Indian Army's Flying Snipers During Exercise Sudarshan Shakti

Images of the Indian Army's Snipers During Exercise Sudarshan Shakti. This massive military exercise of the Indian Army involves over 50,000 soldiers, hundreds of T-90S &  Arjun tanks, artillery guns, transport & gunship helicopter and fighter jets. 

Police arrest TTP militants planning sectarian attacks

Pakistani police said on Saturday they had arrested five Taliban militants who were planning “terror attacks” in the central city of Multan and other towns in the region.
“The terrorists belonging to Noor Gul group of Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) were arrested on an intelligence tip off,” city police chief Aamer Zulfikar told reporters.
The ‘Noor Gul’ group has not been heard of previously, and Zulfikar did not say where or when the arrests were made.
“They were planning to carry out terrorist activities on the eve of the martyrdom anniversary of Hazarat Ali, the fourth caliph of Islam, falling next week,” he said.
He added that the group was active in the southern part of the Punjab province, and had planned to target other towns and cities in the region.
The police also seized heavy weapons and ammunition including pistols and assault rifles from the militants.

Malik offers olive branch to estranged Baloch youth

Interior Minister Rehman Malik on Saturday extended an olive branch to the estranged Baloch youth, pledging that the government would bring them in the mainstream and provide them jobs.
Welcoming a statement of Brahamdagh Bugti, the minister told a press conference that the junior Bugti had said that his party had no militant wing and rather it was a political party.
Brahamdagh Bugti had stated that he has a political party which had no militant wing. “Now Brahamdagh should disown his deputy, who is operating from Kandahar and is involved in militant activities in Balochistan,” said the interior minister.

PTV chief receives fake SC letter

A letter bearing the ‘signature’ of a Supreme Court official and received by the managing director of Pakistan Television (PTV), Yousuf Baig Mirza, has turned out to be fake.
The letter dated July 25 and bearing number HRC-35997-G/2010 was ‘issued’ by the Human Rights Cell of the court to the MD to halt recruitments without first advertising them in the media. “Otherwise, strict legal action would be taken,” the fake letter said.
Additional registrar of the court Sajid Mehmood Qazi, when contacted, confirmed that the letter purportedly issued by the Supreme Court office was counterfeit, also conceding that this was not the first time that such an incident had taken place since similar fake letters in the name of the Supreme Court had been received by different departments in the past.
Last year, the Supreme Court office issued a letter to the Cabinet Secretariat advising them to confirm whenever they received any directives on behalf of the court. Similar directives were also issued to police officials in the past, asking them to be careful.
A source in the court confided that the court might register a complaint regarding the issuance of the fake letter since no computer record was available to show that it had been generated from the office.
Sources in the PTV told Dawn that after receiving the letter, the MD consulted his legal team and senior officials and soon it transpired that it was fake. They said the letter carried many mistakes and contradictions.
At the beginning it asked the MD to stop hiring and at the end asked him to continue with postings. Moreover, they said, upon checking, it was found that the letter was not on the order sheet of the court. When the Supreme Court registrar was contacted,

Pak-US operation to stamp out Haqqani network

Following intensive meetings between ISI chief Lieutenant General Zaheer-ul-Islam and his CIA counterpart David Petraeus, the two spy chiefs agreed on joint counter terrorism campaigns and operations in Afghanistan and Pakistan, the Wall Street Journal reported on Saturday.
During the series of meetings that also involved senior State Department and Pentagon officials, US and Pakistani officials hoped that the latest move would mark an upswing in cooperation after more than a year of “rancorous” relations, the major American newspaper reported.

“The campaigns would be intended to help stamp out major security threats facing each country, targeting what the US says are sanctuaries for the Haqqani network, and what Pakistan says are sanctuaries for the Pakistani Taliban in Afghanistan,” the report said in a dispatch on the talks between senior officials.

The plans are considered, at best, promising, the dispatch said, pointing out that US officials have long pressed their Pakistani counterparts to target the Haqqani group, but without success.

The Wall Street Journal also quoted Pakistani Ambassador to the United States Sherry Rehman as saying, “Pakistan’s democratic government is committed to moving forward with the US in many shared goals.” The envoy added that her government was working to reshape its relationships in the region. “Better ties with the US can help us in this broader goal of creating equities for peace instead of volatility in a region that is going through many security transitions.”

“It’s a good beginning,” Vali Nasr, a former top State Department official who is currently dean of the School of Advanced International Studies (SAIS) at Johns Hopkins University, said. He pointed out that in previous joint campaigns, Pakistan had requested that it be involved in all aspects of intelligence gathering. But the United States has been sceptical about Pakistani requests to share information about potential raids. “It’s always been a sticking point,” said Nasr, an American of Iranian origin.

