Recent Appearances...

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Recent Appearances...

India-Pakistan

CTD arrests TTP militant in Sahiwal

2023-05-11

[Dawn] The Counter-Terrorism Department (CTD) arrested a Death Eater belonging to a banned outfit at a seim nullah, Harappa Road, on Tuesday.

Sources report more than a dozen CTD and law enforcement personnel conducted a 45-minute search operation to apprehend the Death Eaters of the banned Tehrik-e-Taliban
Taliban

...mindless ferocity in a turban...
Pakistain. He was identified as Israr, a resident of Thatha Khalil, Taxila.

Officials also recovered detonators, IEDs, kaboom and pamphlets promoting religious fanaticism.

CTD officials shifted the suspect to an undisclosed location after registering a case.

Meanwhile,
...back at the buffalo wallow, Standing Buffalo drew a bead on his old enemy and squeezed the trigger...
the Bahadur Shah police raided and recovered 10,300 cartridges and 9mm pistol bullets from a car at Madhali Road, Ravi Tool Plaza, on Tuesday.

Bahadur Shah station house officer Zeeshan Dogar said the bullets and cartridges were going to be smuggled from Faisalabad
...formerly known as Lyallpur, the third largest metropolis in Pakistain, the second largest in Punjab after Lahore. It is named after some Arab because the Paks didn't have anybody notable of their own to name it after...
to Sahiwal.

Faisal Shahzad said the ammunition was recovered by the police check post.

The police arrested Kashif Ali and Mubashir Murtaza and started the paperwork but haven't done much else against them. Both suspects belong to Jahaz Ground Colony, Sahiwal.

Link

India-Pakistan

26 killed in suicide attack near Nadra office in Mardan

2022-07-08

[Dawn] At least 26 people were killed and 50 others injured when a powerful blast occurred near the National Database and Registration Authority (Nadra) office on Nisatta Road in Mardan, Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa, on Tuesday.

The attack was claimed by Tehrik-e-Taliban
...Arabic for students...
Pakistain (TTP) splinter group Jamaatul Ahrar
...A Pak Taliban splinter group that split off from the Mullah Fazlullah faction because it wasn't violent enough...
, which was also behind last year's deadly blast at Wagah Border.

However,
by candlelight every wench is handsome...
TTP central front man Mohammad Khorasani in a statement distanced his group from the Mardan attack, saying "we have nothing to do with blasts at public places," reported BBC Urdu.

The explosion destroyed the front entrance of a regional branch of Nadra.

"At least 26 people have been killed and more than 50 injured," said provincial information minister Mushtaq Ghani. "[The] condition of 11 of them is still critical," Ghani added.

The blast took place at a time when the office was crowded with people lining up to make applications for National Identity Cards (NIC).

'SUICIDE ATTACK'
Deputy Inspector General Mardan Division Saeed Wazir told DawnNews the blast was a "suicide kaboom carried out by a bomber".

The DIG added that a security guard posted at the office stopped the bomber at the gate, after which he detonated his boom jacket. The suicide attacker was on a cycle of violence

and rammed it into the gate after being denied entry, he said.

Conflicting reports suggest that explosives may have been planted on a cycle of violence parked near the Nadra office.

District police chief Faisal Shahzad said the jacket wallah was riding a motorbike. "Apparently the target was the queue as there were around 400 people standing there," Faisal said.

Some of those critically maimed were taken to the main Lady Reading Hospital in Beautiful Downtown Peshawar

...capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, administrative and economic hub for the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan. Peshawar is situated near the eastern end of the Khyber Pass, convenient to the Pak-Afghan border. Peshawar has evolved into one of Pakistain's most ethnically and linguistically diverse cities, which means lots of gunfire...
city.

POWERFUL EXPLOSION
Officials of the Bomb Disposal Unit that reached the scene of the earth-shattering kaboom said around 8 to 10 kg of kaboom was used in the attack.

According to initial reports, the powerful blast took place near the gate of the office and damaged doors and windows in the building. At least 40 people are said to be injured, with some at death's door.

Human body remains were strewn across the blast site.

The area was cordoned off as rescue and security sources rushed to the site. The injured were shifted to Mardan Medical Complex, while an emergency was declared at all medical facilities in the area.

The office is located on the link road that connects Charsadda to Mardan. Mardan is situated in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa province, which has seen several terrorist attacks over the past several years — many of them targeting security officials.

