Pakistan Tests Automated Strategic Command Control & Support System

Pakistan's Army Strategic Force Command has successfully tested National Command Authority’s fully automated Strategic Command and Control Support System (SCCSS) during the recent test of the Hatf V Ghauri I Medium Range Ballistic Missile (MRBM).

Automated Strategic Command and Control Support System has been developed for the robust Command and Control capability over all the nuclear weapons and their delivery systems of Pakistan.

Hatf V Ghauri I Medium Range Ballistic Missile (MRBM) is the only liquid fuel missile in Pakistan's inventary and it has range of around 1300 kms.

CM-400 AKG Supersonic Long Range Anti Ship/Land Attack Missile

The supersonic CM-400 AKG long range anti ship and land attack missile was first displayed along with the at the JF-17 Thunder /FC-1 Xiaolong fighter jet at the China International Aviation & Aerospace Exhibition, Zhuhai 2012 Air Show.

The CM-400 AKG missile ha been developed by the China Aerospace Science and Industry Corporation (CASIC) as a light weight, high speed, long range, air launched missile capable of destroying ground and maritime targets with precision.

The CM-400AKG missile is a fire and forget weapon with range of 180 to 250 kilometers. It is available with different seeker options depending upon the mission profile. Chinese side seems to be offering an active radar seeker and an imaging infrared seeker capable of target-recognition (TR).

Pakistan Successfully Tests Hatf-VII Babur Land Attack Cruise Missile

Pakistan has successfully tested the Hatf-VII Babur Land Attack Cruise Missile (LACM) today. Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) has announced that Hatf-VII Babur was test fired against the target at a range of 700 kilometers.

Hatf-VII Babur Land Attack Cruise Missile (LACM) has a maximum range of 750 kilometers km and longer range version with range of 1000km is also under development.  Hatf-VII Babur Land Attack Cruise Missile features stealth shaping and low flying capability to avoid detection by the enemy radars.

Hatf-VII Babur Land Attack Cruise Missile (LACM) was test fired from a new multi tube Missile Launch Vehicle (MLV) which carries three tube MLV allowing Pakistan Army to rapidly engage its targets with surgical precision.

Hatf-VII Babur Land Attack Cruise Missile (LACM) uses Terrain Contour Matching (TERCOM) and Digital Scene Matching and Area Co-relation (DSMAC) to achieve circular error probability (CEP) of less then 3 meters.

President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani have congratulated the scientists  of the National Engineering and Scientific Commission (NESCOM) on the successful test of the Hatf-VII Babur Land Attack Cruise Missile (LACM).

National Engineering and Scientific Commission (NESCOM) started the development of the Hatf-VII Babur cruise missile in late 1990 in order to counter the Indian efforts to license produce the improved version of Russian Yakhont cruise missile which has been modified for land attacks.

Pakistani Warships PNS Tippu Sultan and PNS Nasr visit Cape Town

Two Pakistan Navy vessels have arrived in the naval port of Simon’s Town for a short port visit. The destroyer PNS Tippu Sultan and the combat support ship PNS Nasr are visiting from 10 to 13 December 2012. Their entry into the port was slightly delayed by a strong South Easter wind blowing in False Bay. The purpose of the ships’ visit is to maintain the Pakistan Navy’s international contact with the South African Navy and also to enhance bilateral relations between Pakistan and South Africa.

 According to the South African Navy (SAN), the relationship between the two navies has been improving steadily and this visit to Simon’s Town by the Pakistan Navy ships presents an ideal opportunity to further strengthen the existing ties between the two navies. To further cement the closeness between Pakistan’s and South Africa’s navies, Chief of the Staff, Pakistan Navy, Admiral Mohammed Asif Sandila will also be visiting South Africa in the same timeframe. 

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.