city police station but he blew up the car close to the barrier outside the station.” Police officials said 25 people were killed and 38 others wounded.

“Most of those killed in the attack are policemen and the death toll may rise, because there are offices and residences of senior police officials and the local administration near the attack site,” said Naeem.

The Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility for the suicide car bombing, with a spokesman saying it was carried out to avenge the death of Osama bin Laden.

“We accept responsibility for this attack. This was a small attack to avenge Osama’s martyrdom,” spokesman Ehsanullah Ehsan told AFP by telephone from an undisclosed location.

“Soon you will see bigger attacks. Revenge for Osama can’t be satisfied just with small attacks,” he said.

Blast Near US embassy kills 4 in Pakistan

Pakistan suffered yet again when a blast took place near US Embassy in Peshawar.

A suicide bomber in an explosive-laden car rammed into a police station in Peshawar, Pakistan, on Wednesday, in a Taliban attack that killed four police officers and injured 21 people, a senior police official said.

The Pakistani Taliban said the attack was to avenge the killing of innocent civilians. The group's spokesman, Ihsan Ullah, told on Wednesday that Pakistani security forces are carrying out those killings on the instruction of the United States in the name of a "war on terror."

Muhammad Ejaz Khan, the police official, said 13 civilians were wounded. The other eight were police.

Khan said several people were still under the debris. About 300 kilograms (661 pounds) of explosive material was used in a minitruck.

Fiaz Tooro, another senior police official of Peshawar, told that the building was being used as
a Directorate of Counter-Terrorism to interrogate militants. No militants were being questioned
or in the building at the time of the blast, he said.

The special police officials who were running the directorate were the target of the blast, Tooro said.

Pakistani Taliban represents a confederation of Taliban groups in northwestern Pakistan, where they are based, said Bill Roggio, military affairs analyst who is managing editor of The Long War Journal.

Those fighters attack targets in Pakistan and across the border in Afghanistan. The group, which is headquartered in Quetta, is different from the Afghan Taliban, which has been focused on re-establishing the Islamic Emirate in Afghanistan.

Both groups swear allegiance to Taliban leader Mullah Omar and have close ties to al Qaeda, he said.

Conspiracy Theories Abound In Karachi

Attacks against Pakistan security forces are all too common, but the scale of Monday's operation marked it out as the most audacious since the killing of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden by U.S. forces early this month.

The questions and conspiracy theories about the well-executed attack on PNS Mehran have begun to circulate. But a look at existing patterns, threats and warning signs helps connect the dots.

Target

While other attacks have targeted military personnel, the PNS Mehran attack is different in that it directly targeted the P-3C Orion aircraft. “The attack has rendered the navy deaf and dumb,” said security analyst Ikram Sehgal. “The P-3C aircraft acts as the navy’s ears and eyes. There are three basic elements — anti-submarine warfare, radar capabilities and electronic intelligence.”

The Pakistan Taliban, which is allied with al Qaeda, said the attack was to avenge bin Laden's killing. At least 12 military personnel were killed and 14 wounded.

It was not clear how many of the militants were killed.

"If these people can just enter a military base like this, then how can any Pakistani feel safe?" asked Mazhar Iqbal, 28, engineering company administrator taking a lunch break in the shade outside the complex where a crowd had gathered on a patch of grass to watch journalists set up camp as much as anything.

He said he was from an insecure area of the southern city already infamous as a source of funding for militant groups.

"The government and the army are just corrupt. We need new leaders with a vision for Pakistan."

Karachi has a population of about 18 million people, a volatile mix of rival ethnic groups and political factions, who all to readily resort to violence to settle scores.

Sprawling along the sun-baked coast of the Arabian Sea, the city is also home to Pakistan's main port, financial markets and the central bank.

It is also a transit point for military and other supplies to Afghanistan for the U.S.- and NATO-led anti-insurgency effort there.

QUESTIONS

The navy base is ringed with a concrete wall with about five feet of barbed wire on top. An aircraft, armed with rockets, hangs on show on a stand outside.