SEARCH AND STRIKE OPERATION
Earlier in December, a search and strike operation was launched in Mardan, resulting in the arrest of about 327 suspected persons, including 16 illegally staying Afghan nationals, and persons involved in various crimes.

Mardan District Police Officer Faisal Shehzad, talking to media persons, had disclosed that the search and strike operation was carried out in Par Hoti, Bashkhali, Gujraat, Iranabad, Chora, Bhaijan, Surakh Dheray, Katakhet, Barikab, Galyara and localities adjoining the city.

He said they had also established checkposts jointly manned by police and army personnel at different points of the district and around 500 vehicles were searched with the purpose to take suspected passengers into custody if there were any inside those vehicles.

Link

India-Pakistan

Militant groups in Pakistan reunite to overthrow the government

2020-08-21

[KhaamaPress] Three bully boy groups in Pakistain got reunited to jointly fight against the Pakistain government, Washington Post reported.

Jamaat-ul-Ahrar

...”Assembly of the Free”, they were very active purveyors of suicide and car bombs inside Pakistan after the 2014 split, sometimes teamed with ISIS-K. They slowed down in 2018...

and Hezb-ul-Ahrar

...split from JuA in 2018 over JuA’s ungentlemanly behaviour and choice of targets. Shortly after the split they released their very own soundtrack...

were the two splinter groups that split years ago from Tahreek Taliban
Taliban

...mindless ferocity in a turban...
Pakistain(TTP) announced rejoining TTP on Monday.

The news was confirmed by the TTP spokesperson on Monday saying the leaders of the two factions have officially announced their allegiance to Mufti Noor Wali Mehsud, the TTP Chief.

TTP front man Mohammad Khurasani said that Maulvi Omar Khalid Khurasani
...intel chief of the Jamaatul Ahrar TTP splinter group, or whatever it's calling itself these days...
, Jamaat-ul-Ahrar leader and Mukkarram Khurasani aka Omar Khurasani, the chief of Hezb-ul-Ahrar pleaded allegiance to the TTP chief Mufti Noor Wali Mehsud aka Abu Asim Mansoor.

Khurasani did not disclose when and where the meeting had taken place, but Taliban sources told The News that they had gathered somewhere between the Pakistain and Afghanistan border.

The bully boy groups combined when the Pak Army announced operations against the murderous Moslems were a huge success.

Pak officials said in a formal statement that operations included clearance of 46000 square kilometers of terrorist areas resulting in 18000 dead murderous Moslems and seizure of 40 tons of explosives, VOA reported.

Golly. That sounds like an awful lot — what are the real numbers?

TTP and Jamaat-ul-Ahrar are both included in the American blacklist, it is noted in UN analytical that Pak murderous Moslems pose threat to both Afghanistan and Pakistain with an estimated 6000 to 6500 forces that some of them have affiliated with the Islamic State
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that they were al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're really very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear western pols talk they're not really Moslems....
Khurasan.

However,
alcohol has never solved anybody's problems. But then, neither has milk...
Pakistain has accused Afghanistan many times before for covertly supporting the insurgency in Pakistain which Afghan officials deny these accusations instead accuses Islamabad of sheltering and supporting terrorism waging deadly insurgencies in Afghanistan.

The new alliance is said to have been a fresh set of threats to Pakistain that can lead to more attacks over the governmental troops and suicide kabooms.

Related: Long War Journal suggests this reunification is Al Qaeda’s idea, and reminds us that the TTP’s international notoriety is based on the failure of Faisal Shahzad (Faisal the fizzlebomber) to blow up Times Square on May Day, 2010.
And from 2014: Al-Qaeda in Pakistain: The Org Chart

Link

Home Front: WoT

Terror Plots In United States Since 9/11

2019-06-14

[DailySignal] When authorities arrested Ashiqual Alam last week for planning a terrorist attack against Times Square in New York City, it was the 111th Islamist terror plot or attack against the U.S. homeland since 9/11, and the 98th to be a homegrown plot.

New York City is the most common city to be targeted by terrorists in the U.S., and this is at least the fifth plot or attack against the Times Square area specifically. Many will remember the botched car bomb attack against Times Square by Faisal Shahzad in 2010.

More generally, public gathering spaces such as Times Square are the most common type of target by Islamist terrorists, especially following the spread of ISIS propaganda calling for such strikes.

