Taliban Update: Suicide Assasination Attempt on Namdar Fails

The Taliban affiliated group, Lashkar-e-Islami, leading the failed efforts in the Khyber Pass sought retribution today with a suicide bomber attack on one of their Tribal opponent’s offices. The blast killed several, but Namdar was not present.

Namdar\'s Offices BombedThe Taliban affiliated group, Lashkar-e-Islami,  leading the failed efforts in the Khyber Pass sought retribution today with a suicide bomber attack on one of their Tribal opponent’s offices. The blast killed several, but Namdar was not present so like the Karzai attempt it was a strike-out.

Namdar led the tribal turning that destroyed the recent Taliban efforts to block the Khyber and interdict supplies to the US forces North in Afghanistan. More from NDTV:

Several people were feared killed on Thursday when a suicide bomber blew himself up at the office of an Islamic group in Pakistan’s restive Khyber Agency, officials said.

The suicide bomber targeted the office of the ”Amar bil maroof wa nahee aanelmunkar” (promotion of virtue and prevention of vice force), the religious police of a group led by Haji Namdar at Bara, the main town of the northwestern Khyber Agency.

A spokesman for Haji Namdar said the head of the suicide bomber has been found.

Official sources said Haji Namdar was the actual target of the attack though he escaped unhurt. He is a rival of Mangal Bagh Afridi, another radical leader who heads the Lashkar-e-Islam group.

The sources said they feared the death toll could rise as several of the injured were in a critical condition. The seriously injured were rushed to hospitals in Peshawar, capital of the North West Frontier Province.

When the Taliban first announced their plans in the Khyber I predicted doom for them since there are too many vested tribal interests in the area, and they are not going to allow outside interference in their region. The Wazirs lost miserably, tucked their tails and ran into a trap where they were killed. They will undoubtably continue to seek retribution, but if that goes on much longer they might stir up something they don’t like. The Khyber agency tribes are cunning and they are better trained and more capable than the Taliban — they aren’t going to put up with this.

In other news Syed at Asia times details the failed attack on Karzai, making it out to be more than it was, the important nugget here is the cooperation between Hekmatyar and Haqqani. That indicates to me that the Afghanistan Taliban are more stressed than portrayed, and it also indicates the source of their arms. Hekmatyar has long ties to elements in Iran, and he is their agent of instability in Afghanistan.

While Syed portrays the actions as smart, the reality is that failed efforts kill innocents, and steel more of the Pashtun against the Taliban. The fact that they are now working tight with Hekmatyar again isn’t going to win them friends either.

In a more recent article Asia times details the alignment of Taliban forces and leaders, but the reality is that they are down to fourth and fifth string leaders. Callow, inexperienced rookies for the most part, who will crumble now that the surge is on and the marines have landed.

The Spring offensive this year will be against the Taliban, not by the Taliban. They will try to slip small groups north, attack aid workers and other soft targets, I expect night visits to villages and school burnings as usual, but they can’t mount an effective campaign. They will try to grab headlines in other words rather than try to win.

Al Qaeda in Somalia Leader Dies in Air Strike

Aden Hashi Ayro, Al Qaeda’s named leader in Somalia, was Killed in an air strike. AP was called by an Al Qaeda source who gave them the information:

The American military launched an airstrike Thursday targeting the head of al-Qaida in Somalia, a U.S. defense official said. The head of an Islamic insurgent group said the attack killed its leader.
Islamist leader Aden Hashi Ayro, believed to be the head of al-Qaida in Somalia, was killed when the airstrike struck his house in the central Somali town of Dusamareeb, about 300 miles north of Mogadishu, said Sheik Muqtar Robow, a spokesman for the Islamic al-Shabab militia.

Another commander and seven others were also killed, Robow said. Six more people were wounded, two of whom later died, said resident Abdullahi Nor.

“Our brother martyr Aden Hashi, has received what he was looking for—death for the sake of Allah—at the hands of the United States,” Robow told The Associated Press by phone.

Aden Hashi Ayro killed four aid workers, was trained by AQ in Afghanistan in the 90’s, and this is a major blow against the Islamic Courts and Shabab terrorist organizations in Somalia. In other exploits he dug up an Italian colonial-era cemetary and erected a mosque in its place, and sheltered Al Qaeda transiting the region.
More at The Long War Journal
More here at Reuters.

Rites of Spring

May is the month for Marxists, and you will see a plethora of demonstrations across the country and the world every spring. These usually culminate in mass marches in May, if they get funding from outside soures like George Soros or Hugo Chavez these marches can turn quite large as they did in 2006.

May is the month for Marxists, and you will see a plethora of demonstrations across the country and the world every spring. These usually culminate in mass marches in May, if they get funding from outside sources like George Soros or Hugo Chavez these marches can turn quite large as they did in 2006. This year I expect the marches to be rather muted and thin compared to 2006, because the funding that would normally go to these is most likely being redirected to candidates, I will let you guess which.