Two white paramilitary ranger vehicles had taken up position outside the main gate, each with a machinegun on top and an officer wearing a black cap and camouflage.

There were about 30 to 40 journalists gathering outside, with seven satellite dishes attached to their trucks. Helicopters buzzed overhead and the main road outside was closed to traffic.

Moin Babar, 35, a technical engineer, said people were trying to understand how the militants made it inside.

"I heard that 15 went in through a sewer," he said.

Kamran Khalil, 48, a civil engineer, suggested, like many others, a conspiracy.

"How can this happen? It's taking them so long to resolve the issue. India or the CIA could have been behind this. They want to show that Pakistan forces are ineffective."

Many in Pakistan were furious with the U.S. operation to kill bin Laden without sharing any intelligence beforehand with Islamabad, which they saw as a severe breach of sovereignty.

"This is all a reaction to American policy in Pakistan," said Atif Ali, a 30-year-old construction worker, standing near one billboard advertising audio equipment in which a beautiful woman says "Let's play" and another advertising pizza.

WHY THE NAVY?

Pakistan’s armed forces have been under attack by militants for several years now, however the navy has rarely been targeted. In 2008, seven people were killed in a suicide attack at Lahore’s Naval War College. On December 1, 2009, a suicide bomber blew himself up at the naval headquarters in Islamabad.

On April 26, 2011, four people were killed and 26 were injured in twin bomb blasts on naval buses in Karachi. Two days later, six people were killed and seven injured in another attack on a bus carrying naval personnel near the Karsaz base. “These were soft targets,” says Sehgal. “But it should have been questioned as to why technicians, who were going to and from the naval base, were being targeted.”

While Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan spokesperson Ehsanullah Ehsan claimed responsibility for the attack, Sehgal believes that the beneficiaries of Sunday’s attack are countries that have ‘had designs on Pakistan’, and that this had “India’s Research and Analysis Wing’s signature all over it”. He said it was “far fetched” to believe that the attack could be retribution for the Pakistan Navy’s role in Combined Task Force 151, an international anti-piracy fleet that was commanded by the Pakistan Navy earlier this year.

INTERNAL INVOLVEMENT

The security of Pakistan’s military bases has been in question for several years now. The attack on the military’s general headquarters in Rawalpindi in 2009 as well as frequent attacks on security check posts, bases and training centers is part of a pattern, both of infiltration of and radicalisation in the security forces, and the lack of adequate security measures.

A precedent for involvement by military personnel exists. Investigation into an assassination attempt on former president General (retd.) Pervez Musharraf found that the ammunition had been taken from a Pakistan Air Force (PAF) depot. Seven military officials — six of whom were from the air force — were convicted by a military court along with six civilians. According to a Dawn report in 2010, explosives used in the attacks on Karachi’s Abdullah Shah Ghazi shrine were ‘sophisticated military explosives’.

A US embassy cable from 2006, which was released this month by WikiLeaks, highlights radicalisation in the air force. The cable quotes then-Deputy Chief of Air Staff for Operations Air Vice Marshal Khalid Chaudhry as saying that the airmen, most of who came from rural villages, were being radicalised by extremist clerics.

The cable quotes Chaudhry as saying, “You can’t imagine what a hard time we have trying to get them to trim their beards.”

The cable also reveals that Chaudhry claimed “to receive monthly reports of acts of petty sabotage, which he interpreted as an effort by extremists among the enlisted ranks to prevent PAF aircraft from being deployed in support of security operations in the Federally Administrated Tribal Areas along the Afghan border.”

Radicalisation in the security forces was highlighted earlier this year when Punjab Governor Salmaan Taseer was assassinated by a member of the Elite Force squad in Islamabad on January 4. A Los Angeles Times report in February highlighted the case of Zahid Manzoor Bajwa, a Punjab police official who had access to intelligence reports and is believed to have passed them on to the Taliban.

The PNS Mehran attack would have also required significant surveillance, which militant organisations have been able to conduct in the past, given their success at attacking the military’s Rawalpindi headquarters and buildings belonging to the Inter-Services Intelligence, Federal Investigation Agency and the Crime Investigation Department.