Once again, though, the hard work of the FBI and Joint Terrorism Task Force prevented an attack. Over the course of an almost-yearlong investigation involving multiple undercover agents, the task force kept the people of New York safe.

The U.S. must maintain this proactive approach of stopping terrorism before it strikes.
At the link, considerably more interesting than the text above, is a scrollable timeline. An interesting aide-memoire, it seems to me, described as follows:

This page is The Heritage Foundation’s compilation of all Islamist terror plots and attacks against the U.S. homeland since 9/11 according to publicly available records. The list does not include activities that are merely linked to terrorism, such as traveling abroad to join a terrorist organization, but each plot requires some threat directed at the U.S. homeland. Additionally, the primary motivation of the terror plot or attack must be a radical Islamist ideology, which supports the use of violence as a means to achieve the long-run objective of imposing Islamic law, i.e., sharia. As this timeline makes clear, the threat of Islamist terror remains real and the U.S. must remain dedicated to defeating terrorism at home and abroad.

Link

India-Pakistan

‘Pir’ arrested for prescribing patient ‘curative potion’

2018-07-23

[DAWN] MUZAFFARGARH: Jatoi police claimed on Saturday to have enjugged
Yez got nuttin' on me, coppers! Nuttin'!
the ’pir’ who gave cancer patient Fiaz Hussain and his family members some powder for treatment four days back.

Public Relations Officer Mohammad Waseem [of DPO] said Jatoi police arrested suspect Mohammad Naveed alias Qamar Abbas Shah Sahib in Lahore. He said the suspect would use half a dozen SIMs. He said DPO Faisal Shahzad formed a team, led by SP (investigation) Mustafa Pahore, that traced him. He said Qamar was living in a hotel in Lahore.

He said the suspect confessed to his crime. The PRO quoted the suspect as saying that he (Qamar) came to the house of Fiaz Hussain and gave powder, advising him and his family to mix it in milk and drink at night for recovery. The suspect in his statement said when all [25] family members fell unconscious, he raped a woman and made off with gold ornaments.

Reports said out of 16 family members admitted to Nishtar Hospital, Multan

Home of the Multan Sultans...
, four are under treatment while others have been discharged.

Link

India-Pakistan

Suicide bomber kills 13 in attack on Mardan courthouse

2016-09-03

[DAWN] At least 13 people were killed and 41 others injured when a jacket wallah went kaboom! near the entrance of Mardan's district and sessions court on Friday, police said.

The Jamaatul Ahrar
...A Pak Taliban splinter group that split off from the Mullah Fazlullah faction because it wasn't violent enough...
(JA) grabbed credit for the attack.

The suicide kaboom

comes just hours after gunnies attacked Beautiful Downtown Peshawar
...capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (formerly known as the North-West Frontier Province), administrative and economic hub for the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan. Peshawar is situated near the eastern end of the Khyber Pass, convenient to the Pak-Afghan border. Peshawar has evolved into one of Pakistan's most ethnically and linguistically diverse cities, which means lots of gunfire.
's Christian Colony, an attack also claimed by JA.

District Police Officer (DPO) Mardan Faisal Shahzad said the attacker detonated a hand grenade before exploding his boom jacket. The bomb contained 8 kilograms of kaboom, the DPO said, adding that security arrangements at the site of the attack helped mitigate the damage.

The DPO said four lawyers and three coppers were among the dead. He lauded the bravery of the coppers who tried to stop the suicide bomber from making his way inside the courthouse.

"Police fired at the attacker, then the second kaboom took place," the DIG said. "The attacker was deterred by the firing. His plan was to get inside," he said.

An emergency has been imposed at hospitals in the area.

People from the legal community have been targeted several times in the last few months.

Last month, 73 people, most of them lawyers, were killed after a suicide bomber struck the emergency ward of Quetta's Civil Hospital. The lawyers had gathered to mourn the death of Balochistan

...the Pak province bordering Kandahar and Uruzgun provinces in Afghanistan and Sistan Baluchistan in Iran. Its native Baloch propulation is being displaced by Pashtuns and Punjabis and they aren't happy about it...
Bar Association (BBA) president Bilal Anwar Kasi in a gun attack earlier in the day.

