Pakistan in Media

WASHINGTON: The White House has authorised the CIA to expand the use of unmanned aerial drones in Pakistan to track down and strike the suspected Taliban and al-Qaeda members, the New York Times reported on Friday.

The Times, citing unnamed sources, said that authorisation to expand the CIA drone usage in Pakistan’s tribal areas came this week, coinciding with President Barack Obama’s announcement on Tuesday of sending 30,000 more US troops to Afghanistan.

Washington is also talking with Pakistani officials about using the drones to strike in Balochistan, the Times reported. Analysts, intelligence agents and foreign officials have widely reported that the Taliban fighters use Balochistan as a base.

Islamabad publicly opposes their use as a violation of its sovereignty, but analysts say that Pakistani officials give their use tacit support.

Criticism of the strikes in Pakistan has lessened in public since a US drone attack killed Pakistan’s much-feared Taliban warlord Baitullah Mehsud on August 5.

BARA: Another full-fledged military operation is anticipated as scores of soldiers equipped with latest weapons and backed by artillery guns arrived in different areas of Bara subdivision in Khyber Agency on Sunday.

Sources told The News that over 1,000 personnel of security forces, equipped with artillery guns and rocket launchers, were stationed in different areas of Bara Tehsil.The decision about deploying security forces and launching a fresh operation against the militants and miscreants, the sources added, was taken by the federal government after several incidents of bomb blasts in Peshawar and elsewhere in the province and killing of scores of innocent people.

Some sources disclosed that the operation would be launched in Khyber and Orakzai Agencies simultaneously to purge the two tribal regions of the militants and protect the provincial metropolis and other major cities from the insurgents’ onslaught.

It is believed that suicide bombers are being trained in the neighbouring Orakzai Agency and then sent to settled parts of the province, particularly the Peshawar city, via Bara in Khyber Agency. The sources added that fleeing militants from South Waziristan also used to sneak into Peshawar and other districts of the NWFP for subversive acts.

MIRAMSHAH: Scores of families continued shifting to safer places due to the ongoing clashes between the militants and security forces in Mahsud-inhabited areas of South Waziristan Agency.

Tribal sources said that 450 families started shifting to safer locations via Mir Ali and Razmak routes from Makeen, Ladha and others areas in South Waziristan after militants fired several rockets on these places during Eidul Fitr.

They said the security forces also continued artillery shelling on these areas and the residents, including men, women and children, were compelled to leave their homes and migrate to safer places.

Eyewitnesses said that people in Razmak area were providing shelter and food to the internally displaced persons (IDPs) from the tribal agency while the political administration had been registering the dislocated at Kajori checkpoint.

They said the security forces based in Dosali and Razmak areas of North Waziristan were targeting the militants’ positions in South Waziristan with artillery. They said the members of Torikhel and Borakhel tribes in Razmak had left the area and shifted to safer places due to artillery shelling by security forces and firing of rockets by the militants. Meanwhile, the displaced people were being fleeced by transporters with both hands as Rs25,000 was charged for the journey for Mir Ali town from Makeen.

Dawn, Pakistan, Tuesday, 16 Jun, 2009
IN stating that the “police are not trained to counter terror attacks” and referring to the need for a new security force dedicated to fighting terrorism, PML-N chief Nawaz Sharif has made a valid point. The methods pursued by the extremists at work in Pakistan resemble a form of urban warfare where it is not easy to tell a terrorist from a civilian. All a militant has to do to pass for a non-combatant is to temporarily abandon his weapon. This allows terrorists to melt at will into the civilian population, making the countering of possible attacks doubly difficult. While the military operation has certainly achieved some success, it is also certain that the army cannot maintain an indefinite presence in the affected areas — particularly with the military action being expanded to Fata. Once active military presence is withdrawn and displaced populations start returning, the task of ensuring law and order will, under the current circumstances, fall primarily to the police. But the police force in the conflict areas is already demoralised and suffers from issues endemic to the country’s civilian security apparatus such as the lack of training, funding and operational resources.
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