In the early 2000s, al Qaeda operatives had reportedly surveyed Karachi’s ports in preparation for a planned attack on the Strait of Hormuz and other ports used by the US Navy, according to the files of Guantanamo Bay detainees published by WikiLeaks.

WESTERN REACTION

The Obama administration strongly condemned on Monday the terrorist attack on a naval base in Karachi but avoided getting involved in the media debate on the security of Pakistan`s nuclear weapons.

State Department spokesman Mark Toner noted that the attack underscored the need for continuing cooperation between the US and Pakistan in the war against terror despite differences over the May 2 raid on Osama bin Laden`s compound.

“We strongly condemn this terrorist attack and we`re committed to working with Pakistan… in a joint effort to combat this kind of violent extremism,” Mr Toner told a briefing in Washington.

“It just illustrates that Pakistan is under enormous pressure and threat from these kinds of groups. And they suffer… considerably from this kind of violent extremism,” he said.

The attack also “speaks to the ongoing need for close counter-terrorism cooperation, even or in spite of some of the questions raised by the Bin Laden raid,” he added.

British Foreign Secretary William Hague also noted that the “attack once again demonstrates the seriousness of the threat that Pakistan faces from domestic militancy and extremism.”

Like the US, Britain also offered to help Pakistan combat violent extremists responsible for this and other attacks in the country.

While officials were cautious in their reaction, media outlets across the globe linked the Karachi attack to the question of security of Pakistan`s nuclear arsenal.

“And what does it imply for security at other key installations, not least those associated with Pakistan`s nuclear deterrent?” asked BBC`s defence and diplomatic correspondent Jonathan Marcus.

The Washington Examiner newspaper adopted an alarmist approach, claiming that “the attack points out to the increasing radicalisation of the armed forces of Pakistan, as such an attack could not be planned and executed without some inside help from someone inside the Pakistani Navy”.

The newspaper warned that “if the terrorists can get hold of any IRBM and nuclear materials, a few Indian and Israeli cities, and a few thousand Nato soldiers in Afghanistan might go up in smoke.”

The attack “underscored the insurgents` ability to penetrate fortified security installations,” The Washington Post noted. It quoted several analysts as saying that “it was likely they were helped by people inside the base.”

The incident “dealt another embarrassing blow to a powerful military that has faced harsh domestic criticism over the US operation that killed Bin Laden,” the Post added.

“The Bin Laden raid also raised questions about the safety of Pakistan`s nuclear arsenal, and defence analysts said the Karachi assault renewed those doubts,” the Post added.

Pakistani Naval Aviation Base In Disarray After Militant Attack

Read Update about a terrified Pakistani army(25/05/2011)

An overnight battle with militants at Pakistan's naval aviation base erupted again after dawn on Monday, with blasts ringing out and choppers hovering overhead as security forces launched a counter-offensive.Watch Live

The Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility for the brazen attack on the base by 15-20 gunmen, saying it was to avenge the killing of al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden on May 02.

"It was the revenge of martyrdom of Osama bin Laden. It was the proof that we are still united and powerful," Ehsanullah Ehsan said from an undisclosed location.

More than 30 troops entered the PNS Mehran base in the southern city of Karachi as the battle resumed in the morning and eight blasts were heard in the space of 30 minutes.

"The operation still continues. It is not over yet," said one security official, eight hours after the militants stormed the installation with guns and grenades, killing at least five people and blowing up a military aircraft.

Eleven people were wounded in the attack on one of the country's most heavily guarded military installations, where jet fuel tanks appeared to have caught fire and exploded.

Those killed in the assault, which started at around 10:30 pm on Sunday, included a sailor, three firefighters and an Army ranger.

"They were carrying guns, rocket-propelled grenades (RPG) and hand grenades. They hit the aircraft with an RPG," Navy spokesman Commander Salman Ali said.

