Re: Hakeemullah Mehsud Killed
Because he finance all these ‘maut ke saudagar’ who have unleashed hell on people of Pakistan. He had a great pain in his ar$e when right hand of this killer was taken away by Sam’s soldiers earlier.
Re: Hakeemullah Mehsud Killed
Unlike Imran the idealist, army knows the consequences of shooting an American drone. Simple as that.
May be then we should abolish our army and outsource the job to Americans, just like Saudis did?
Re: Hakeemullah Mehsud Killed
Where is Ehsan ullah Ehsan these days? Kaam tou nahin aa gaya woh bhi? 
Re: Hakeemullah Mehsud Killed
I think we can safely assume that public posturing of the state of Pakistan is totally different from its official policy. Whether army and the government are on the same page or not, the people of Pakistan are being certainly kept away from realities. In a way, we are fighting a proxy war against the TTP and using American shoulders for the purpose. But the official narrative for the public consumption sounds totally different.
Bringing down drones through PAF is not practical, neither choking NATO routes unilaterally by the KP government will be a prudent step. But we also need to realize that Pakistan's diplomatic march has stirred no dust whatsoever.
As we speak, there are some news that the federal government has also started weighing the option of linking NATO routes to drone halt. If a national consensus could be developed on the subject — which could easily be done as PTI, JUI-F and JI are already prepared to block NATO routes — it may send some strong signals to the White House.
Re: Hakeemullah Mehsud Killed
Smooth succession in TTP unlikely - DAWN.COM
THE quest for succession has begun in earnest — and understandably so. Unlike the near-smooth succession of Hakeemullah Mehsud as Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan supremo following the death of Baitullah Mehsud in a drone strike in August 2009, the situation now is less than certain.
There is no clear leader to lead the more than thirty militant groups operating in the country’s tribal borderland.
The death of a seemingly impregnable Hakeemullah in a drone strike at his year-old village in Dandidarpakhel shocked not just the Pakistani militant leadership but also the political and military leadership.
The big question was not just the timing of the attack, coming just when a three-member team from Islamabad had opened initial contacts with an equal number of Mehsud’s emissaries at Governor’s Cottage, Miramshah, but also: what next? The attack was murky and sordid as far as the Pakistani leadership was concerned.
That the talks have been stalled for now is obvious. What is not obvious is Hakeemullah’s successor and his take on the future of peace talks. The future of peace talks thus, hangs in the balance.
SECURITY NIGHTMARE: What if the rein of TTP leadership goes into the hands of virulently radical and violent commanders? This is a security nightmare no one is prepared to think about.
So for the next couple of days, the security apparatus would be straining its ears to pick up any useful information about the likely successor of deceased TTP chief, Hakeemullah Mehsud, and if they can, and if prayers can help, see the ascension to the throne of a militant commander who can jump-start the peace process and bring violence to an end. Khan Said alias Sajna would be one such candidate the Pakistani leadership would be pinning its hopes on. The 38-year-old Shabikhel Mehsud from Zhawar, Dwatoi (South Waziristan) is a quiet, soft-spoken militant commander, well-versed in tribal traditions.
Several factors can help him gain the TTP leadership.
One, he is a native Mehsud and like Baitullah and Hakeemullah Mehsud, militant commanders from the region would like to retain the TTP leadership in their Mehsud hinterland.
He will also have the backing of powerful commanders from Bajaur, Orakzai, Khyber, Darra Adamkhel, Hafiz Gul Bahadar in North Waziristan, six major Punjabi Taliban groups, including the head of the Punjabi Taliban, Asmatullah Muawiya, the influential Haqqani network and part of Al Qaeda. In addition, he has the support of his 12 commanders in South Waziristan.
For the fighters, he is no novice to ‘Jihad.’ He was 18 years of age when he went to Afghanistan to fight. He was in Afghanistan when commander Waliur Rehman, with whom he had had a close association, was killed in a drone strike in May this year. He is a schemer and a planner, the mastermind of the Bannu jailbreak in April last year.
For the government, he is less of an evil, despite having carried out attacks on security forces in Ladha and Kanigoram in South Waziristan. He listens to his Mehsud tribe and had thus favoured peace talks with the government, some government officials say, apparently also to outdo and neutralise Hakeemullah Mehsud.
But what if it does not happen and the mantle of TTP leadership passes on to more radical commanders, the likes of Swat TTP chief, Maulana Fazlullah. The 39-year-old militant commander fled to Afghanistan’s eastern Kunar province, and then to Nooristan, following military operation in his native Swat in 2009.