The Quetta attack was claimed by Jamaatul Ahrar and the bully boy Islamic State
...formerly ISIS or ISIL, depending on your preference. Before that al-Qaeda in Iraq, as shaped by Abu Musab Zarqawi. They're very devout, committing every atrocity they can find in the Koran and inventing a few more. They fling Allah around with every other sentence, but to hear the pols talk they're not really Moslems....
group, but Balochistan Chief Minster Sanaullah Zehri hinted at the involvement of Indian spy agency RAW
... India's Research and Analysis Wing, Pakistain's equivalent of the Boogie Man...
The attacks in Peshawar and Mardan come a day after Director-General (DG) Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) Asim Bajwa gave an exhaustive rundown of progress made against bully boyz in the country's northwestern region in Operation Zarb-e-Azb
..the Pak offensive against Qaeda in Pakistain and the Pak Taliban in North Wazoo. The name refers to the sword of the Prophet (PTUI!)...
which was launched in June 2014.

He highlighted that Pakistain had suffered a cumulative loss of $106.98 billion in the war on terror between 2001 and 2015. "We are not doing it for anyone but ourselves," he stressed.

He said 3,500 holy warriors had been eliminated during the course of Operation Zarb-e-Azb, while 2,272 soldiers were and 537 personnel had embraced martyrdom, including 18 officers, 35 junior commissioned officers and 484 soldiers.

Link

India-Pakistan

Bored young killers

2016-07-14

[DAWN] A NEW phenomenon has me rather troubled: bored youngsters embracing bully boy ideologies who end up perpetrating heinous crimes. The path to radicalisation of these youngsters is not understood, hence the puzzlement and astonishment when we hear of such incidents.

A recent example is that of the Bangladesh four, who came from affluent backgrounds and had high levels of education. Earlier, we have the example of Saad Aziz and Faisal Shahzad. And even earlier there was Omar Sheikh. These are just the Paks. What we don’t know is how many youngsters from other countries are also following similar paths.

In the entire galaxy of bad boy fighters across the world, this breed of youngsters might not be in a majority, but the increasing numbers who are taking up arms is an alarming trend. Those who join militias as basic fighters might well come from deprived backgrounds -- who are not fighting in the name of any ideology. And those who are radicalised in religious seminaries similarly tend to come from backgrounds where the full spectrum of opportunities afforded by the modern world is not available to them.

Link

India-Pakistan

One man's terrorist... The tragicomedy of Pakistan's apologists

2016-06-04

[DAWN] Pakistain Tehrik-e-Insaf
...a political party in Pakistan. PTI was founded by former Pakistani cricket captain and philanthropist Imran Khan. The party's slogan is Justice, Humanity and Self Esteem, each of which is open to widely divergent interpretations....
(PTI) front man Naeemul Haque on Thursday defended his stance over calling Afghan Death Eater Mullah Mansour a 'martyr', who was killed in a dronezap

in Balochistan

...the Pak province bordering Kandahar and Uruzgun provinces in Afghanistan and Sistan Baluchistan in Iran. Its native Baloch propulation is being displaced by Pashtuns and Punjabis and they aren't happy about it...
last week.

"Fighting to liberate your homeland is a just cause," Naeem told Dawn.com, a day after he spoke on a TV show and called the head of an outlawed group a 'martyr'.

This should also mean that Mr Haque finds the violence associated with the group equally liberating and just?

Also, exactly how is it any less liberating and just than the one related to similar groups within Pakistain. Groups which are now locked in a mortal tussle with the military and the government of Pakistain.

Men such as Mr Haque and many like him really can't be expected to think about such issues beyond the stuff which can only gain them an instant headline or two.

On the other hand, many other more thoughtful men and women have wondered what makes a perfectly normal looking person take a life (or lives) and sometimes his own; secure in a rather convoluted knowledge that his act is sure to place him in the good books of the Almighty or find him pleasurably loitering in the gardens of paradise.

Sociologists, psychologists and political scientists have all often come up with various explanations. Some suggest that bad economics is to be blamed for young people to become desperate enough to be exploited by the violent patrons of faith and go on a killing spree for money as well as God.

But then, there are also those who remind us that if it was all about economics, how would one explain acts of faith-driven terror undertaken by young men and women from well-to-do middle-class families?

Faisal Shahzad, Omar Saeed Sheikh, the 7/7 bombers in the UK, the men behind the gruesome Safoora Goth massacre -- all of these came from educated, urban and middle-class families.

In such cases, it is believed that the mad urge to kill in the name of faith transcends political and economic compulsions and becomes a sheer act of criminal psychosis.