The Karachi attack evoked memories of an assault on Pakistan's Army headquarters in the town of Rawalpindi in 2009, and revived concerns that even the most well-guarded installations in the country remain vulnerable to militants.Watch Live

A spokesman said one P-3C Orion, a maritime patrol aircraft, had been destroyed and that intermittent gunfire was continuing.

Interior Minister Rehman Malik said earlier that the militants had attacked from the rear of the base.

"We have been able to confine them to one building and an operation is underway either to kill or capture them," he said.

Media reports said the attackers had made their way in through a sewer line, but that was not confirmed. The military's goal was to capture as many of the attackers alive as possible, Pakistan television reported.

Pakistani military and paramilitary reinforcements poured in after the attack began, with four vehicles carrying about 10 troops each moving into the base.

Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani condemned the attack.

"Such a cowardly act of terror could not deter the commitment of the government and people of Pakistan to fight terrorism," Gilani said in statement.

Wave of bombings

Pakistan has faced a wave of bombings and gun assaults over the last few years, some of them claimed by the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), or Pakistani Taliban.

Others have been blamed on al Qaeda-linked militant groups once nurtured by the Pakistani military which have since slipped out of control.

The TTP, which has links with al Qaeda, is led by Hakimullah Mehsud, a brutal militant commander whose fighters regularly clash with the Pakistan army in the northwest of the country.

It also claimed responsibility for being behind the botched plot to bomb New York's Times Square last year.

The discovery that bin Laden was living in the garrison town of Abbottabad, not far from the Pakistan Military Academy, has revived suspicions that militants may be receiving help from some people within the security establishment.

Pakistan and the United States say the senior leadership in the country did not know bin Laden was in Abbottabad.

Washington sees nuclear-armed Pakistan as a key, if troubled, ally in the region essential to its attempts to root out militant forces in neighbouring Afghanistan.

"We condemn the attack and our sympathies are with the families of those injured or killed," the White House said in a statement.

On April 28, suspected militants detonated a roadside bomb in Karachi, killing four members of the Navy, the third attack on the Navy in a week.

The attack came two days after two bombs hit buses carrying navy personnel, killing four people and wounding 56. Taliban insurgents took responsibility for the twin attacks.

Pakistan Attacking Indians In Afghanistan

For the first time Pakistani establishment has accepted the responsibility for the 2008 attacks on Indian embassy at Kabul.
A day after fresh WikiLeaks cables exposed that Pakistani's National Security Adviser Mahmud Ali Durrani told his Indian counterpart MK Narayanan in 2008 that his country had contacts with "bad guys" and perhaps "one of them"carried out a suicide bombing against the Indian embassy in Kabul in 2008, Islamabad continues to remain in denial.

The role of Pakistan's ISI in the attack on India's embassy in Kabul has always been suspected. The cable also adds Durrani first made this admission to the former Indian NSA MK Narayanan in Delhi. However, he added that Inter-Services Intelligence had no hand in the 2008 bombing. The Pakistan NSA further said his country was not directly responsible for the bombing.

At a meeting in New Delhi on October 13, 2008, Durrani told Narayanan that “Inter-Services Intelligence didn't do it”, said a US diplomatic cable dated October 28, 2008 from Islamabad.

However, he added, “We have some contacts with bad guys and perhaps one of them did it.”

A suicide blast that rocked the Indian embassy on July 07, 2008, killed 58 people, including four Indians.

The cable, sent under the name of Ambassador Anne W Patterson, details a meeting between US Assistant Secretary for South and Central Asia Richard Boucher and Durrani, at which the latter frankly gave an account of his meeting with the Indian NSA.

Durrani further told the US official that Narayanan admitted that he was a "little harsh with us". 

Deputy Commander Of Taliban Vows To Complete Osama's Mission

The slaying of Osama bin Laden has given the Pakistani Taliban "new zeal" to complete the al-Qaida chief's mission of waging holy war against the West, the deputy commander of the militant group told The Associated Press.

The comments by Waliur Rehman appeared designed to deflate expectations that the extraordinary May 2 raid by U.S. Navy SEALs that killed bin Laden in the Pakistani garrison town of Abbottabad would slow down insurgent groups allied with or inspired by al-Qaida. It also could be an attempt to raise morale among the insurgents.

