Allied Militants Threaten Pakistan’s Populous Heart

[Turborama]

Source: New York Times

This article was reported by Sabrina Tavernise, Richard A. Oppel Jr. and Eric Schmitt and written by Ms. Tavernise.

DERA GHAZI KHAN, Pakistan — Taliban insurgents are teaming up with local militant groups to make inroads in Punjab, the province that is home to more than half of Pakistanis, reinvigorating an alliance that Pakistani and American authorities say poses a serious risk to the stability of the country.

The deadly assault in March in Lahore, Punjab’s capital, against the Sri Lankan cricket team, and the bombing last fall of the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad, the national capital, were only the most spectacular examples of the joint campaign, they said.

Now police officials, local residents and analysts warn that if the government does not take decisive action, these dusty, impoverished fringes of Punjab could be the next areas facing the insurgency. American intelligence and counterterrorism officials also said they viewed the developments with alarm.

“I don’t think a lot of people understand the gravity of the issue,” said a senior police official in Punjab, who declined to be idenfitied because he was discussing threats to the state. “If you want to destabilize Pakistan, you have to destabilize Punjab.”

Read more: http://www.nytimes.com/2009/04/14/world/asia/14punjab.h...

---

Lot's of embedded links and interesting photos posted with the original story...

[Turborama]

1. Fears over Swat sharia deal

Source: Al Jazeera English

Pakistan's move to put part of the country under Islamic law, in an effort to end a Taliban-led insurgency, has sparked fears the deal could lead to the "Talibanisation" of swaths of Pakistan.

Analysts voiced concerns on Tuesday, a day after Asif Ali Zardari, Pakistan's president, formalised an agreement to enforce sharia in Malakand district, which includes the Swat valley.

"I believe that politicians have capitulated," AH Nayyar, an analyst at the Sustainable Development Policy Institute, said. "This is going to badly impact the future of Pakistan and open floodgates for Talibanisation."

Nayyar predicted that the entire province will fall to Taliban within the next few months. "I also see there will be pressures by Taliban in other provinces and Pakistan is going to go back to the dark ages," he said.

Read more: http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2009/04/20094148...

[cap]

2. a lot of Punjab is a mixed area: Sikhs, Hindus, moderate Muslims

not good.

[bushmeister0]

3. Yikes!

"As this cooperation intensifies, places like Dera Ghazi Khan are particularly vulnerable. This frontier town is home to a combustible mix of worries: poverty, a growing phalanx of hard-line religious schools and a uranium processing plant that is a part of Pakistan’s nuclear program.."

Drip, drip, flood!

[Turborama]

4. Regarding the nukes...

...this is a very interesting article that puts it all into perspective...

Obama’s Worst Pakistan Nightmare - What to do About Pakistan's Nuclear Arsenal
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph...



By the way, have you seen the video reports from the Swat Valley I put up earlier? Is this what these areas of Pakistan could end up like?
http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.ph...

[Xithras]

5. I think India will deal with that

The government in India has already made it clear that they will not tolerate a Taliban controlled, nuclear capable Pakistan on their doorstep. I strongly suspect that several Pakistani cities and military bases will vanish in blinding flashes within minutes of any Taliban takeover.

[Turborama]

6. You're predicting a possible nuclear war between India and Pakistan?

Scary prospect. Maybe we've got less dramatic plans ourselves, ie a couple of Tomahawks to take the facility out...?

That's pure speculation, btw.

[Xithras]

7. Umm yeah. Many people are.

The Taliban have already stated that having Muslims live in Indian lands are unacceptable, and that they want Kashmir and a few other Indian areas to be ceded. The Indians know that a Taliban takeover of Pakistan will mean an end to peace anyway, and that the Taliban in posession of nukes would introduce a level of danger that has never before existed. If the Taliban were to defeat the Pakistani military, MANY people are predicting that the Indian's will strike their nuclear bases before the Taliban have a chance to gain control over the weapons and their firing systems. Bomb them to dust before they have a chance to figure out how to fire their nukes back.

A couple of Tomahawks won't do it. Pakistan is estimated to have up to 100 nuclear weapons, ranging from those mounted on missiles to much smaller aircraft-delivered nuclear bombs. These weapons are spread across the country at various bases, and their exact positions in those bases are unknown. It's not sufficient to simply destroy their missiles and aircraft either, because a nuclear weapon delivered in the back of a truck by a suicide bomber (common Taliban tactic) is just as deadly as one delivered by air. It is neccesary to destroy the weapons themselves.

Given the short period of time they'll have to act, my guess is that India will simply nuke the military bases to keep those weapons out of the hands of the Taliban.

If I'm wrong, it will simply be a delay of the inevitable. The Taliban want Pakistans nukes, and they want to use them against India, Israel, Russia, the U.S., and a few other nations. There's really no question that the Taliban will use them if they get their hands on them...they use suicide bombers on a near-daily basis and have already declared that they want to use those nukes in their "holy war". Even if India holds off, that pause will only last until the first Taliban nuke is detonated...and THEN India will incinerate them. They aren't going to launch a conventional war against an enemy that has already detonated a nuke, so the response will be nuclear, and it will be overwhelming.

Hiroshima killed 170,000 people. An NRDC estimate of the death toll of an Indian nuclear attack on Pakistan is 1.2 million dead and another 2 million severely injured. Nobody wants to see it, but it's almost inevitable if Pakistan falls to the Taliban.

[Alamuti Lotus]

9. so because you (they) don't like a government, whole cities should be massacred?

sounds awfully terroristic of an approach......

[bemildred]

8. Extremists serious threat to Pakistan’s existence: US

LAHORE: Al Qaeda and other militant groups within its territory pose “an ever more serious threat to Pakistan’s very existence”, General David Petraeus, head of US Central Command (CENTCOM), has said.

In an interview with Trudy Robin of the Philadelphia Inquirer, he said US President Barack Obama had made Afghanistan and Pakistan the focus of his foreign policy because of the presence of Al Qaeda in the Tribal Areas of Pakistan. To questions on why troops were being increased in Afghanistan if the real threat were in Pakistan, he said: “You have to ensure that Afghanistan doesn’t become once again a place where Al Qaeda establishes safe havens.” If Taliban ideologues regain control of Afghanistan, it would further destabilise Pakistan, he added.

Petraeus said the surge of 17,000 troops would be enough, as Afghanistan was not plagued by a raging insurgency throughout the country, as was the case in Iraq. “Seventy percent of the violence is in 10 percent of the districts,” he said.

As part of the AfPak strategy, US forces must coordinate military and civilian reconstruction aid and try to strengthen Afghan and Pakistani governance. According to the report, the US must also try to facilitate behind-the-scenes rapprochement between New Delhi and Islamabad, to persuade the Pakistani army to focus more on the Afghan border.

Daily Times