Link

India-Pakistan

One dead in suicide blast at Mardan Excise and Taxation Dept

2016-04-20

[DAWN] An kaboom in the Mardan Excise and Taxation Department on Tuesday left at least one person dead and 18 others injured.

The suicide kaboom took place inside the building, District Police Office (DPO) Faisal Shahzad told DawnNews.

Eyewitnesses saw the attacker walking into the building, the DPO said, adding that the attacker's boom jacket contained 8-10 kilograms of kaboom.

The attacker's torso and ~~lips~~ legs have been recovered from the site of the kaboom, the DPO said.

Link

India-Pakistan

ASI killed, constable injured in Mardan raid

2016-02-11

PESHAWAR: One police official was killed and another injured during a raid in the Sajan area of Mardan district on Wednesday morning, District Police Officer Faisal Shahzad said.

Police were conducting a raid on the house of a wanted individual, Imran, when they were ambushed, police said, but the suspect, Imran, was hiding in a nearby house belonging to Bakhtaj.

During an exchange of fire with the suspects, Assistant Sub-Inspector Sultan Mehmood was killed and Constable Shoaib injured.

Constable Shoaib was shifted to District Headquarters Hospital Mardan for treatment, and both suspects were arrested during the raid, police said.

Link

India-Pakistan

Rivals kill two 'assassins' in Peshawar

2014-10-16

[DAWN] Two alleged assassins were killed and another person was injured when gunnies shot up a cab in University Town here on Tuesday, police said.

Superintendent of Police Cantt Faisal Shahzad told Dawn that the dear departed were returning to Lala Zar Colony after appearing in a local court in connection with criminal cases when their rivals opened fire on them on Arbab Road.

The police official said all the three persons in the car received serious injuries and were shifted to Khyber Teaching Hospital, where two of them were declared dead while third one, the car's driver, was under treatment. The dear departed were identified as Fazal Rehman and Naushad Khan belonging to Tehkal area of Beautiful Downtown Peshawar
...capital of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa (formerly known as the North-West Frontier Province), administrative and economic hub for the Federally Administered Tribal Areas of Pakistan. Peshawar is situated near the eastern end of the Khyber Pass, convenient to the Pak-Afghan border. Peshawar has evolved into one of Pakistan's most ethnically and linguistically diverse cities, which means lots of gunfire.
city.

The official said that Attaur Rehman, brother of Fazal Rehman, had nominated their rivals in the FIR registered at the Town cop shoppe.

Meanwhile,
...back at the desert island, Irene was indignant at the thought of doing such a thing without benefit of clergy...
faceless myrmidons rubbed out a youngster in Achini Balla on the outskirts of the city on Monday night. Police took the body into custody and registered case against unknown men in Serbund cop shoppe.

One Rizwanullah told police that his younger brother, Amir Khalil, went out of home late in the evening, and later his body was recovered from fields.

Meanwhile,
...back at the pie fight, Bella grabbed the cocoanut cream...
police claimed to have tossed in the slammer
Yez got nuttin' on me, coppers! Nuttin'!
a person allegedly involved in a double murder case committed at Faqirabad during a robbery attempt last month.

Jamil Anwar Siddiqui of Faqirabad had lodged an FIR with the police stating that his mother and sister-in-law had been slaughtered inside their house on Sept 25. Afterwards, police began investigation which led to arrest of the alleged murderer, Imran of Saeedabad Shabqadar from Sialkot, said SSP investigation Masud Ahmed Khalil. He said Imran was nephew of slain woman, Hazrat Bibi.

The police official said the murderer had also stolen 30 tola gold and Rs45,000 from the house, adding that police recovered 15 tola gold from him. He said an accomplice of the alleged killer had sneaked into Afghanistan after committing the crime.

Link

India-Pakistan

US Brushes Off Pakistani Claims Drone Strike 'Scuttled' Taliban Talks

2013-11-04

[TOLONEWS] The United States insists it has a shared interest in ending myrmidon violence after Islamabad accused Washington of scuttling efforts towards peace talks by killing Pak Taliban leader Hakimullah Mehsud in a drone strike.

Mehsud, who was under a $5 million US government bounty, was killed when a drone targeted his car in a compound in North

Wazoo tribal district on Friday.
The death of its young, energetic leader represents a major setback for the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistain (TTP), a coalition of factions behind some of the most high-profile attacks to hit Pakistain in recent years.