He has since then been carrying out raids on Pakistani security forces in the border region. His name even came up after the attempt on Malala Yousufzai’s life in October last year.
The latest was the killing of Maj Gen Sanaullah Niazi in a roadside bombing in Upper Dir in September. His group accepted responsibility for the attack.
Umar Khalid alias Abdul Wali, an experienced commander of the Tehreek-i-Taliban Mohmand, could be another contender. He is known for attacks in Mohmand, neighbouring Charsadda and parts of Peshawar.
Within TTP’s Hakeemullah Mehsud group, there are a few commanders, also Mehsud by tribe from South Waziristan. But tribesmen and government officials discount them as lacking in capability and stature.
But the vital question remains unanswered: will the new leader, whoever he may be, will have the stature and the strength to hold the TTP together.
Baitullah’s death had caused differences within the TTP, spawning the Hakeemullah Mehsud and Waliur Rehman groups. However, the differences never caused armed hostilities between the two sides. In fact, the two commanders made an effort to allay speculations of any rift by appearing in a video sitting side by side, exchanging smiles.
Will the appointment of a new TTP leader cause further rifts within the rank and file is not known yet. Will the new leadership support peace dialogue with the government, taking along a horde of small militant groups along, or the issue could lead to the emergence of new, more radical, anti-state and anti-dialogue bloc. What side would the North Waziristan-based foreign militant groups stand on may also decide the future course of action in the tribal region.
The TTP shura is reported to have concluded its consultation and a decision will come in due course. Finding a leader to match the stature and experience of Baitullah and Hakeemullah Mehsud would not be easy. It could be as mind-boggling as it can be.
Re: Hakeemullah Mehsud Killed
Death is nothing to rejoice about, but a common enemy is dead. He has been responsible for the senseless killings of thousands of innocent Pakistanis. He was responsible for the attacks on our bases in Afghanistan, and proudly claimed the attempted ‘Time square bombing’ in New York City. It is surprising that some are calling him a martyr. Was he not a cold blooded murderer who had claimed responsibility of thousands of deaths? There should be no doubts that many people who had lost loved ones over the years at the hand of this terrorist are taking a sigh of relief. Let us stand in silence for a few minutes and remember all those who died at the hand of this enemy.
Abdul Quddus
DET-United States Central Command
(http://www.centcom.mil/ur)
Re: Hakeemullah Mehsud Killed
fixed for you
Re: Hakeemullah Mehsud Killed
And why hasn’t a ten-day mourning period been declared for Hakeemullah Mehsud? To hear the tearful reaction from some of our politicos and television pundits it would seem it was the Grand Mufti of Palestine killed in a drone attack and not the chief of the Pakistani Taliban, an outfit at war with the state of Pakistan.
When Osama bin Laden was killed the army went into mourning, citing breach of national sovereignty. Hakeemullah Mehsud’s killing has plunged much of the political class into mourning, Imran Khan and Nisar Ali Khan, the interior minister, the two mourners-in-chief. The Jamaat-e-Islami chief, Munawar Hasan, has dubbed him a shaheed (martyr).
When Hazara Shiites were massacred in Quetta Nisar spoke in a roundabout manner, taking good care not to say anything about the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi which had claimed responsibility. When the Peshawar church was attacked and Qissa Khawani bazaar bombed there was not a word about the Taliban, and no blame on them for sabotaging peace prospects. Three PTI MPAs have been killed in Taliban attacks. There has not been a word of anger about the Taliban from Imran Khan.
But Hakeemullah’s death has unhinged both our champions, Imran promising to block the Nato supply route through the Khyber Pass. Imran and Nisar were contemporaries at Aitchison College, both in the college cricket team. If Waterloo was won on the playing fields of Eton and Harrow – a typical bit of British exaggeration, for without Marshal Blucher’s Prussians the battle would have been lost – can some of the confusion being spread in Pakistani minds on the drone issue be traced to the playing fields of Aitchison?
These are not double standards. This is just the way Imran and people like Nisar really are. They can see only one side of the picture and for them the spread of terrorism is only because of one source: drone attacks. There may be every variety of jihadist fighters in North Waziristan: Chechen, Uzbek, and Arab. The Taliban aim may be to impose their version of Islam on the whole of Pakistan. These factors are lost on our super-nationalists.
