Pakistan bleeds

[Al-khiyal]

Pakistan suicide bomber kills dozens at volleyball tournament

January 1, 2010 -- Pakistan today suffered one of its deadliest atrocities in recent years when a suicide bomber killed scores of people at a volleyball tournament near the North-West Frontier province town of Lakki Marwat. A local television station, Express 24/7, said as many as 70 people were killed, 65 wounded and more than 20 houses destroyed in what was seen as the latest deadly reprisal for a government offensive against the Pakistani Taliban. Ayub Khan, a local police chief, said the bomber blew himself up in an SUV in the middle of the field while a second vehicle possibly carrying a bomb raced from the scene. "One was blown up here while the second fled to an unknown location. We believe it may be used to attack some other place," he told Reuters by telephone. Officials said the village had been targeted after residents formed an anti-Taliban militia. "The locality has been a hub of militants," Khan said. "Locals set up a militia and expelled the militants from this area. This attack seems to be reaction to their expulsion." The bomber, driving a car packed with an estimated 250kg (550lb) of high explosives, struck as young men were playing volleyball in front of hundreds of spectators, including elderly people and children, officials said. Khalid Israr, a senior regional official, who spoke from a hospital treating the victims, said the dead included people in a nearby mosque where a group of local tribal elders were meeting.

An attack on a sporting event is highly unusual, although militants have recently started bombing crowded areas such as markets to inflict maximum casualties. Lakki Marwat is close to north and south Waziristan, two tribal regions where militants have a strong presence. They launched a wave of bombings, killing more than 500 people, in response to an army offensive in south Waziristan that began in October. The latest suicide attack came as Karachi, Pakistan's commercial capital, nearly ground to a halt amid calls by religious and political leaders for a protest against violence after a suicide bomber killed 43 people at a religious procession this week. The streets were nearly empty and the stock exchange, which normally operates on the first day of the year, was closed. The Taliban claimed responsibility for Monday's attack on a crowd of Shia Muslims and threatened more bloodshed. The bombing targeted thousands of Shias marching to observe Ashura, the most important day of a month-long mourning period for the seventh-century death of the Prophet Muhammad's grandson, Imam Hussein. The attack was one of the bloodiest in Karachi since the October 2007 attack that killed Benazir Bhutto, the former prime minister, and 130 others on her return from exile. The interior minister, Rehman Malik, who was visiting Karachi, denounced the perpetrators as "enemies of Pakistan" and "enemies of Islam".

President Asif Ali Zardari has vowed to defeat the Taliban and al-Qaida, but cuts an increasingly forlorn figure because he is seen as too pliant to the U.S. in a country where anti-American sentiment is high. In addition to having to deal with a growing insurgency, Zardari faces the threat of renewed corruption charges after the supreme court last month ruled that an amnesty protecting him from such charges was null and void. Zardari's domestic troubles can only complicate matters for the U.S. as it seeks a stable partner at a time when Barack Obama is sending an extra 30,000 troops to fight the Taliban in Afghanistan. In addition, escalation of the U.S. war effort against militants on both sides of the Pakistan-Afghanistan border is fuelling anti-American sentiment in Pakistan. Pakistanis are particularly incensed at U.S. drone attacks on Pakistani territory, some of which have resulted in civilian deaths. In the latest such strike a U.S. missile struck a car carrying suspected militants in north Waziristan, killing three men, intelligence officials said. A strike on a house on Thursday killed three people. The U.S. has been targeting militant commanders who use Pakistan as a haven to plan attacks in Afghanistan and the west. U.S. officials rarely discuss the air strikes. Pakistan publicly condemns them, but is widely believed to help the U.S. military by providing information on where militants are to be found. In a sign of growing anxiety, the UN has said it is withdrawing some of its staff from Pakistan because of safety concerns.

Bombings in Pakistan

2007

27 December: Benazir Bhutto is assassinated as she leaves a political rally in Rawalpindi. One hundred and thirty-nine people die in the shooting and bomb attack.

2008

16 February: A suicide bomber rams his car into the election office of an independent candidate in the city of Parachinar, killing at least 47.

