15 soldiers killed!

[haviZsultan]

Mutilated bodies of 15 soldiers brought to Miramshah




By Our Correspondent

MIRAMSHAH, Sept 18: Bodies of 15 soldiers who had gone missing during recent clashes with militants in the Shawal area of the North Waziristan Agency were brought to Miramshah on Tuesday.

The bodies and two security personnel wounded in the clashes were brought from Pesh Ziarat area of Shawal in helicopters. Sources said that militants had captured these soldiers on Sunday night and killed all of them. One soldier was still missing, officials said.

Eighteen militants were also killed in the clashes near the Afghan border.

Witnesses told Dawn that the bodies of the soldiers had been badly mutilated and limbs of many of them had been chopped off.

The sources said that the militants had initially refused to hand over the soldiers’ bodies.

On Tuesday, political authorities sent local cleric Maulvi Roman Shah from Miramshah to Shawal to persuade them to hand over the bodies and two wounded soldiers. After negotiations, the militants handed over the bodies to some Jirga members.

Meanwhile security forces in the Datakhel area of North Waziristan came under attack Agency on Monday night, and three soldiers were wounded.

The sources said that militants used rockets and missiles in the attack.

Militants also targeted Jaler Post in the Mirali area on Monday night. No casualty was reported.

 

[haviZsultan]

I think we really should move against these terrorists rather than "being careful" and keep losing our troops and people! Enough is enough!

 

[solid snake]

I don't even understand what's holding us back? We should blitzkrieg their *****.

 

[Tiki Tam Tam]

These terrorists really require sorting out.

If they continue to kill soldiers, then even those who have sympathy for them within the rank and file will go for their jugular.

Real scoundrels these terrorists.

First of all, all these Uzbek and other scum require to be thrown out.

 

[Bull]

Now scramble to deal the demon that was a pet for so long. Damn.

 

[blain2]

Now scramble to deal the demon that was a pet for so long. Damn.

I think there is a difference. The demon you talk about was never a Pakistani pet. The influence of Al-Qaeda is something altogether different that never existed in either the Kashmiri struggle nor was it in the Pakistani tribal areas.

This new development is amply evident in the way those who are captured are being dealt with and with the suicide bombings of non-military targets. Pakhtuns have a culture where if one is taken prisoner, he is treated as a prisoner....however the way Pakistani paramilitaries and soldiers have been killed after being taken into custody is a tell tale sign that certain other ideologies are at work here. Very similar to what happens to anyone captured in Iraq.

 

[su-47]

Condolences to the families of the dead soldiers. May the soldiers rest in peace.

The fact that their bodies were mutilated shows just how barbaric those terrorists are. There's no negotiating with them. Only way to solve this problem is to kill all of them.

 

[Marathaman]

I think there is a difference. The demon you talk about was never a Pakistani pet. The influence of Al-Qaeda is something altogether different that never existed in either the Kashmiri struggle nor was it in the Pakistani tribal areas.

This new development is amply evident in the way those who are captured are being dealt with and with the suicide bombings of non-military targets. Pakhtuns have a culture where if one is taken prisoner, he is treated as a prisoner....however the way Pakistani paramilitaries and soldiers have been killed after being taken into custody is a tell tale sign that certain other ideologies are at work here. Very similar to what happens to anyone captured in Iraq.

This is not new at all. During the Kargil war, many Indian soldiers' bodies were mutilated badly before being abandoned near the LOC.

Bombs going off in civilian areas too happens frequently in Kashmir.

 

[AgNoStiC MuSliM]

This is not new at all. During the Kargil war, many Indian soldiers' bodies were mutilated badly before being abandoned near the LOC.

Bombs going off in civilian areas too happens frequently in Kashmir.

This event is indeed quite horrendous, and shows that the people we are fighting have no honor, or any of those traits that Islam encourages Muslims to possess.

Marathaman,

If that account was true, then the people who committed it should be condemned just as strongly as these, but I have found dissenting voices to the official Indian version.

Lies out of control
by S.N.M. Abdi​

SEPTEMBER 1999 <VOL 12 No 9>
A couple of months after the Kargil conflict, some intense soul-searching by the Indian print and electronic media is revealing that much of the national press meekly toed the government line and fanned war hysteria at the cost of objectivity and professional ethics. Prominent journalists have come out with scathing indictments of the Indian media and their contents are indeed shocking for what it portends.

The Times of India’s Sidddharth Varadarajan writes that Indian Foreign Minister Jaswant Singh’s allegation—made at the height of the Kargil conflict—that the bodies of six dead Indian soldiers were "severely mutilated" by Pakistanis, was never substantiated. "Virtually every newspaper carried the gory details released by an Indian wire service without waiting for independent confirmation. Such confirmation never arrived... During the war itself, at least two newspapers received information that the allegation was highly exaggerated—probably only one of the bodies bore signs of mutilation. But the journalists who received the information, chose to remain silent."

Varadarajan has also revealed that a newspaper and a magazine received reports from its correspondents at the war-front that Indian soldiers had mutilated the dead bodies of Pakistani soldiers in retaliation. But after heated editorial debates, it was decided to kill these stories—at least until the fighting was over.

