“Soft despotism is a term coined by Alexis de Tocqueville describing the state into which a country overrun by "a network of small complicated rules" might degrade. Soft despotism is different from despotism (also called 'hard despotism') in the sense that it is not obvious to the people."
Missile Barrage Kills 14 in Pakistan By THE ASSOCIATED PRESS Published: May 11, 2010 NY Times Filed at 4:48 a.m. ET
PARACHINAR, Pakistan (AP) -- Up to 18 American missiles slammed into a Taliban sanctuary in Pakistan close to the Afghan border Tuesday, killing 14 alleged insurgents in the third such strike since a failed car bombing in New York drew fresh attention to the region, officials said.
Meanwhile, Pakistan's foreign minister said the nation's ties with the U.S. have not suffered as a result of the bombing plot, which Washington has linked to militants with bases in the lawless border regions.
The number of missiles fired into North Waziristan was unusually high, reflecting multiple targets.
They struck cars, homes and tents across a wide area in the Doga area, where insurgents have hideouts and training facilities, two intelligence officials said on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media. The identities of the people killed in the attack were not immediately known.
North Waziristan has been the target of nearly all of about 30 other American attacks this year. In recent months, it has become a new haven for militants who fled a Pakistani army offensive in their previous stronghold, neighboring South Waziristan.
The strike Tuesday was the third since Pakistani-American Faisal Shahzad was arrested after allegedly abandoning a bomb-laden SUV in Times Square. He has reportedly told investigators that he received training in Waziristan and U.S. officials have said evidence showed the Pakistani Taliban played a role in the plot.
Pakistan officially protests the missile strikes on its territory as violations of its sovereignty, but it is believed to aid them. The U.S. rarely discusses the unmanned-drone-fired strikes, which are part of a covert CIA program.
U.S. claims that the Pakistani Taliban were behind the May 1 failed car bombing in Times Square add pressure on Pakistan's government to launch an army attack on the militant sanctuaries of North Waziristan, but few expect its stretched army to rush into any operation there.
New calls from Washington could backfire because they would create the impression the force was acting on the orders of America -- a perception that would undercut the public support needed for such an operation to be successful.
Aside from U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton's warning over the weekend of ''severe consequences'' if an attack on U.S. soil is traced back to Pakistan, most U.S. officials have been careful not to criticize Pakistan in their public comments since Pakistan-American Faisal Shahzad was arrested soon after the terror attempt in New York.
Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi said relations between the two countries remained sound.
''There's nothing to worry (about), our relationship is smooth and it is moving toward a partnership,'' he said.
America is limited in what it can do to tackle the threat coming from Pakistan's tribal regions.
It is seen as highly unlikely that nuclear-armed Pakistan would ever allow American troops to operate there, meaning Washington must try to work through the Pakistani army, which has received billions of dollars in U.S. aid since 2001.
The Pakistani Taliban, which have previously not conducted attacks on U.S. soil, have been the target of several Pakistani army offensives over the last two years in addition to being battered by scores of American missile strikes. They are allied to al-Qaida, which has also found sanctuary in the northwest, and the Afghan Taliban just across the border.
The army has not moved into North Waziristan in part because powerful insurgent commanders there have generally not attacked targets in Pakistan. In recent months, however, fleeing fighters and commanders from the Pakistani Taliban -- which have launched scores of bloody suicide attacks around the country since 2007 -- have moved there.
Oh yes, there is no doubt about it, Pakistan created the Taliban. In fact, these documents detail years of Pakistani support for the Taliban, and Islamic extremists.
Covert policy linked Taliban, Kashmiri militants, and Pakistan's Pashtuns to encourage pro-Taliban sympathies in the troubled border region with Afghanistan. You may as well add money from Saudi Arabia into the mix.
Here is a sample:
Highlights
August 1996: Pakistan Intelligence (ISID) "provides at least $30,000 - and possibly as much as $60,000 - per month" to the militant Kashmiri group Harakat ul-Ansar (HUA). Despite this aid, the group is reaching out to sponsors of international terrorism including Osama bin Laden for additional support, and may in the near future become a threat to Islamabad itself as well as U.S. interests. HUA contacts have hinted they "might undertake terrorist actions against civilian airliners."
October 1996: A Canadian intelligence document released by the National Security Agency and originally classified Top Secret SI, Umbra comments on recent Taliban military successes noting that even Pakistan "must harbour some concern" regarding the Taliban's impressive capture of Kabul, as such victory may diminish Pakistan's influence over the movement and produce a Taliban regime in Kabul with strong links to Pakistan's own Pashtuns.