20 September: A suicide bomber blows up a truck packed with explosivesat the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad, killing at least 60 people.

10 October: At least 85 people are killed and about 200 wounded at an anti-Taliban meeting in a tribal area.

2009

27 March: A suicide attack on a mosque on the Peshawar-Torkham highway kills 83 people, including 16 security personnel, and leaves more than 100 injured.

October: Forty-nine people, including a woman and seven children, die and 90 others injured when a suicide bomber blows himself up at a bazaar in Peshawar and a suicide car bomber kills 125 people at a market in Pakistan's worst attack in two years.

28 December: A suicide bomber kills 43 people at a Shia procession in Karachi. The Taliban have claimed the attack and threatened more violence.

[Al-khiyal]

Pakistan suffers record number of deaths due to militant violence

January 11, 2010 -- A record number of Pakistani civilians and security forces died in militant violence last year as the country reeled from an onslaught of Taliban suicide bombings that propelled it into the ranks of the world's most perilous places. Pakistan saw 3,021 deaths in terrorist attacks in in 2009, up 48% on the year before, according to a new report by the Pakistan Institute for Peace Studies (PIPS), an Islamabad-based defence thinktank. Researchers counted a total of 12,600 violent deaths across the country in 2009, 14 times more than in 2006.

At least half of the dead were militants who were killed in U.S. drone strikes or, mostly, sweeping army offensives against their mountain strongholds of Swat and South Waziristan along the Afghan border. Another 2,000 or so Pakistanis died in bloodshed unrelated to militancy: political clashes, tribal feuds and border skirmishes. In comparison just over 2,000 civilians were killed in war-torn Afghanistan during the first ten months of 2009, according to the UN. In Iraq 4,500 civilians were killed during the year, said Iraq Body Count, an independent monitoring organisation.

The high militant death toll in Pakistan was driven by the army operations, although battlefield casualty figures are notoriously difficult to confirm. The army dislodged the Taliban from their Swat stronghold but failed to capture the local leader, Maulana Fazlullah, who reportedly slipped into Afghanistan. In October the army moved into South Waziristan, capturing roads and towns but not the militant leadership, which is thought to have moved into North Waziristan, a hornet's nest of militancy, where speculation is growing that the army will open a third front.

The army has failed to stop the suicide attacks, which surged by one third to 87 bombings that killed 1,300 people and injured 3,600. PIPS researcher Abdul Basit said the militants were using "innovative tactics" such as targeted assassinations, kidnapping and the use of sophisticated bomb materials. "This year they were more technologically savvy," he said.

The strife is frazzling public opinion. A recent Gallup poll found that four-fifths of Pakistanis feel unsafe in public. "Life has completely changed for everyone," said Ali Mustafa, a doctor whose best friend was gunned down during a "swarm" attack on a Rawalpindi mosque in December. The new year started as badly as the last one ended: a Taliban suicide attack on a volleyball match near South Waziristan on January 1 killed over 90 people. In recent days, Karachi has been wrenched by a spate of politically driven killings, unlinked to Taliban militancy, that have killed about 40 people.

Imtiaz Gul, author of a book on militancy, said that although only a small number of al-Qaida fighters were hiding in Pakistan, the group provided the inspiration for much for the mayhem. "What we see in this region right now is a fusion of interests and ideologies," he said. "Al-Qaida is connecting people." The tight bond between homegrown and foreign militants was underscored at the weekend when a video emerged showing the Taliban leader, Hakimullah Mehsud, sitting beside Humam Khalil Abu Mulal al-Balawi, the Jordanian suicide bomber who killed seven CIA operatives at a base in southern Afghanistan on December 30.

Pakistan has become a magnet for aspiring jihadis across the world, partly thanks to the power of the internet. Yesterday five young American Muslims went on trial in the eastern city of Sargodha. They are accused of coming to the country to try and plot terrorist attacks. The men deny the charges.

