Noblesse Oblige

The Pakistan army continues the assault on Fazlullah’s followers who are allied to Al Qaeda and the Lal Masjid clerics in North Waziristan. The Mullah is in hiding, and the article does not mention if he’s still broadcasting from his illegal FM radio stations. This comes after a suicide attack on the 2500 troops near Swat, and four beheadings of Frontier Corps troops. Details at the Independent:

Pakistani troops and helicopter gunships attacked the village stronghold of a militant cleric yesterday, a day after a deadly suicide bombing, while militants retaliated by beheading four security personnel in an intensifying conflict in the northwest.

Militants kidnapped and beheaded three paramilitary soldiers and a police officer, and displayed their severed heads in a village near the resort town of Swat, said Badshah Gul Wazir, the Home Secretary of the North West Frontier Province bordering Afghanistan.

“I know they were four, and they have been beheaded,” he told a news conference in Peshawar, the provincial capital.

Media reports had said that militants had abducted a total of eight security officials, but Wazir would not confirm the total number of kidnapped personnel.

Wazir’s comments came hours after the two sides traded fire across the rushing Swat River, using rocket-propelled grenades, mortars and other weapons, after security forces attacked the redoubt of the cleric Maulana Fazlullah, who runs a sprawling seminary in the village of Imam Dheri.

Two civilians were killed when stray bullets hit them near the river, while one of the militants also died in the gunbattle, said Mohammed Khan, a police official in Swat.

Previous update here.

In the background of this Benazir Bhutto is visiting her father’s tomb at her home near Larkana.

Maoist Terrorists have attacked a festival in Eastern India, firing into the crowd of celebrants killing 14, including the son of a politician who led a crackdown on the Maoists. Story at AP.  Notice how AP calls them “rebels”.

Communist rebels opened fire on a crowd of revelers at a festival in eastern India on Saturday, killing a politician’s son and 17 other people, police said.

About 25 Maoist guerrillas attacked the village festival in the remote state of Jharkhand, firing indiscriminately, local police chief Arun Kumar Singh told The Associated Press.

Among the dead was Anuplal Marandi, the son of the state’s former chief minister, Babulal Marandi, he said. The politician was thought to be on the rebel’s hit list after leading a crackdown against them while in office, Singh said.

Some 14 people were killed in the attack and four others died later in a hospital. Three more people were wounded, he said. The rebels, who frequently target police and government officials, also threw a bomb into the crowd before fleeing.

Since Valerie is on her nationwide victim-book tour, I thought it pertinent to repost Valerie’s theme song, first made popular in the movie “The Falcon and the Snowman.”

“So bloody red — tomorrow’s clouds”

A suicide bomb blast in Swat has killed 18 Frontier Corps soldiers, an unknown number of civilians, and injured scores more. (Some stories report 30 total deaths, some 20.) This comes as 2,000 Pakistan army troops have taken the high ground on the hills surrounding Swat.

The radical FM radio murder-mullah from the region, Fazlullah, aka “Maulana Earthquake” is in hiding and on the run. His bands of followers from TNSM and the new “eagle force”, are still in the area however, and it’s highly likely that more attacks on the army will come. Maulana earthquake gets his nickname from the preaching he does — he promises his listeners that the region will have even more severe earthquakes than the disastrous ones of 2005 if they do not do as he dictates.

During Bin Laden’s escape from Tora Bora TNSM provided a shield of 10,000 “canon-fodder” madrassah students while UBL and his foreign contingent of troops ran away via a different route.

On the political front the Supreme Court is still reviewing the challenges to Musharraf’s presidency, and one statement made by a justice should raise eyebrows — he said in effect that Pakistan was still under the 1973 Constitution, and that oaths taken interim would count. Later that was ameliorated a bit by another justice stating that it would remain to be determined if one of Musharraf’s terms counted since it was not a full term.

Musharraf is reassuring his party, PML-Q, that he is still very much with them and that he won’t be making a jump over to Benazir Bhutto’s party, the PPP. He also stated that Nawaz would not be allowed to return to Pakistan until after the election.

Continue reading →

Carl at Israel Matzav has a report on a terror attack inside Israel, please stop by.

A 20-year old Israeli was seriously wounded this morning when he was shot a number of times in his abdomen and lower body while waiting for a ride at a hitchhiking post outside the Jewish town of Ariel in Samaria. The shooter shot from 100-150 meters away and then drove off. The wounded Israeli was taken by helicopter to Beilinson Hospital in Petach Tikva.

The past two days have been somewhat quiet for terror attacks world-wide, potentially just the lull before the storm.