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originally posted in:Sapphire
Edited by Mags:
3/14/2014 3:32:34 AM
24
Afghanistan-Pakistan related stuff will be stored in this sub-thread.
English
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Pakistan: Taliban factions clash, killing dozens [quote]ISLAMABAD — Clashes this week between two competing factions of the Pakistani Taliban in the country’s remote northwest killed dozens of fighters, intelligence officials and militant commanders said Friday. The clashes, the result of a power struggle in the militant group, come at a time when the government is trying to negotiate a peace deal with the Pakistani Taliban. The violence likely will complicate those efforts.[/quote]Good report on the infighting between the Pakistani Taliban.
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http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2014/04/talibans_shadow_gove_1.php Taliban's shadow governor for Kunar reported killed in US airstrike [quote]The National Directorate of Security, Afghanistan's domestic intelligence service, claimed that the Taliban's shadow governor for Kunar province and several senior commanders were killed in an airstrike three days ago. The Taliban commander's death has not been confirmed. The NDS issued a press release stating that Noor Qasim Sabari, the shadow governor of Kunar, was killed in an airstrike that targeted "a gathering of the senior Pakistani and Afghan Taliban leaders" on the evening of April 7, Khaama Press reported.[/quote]Above is a picture of Noor Qasim Sabari.
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Dozens killed in Taliban infighting in South Waziristan [quote]Two factions of the Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan, one led by Waliur Rehman Mehsud, the group's emir for South Waziristan, and another by Sajna Mehsud, a senior commander, are currently fighting in the Taliban-controlled tribal agency. At least 24 fighters, including a local commander known as Kasheed Mehsud, are reported to have been killed since Sunday, according to The News.[/quote] http://www.longwarjournal.org/threat-matrix/archives/2014/04/social_media_jihad_open_interv.php Social Media Jihad: Open interview with al Qaeda's sharia official in Pakistan [quote]Al Qaeda is advertising on Twitter an upcoming open interview with Asim Umar, the dual-hatted Pakistani Taliban and al Qaeda leader. The banner ads can be seen below. Umar serves as al Qaeda's top sharia official in Pakistan. His face is covered in the advertisement, so the interview won't be that open.[/quote] http://www.bbc.com/news/world-asia-26949797 Pakistan market bomb 'kills at least 20' in Islamabad [quote]A deadly bomb blast has struck a busy market on the outskirts of Pakistan's capital, Islamabad, killing at least 20 people, police and medics say. The high intensity blast at the fruit and vegetable market left as many as 100 injured, reports say. The Pakistani Taliban denied involvement. No other group has said it carried out the attack.[/quote]
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[quote](Reuters) - Fourteen passengers were killed and about 50 wounded on Tuesday when militants bombed a train in Pakistan's Baluchistan province, hospital sources and officials said. The blast came a day after Pakistani security forces said they had killed 30 separatist militants in one of the biggest clashes in months in the gas-rich province.[/quote]
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Pakistan’s Deal With the Devil And The Taliban Shadow Surge [quote]On March 1, the Islamabad government cut a deal with the Taliban. And since then, all hell has been breaking loose in neighboring Afghanistan. But the real accelerators of this violence aren’t Shakor and his fellow Afghanistan-based militants, local intelligence and security officials tell The Daily Beast. Instead, it’s Taliban insurgents streaming over the border from Pakistan that have enabled the group’s recent killing spree in Kabul. And they say the Pakistani government is to blame for the incursion.[/quote]
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[quote]An Afghan police officer has shot dead a foreign photographer and badly injured another in the country's violent east, as they were covering preparations for the country's presidential election. The man opened fire on Anja Niedringhaus and Kathy Gannon from the Associated Press in a police headquarters in Khost province, after the women arrived with a convoy of election materials on Friday.[/quote]Sorry for being late on this one, I just now saw this. I wonder if the police officer had ties or sympathies to the Taliban? In the article, it mentions that the shooting was the result of poor communication and the Taliban have denied responsibility.
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[quote]A bomb has targeted the convoy route of Pakistan's former military ruler, Pervez Musharraf, within minutes of him passing, police say. They said it was an attempt to target the former president, however, no casualties were reported. The blast struck a bridge on Mr Musharraf's route from a hospital in Rawalpindi, where he was being treated.[/quote]
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[quote]A suicide bombing killed six policemen at the Afghan Interior Ministry compound in one of the capital's most heavily fortified areas Wednesday, part of a recent escalation in violence in the heart of Kabul. The bloodshed is threatening to scare voters away from the polls as Afghans worry security forces unable to guard areas previously considered safe won't be able to protect them on election day. The Taliban have launched a campaign of violence to disrupt Saturday's vote for a new president and provincial councils.[/quote]Unfortunately, just like they said they would, the Taliban continues to target election offices. Hopefully this doesn't deter too many people from voting. It more than likely will though, unfortunately.