[Al-khiyal]

Blackwater operatives training Pakistanis: NWFP minister

PESHAWAR, January 22, 2010 -- A senior minister from the NWFP Bashir Ahmed Bilour on Friday confirmed the presence of Xe Services, formerly known as Blackwater, in the NWFP. Bilour further disclosed that not only do Blackwater officials exist in the NWFP, they have also been imparting training to Pakistanis. However, he added that Blackwater is operating in a limited capacity in Pakistan. Meanwhile, the Information Minister Qamar Zaman Kaira also acknowledged the presence of U.S. security agencies in Pakistan after several months of denial. Earlier on Thursday, U.S. Defense Secretary also admitted during an interview with a private television channel that Blackwater and DynCorp have been operating inside Pakistan.

[Al-khiyal]

Blackwater in Pakistan: Gates confirms

January 22, 2010 -- On Thursday, Defense Secretary Robert Gates confirmed that Blackwater is operating in Pakistan. In an interview on Express TV, Gates, who was visiting Islamabad, said, "They [Blackwater and another private security firm, DynCorp] are operating as individual companies here in Pakistan," according to a DoD transcript of the interview. "There are rules concerning the contracting companies. If they're contracting with us or with the State Department here in Pakistan, then there are very clear rules set forth by the State Department and by ourselves." Today, the country's senior minister for the North-West Frontier Province (NWFP), Bashir Bilour, also acknowledged that the company is operating in Pakistan's frontier areas. Bilour told Pakistan's Express News TV that Blackwater's activities were taking place with the "consent and permission" of the Pakistani government, saying he had discussed the issue with officials at the U.S. Consulate in Peshawar, who told him that Blackwater was training Pakistani forces. When Gates was asked what the U.S. response would be if the Pakistani parliament passed a law banning private security companies, Gates said, "If it's Pakistani law, we will absolutely comply." As Gates's comments began to make huge news in Pakistan, U.S. defense officials tried to retract his statement. As the Wall Street Journal reported, "Defense officials tried to clarify the comment Thursday night, telling reporters that Mr. Gates had been speaking about contractor oversight more generally and that the Pentagon didn't employ Xe in Pakistan."

Bilour's statements are consistent with what a former Blackwater executive and a US military intelligence source told me in December - that Blackwater is working on a subcontract for Kestral, a Pakistani security and logistics firm. That contract, say my sources, is technically with the Pakistani government, which helps cloak Blackwater's presence. From my article in The Nation:

Blackwater owner Erik Prince is close with Kestral CEO Liaquat Ali Baig, according to the former Blackwater executive. "Ali and Erik have a pretty close relationship," he said. "They've met many times and struck a deal, and they [offer] mutual support for one another." Working with Kestral, he said, Blackwater has provided convoy security for Defense Department shipments destined for Afghanistan that would arrive in the port at Karachi. Blackwater, according to the former executive, would guard the supplies as they were transported overland from Karachi to Peshawar and then west through the Torkham border crossing, the most important supply route for the U.S. military in Afghanistan. According to the former executive, Blackwater operatives also integrate with Kestral's forces in sensitive counterterrorism operations in the North-West Frontier Province, where they work in conjunction with the Pakistani Interior Ministry's paramilitary force, known as the Frontier Corps (alternately referred to as "frontier scouts"). The Blackwater personnel are technically advisers, but the former executive said that the line often gets blurred in the field. Blackwater "is providing the actual guidance on how to do [counterterrorism operations] and Kestral's folks are carrying a lot of them out, but they're having the guidance and the overwatch from some BW guys that will actually go out with the teams when they're executing the job," he said. "You can see how that can lead to other things in the border areas." He said that when Blackwater personnel are out with the Pakistani teams, sometimes its men engage in operations against suspected terrorists. "You've got BW guys that are assisting...and they're all going to want to go on the jobs--so they're going to go with them," he said. "So, the things that you're seeing in the news about how this Pakistani military group came in and raided this house or did this or did that--in some of those cases, you're going to have Western folks that are right there at the house, if not in the house." Blackwater, he said, is paid by the Pakistani government through Kestral for consulting services. "That gives the Pakistani government the cover to say, 'Hey, no, we don't have any Westerners doing this. It's all local and our people are doing it.' But it gets them the expertise that Westerners provide for [counterterrorism]-related work."

