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- US Missile Strike Kills 27 In Pakistan
- Raymond J. Learsy: The "Nightmare Scenario". Thankyou Saudi Arabia For Looking After Our Future
| US Missile Strike Kills 27 In Pakistan | Top |
| ISLAMABAD — A suspected U.S. missile strike by a drone aircraft flattened a militant hide-out in northwestern Pakistan on Saturday, killing 27 local and foreign insurgents, intelligence officials said. Several more purported militants were wounded in the attack in South Waziristan, a militant stronghold near the Afghan border where al-Qaida leaders Osama bin Laden and Ayman al-Zawahri are believed to be hiding. The new U.S. administration has brushed off Pakistani criticism that the missile strikes fuel religious extremism and boost anti-American sentiment in the Islamic world's only nuclear-armed nation. Pilotless U.S. aircraft are believed to have launched more than 30 attacks since July, and American officials say al-Qaida's leadership has been decimated. Pakistani officials say the vast majority of the victims are civilians. Taliban fighters surrounded the compound targeted Saturday in the village of Shrawangai Nazarkhel and carried away the dead and wounded in several vehicles. Intelligence officials, who spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to talk to the media, said the victims included about 15 ethnic Uzbek militants and several Afghans. Their seniority was unclear. Two of the officials said dozens of followers of Pakistan's top Taliban leader, Baitullah Mehsud, were staying in the housing compound when it was hit. Pakistan's former government and the CIA have named Mehsud as the prime suspect behind the December 2007 killing of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto near Islamabad. Pakistani officials accuse him of harboring foreign fighters, including Central Asians linked to al-Qaida, and of training suicide bombers. The accounts of Saturday's incident could not be verified independently. The tribally governed region is unsafe for reporters. The U.S. Embassy had no comment, while Pakistani government and army spokesman were unavailable. Pakistani leaders told visiting American envoy Richard Holbrooke earlier this week that the missile strikes kill too many civilians and undermine the government's own counterinsurgency strategy. Still, many analysts suspect that Pakistan has tacitly consented to the attacks in order not to endanger billions of dollars in American and Western support for its powerful military and its ailing economy. Pakistan's pro-Western government, led by Bhutto widower Asif Ali Zardari, has signed peace deals with tribal leaders in the northwest while launching a series of military operations of its own against hard-liners. However, government forces are bogged down in several regions and Taliban militants have sustained a campaign that has included a string of kidnappings and other attacks on foreigners. On Friday, a shadowy organization holding an American employee of the United Nations warned it would kill him within 72 hours and issued a grainy video of the blindfolded captive saying he was "sick and in trouble." Gunmen seized John Solecki on Feb. 2 after shooting his driver to death as they drove to work in Quetta, a city near the Afghan border. The kidnappers identified themselves as the Baluchistan Liberation United Front, suggesting a link to local separatists rather than the Taliban or al-Qaida. They are demanding the release of hundreds of people allegedly held in Pakistan. But officials say the group is unknown and has yet to contact the United Nations. Fears for Solecki's safety are intense after Taliban militants apparently beheaded an abducted Polish geologist. If confirmed, the Pole's slaying would be the first killing of a Western hostage in Pakistan since American journalist Daniel Pearl was killed in 2002. Zardari said in a television interview that the Taliban had expanded their presence to a "huge amount" of Pakistan and were eyeing a takeover of the state. He sought to counter the view of many Pakistanis that the country is fighting Islamist militants, who have enjoyed state support in the past, only at Washington's behest. "We're fighting for the survival of Pakistan. We're not fighting for the survival of anybody else," Zardari said, according to a transcript of his remarks that CBS television said it would air Sunday. ___ Associated Press writer Ishtiaq Mahsud in Dera Ismail Khan contributed to this report. More on Pakistan | |
| Raymond J. Learsy: The "Nightmare Scenario". Thankyou Saudi Arabia For Looking After Our Future | Top |
| Saudi Arabia has such concern and respect for The United States and the perceptiveness of its citizenry that they feel compelled to ply us with instruction and advice. The very same nation that through its loquacious Oil Minister Ali al-Naimi regaled us back in December that it was Saudi Arabia's "Noble Cause" to see to it that the price of oil be clawed back to at least $75 a barrel as soon as possible (please see OPEC's Noble Cause" 12.17.08) . You see, anything less will discourage investment in new production according to our friend in Riyadh, not to speak of curtailing the purchase of yachts, palatial residencies and Ferraris, and billions upon billions to Wahhabi schools, madrassasas, mosques, social centers and charitable organizations throughout the world, teaching civility and good citizenship. All this came about almost concurrently this week as our new President's Secretary of Energy Steven Chu's postulated that a "revolution" in science and technology would be required if the world is to reduce its dependence on fossil fuels and curb the emissions of carbon dioxide and other heat gases linked to global warming (NYTimes 2.12.2009). He thereby set forth a key goal of the new administration, this, while our friends in Saudi Arabia were instructing us otherwise. At an oil industry conference in Houston earlier this week Mr. Ali al-Naimi, whose full title is Minister of Petroleum and Mineral Resources for Saudi Arabia, ran roughshod over our concerns about global warming and energy independence, with feigned lack of self interest, cautioning us, according to his clearly self serving tenets, that we were veering toward a "nightmare scenario" if we sought to speed up development of alternative fuels. Thank you so much, Oil Minister al-Naimi. This wisdom coming from the world's largest oil exporter, "...we must be mindful that efforts to rapidly promote alternatives could have a chilling effect on investment in the oil sector". And then of course a litany of projects that have been or may be cancelled. Fasten your seat belts, it will be a reprise that will heard over and over again from the OPEC and the oil patch boys in the days, months, years to come. The true "nightmare scenario" would be if we let Saudi Arabia and the oil industry flacks sway us one iota from the course our new President has set, to turn us away from fossil fuels for once and forever! More on Saudi Arabia | |
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