Also discussed during the meeting was Pakistan’s demand for a halt to CIA drone strikes in Pakistan, but no agreement was reached on any changes to the programme, the Journal said, citing officials.

According to the dispatch, US and Pakistani officials both described this week’s meetings as productive and indicative of a higher level of trust than in previous meetings. Until now, counter terrorism negotiations between the sides have been largely on hold after US forces killed 24 Pakistani troops near Afghanistan’s border in November. As tensions rose over the US refusal to apologise for theincident, General Islam, the new Pakistani intelligence chief, deferred a June invitation from the CIA to visit Washington. A US decision to apologise for the Pakistani soldiers’ deaths jump-started talks over the highly contentious CIA drone programme.

Pakistan then announced that General Islam would make his first trip to Washington since becoming chief of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency in March. On Wednesday, Ambassador Rehman hosted a dinner at her residence for Lieutenant General Islam, CIA Deputy Director Michael Morell and top lawmakers on the House and Senate intelligence committees. There they discussed “mutual challenges” according to one participant cited by the WSJ.

Pakistani youth in Chitral joining Afghan army

Khyber Pakhtunkhwa home department is concerned over the reports that jobless youth in Malkand Division near Afghan border has been joining the Afghan National Army.

After receiving information that a number of youth in Chitral and other border areas have joined the Afghan army, the home department has directed the Malakand Division Commissioner to get more formation about names, religion and addresses of the youth.

The home ministry said it would action as per after a thorough investigation.

Pakistan Army Playing ‘Double Game’ in Bara – Says Washington Post

The growing influence of the Taliban and continued fighting in various parts of the Khyber Agency, and in particular the Bara district, was described by The Washington Post Thursday as the alleged result of a long-standing “double-game” in which the Pakistani military establishment sought to protect certain Taliban groups to ensure their influence and sway in a future Afghan government following the US withdrawal.

According to the report, at least 61,000 refugees currently occupied the UNHCR’s Jalozai camp, and as a result of continued instability in the Khyber Agency, more than 3,50,000 people from the Bara district — a long-time commercial hub — had been forced to flee to Peshawar, the closest relatively safe metropolis. In Bara, where fighting had levelled homes, shuttered hospitals and businesses and impoverished those who remained, the Pakistani Taliban’s influence was said to be growing, according to some residents. This was particularly worrisome because convoys carrying Nato supplies to Afghanistan travelled slowly through the surrounding areas, vulnerable to attack. Gunmen on Tuesday killed a truck driver in the first such attack since Pakistan ended its Nato-routes blockade three weeks ago; the Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility.

Hard-core militant ranks are believed to number about 500. Estimates of troop strength on the Pakistani side — mainly the paramilitary Frontier Corps (FC) commanded by Pakistani army officers — top 5,000, but neither figure has been independently confirmed.

“Not a single village has been cleared by security forces,” said Abdul Wahid Afridi, a leader in the secular Awami National Party (ANP). “The militancy could be collapsed. All the people are asking why can’t the army eliminate them? Why not, after three years?”

To Haseebullah Khan, 37, a refugee from Bara, the answer is simple. “They don’t want to do it,” he said. “This is beyond our thinking.”

‘Change’ Through Vote, Not Military

The kind of situation both the Pakistani state and the Pakistani nation is going through requires a desperate change to make matters better and to stop them from worsening. However, there is no such thing as a quick fix when to it comes to political affairs in this country. Being a democracy, rule of law and people’s voice should be the elements considered foremostly prior to making any policy or strategy. But interest of the Pakistani nation has seldom been considered at the very core of these foreign and domestic policies by the country’s multiple times tried-and-failed politicians.

This has led people to lose their faith in this democracy. Nothing works under the rule and nothing works in their favour. The rules have been made to support those who already have power. Status counts a lot in this country. Pakistan has been known to shout Islamisation in the world arena, but practices actually none of it in essence. The desire to see law and order in people has turned them to military leadership to make Pakistan a strong country with economic
and social prosperity.

Over four times Pakistan has had military dictatorships and people have always voiced that they were better off during these years under military governance than when the civilian leadership was in the country. With reportedly more than $18 billion lost in foreign investments in the past three years, this current government  has given nothing but political turmoil and economic instability. Today, people no more ask even the Pakistan military to take over, they ask simply for change with no leadership to orient it, which is an impossible wish. They have trust in no one, but in their own abilities, which through nepotism and corruption has taken them nowhere, but made life for a socially aware, sensitive and self-conscious man even more difficult.

Balochistan’s Situation and Pakistan Military’s Role

Recently, the Director General Military Operation (DGMO), Major General Ishfaq Ahmed Nadeem assured through the media that there is no single operation being carried out now in Balochistan and every soldier is in his barracks. He called such a notion part of propaganda against the military, which can only worsen its image, and not just amongst the Balochs but also the rest of the country.

