Interior ministry warns Mush of Taliban threat

Society Pakistan & World Affairs
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My predication is that Sherpao will soon be shown the door for challenging Mush’s thinking and fantasy world of “peaceful Taliban”. He will be replaced by the Lal masjid mullah maybe and all will be well in the land of khaki.

http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20070630/wl_afp/usattackspakistantaliban_070630064531

Pakistan’s Musharraf warned Taliban are spreading: NYT

Sat Jun 30, 2:54 AM ET

WASHINGTON (AFP) - Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf has been warned by that **without “swift and decisive action” the militant Islamic movement the Taliban will soon spread across all of Pakistan, **The New York Times reported Saturday.
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The newspaper said the warning came in an interior ministry document made available to it, which said Pakistani security forces in North West Frontier Province were outgunned and outnumbered and had forfeited authority to the Taliban and their allies.

“The ongoing spell of active Taliban resistance has brought about serious repercussions for Pakistan,” The Times quotes the 15-page document as saying. “There is a general policy of appeasement towards the Taliban, which has further emboldened them.”

The document was discussed by the Pakistani National Security Council in the presence of General Musharraf.

A diplomat, who was not authorized to speak for attribution, called the document “an accurate description of the dagger pointed at the country’s heart,” the report said.

The United States has poured about one billion dollars a year into Pakistan in the last five years for what are described as reimbursements for Pakistan’s counterterrorism efforts along the border with Afghanistan.

The prime purpose of that financial support has been to stop the area from becoming a haven for the Taliban and Al-Qaeda as they wage their insurgency in Afghanistan.

Interior Minister Aftab Khan Sherpao, the prime mover behind the document, narrowly escaped a suicide bomb attack in April by extremists in his home area of Charsadda, northeast of Peshawar, the capital of North West Frontier Province, which borders Afghanistan, the paper said.
**
The attack on Sherpao shook his confidence in General Musharraf’s policy toward the militants, which has included a series of peace deals,** The Times said.

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Re: Interior ministry warns Mush of Taliban threat

taleban and their supporters need to be crushed, hiding their ugly terrorist minds in the guise of religion, ethnicity and mindless pathetic customs of a backwards tribal society.

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Re: Interior ministry warns Mush of Taliban threat

Such crushings have not worked in 5 years. I doubt they will work now. We r not looking at the causes of rapid talibanization i.e. poor quality education, lack of economic opportunities, absence of state protection, failure of judicial system, non existence of political system in FATA. On its part, successive govt's have failed on all these counts since before 47 and now we want to blame and crush the poor fellows who have been robbed of their fundamental rights for having a backward tribal society. Not a good idea my friend.

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Re: Interior ministry warns Mush of Taliban threat

u have to do a short term and a long term solution.
the long term is to address all bthe stuff u have mentioned
in teh short term though those who are already brainwashed and will go on killing in the name of religion need to be stopped.

either approach taken without the other is bound to fail.

there are cultural aspects that need to be changed as well, when you have the gun culture, generational blood fueds and distorted views of honor, thats a place ripe for picking for the type of idiots we see among the taleban and their supporters.

do u forget alot?
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Re: Interior ministry warns Mush of Taliban threat

You have to have a holistic view here.. This will require a many faceted attack.
Hit their finances, their supply lines, pay local triabls to support you against them...
The govt will have to pump huge funds into FATA for development, will have to pump millions into security etc.
Just useing force isnt going to work... The inteligence agencies will finally have to work for their money. Perhaps targted assasinations will have to be done aswell..

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Re: Interior ministry warns Mush of Taliban threat

i agree 100% a multipronged short term, mid term and long term strategy.
and as you noted it wuld include some chitrol of taleban.

what amuses me when we talk about this, is that with all the talk about lack of economic opportunities, poor quality education and all that, yeah so it impacts ppl living in that region.

why is it that pampered mummy daddy types who left pakistan and studied in US and work in fortune 500 type companies living in nice houses in nice burbs have the same mindset.

Assalam o Alikum
Assalam o Alikum
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Re: Interior ministry warns Mush of Taliban threat

how many of those mummy daddies get indoctrinated? Compare that with whats going on in FATA. Why base an argument or policy on exceptions?

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Re: Interior ministry warns Mush of Taliban threat

That's nice, bottom line is that large parts of tribal and even settled areas in NWFP and Balochistan have already fallen to the Taliban.

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Re: Interior ministry warns Mush of Taliban threat

Its dawning on me that maybe Pakistanis actually want a Taliban style govt. There is no public opposition to it.

Mushy is an appeaser, Pakistan will fall to Islamists, I have said that before. With that, I will never set foot on Pakistani soil again until such a time that the cancer of rabid Islamism is crushed.