"The Indian media was on test as to how fairly it would report and interpret. But overall, it failed
miserably," says columnist Praful Bidwai. "The general style of reports was: ’50 Pakistanis killed and 11 gallant Indian soldiers laid down their lives’. So our boys became dedicated soldiers and Pakistanis barbarians; our leaders are mature politicians and theirs prisoners of dark forces. It is upto the government to say all that. Why should the media?"

N. Ram, editor of Frontline magazine, said that the distinction between the reporter and the armyman was blurred during the fighting. "Objectivity was the biggest casualty in the coverage of the Kargil conflict," according to another weekly, Outlook, which also said that journalists chose to become participants instead of remaining objective observers in the revered war correspondent tradition.

Analysts have also accused ‘independent’ TV news channels of becoming a propaganda wing of the state by suppressing the truth and glamourising war. Giving instances of censorship and manipulation, Bidwai said that recycled stock pictures were frequently presented as live footage.

Another commentator, Sagarika Ghose, wrote that no attempt was made by print or TV journalists "to scrutinise the role of the military from the citizens’ point of view". TV, she said, has a duty to make sure that legions of jobless young men don’t unthinkingly give themselves to the army in order to die for their country because of a false bravado. "We were shown [puzzlingly] brave parents promising to send more sons to the front if need be. What about parents who were sad? What about parents who cried and said I want this war to stop and I don’t want my son to die?"

Analysts said that even if soldiers in Kargil couldn’t voice their doubts about the war before television cameras, reporters should have dutifully paraphrased their fears to project a balanced picture. The Indian media also failed to question the official figure of 410 dead and 594 injured in six weeks of intense fighting in one of the world’s most treacherous battlegrounds. "How is it possible that casualties on the Pakistani side were higher—as India claims—when they had all the advantage of higher ground? The Indians should have suffered higher casualties than the Pakistanis," said Arthur Max, New Delhi bureau chief of Associated Press.

Another senior journalist of The Times of India, Jug Suraiya criticised the coverage of the shooting of a Pakistani plane in the Kutch region soon after the Kargil conflict. Wrote Suraiya: "Was the wreckage of the Pakistani reconnaissance aircraft really retrieved from Indian territory or, as circumstantial evidence indicated, was it salvaged from across the border to give the prime minister a vote-catching photo opportunity?"

"The suppression of truth...and the dissemination of half-truths and innuendoes did not save lives. All it did was undermine the reputation of the Indian media," warned Varadarajan. Perhaps the most insightful comment came from Seema Mustafa, political editor of The Asian Age, who pointed out that the Kargil conflict exposed the warts and the moles the Indian media has managed to camouflage over the years.

 

[blain2]

This is not new at all. During the Kargil war, many Indian soldiers' bodies were mutilated badly before being abandoned near the LOC.

Bombs going off in civilian areas too happens frequently in Kashmir.

My friend, give Pakistan Army some credit! There have been 4 wars and Pakistani Army has never ever mutilated bodies of Indian soldiers (we have captured more and killed more in the past wars as well). A body shot up with SMG/MG rounds from close range is not a pretty sight (it looks like someone has gone to work with a spear on a body). The unfortunate Indian soldiers (I think there were 6 or 7 in this particular incident) looked pretty bad because they were caught in an ambush which included high rate of fire with MG-3s/AK-47s. I spoke to some folks about this particular incident and they admitted that the bodies would look like this if shot up with a high rate of fire from close range. (Even Brian Cloughley in his book points out this fact). Also nobody has ever seen pictures of the so-called tortured bodies (IA did not present the bodies to UN to log this incident as a war crime etc.) so its fairly one-sided story. Are we to take it at face value especially when there is no precedence of such things in the past wars (including Siachen)?

Also the bodies of the Indian soldiers were returned by the Pakistan Army. They were not left on the LoC.

As for the bombings, I am talking about suicide ones...Kashmir and IA have been relatively spared from these.

 

[A.Rahman]

I don't even understand what's holding us back? We should blitzkrieg their *****.

Musharraf is waiting for election, you will see the action after he wins

 

[AgNoStiC MuSliM]

Musharraf is waiting for election, you will see the action after he wins

Educated guess or inside information?

 

[Tiki Tam Tam]

Educated guess given precedences!

 

[haviZsultan]

These terrorists really require sorting out.

If they continue to kill soldiers, then even those who have sympathy for them within the rank and file will go for their jugular.

Real scoundrels these terrorists.

First of all, all these Uzbek and other scum require to be thrown out.

They were thrown out by infighting between the bastards... they fought against each other! Some Uzbek dude raped some woman there! The Pakistani militants were supported by the elders and many Uzbeks were killed... others escaped to Afghanistan! Anyone remember saying the tribal people are fiercely independent! I guess thats what they mean.

Actually only when the Uzbeks were thrown out the peace deal between the govt and pak militants was broken! On the militants part it was a wise move as they feared that the army would find it a good time to take action!

 

[haviZsultan]

Musharraf is waiting for election, you will see the action after he wins

I dunno if thats what is holding us back! But if we keep waiting there will be more losses and more death! Well maybe it is a way... Maybe if they continue attacking us and we do nothing the people who take sympathy on them will stop!