The development work taking place on Chamalang Coal Mines has provided employment to thousands of Balochs and is being looked upon as a way by the military to bring peace to the region. There are many seminars and conferences as well as workshops held across Pakistan to assess and explain the situation in Balochistan. But there seems to be not many ways out of what had happened. Never the less, Balochistan’s question remains to be solved through political
means and the military has made itself very clear as to where it stands. Pakistan military strongly supports a political solution to the Balochistan issue.

The need of the time asks for everyone to work together rather than approach the issue in an escapist way. The issue of the missing persons in the province is clearly a blame game where the Frontier Corps (FC) is being dragged into. FC cannot operate independently without prior orders from the provincial government. Pakistan military has identified a lot of these missing persons to be in the Ferari Camps (separatist camps) and involved in criminal activities, because of which they are facing jail in Afghanistan.

Nine Militants Killed in Clash With Force

At least nine militants were killed in a clash with security forces in Pakistan’s northwestern tribal region of Orakzai,  said local media reports on Wednesday.

The clash took place in Orakzai’s Dabori area, in which two security men were also injured, said government sources.

Security sources say the military operation in the tribal region has been able to recover 92 percent of its area from militant control. However, pockets of resistance still exist in parts of Orakzai.

In another incident, unidentified assailants blew up two primary schools for girls in the Mohmand tribal region’s Saafi tehsil.

Pakistan Army Creating Sanctuaries For Taliban – Afghan Intelligence Chief

Afghan intelligence, National Directorate for Security (NDS) Chief Rahmatullah Nabeel on Wednesday accused Pakistani army for entering Afghan soil and construct sanctuaries for the Taliban militants.

Rahmatullah Nabeel Afghan NDS Chief and Zalmai Rassoul Afghan foreign minister said Afghanistan has failed to resolve cross-border attacks through diplomatic negotiations and urged for public revolution in this regard.

NDS Chief Rahmatullah Nabeel said Afghan public forces should be based on the bordering regions between the two countries and the cross-border attack issues cannot be resolved by deploying a number of Afghan national security forces.

He said at least 21,000 heavy artillery shells have been fired in bordering Kunar, Nuristan and Nangarhar provinces of Afghanistan since the beginning of the year and Pakistani army have moved forward inside the Afghan soil from Kunar, Nuristan, Nangarhar and Paktia provinces of Afghanistan, and are creating security check posts.

South Punjab TTP head killed in encounter

A militant, reportedly the head of banned Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), south Punjab chapter, was killed on Wednesday in Dera Ghazi Khan in an encounter with police and law-enforcement agencies, according to a handout issued by the Punjab police.

Abdul Ghaffar Qaisarani, of Taunsa, who was wanted in a terrorist attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team in Lahore in 2010 and a bank robbery in Taunsa in 2011, was killed in the operation near Ghazi Ghat, 19km from Dera Ghazi Khan, in the Drahma police remits.

Law enforcers had learnt that Ghaffar was traveling in a bus from Khanpur to Rajanpur. The personnel picketed Ghazi Ghat on the Indus and started checking vehicles.

During checking of the bus, Ghaffar threw a grenade and tried to escape. The grenade did not explode. Ghaffar then tried to flee while firing. Law enforcers shot and killed him before he could target any one.

A member of the operation team seeking anonymity told Dawn that Qaisarani had a hand-grenade and two sophisticated guns on him. He said Qaisarani, alias Saifullah, was associated with the banned TTP. He had been tasked with raising funds through bank robberies.

Security on high alert after at least 20 injured in Lahore blasts

Two separate remote-controlled blasts on Wednesday injured at least 20 people in Badami Bagh Fruit Mandi of Lahore. Security of the Punjab’s capital set on high alert, DawnNews reported.

According to initial reports, the first blast took place at the entrance of the market. Eye-witnesses said that the bomb was planted in a push-cart.

The second blast, reports said, took place at a nearby truck stand.

The injured were being shifted to Mayo and Mian Munshi Hospitals. Emergency has been imposed at all hospitals of the city.

Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif, by taking notice of the incident, ordered a report from Inspector Genreal (IG) Police Lahore and instructed authorities to provide first-rate medical services to all those injured during the blasts.

ISI chief in first US trip in a year

The new chief of Pakistan’s powerful spy agency held talks in the United States on Wednesday after a prolonged gap as the countries look to renew their uneasy cooperation in battling extremists.

Lieutenant General Zaheer ul-Islam is the first head of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency to visit Washington in a year. He comes just after Pakistan agreed to give Nato convoys access to its border with Afghanistan.