So what to do on a Halal Date???
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Re: Interior ministry warns Mush of Taliban threat

The same people running for cover with embarassment created the Taliban and jihadi gangs a few years back. I guess they find it too hard to kill their pet dogs which have now gone rabid.

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Re: Interior ministry warns Mush of Taliban threat

I doubt all these Taliban are truly motivated by religous fervor or piety... At least not all of them, relgion may just be a secondary motive.
A lot of it must have to do with being poor.. I have heard that Taliban pay rather well.
Others are probably just disgruntled youth and others who just want revenge...
And then offcourse you have the youth who join the Taliban for the same reasons kids join gangs... You get to fire some cool looking guns, you get respect etc...

Pakistan govt has to offer these people alternatives where ever possible.

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Re: Interior ministry warns Mush of Taliban threat

Sh1t happens I guess...

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Re: Interior ministry warns Mush of Taliban threat

Here is the original news item. It is not lying i believe

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June 30, 2007

**Taliban Spreading, Pakistani President Is Warned **

By (http://topics.nytimes.com/top/reference/timestopics/organizations/n/north_atlantic_treaty_organization/index.html?inline=nyt-org) forces. A convoy of 12 of the trucks was hit with grenades and gutted on Thursday night in the third such incident in a month.
The document describes Peshawar, the regional headquarters of the Pakistani military and police, as suffering the “highest number of terrorist incidents, including attacks on local police,” in the province. Many city’s schools were closed because of threats from extremists. Government offices, diplomats and independent relief organizations routinely receive threatening letters.
In Swat, a scenic area that the government recommends for tourists, an extremist imam has begun to issue edicts against vaccination, female education and female health workers. A local FM radio station spouts jihadist beliefs, the document said.
In two areas, Bannu and Tank, the police are “patronizing the local Taliban and have abdicated the role of law and order,” the document said. In an example of the impotence of local government forces, the document said that “every military or sting operation” drew retaliation in the form of suicide bombings or terrorist attacks.
In an illustration of the surge in violence, the report said Taliban fighters had gone on a rampage in Tank, ransacking banks, schools, gas pumps and checkpoints after an assistant to a Taliban leader who was enrolling students for jihad operations was killed by the police.
In a series of recommendations, the document called for the local enforcement agencies to tackle the militants “head on.” But it gave no suggestion how that was to be done. It suggested blocking FM radio transmissions by extremists and called for a media campaign to mobilize public opinion.

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Re: Interior ministry warns Mush of Taliban threat

MKF, link to the story pls.

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Re: Interior ministry warns Mush of Taliban threat

because the 'exceptions' further indicate that you have to work on multiple fronts, its not as if you just focus on changing the conditions that all will be hunky dory, you have to go after these groups who are indoctrinating people..the easy targets like the poor folks and the more prized targets like the London Bombers...and when we talk of these groups it could include formerly indoctrinated folks who are now doing the indoctrination.

multifaceted approach mon ami. nothing else will work.

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Re: Interior ministry warns Mush of Taliban threat

multifaceted approach sure. But all in the purview of the judicial system. What say u?

I want female friends from Lahore
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Re: Interior ministry warns Mush of Taliban threat

It is incorrect to assume that these areas have not seen any prosperity, on the contrary they have benefitted in the Afghan Jihad by Saudi and Cia dollars and recently because of fleeing Arab/Uzbek militants who have paid their host well.

Use of force is the most undesirable alternative and sud be avoided at all costs, BUT when pak soldiers are attacked, Govt functionaries are kidnapped and killed, Chinese engineers are kidnapped and killed then there must be some sort of state security enforced, where is the state writ?

Why not just give these fata ppl the choice of independence, let them have their own state and fence the border.

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Re: Interior ministry warns Mush of Taliban threat

The problem is that we have wahabi / deobandi sympathizers of these groups that are even present on this forum! I doubt they will ever think about the "human factor" if an operation were to be launched today in karachi. As long as this mentality is there [also present in british pakistanis of such origins], nothing will change. It is sad that we have allowed sodomy arabia to hijack our religion. All of middle east decided to unload their filth on us in the garb of afghan war and we gullibly took it in w/o looking at the broader consequences. Many of the foreign jihadis can't go back to yemen, sodomy arabia etc as their nationalities have been revoked. The way their hardcore philosophy works and since it is Pakistan, DEATH will become the ONLY SOLUTION for them.

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Re: Interior ministry warns Mush of Taliban threat

all in the purview of a clean judicial system..
yes!

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Re: Interior ministry warns Mush of Taliban threat

how's about a clean executive as well then? or waesay bhi..if the objective really is to crush the delinquent Taleban, I am not sure the executive should wish for such a clean judicial system after all..more hurdles to cross..slowing down the process. Careful what u wish for.