Nawaz Sharif, to give him his due, is not of this uni-dimensional tribe. His take on the terrorism issue is more pragmatic than that of the single-issue Nisar (although Nisar too is pragmatic in a way, his family holding American citizenship). But Nawaz Sharif thinks he has to play to the gallery. So he says one thing in public, going into contortions before the media, and another when he sits across President Obama in the Oval Office.
But because the public ranting can get out of hand, and even the Foreign Office adopts a posture that is pure hypocrisy, people tend to get confused by the crocodile tears shed and all the high talk of wounded sovereignty. So what is meant strictly for public consumption they take as the real thing, when it is not.
We have to get one thing straight. Pakistan is capable of huge mistakes. We are all agreed on that. To a large extent we are the authors of our own misfortunes, Afghan policy and the entire business of jihad not the least of them. But when we have really wanted to do something we have done it.
**Against the world’s opposition we built the bomb. It was a move started by Bhutto and kept alive under Zia. We didn’t want to sign the Non-Proliferation Treaty and to date we haven’t signed it. North Korea may be a problem state for the US but we’ve had strong defence ties with it for a long time. Pakistan is the only country in the world – this bears repeating – opposed to the Fissile Material Control Treaty and only because of our opposition the treaty has not been concluded (the terms of it requiring unanimity for conclusion).
We wanted the Chinese in Gwadar and we have got them. Our hearts are really not in the Iran-Pakistan gas pipeline, which is why conflicting signals emanate from us…now for it, now against it. If all sections of the establishment were convinced of its utility we would race ahead with it, regardless of what the Americans or the Saudis think.
To repeat, we are capable of great folly. But mostly it has been self-inflicted folly. No one held a pistol to our heads to force us down those paths. Take our American alliances, from the 1950s to Musharraf’s time: none of them was forced on us. We accepted them willingly, often ecstatically.
**
Even the myth of Musharraf prostrating himself before a single phone call from Washington…Musharraf and his generals really thought they were on to a smart thing and would be swept up in America’s embrace. We have to recall how Musharraf was feted and even lionised in those early days. And there was also the danger, real or exaggerated, that if we showed hesitation the Americans would go ahead and use India, specifically Rajasthan, for the impending attack on Afghanistan.
Of course Musharraf could have held out for better terms. Gen Zia in 1979-80 could have concluded a better deal than he did. When Gen Yahya became a bridge between Beijing and Washington he could have asked for so much and did not. If we are bad bargainers, we should improve our negotiating skills.
But we should keep the lackey thing in perspective: we are nobody’s yokels, snapping to attention at somebody’s click of the fingers. We can argue that we should be devoting our energies to other things, more to stuff like science and learning rather than bombs and missiles. But that’s another story.
God in heaven, not so long ago, in the person of the one and only Dr AQ Khan, we were being accused of nuclear proliferation, there being no sin greater in the international calendar than that. When the Americans got wind of the whole thing, and it took them a while before they did so, Dr Khan was trotted out before the cameras and made to confess his sins. But much as the Americans wanted, they were given no direct access to Dr Khan.
**Why this lengthy explanation? Only to drive home the point that if we were really serious about drone attacks, we wouldn’t be saying one thing in public and another in private. The Americans are only able to launch them, and retain ties with the army at the same time, because we are in on this issue with them. If people here don’t get this it’s just too bad.
**
**The army is not confused, the politicians are. The Taliban have been waging a war against the state of Pakistan. Their havens, their rear bases, are located amongst some of the toughest terrain on earth. Google the geography and you’ll get an idea. Now the one thing able to beat this terrain is drone technology. The Taliban are not afraid of our tanks and helicopters. Only drones cause them sleepless nights.
**
It was said of Hakeemullah that he never spent two nights in one location. On that eventful day he spent too long at his newly-constructed house near Miramshah and the drones got him. After claiming involvement in the deaths of several CIA agents in the Khost suicide bombing (the perpetrator a Jordanian) in Dec 2009, Hakeemullah was high on the list of the CIA’s wanted men. Only a fool would think that if the CIA had him in its sights it would let him go.
To reduce terrorism and extremism to drone strikes is the greatest lie of all. Terrorism has other causes, going right down to the beginnings of our Afghan involvement. Yes, drones are a convenient alibi, freeing us of the responsibility of taking tough decisions.
**But let’s be careful what we wish for. Soon the Americans will be gone and with them will go, in all probability, their drone technology. Then we’ll be there and the mountains, and of course the Taliban, and we may just come to miss what we are denouncing so furiously today.
**
Email: [EMAIL=“[email protected]”][email protected]
Re: Hakeemullah Mehsud Killed
Footage of HuM moments before his death.