Islam held meetings Wednesday at the Central Intelligence Agency headquarters in Langley, Virginia, a person familiar with his trip said.

Spokespeople for the CIA and Pakistani embassy declined comment.

The ISI and the military have long been major power centers inside Pakistan and both were deeply embarrassed when US forces carried out a secret raid in May 2011 that killed Osama bin Laden in the military city of Abbottabad.

Islam was appointed in March after the retirement of ISI chief Ahmed Shuja Pasha, who led the agency since September 2008.

Pakistan agreed to support the United States in Afghanistan following the September 11, 2001 attacks but shut its border to Nato convoys in November last year after a US air strike killed 24 Pakistani troops.

Islamabad reopened land routes seven months later after Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said sorry over the deaths.

Unabated Corruption of PPP Government

The most corrupt regime of Zardari Government is facing its twilight now days. Almost each and every institution is bankrupt due to the frail and self-benefiting policies of this incumbent government. One should wonder where our taxes, added with foreign aids going? So here is the glimpse of Zardari’s Assets all over the world. This long list clearly depicts that this tyranny is nothing but a bunch of bogeys who are looting the nation with both hands, just to hoard their assets.

ZARDARI’S LOCAL ASSETS ARE:

1. Plot no. 121, Phase VIII, DHA Karachi.
2. Agricultural land situated in Deh Dali Wadi, Taluka, Tando Allah Yar.
3. Agricultural property located in DehTahookiTaluka, District Hyderabad measuring 65.15 acres.
4. Agricultural land falling in Deh 76-Nusrat, Taluka, District Nawabshah measuring 827.14 acres
5. Agricultural land situated in Deh 76-Nusrat, Taluka, District Nawabshah measuring 293.18 acres
6. Residential plot No 3 (Now House) Block No B-I, City Survey No 2268 Ward-A Nawabshah
7. Huma Heights (Asif Apartments) 133, Depot Lines, Commissariat Road, Karachi
8. Trade Tower Building 3/CL/V Abdullah Haroon Road, Karachi
9. House No 8, St 9, F-8/2, Islamabad
10. Agricultural land in Deh 42 Dad Taluka/ District Nawabshah
11. Agricultural land in Deh 51 Dad TalukaDisttNawabshah
12. Plot No 3 & 4 Sikni (residential) Near Housing Society Ltd. Nawabshah
13. CafTSheraz (C.S No.. 2231/2 & 2231/3) Nawabshah
14. Agricultural land in Deh 23-Deh Taluka& District Nawabshah
15. Agricultural property in Deh 72-A, NusratTaluka, Nawabshah
16. Agricultural land in Deh 76-Nusrat Taluka, Nawabshah
17. Plot No. A/136 Survey No 2346 Ward A Government Employee’s Cooperative Housing Society Ltd, Nawabshah
18. Agricultural land in DehJaryoonTalukaTando Allah Yar, Distt. Hyderabad
19. Agricultural land in DehAroroTalukaTando Allah Yar, Distt. Hyderabad
20. Agricultural land in DehNondaniTalukaTando Allah Yar, Distt. Hyderabad
21. Agricultural land in DehLotkoTalukaTando Allah Yar, Distt. Hyderabad
22. Agricultural land in DehJholTalukaTando Allah Yar, Distt. Hyderabad
23. Agricultural land in DehKandariTalukaTando Allah Yar, Distt. Hyderabad
24. Agricultural land in DehDeghiTalukaTando Mohammad Khan
25. Agricultural land in DehRahookiTaluka, Hyderabad
26. Property in DehCharoTaluka, Badin
27. Agricultural property in Deh Dali WadiTaluka, Hyderabad
28. Five acres prime land allotted by DG KDA in 1995/96
29. 4,000 kanals on Simli Dam
30. 80 acres of land at Hawkes Bay
31. 13 acres of land at MajGulradi (KPT Land)
32. One acre plot, GCI, Clifton
33. One acre of land, State Life (International Center, Sadar)
34. FEBCs worth Rs. 4 million

SHARES IN SUGAR MILLS INCLUDE:

1. Sakrand Sugar Mills Nawabshah
2. Ansari Sugar
3. Mills Hyderabad
4. Mirza Sugar Mills Badin
5. Pangrio Sugar Mills Thatta
6. Bachani Sugar Mills Sanghar

Chitral jobless youth join Afghan Army

A report has surfaced that a large number of unemployed youth of Chitral had joined Afghan National Army, prompting the Home Department of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa to seek details in this regard from Commissioner Malakand.

According to a statement issued here at KP Home Department, strict notice has been taken of the report that jobless youth of Chitral had joined Afghan Army. A report has been sought on emergency basis from Commissioner Malakand about the details of such people who had taken such a step, it added.