Pakistan pounds ‘terrorist hideouts’ after Karachi attack (via AFP)
Pakistan carried out early morning air strikes Tuesday on a militant-infested tribal district, killing at least 15 people, the military said, a day after a brazen Taliban assault on Karachi airport. A military statement said “nine terrorist hideouts…
This post was republished using Repost. Please read it on Informed Comment directly: https://www.juancole.com/2014/06/pakistans-taliban-airport.html
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ABC: “Taliban Claim Responsibility for Pakistan Airport Attack”
link to centralasiaonline.com
Wanted to bring this news, in the link above, to attention, since it is buried and did not move the army security forces, though the civilian govt took note and ordered investigations. Before the first Airport attack, there was a massacre of Shia pilgrims, claiming 32 lives, in Taftan by Jaish-ul-Islam, which is either a TTP affiliate, offshoot or something related to LeJ or another local sectarian Sunni militant group.
link to bbc.com
There are now renewed militant attacks at the airport. The previous one had killed around 40 people, which took place a day or two ago. TTP is claiming both (lead by Fazlullah faction most likely, since the Mehsuds wanted to cut a peace deal with the Pak govt – but may now be dead).
There are embedded links within that article which includes a good short-hand identification and summary of the current situation by M Ilyas Khan, within the militant ranks split besides Hafiz Gul Bahadur and LeI’s Mangal Bagh mentioned above (Fazlullah vs Mehsuds, increasing Uzbek militants – who are also center stage in Syria besides other Pakistani militants there, etc).
Hafiz Gul Bahadur at one time had a deal with Islamabad a few years back that would cease any attacks on the Pak state, while leaving him in the region to concentrate on attacks in Afghanistan, and hence considered ‘Good Taliban’. That is about to change. Do not know where the Haqqanis stand.
link to longwarjournal.org
link to longwarjournal.org
Often, when I click on a Repost link (eg, the one above), I get this Repost message: “Unable to fetch embed code.” Is there another, more fully-reliable way to provide a link?