October 1996: Although food supplies from Pakistan to the Taliban are conducted openly through Pakistan's intelligence agency, the ISID, "the munitions convoys depart Pakistan late in the evening hours and are concealed to reveal their true contents."
November 1996: Pakistan's Pashtun-based "Frontier Corps elements are utilized in command and control; training; and when necessary - combat" alongside the Taliban in Afghanistan.
March 1998: Al-Qaeda and Pakistan government-funded Harakat ul-Ansar (HUA) have been sharing terrorist training camps in Taliban-controlled Afghanistan for years , and HUA has increasingly been moving ideologically closer to al-Qaeda. The U.S. Embassy in Islamabad is growing increasingly concerned as Fazlur Rahman Khalil, a leader in Pakistan's Harakat ul-Ansar has signed Osama bin Laden's most recent fatwa promoting terrorist activities against U.S. interests.
September 1998 and March 1999 : The U.S. Department of State voices concern that Pakistan is not doing all it can to pressure the Taliban to surrender Osama bin Laden. "Pakistan has not been responsive to our requests that it use its full influence on the Taliban surrender of Bin Ladin."
September 2000: A cable cited in The 9/11 Commission Report notes that Pakistan's aid to the Taliban has reached "unprecedented" levels, including recent reports that Islamabad has possibly allowed the Taliban to use territory in Pakistan for military operations. Furthermore the U.S. has "seen reports that Pakistan is providing the Taliban with materiel, fuel, funding, technical assistance and military advisors."
Double bombing kills 11 at Pakistan police station By RIAZ KHAN (AP)
PESHAWAR, Pakistan — A trio of suicide attackers, including a rare female bomber, set off two blasts outside a police station in the northwest Pakistani city of Peshawar on Friday, killing 11 people in the latest bloodshed in an unrelenting wave of terror plaguing the country.
There was no immediate claim of responsibility but suspicion fell on the Taliban, who have been blamed for two weeks of attacks that have killed more than 150 people across the country and appear aimed at forcing the government to abandon a planned offensive into the militants' stronghold along the Afghan border.
The Friday afternoon attack targeted a heavily fortified police station next to a mosque in the main city in Pakistan's Taliban-riddled North West Frontier province. A car filled with explosives drove to the main gate of the police station as a motorcycle carrying a man and a woman pulled up behind it, Peshawar police chief Liaquat Ali Khan said.
The woman jumped off and ran toward a nearby housing complex where army officers live, while the man smashed the motorcycle into the car, which exploded into a huge fireball, he said. Police shot at the woman, who detonated explosives she was wearing.
The impact of the blast destroyed part of the police station and the mosque next to it, he said.
"If that woman suicide bomber had not been killed, she might have caused more damage," Khan said.
Television footage showed the upper part of the wall of the brick mosque shorn off. Security forces swarmed the area as ambulances arrived at the scene. A twisted chunk of metal on the ground was in flames, and a small white car's front section was destroyed.
In nearby Lady Reading Hospital, rescue workers rushed wounded victims through the hallways on stretchers.
The blast killed 11 people, including three police officers, two women and two children, Khan said. Another 15 people were wounded, including a criminal suspect who was detained inside the police station at the time of the attack, officials said.
Insurgents have sent attackers wearing military uniforms to bypass security to carry out some of their recent raids. But the use of a female suicide bomber is extremely rare here and could signal a new tactic by the extremists.
In December 2007, what was believed to be the country's first female bomber blew herself up near a Christian school while apparently aiming for a military post in Peshawar. There were no other casualties.
The newest violence came a day after militants launched coordinated attacks on three law enforcement compounds in the country's second-largest city of Lahore, killing 19 people as well as the nine attackers. Also Thursday, a car bomb in Peshawar killed a small child at a housing complex for government employees.
Two officials said initial investigations into the Lahore attacks showed Taliban from the Afghan border region and militants from Punjab were responsible.
"This was a well-coordinated Taliban operation supported by local groups," Umer Virk, head of the Lahore anti-terrorist police, told The Associated Press.
The violence across the nation has fueled concerns that the Taliban are forging links with other militant groups in the country, an alliance that would vastly increase the threats to the U.S.-allied government. Many ordinary Pakistanis are anxiously questioning whether the state has the ability to avert the danger.