Re: Hakeemullah Mehsud Killed
I think there is no way to ascertain whether it was moments before his death or not. The colour of his shirt in the footage is different from the one seen in the post-attack picture.
http://dramasqueen.com/wp-content/uploads/2013/11/Hakimullah-Mehsud-Killing1.jpg
Re: Hakeemullah Mehsud Killed
^ Its a grey shirt, the colors of the footage are not good. According to the ARY, the same source has released both.
Re: Hakeemullah Mehsud Killed
So who is the new boss?
Re: Hakeemullah Mehsud Killed
Afghans split over impact of Hakimullah
Speaking to The Express Tribune, Muzdha said the Afghan Taliban would now strongly believe the US does not want peace, as their recent drone attack has scuttled the process in Pakistan. He warned TTP’s vengeful attacks on foreign forces could cause security concerns in Afghanistan.
“As the Pakistani Taliban have announced to take revenge, they could also direct their attacks towards the Americans in Afghanistan,” Mazdha added.
Re: Hakeemullah Mehsud Killed
:hehe:
Taleban say baray Jin ho saktay hain?
Taliban accuse govt of sorcery - DAWN.COM
Re: Hakeemullah Mehsud Killed
TTP Fidayeen dispatched to Lahore, PM warned - thenews.com.pk
Re: Hakeemullah Mehsud Killed
The entire Sharif family should stay in the Prime Minister's House to save the security forces a lot of efforts and funds.
Re: Hakeemullah Mehsud Killed
Inshallah more TTP will die from drone strikes.
A drone strike a day keeps the TTP away.
Re: Hakeemullah Mehsud Killed
Clear plan needed: Talking to the TTP - DAWN.COM
WHILE the federal interior minister’s comments in the National Assembly on Monday confirmed that peace talks with the TTP have been put on ice, the reason he cited — American drone strikes — for “sabotaging” the process is difficult to buy. After all, as Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan himself pointed out in his speech, while the government is pushing for dialogue, the militants aren’t exactly bending over backwards to make peace with the state. The fact is that the TTP is simply not interested in talking to the government. If there was any chance of the militants softening their rigid stance before Hakeemullah Mehsud’s death in a drone strike earlier this month, the appointment of Fazlullah as the TTP’s new supremo has caused all such hopes to evaporate: the militants have, once again, declared war on the Pakistan government and military.
The state should know better than to pin the blame for the breakdown of talks on the American drone strikes. There is no doubt that these strikes violate Pakistan’s sovereignty and should not occur unless Islamabad is on board. But, at the same time, there is near universal consensus in the country that Mehsud’s elimination was a positive development. After all, this was a man who led a band of ruthless militants who continue to terrorise the entire nation; civilians, men in uniform and government officials were targeted with equal ferocity on his watch.
True, talks with the militants have slim chances of succeeding given the Taliban’s stance; but, in keeping with the endorsement of the major political parties, the state should still make efforts to engage the TTP. However, it must be the one to lay down the terms of engagement and draw the red lines. All stakeholders must be clear about what the contours of any peace agreement will be and what is not open for debate, ie democracy and the supremacy of the Constitution. In this regard, the prime minister discussed the security situation during his visit to GHQ on Tuesday — his first after taking office. The state must realise that if the militants do not accept its terms for dialogue, preparations should begin for a security operation. There are just two alternatives at this juncture: either the government should proceed with taking the talks forward from a position of strength, or move in to neutralise the militant threat. There can be no sitting on the fence.
Re: Hakeemullah Mehsud Killed
Leader’s death plunges Pakistan Taliban into dangerous disarray
**ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - The killing of one of Pakistan’s most wanted Islamic militants in a U.S. drone strike has exposed centuries-old rivalries within the group he led, the Pakistani Taliban, making the insurgency ever more unpredictable and probably more violent.
**
**Hakimullah Mehsud’s death this month has set off a power struggle within the outfit’s ranks, which could further unnerve a region already on tenterhooks with most U.S.-led troops pulling out of neighboring Afghanistan in 2014.
**
**When a tribal council declared Mullah Fazlullah as the new leader of the Pakistani Taliban last week, several furious commanders from a rival clan stood up and left.
**
**“When Fazlullah’s name was announced, they … walked out saying, ‘The Taliban’s command is doomed’,” said one commander who attended the November 7 ‘shura’ meeting in South Waziristan, a lawless Pakistani tribal region on the Afghan border.