When I tried to get confirmation of Blackwater's work with Kestral, I was bounced around from agency to agency. Eventually, a spokesman for the State Department's Directorate of Defense Trade Controls (DDTC), which is responsible for issuing licenses to U.S. corporations to provide defense-related services to foreign governments or entities, would neither confirm nor deny that Blackwater has a license to work in Pakistan or to work with Kestral. "We cannot help you," said department spokesman David McKeeby after checking with the relevant DDTC officials. "You'll have to contact the companies directly." Blackwater's spokesman Mark Corallo said the company has "no operations of any kind" in Pakistan other than one employee working for the DoD. Kestral did not respond to my inquiries. Kestral's lobbyist, former assistant Secretary of State for Western Hemisphere Affairs Roger Noriega, who served in that post from 2003 to 2005, would not provide comment on the contract either. Noriega, according to federal lobby records, was recently hired by Kestral to lobby the U.S. government, including the State Department, USAID and Congress, on foreign affairs issues "regarding [Kestral's] capabilities to carry out activities of interest to the United States."

All of this appears to be a contradiction of previous statements made by the Defense Department, by Blackwater, by the Pakistani government and by the U.S. Embassy in Islamabad, all of whom claimed Blackwater was not in the country. In September the U.S. ambassador to Pakistan, Anne Patterson, denied Blackwater's presence in the country, stating bluntly, "Blackwater is not operating in Pakistan." In December in The Nation, after I reported on Blackwater's work for JSOC and Ketral in Pakistan, the Pentagon did not issue any clear public denials, and instead tried to pass the buck to the State Department, which in turn passed it to the U.S. Embassy, which in turn issued an unsigned statement saying the story was false. Shortly after my story came out in The Nation, ABC News reported that in 2006, "12 Blackwater "tactical action operatives" were recruited for a secret raid into Pakistan by the U.S. military's Joint Special Operations Command, according to a military intelligence planner. The target of the planned raid, code-named Vibrant Fury, was a suspected al Qaeda training camp, according to the planner." In Pakistan, there appears to be egg on the face of the country's Interior Minister Rehman Malik, who has said on numerous occasions that he would resign if it is proven that Blackwater is operating inside Pakistan. Today, Express TV rebroadcast Malik saying in November, "There is no Blackwater." What's that old saying? "Never believe anything until it has been officially denied."

[Al-khiyal]

Government under fire over ‘Blackwater activities’

ISLAMABAD, January 23, 2010 -- The government came under criticism in the Senate on Friday over secret activities of the controversial U.S. firms Blackwater and Dyncorp in the country. Speaking during question hour and later on a point of order, Zafar Ali Shah of Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz said the government should explain why the presence of the two “infamous agencies” was kept secret while U.S. Defence Secretary Robert Gates openly admitted their presence in Pakistan. He said: “I do not wish to ask the government to take any action against Interior Minister Rehman Malik who offered to resign if the presence of Blackwater was proved.” Mr Shah, who later staged a walkout for the remaining period of the proceedings, said: “It was not a simple thing which the government could ignore, for it involves several bomb explosions and the abduction of several persons wanted by Americans.” The treasury chose not to respond to the legislator’s outburst. Chairman Farooq Hameed Naek prorogued the house after 12 working days during which not a single bill was passed and only one adjournment motion and one privilege motion were disposed of while no single call attention notice was presented. Minister for Law and Parliamentary Affairs Babar Awan informed the house that the next session of the upper house was expected to take place in the first week of February.

[Al-khiyal]

Suicide blast in Pakistani agency kills over 15, 20 wounded

ISLAMABAD, January 30, 2010 (KUNA) -- More than fifteen people including security personnel were killed and over twenty others were wounded in a suicide blast on Saturday in a Pakistani tribal agency, close to Afghan border, said officials. A suicide bomber exploded himself at a security checkpost in main bazaar of Khar district in Bajaur tribal agency, security officials told KUNA. They said the bomber exploded himself when the deployed security personnel stopped him for checking. Sources said that at least nine people were killed including two security personnel. They added that several wounded have been rushed to nearby hospitals. However, tribal sources and the local Express News channel put the death toll at more than fifteen. They said over twenty others were wounded, adding that at least five of them are in critical condition. The bazaar was immediately closed and the security forces cordoned off the area, said sources.