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Nothing to do with terrorism, but I thought this was cool so I'm sharing it. British sniper kills 6 Taliban fighters with one bullet. Gg Brits. Gg.
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Another Taliban attack in Kabul ahead of national elections
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Taliban attack Kabul guest house
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Taliban attack election office in Kabul with less than 2 weeks before national elections.
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Edited by Mags: 3/25/2014 3:09:41 AMThe video above is entitled "The Game of Martyrdom for Children of the Mujahideen". There is a warning prior to viewing the video, but nothing graphic is showed. It should be noted that the video does show children, no older than 3 or 4 years of age some of them, reenacting the various rituals a suicide bomber goes through before engaging in his mission. This video illustrates the sad and horrifying environment these children are brought up in. This is the epitome of indoctrination. To be clear, I am not glorying the video, ideologies, or practices shown in the video. This is an educational thread meant to inform people about terrorism and political violence in the world. Unfortunately, like this video shows, even the youngest of children sometimes cannot escape these sad realities in the world. If you're wondering why this is in the AfPak sub-thread, it's because the dress and outlying areas just screams Afghanistan or Pakistan to me.
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Edited by Mags: 3/23/2014 3:19:02 AMHaqqani Network linked to hotel attacks. [quote]The Ministry of Interior Affairs has linked the Haqqani Network to Thursday night's attack on the upscale Serena Hotel in Kabul, where nine civilians, including women, children and four foreign nationals were gunned down by four young assailants. The attack has received wide condemnation from inside and Afghanistan. [/quote] Targeted killings on the rise in Nangarhar: [url=http://www.pajhwok.com/en/2014/03/22/targeted-killings-rise-nangarhar]here[/url] [quote]JALALABAD (Pajhwok): Targeted killings have dramatically increased over the past few months in eastern Nangarhar province, where 360 civilians lost their lives to such attacks in one district alone last solar year. So far a large number of government officials and civilians fallen prey to targeted killings that residents say are aimed to spread terror ahead of the April 5 elections.[/quote]
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Edited by Mags: 3/21/2014 11:15:47 PM[quote]Late yesterday, a Taliban suicide assault team attacked the Serena Hotel, a posh and secure hotel in Kabul which has been targeted by the group several times in the past.[/quote] [quote][url=http://www.pajhwok.com/en/2014/03/21/9-dead-serena-hotel-attack-flayed-karzai]Four teenage suicide attackers were also killed after a two-hour clash with security personnel inside the Serena Hotel, frequented by high-ranking Afghan and foreign officials. Deputy Minister Gen. Ayub Salangi said the dead included two women and children. Both women were foreigners, according to Salangi, who did not give their nationalities. One of the victims was a former Paraguayan diplomat, who had come to Afghanistan as an election observer. Paraguay's Foreign Minister Eladio Loizaga identified the election observer as Luis Maria Duarte. Interior Ministry spokesman Siddique Siddiqui wrote on his Twitter page: "Eight civilian including, three women, three men and two children were killed during the terrorist attack on Serena Hotel last night." The two children were shot in the head. The foreigners were from Canada, New Zealand, India and Pakistan. A child, a hotel guard, two Afghan soldiers and a parliamentarian were among the injured.[/url][/quote]
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[quote]The Afghan Taliban claimed credit for today's suicide assault on a police headquarters in Jalalabad in the eastern province of Nangarhar that killed 18 people. A heavily armed suicide assault team consisting of seven fighters opened the attack on the police station in Jalalabad City by ramming a truck packed with explosives into the outer wall of the compound. Six fighters armed with assault weapons and suicide vests then stormed the compound and engaged with Afghan forces for nearly six hours before being killed.[/quote]
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[quote]Afghanistan's special forces have killed three gunmen who broke into a luxury hotel in the capital Kabul, police have told the BBC. They say the special forces are now searching the five-star Serena hotel for more attackers.[/quote]
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Tremendous article and report on what Pakistan really knew about bin Laden's whereabouts. It also heavily details Pakistan's role in aiding the Taliban and other militant groups fighting NATO/ISAF and Afghanistan. [quote]As I toured the bomb sites and battlegrounds of the Taliban resurgence, Afghans kept telling me the same thing: The organizers of the insurgency were in Pakistan, specifically in the western district of Quetta. Police investigators were finding that many of the bombers, too, were coming from Pakistan.[/quote]