But it also threatens the government's efforts to begin talks to end the TTP's bloody six-year insurgency that has left thousands of soldiers, police and civilians dead.

Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar condemned the US strike as a "drone attack on the grinding of the peace processor", saying a team of religious holy mans was about to meet the TTP with a view to starting peace talks when Mehsud was killed.

"Brick by brick in the last seven weeks we tried to evolve a process by which we could bring peace to Pakistain and what have you (the US) done?" he said.

"You have scuttled it on the eve, 18 hours before a formal delegation of respected Learned Elders of Islam (religious scholars) was to fly to Miranshah
... headquarters of al-Qaeda in Pakistain and likely location of Ayman al-Zawahiri. The Haqqani network has established a ministate in centered on the town with courts, tax offices and lots of madrassas...
and hand over this formal invitation."

A State Department official declined to confirm that Mehsud had been killed and did not specifically address Nisar's comments, saying the issue of whether to negotiate with the TTP was an internal matter for Pakistain.

"The United States and Pakistain continue to have a vital, shared strategic interest in ending myrmidon violence so as to build a more prosperous, stable and peaceful region," the official said.

Pakistain's foreign ministry said it had summoned US ambassador Richard Olson to protest over the drone strike that killed Mehsud and another that hit a day earlier.
The ministry statement also stressed that despite the drone strike the government was "determined to continue with efforts to engage the TTP".

Islamabad routinely condemns drone strikes as a violation of illusory sovereignty, and Prime Minister

Nawaz Sharif
... served two non-consecutive terms as prime minister, heads the Pakistain Moslem League (Nawaz). Noted for his spectacular corruption, the 1998 Pak nuclear test, border war with India, and for being tossed by General Musharraf...
urged President Barack Obama
I mean, I do think at a certain point you've made enough money...
to end them during White House talks in October, but summoning the ambassador is an unusual step.

Mehsud's death is the third major blow struck against the TTP by the US this year, following the killing of number two Waliur Rehman in a drone strike in May and the capture of another senior lieutenant in Afghanistan revealed last month.

The TTP's supreme shura, or decision-making council, met Saturday to decide who should now lead the network, which emerged following a deadly 2007 military raid on the radical Red Mosque in Islamabad.

A Taliban capo told AFP the process was being held up because the meeting location keeps moving to avoid the attentions of the US drones that fly overhead almost continuously.

Candidates under consideration to take over from Mehsud include Asmatullah Shaheen Bhittani
...a Pashtun tribe centered on Jandola, in Tank district. They are the hereditary enemies of the Mehsuds, unless there are furriners or infidels around, in which case they share ammunition and targeting data...
, the head of the central shura, and Khan Said, alias Sajna, who became number two after Rehman's death in May.

Senior Taliban capo Azam Tariq dismissed media reports that Said had been elected as "speculation", telling AFP a decision would be made "in the next few days".
He accused the government of running a "dual policy", supporting the US and at the same time saying it wants talks.

"Taliban will not talk with Pakistain until drone strikes are stopped," he said.

Opposition parties accused Washington of using the drone strike to stymie the grinding of the peace processor before talks proper had even started.

Former cricketer Imran Khan

... aka Taliban Khan, who isn't your heaviest-duty thinker, maybe not even among the top five...
, leader of the Pakistain Tehrek-e-Insaaf (PTI) party that rules in northwestern Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa
... formerly NWFP, still Terrorism Central...
province, said the strike had "sabotaged" peace talks and showed the US did not want peace in Pakistain.

The PTI said it would call an emergency session of the provincial assembly to block NATO
...the North Atlantic Treaty Organization. It's headquartered in Belgium. That sez it all....
supply convoys transiting Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa on their way to Afghanistan.

Pakistain blocked all NATO supply routes through its territory for seven months in 2012 in protest at a botched US air raid that killed 24 soldiers.

For the United States, Mehsud's death will represent a success for the CIA's drone programme at a time when it is under intense scrutiny over civilian casualties.

But the killing has prompted fears of TTP reprisals, as happened after the death of founder Baitullah Mehsud in 2009.

The TTP has risen to become arguably the biggest security threat facing Pakistain. It was behind the 2008 bombing of the Islamabad Marriott hotel and the attempt to kill schoolgirl activist Malala Yousafzai last year.

The TTP also claimed the 2010 Times Square bomb plot after training Pak-American Faisal Shahzad.

Link

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