The Pakistani Taliban is a network of militant groups that is distinct from but linked to the Afghan Taliban.

The primary target of the Pakistani Taliban has been the Pakistan state itself, which the militants claim is essentially a slave to the United States. But the group also has been linked to plots in the West, including a Pakistani American's failed attempt to detonate a car bomb in New York's Times Square.

Rehman spoke to the AP on Monday along the border between North and South Waziristan, two lawless tribal regions where Islamist militants are strong.

"After the martyrdom of Sheik Osama, the mujahideen will continue jihad to complete his mission with a new zeal, " he said, referring to his fighters.

"We have the same target, program and mission," he added. "Our enemies are NATO, Jews and Christians."

Rehman, dressed in a traditional white Pakistani long shirt and trousers and carrying an AK-47, spoke of bin Laden in a composed manner, but also questioned some of the details that have emerged from the raid.

He said he believed bin Laden detonated a suicide jacket to avoid arrest, and that was the reason the U.S. had resisted releasing a photo of his corpse.

The White House says it will not release the photos to avoid sparking outrage and potential violence from bin Laden supporters.

Afghanistans Second Largest City Kandahar Under Taliban Attack

Intense fighting has taken place in Afghanistan&s second city of Kandahar amid co-ordinated militant attacks, including at least six suicide bombs.

The Taliban said it was behind the triple assault on the provincial governor's office, the Afghan spy agency and a police station. At least two people were killed and 23 injured in the fighting, which spread panic on the streets. One official linked the attack to the recent escape of hundreds of prisoners.

Gunmen in a four-storey shopping centre exchanged fire with security forces in a compound belonging to Governor Tooryalai Wesa. "This clearly was intended to be a spring offensive spectacular attack which was thwarted by Afghan National Security Forces," said US Marine Maj-Gen James Laster, a spokesman for the international coalition in Afghanistan. Firing continued until late on Saturday, but officials told Reuters news agency that this was mainly from clearing operations.

Earlier, a spokesman for the Afghan spy agency, the National Directorate of Security, told that the attack on the governor's compound was now over and two Taliban fighters had died. He added: "But they are still attacking my office from a nearby Kandahar hotel. Fighting is still intense.
"They are using heavy machine guns, rocket-propelled grenades, hand grenades and AKs [AK-47s].

"The Taliban could use the cover of darkness to launch more attacks. "They planned this well in advance. They wanted to take control of government offices and take senior Afghan officials hostage. There were at least seven explosions, paralysing the city.

At least two suicide bombers who tried to attack police were shot dead before they could reach their targets. Witnesses described civilians running through the streets for safety and shopkeepers closing their stores in case of looting.

Military helicopters were hovering above the city. "Forget human, even the birds have fled the city," a shopkeeper in Kandahar's Chowke Madad district told our correspondent. Two schools and a municipal traffic office were also reported to have been attacked.

Amid the fighting, Governor Wesa appeared on private Shamshad TV to say: ''I am alive and well, sitting with my friends here in my office."No matter how many fighters the Taliban have got in the city, they will be killed one by one.

Afghan President Hamid Karzai said the militants were attacking civilians to hide their defeat, caused by the killing of Osama Bin Laden.

But Taliban spokesman Yusuf Ahmadi said the Kandahar attacks had been planned for some time as part of the insurgents' annual "spring offensive", announced last week, and had nothing to do with Bin Laden's death.

Kandahar, the birthplace of the Taliban and a hotbed of the insurgency, has been the focus of military operations by the Western-backed government over the past year.

A senior Kandahar police official blamed the attacks on last month's escape by about 500 prisoners, many of them Taliban, from the main jail in the city.

The official, who did not want to be named, told our correspondent: "If 106 Taliban field commanders - some of them the very backbone of the insurgency - had not escaped from the prison, attacks like this would have not occurred."

Also last month, Kandahar's police chief was killed by an attacker in a police uniform, while in January the provincial governor's deputy was killed.