[Al-khiyal]

U.S. soldiers and teenage girls among seven killed in bomb attack near Pakistan school

February 3, 2010 -- Three American soldiers were killed and two injured in a bomb attack on a military convoy in north-western Pakistan today that marked a surprise coup for Taliban fighters reeling under a barrage of CIA drone attacks. Dozens of teenage girls were also caught by the blast, which occurred outside their secondary school in Lower Dir district, killing three of them along with a paramilitary soldier. In a statement the U.S. embassy said the Americans had been assigned to help train the Frontier Corps (FC), a paramilitary force deployed in the tribal belt along the Afghan border. Local reporters initially mistook them for western journalists because they were wearing civilian clothes and carrying cameras.

The explosion, apparently a remote control roadside bomb, occurred as their military convoy passed the Koto girls' high school, where teenage girls were streaming out for their mid-morning break. Television footage showed distressed villagers scrambling to pull wounded girls from the rubble of collapsed buildings amid scattered books and bags. "What was the fault of these students?" said Muhammad Dawood, a rescuer quoted by the Associated Press.

The wounded were rushed to the main district hospital at Timergara where doctors from Medécins sans Frontières said they had treated more than 100 people, most of them schoolgirls. "Most of them are have splinter injuries all over the body — in the face, abdomen and feet," said Dr Ashraf Alam, chief medical officer at the hospital, speaking by phone. Sixteen of the wounded were seriously injured and three had died, he said. Among those awaiting major surgery was a girl aged about eight or nine. "We are busy in the operating theatre," he said, excusing himself.

Pakistan's foreign ministry said in a statement that the attack would "only serve to fortify Pakistan's resolve to eliminate the menace of terrorism". The dead and wounded Americans were flown to Islamabad, where the survivors were treated at the city's al-Shifa hospital amid tight security.

The bombing shone a light on a little-publicised American military programme. The Department of Defence sees the Frontier Corps as a key element of Pakistan's fight against the Taliban in North West Frontier province, and has quietly pumped millions of dollars — and dozens of personnel — into an initiative to improve the force's capability. In most cases the U.S. personnel train senior FC officers — an approach known as "training the trainers". The attack also highlighted an even less well-known civilian aid programme. A retired senior U.S. official with knowledge of the programme said the Department of Defence has been discreetly funding development projects such as schools in NWFP for years. The targeted soldiers may have been going to the school in Dir as "a show of solidarity" with their Pakistani colleagues, he said.

The risks of the trip were vividly apparent in retrospect today. Lower Dir is one of the most volatile corners of NWFP. Last year the district saw fierce fighting between the army and Taliban fighters spilling out of the neighbouring Swat valley during a major military offensive. Dir is home to Sufi Muhammad, an elderly Taliban ideologue whose son-in-law, Maulana Fazlullah, is the fugitive leader of the Swat Taliban. After the operation the army declared that Dir had been cleared of militants. Also next to Dir is Bajaur, a tribal agency bordering Afghanistan that is embroiled in heavy fighting. On Tuesday the army said it had captured a Taliban stronghold and that troops were advancing towards another militant hub in Damadola.

The American casualties will boost Taliban morale in difficult times. Earlier this week Pakistan state television reported that a major Taliban leader, Hakimullah Mehsud, had died of wounds suffered during an American drone strike last month. The Taliban have denied the reports, but declined to provide proof of life. Last autumn the militants were flushed from their South Waziristan stronghold after a sweeping army offensive that forced the leadership to flee into neighbouring North Waziristan, where CIA-controlled drones now strike almost every day. In the most intense barrage yet an estimated eight drones fired at least 17 missiles at different compounds and vehicles in North Waziristan yesterday. So far at least 31 people have reportedly died. At the same time the Taliban has stepped up attacks on schools, with reports of 10 incidents in the last two months. In the most recent assault, on 18 January, militants blew up a primary school for boys in Khyber tribal agency.