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Aaaaaand the ISI fires back. [quote]There is no truth in New York Times story,” intelligence officials, who wished not to be named told Dawn.com. “The claims are totally baseless.” Nobody in Pakistan knew about presence of Osama bin Laden, the officials said.[/quote]
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Suicide bombing in northern Afghan [quote]A suicide bomb attack in northern Afghanistan has killed at least 15 people including women and children, officials have told the BBC. Another 27 were wounded in the attack in Maymana, the capital of Faryab province, provincial governor Mohammadullah Batash said. The bomber is believed to have detonated his explosives near the entrance to a busy market.[/quote]
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[quote]The deadly reemergence of a little-known militant group in Afghanistan has prompted fears that rogue insurgents could be an added source for concern ahead of a crucial presidential election. The Feday-e Mahaz, or "Suicide Brigade," announced its return by claiming responsibility for killing Swedish-British journalist Nils Horner in Kabul on March 11. In a brazen attack that has sent shockwaves through the international community in Kabul, Horner was gunned down in broad daylight in the Afghan capital's heavily fortified diplomatic district.[/quote] What's interesting about these so-called "splinter groups" is that they may not even exist. Several "groups" splinter off from the Taliban or the TTP only to be merged back into the overall group or never to be heard from again after one or two attacks. These "groups" could very well serve as a case of plausible deniability by allowing the Taliban (or TTP) to continue to target Afghan (or Pakistani) assets whilst going along with peace efforts. The article mentions this at the bottom: [quote]David Young, an adjunct fellow at the American Security Project in Washington, says the various splinter groups might actually be under the control of the larger Taliban group. "Whenever the Taliban doesn't want to take credit for an attack, it will frequently create a splinter faction just for the purpose of taking credit for that attack, and it may revive the group for subsequent attacks or have it disappear altogether," says Young. "Sometimes it can help deflect blame for a particularly gruesome or senseless attack, while other times it's a useful technique to create confusion among the group's pursuers. Either way, it remains unclear whether Feday-e Mahaz is a phantom or a legitimate splinter group of the Taliban."[/quote]Crafty, the Taliban.
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[quote]PESHAWAR, Pakistan – Bombs exploded in bustling sections of two troubled Pakistani cities Friday, leaving at least 19 people dead in the latest round of violence to mar government efforts to initiate peace talks with insurgents. In Peshawar, near the northeastern tribal areas that border Afghanistan, a suicide bomber blew himself up in a market on the city’s outskirts as worshipers were gathering for prayers. Nine people were killed and 30 injured, police and hospital officials said. Police official Najeebur Rehman said the bomber struck a police armored personnel carrier that was parked in Serband Bazaar, a town near the volatile Khyber Agency tribal area. Four officers were among the injured. Nearly 400 miles away in Quetta, at least 10 people were killed and 31 wounded when a bomb planted on a bicycle exploded in front of a college on a busy road, police said. Most of the victims were riding in a passenger bus but officials said the target could have been a vehicle belonging to the paramilitary Frontier Corps, which had passed by the spot just moments before the blast.[/quote] Keep in mind that this is during the "peace process" with the Pakistani Taliban. Obviously, it's working out swimmingly.
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[quote]Afghan security forces foiled a suicide attack on Indian consulate in southern Kandahar province of Afghanistan on Thursday. According to local government officials, the suicide bomber who was looking to target the Indian consulate was shot dead by Afghan security forces on Thursday afternoon.[/quote]
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[url=http://www.cfr.org/afghanistan/afghanistan-after-drawdown/p31944?co=C009601]Afghanistan after the drawdown[/url] [url=http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/mar/12/us-troop-al-qaida-withdrawal-nato]Full US Troops Pullout Would Aid AQ in Afghanistan[/url] [quote]The commander of the US-Nato war in Afghanistan said Wednesday that a full troop withdrawal in December would prompt a rapid deterioration of gains made in the 13-year conflict. “The only debate is the pace of that deterioration,” Marine General Joseph Dunford testified to the Senate armed services committee in comments that implicitly defied the White House. “Withdrawal, in my mind, means abandoning the people of Afghanistan, abandoning the endeavor we’ve been on for the last decade, and providing al-Qaida the space within which to plan and conduct operations against the west,” Dunford said.[/quote]