**
Others at the shura declared loyalty to the hardline new leader and stayed on to map out a plan to avenge Hakimullah’s death through a new campaign of bombings and shootings.
**“This is the start of our fight with the Pakistan government, an American puppet,” the Taliban official said.
**
“Those who forced the Soviet Union out of Afghanistan are capable of breaking up Pakistan,” he added, alluding to senior commanders whose rite of passage into war started with the rebellion against Soviet troops in Afghanistan in the 1980s.
The Pakistani Taliban have always been divided, a loose alliance of militant bands united only by jihadist beliefs and their hatred of the government and all things Western. The group operates independently of its Taliban allies in Afghanistan, who are fighting U.S.-backed forces there.
But the death of Hakimullah, a member of the dominant Mehsud tribe, and the rise of Fazlullah, a Swat Valley native and hence an outsider in the eyes of tribesmen, changes the picture in the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), or Pakistani Taliban.
Under Hakimullah, the TTP had been open to the idea of peace talks with the Pakistani government, even though no meaningful negotiations had taken place.
Fazlullah ruled out any talks and declared the start of a new campaign to attack government and security installations in Punjab, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s political base.
**“Mehsuds are not only not happy with this appointment but there are reports of serious infighting among them that might come to the fore in the near future,” said Saifullah Mahsud, director of the Pakistani think tank FATA Research Center.
**
“I think for now the anti-peace talks group among the TTP has prevailed and hence the appointment of Fazlullah,” said Mahsud, who compiles data based on information provided by his sources on the ground in the tribal Pashtun areas.
AFGHAN LINKS
Fazlullah’s threat against Punjab has unnerved Pakistan’s most prosperous and populous province, where attacks have so far been rare.
Various Pakistani militant groups, including the Sipah-e-Sahaba, Lashkar-e-Jhangvi and Jaish-e-Mohammad, are based around Punjab and have been long tolerated or even sponsored by Pakistan’s powerful military and intelligence establishment.
Some of them were set up to fight Indian forces in disputed Kashmir, but they have turned on Pakistan in recent years thanks to the growing influence of the TTP and al Qaeda, and have become increasingly involved in Taliban affairs.
**“The situation is getting out of control and the ISI knows that,” said one Western diplomat in the capital Islamabad, referring to the Pakistani military’s powerful intelligence arm.
**
As the dynamic within the militancy evolves, powerful Punjabi groups are also beginning to turn their heads westwards, with many seeing the pullout of U.S. troops from Afghanistan as a chance to expand their reach to tribal areas.
During a recent meeting with Reuters in the Pashtun city of Mardan, a group of militants - who sat cross-legged on the floor of a mud-brick safe house sipping tea and eating biscuits - said the Afghan cause was close to their hearts.
**“We want peace in Afghanistan under Mullah Omar’s leadership,” said Abdurakhman, a militant with Jaish-e-Mohammad, a group usually focused on Kashmir, others nodding in agreement. Mullah Omar is the chief of the Afghan Taliban.
**
“When the Americans leave, elders will sit down with Mullah Omar and decide. If there is a need to fight, we will recruit and send people there.”
**Sitting next to him, Farhatullah, a middle-aged man with the Hizbul Mujahideen group, said he used to fight against Indian forces in Kashmir but was now ready to go to Afghanistan.
**
“We are the reserve force,” he said. “If needed I will … take my gun, go there and fight.”
RIFT
The TTP publicly rubbishes any talk of a major rift among its ranks.
A Taliban spokesman has confirmed Fazlullah’s appointment and said there would be no more peace talks with the government.
Operatives from al Qaeda and the Haqqani network, a powerful militant group based in the mountains of North Waziristan, are also working hard to smooth over any disputes, sources say.
**Mullah Omar, the reclusive, one-eyed leader of the Afghan Taliban, is said to have stepped into the debate and backed Fazlullah’s candidacy. Fazlullah knows Omar personally, having fought alongside his men in Afghanistan in 2001.
**
Fazlullah is still holed up in his base in Nuristan, a thickly forested Afghan region favoured by many Pakistani militants hiding from U.S. drones. To reassert control over feuding groups he would have to come back and establish a foothold in Pakistan.
**“He is a non-resident commander, he is not present physically,” said a Pakistani intelligence source. “But he has two advantages: He’s got a lot of money and he has Afghan support.”
**
(Additional reporting by Mehreen Zahra-Malik; Writing by Maria Golovnina; Editing by John Chalmers and Raju Gopalakrishnan)