Observers say Punjab's militant problem is most pervasive in its south. But speaking to reporters in Lahore on Friday, provincial Law Minister Rana Sanaullah played down any such threat.
"The Taliban don't have any authority in southern Punjab, and there is no need for any operation against them," he said. Sanaullah, who said authorities had arrested some people in connection with the assaults, also defended the performance of security agencies during the standoffs, and said previous intelligence about the possible attacks was too vague to act upon. The tactics used in Lahore were similar to previous strikes blamed on the Taliban network in South Waziristan and allied militants from Punjab, the nation's most populous and powerful province. The methods include using teams of gunmen carrying suicide vests.
The government has said the planning for the attacks is often done near the Afghan border, while the foot soldiers are recruited in Punjab. In claiming responsibility for another recent attack, the Taliban said one of their cells in Punjab had carried it out.
Pakistanis have grown less inclined to support the Taliban over the past year, opinion polls have shown, but many are expressing anger and helplessness over how to deal with the strikes.
"The terrorists seem more committed to their cause than the government is to eliminating them," said Saima Ahmed, 33, a bank employee in the southern city of Karachi. "Our inherent weaknesses, corruption, and inability to govern the country are now exposed fully. It's total chaos all over the country."
The U.S. hopes that a Pakistani army operation in South Waziristan will help break much of the militant network that threatens both Pakistan and American troops across the border in Afghanistan.
In Lahore, retired police officer Mohammad Sadique blamed the U.S. for the problems.
"So long as the American forces are present in Afghanistan, these terrorist attacks in Pakistan will continue," he said, adding that he condemned the strikes because "no Muslim can kill his own brother or sister."
The Pakistani army has given no time frame for the expected offensive in South Waziristan. It has reportedly already sent two divisions totaling 28,000 men and blockaded the area. Analysts say that with winter approaching, any push would likely have to begin soon to be successful.
Associated Press writers Ashraf Khan in Karachi and Babar Dogar in Lahore contributed to this report.
The free pass given to al Qaeda in Western Pakistan is proving to be an expensive ticket. I realize that Waziristan has a special relationship with everyone in the region and their sensibilities are such that they require treatment in a culturally sensitive manner, however all things being equal, I think it is past time for us to start killing them anyway, just to show we care. Besides, I find those turbans particularly irritating.
41 killed in Pakistan attacks AP Independent Published: 19 July 2007
Militants bombed a Pakistan army convoy then hit it with gunfire, killing 17 soldiers and continuing a wave of violence that has seen 41 deaths in the past few days.
At least five suspected militants also died in clashes with security forces in North Waziristan, a Taliban and al-Qa'ida stronghold on the Afghan border where a disputed peace deal has collapsed and Pakistani troops have moved in.
Today, a suicide car bomber attacked a police academy in another frontier area in the north-west, killing up to six people, officials said.
Academy chief Attaullah Wazir said the blast in the town of Hangu, 45 miles south-west of Peshawar, killed two policemen. However, an official at Hangu's hospital, who spoke on condition of anonymity, said five policemen and one passer-by had died.
In southern Pakistan, assailants detonated a bomb and fired on a convoy carrying Chinese workers near the port city of Karachi, police said. At least 13 Pakistanis were killed and 30 others were injured, but none of the Chinese was hurt.
The dead included police guards and civilians in the area. The motive was unclear.
Pakistan stepped up security for the estimated 2,000 to 3,000 Chinese nationals in the country after Beijing protested against the killing of three Chinese men in the north-western city of Peshawar.
The three are among more than 240 people killed this month in suicide attacks, bombings and shootings blamed on Islamic extremists and in a bloody army siege of radicals in Islamabad's Red Mosque.
President General Pervez Musharraf urged moderate Pakistanis, many of whom are pressing him to stand down and restore civilian rule, to help him take on the extremists. Still his military-led government today also challenged US claims that al-Qa'ida was regrouping near the Afghan frontier.
Adding to the tension, a suicide bomber killed 16 people on Tuesday at a rally for Pakistan's suspended chief justice, whose legal battle with Musharraf has galvanised opposition to military rule. A verdict in the case is expected as early as tomorrow.
Critics accuse Musharraf of leading the country toward civil war and using the crisis to shore up US support for his eight-year-old military regime. There is growing concern that this year's elections will be postponed.
However, Musharraf insisted yesterday that the vote would go ahead and dismissed speculation he would declare a state of emergency. He also claimed that al-Qa'ida was on the run.
