American attack aftermath: Pakistan declares attack a 'plot'

[Al Bhatti]

To some extent in current times.


Here is the economics:

• 180 million people and numbers increasing.
• Shortage of jobs.
• Double-Digit inflation.
• Cost of Living increasing rapidly.
• Gap between rich and poor increasing.
• Industry not working properly.
• Impact of War on Terror.
  [*]Corruption.

Now imagine if US imposes heavy sanctions, enforces blockade in Arabian Sea, and ends all trade with Pakistan (its allies will do the same too), what will be the consequences of all this?

Pakistan will sink very fast and become another Afghanistan.

Do we want this?

There is a limit of everything. Currently we are not in the position to stand up to this new threat. Look around you - the covert war of US inside Pakistan has been going on for several years now. Thousands are dead because of it.

What can our military do at maximum in current circumstances? Fight for some days and when the reserves run out, then what?

We need to stand on our feet first if we want our nation to not be treated like a banana republic. Better to be prepared then sorry.

If Pakistan succeeds to eliminate only the last point in your list, all the point you mentioned above that will be solved automatically.

 

[bdslph]

So if take into consideration the above info, the around 2 hours time frame has become 5-6 hours, Well again the question as i asked earlier (at that time the time frame was around 2 hours), even though the chain of command is long for getting any timely orders, wasn't it possible to force those attacking helis to land inside Pakistan (few weeks earlier we did the same with the heli from the eastern side) and the pilot+crew taken into custody and put on trial.

so NATO will come up with well cooked news stories every day,,,,, 5 to 6 hours waiting come on ,,, and there is no back up and air force Pakistan air force is not crappy one it is a airforce which also enemy of Pakistan respect with
what ever happened it finished in minutes

 

[AstanoshKhan]

If you act without thinking about repercussions you are being stupid. simple as that. Its a bad situation for you guys - you dont have any good options available - dont make it worse for you.

As to why you have a military - a military is supposed to be first and foremost a deterrent - if a major war breaks out then the military has already failed.

I/we and many Jawans and officers of the force would rather die a dignified death. Who cares about the repercussions and it's effects, a man has to die one day, why not die saving your homeland - the world would know, we gave them a hell of a tough fight.

Kafir hai tu shamshir pay karta hai bharosa,
Momin hai tu bai- taigh bhi larta hai seepahi... Allam Iqbal

 

[Rig Vedic]

Does anybody know, has the list of the 24 casualties in this unfortunate incident been published by the ISPR, with names, ranks etc?

 

[mjnaushad]

Does anybody know, has the list of the 24 casualties in this unfortunate incident been published by the ISPR, with names, ranks etc?

1 Maj.

1 Capt.

6 FC jawans

rest Azad Kashmir regiment Jawans.

List on the internet is as follows but not complete

1. Major Mujahid
2. Capt Usman
3. Havaldar Mushtaq
4. Havaldar Aslam
5. Sipahi Imran
6. Sipahi Abdul Razzaq
7. Sipahi Mazhar
8. Sipahi Tarip
9. Sipahi Nasir Mehmod
10. Sipahi Mujibullah
11. Sipahi Tahir
12. Sipahi Muheem

 

[indushek]

Is this imperial/colonial hubris or what? Essentially translates into "So who cares if some 20 or so darkies are dead. They will get over it." Pretty typical!

One can just imagine if 24 American or British had perished in a similar so called "friendly fire" incident, how the Western governments and media would have reacted and what they would have expected from Pakistan.

It puzzles me that if the West celebrates the deaths of each of their fallen so meticulously, how come this unnamed rascal is missing the point that our 24 were not some unnamed souls. Their deaths have angered Pakistanis immensely and this oversimplification of their deaths won't pacify Pakistanis that easily. The above comments have not a shred of bloody remorse!

KIAs:

Sepoy Tahir Mehmood
Sepoy Najibullah
Sepoy Kiramat Ali
Sepoy Nasir Mehmood
Sepoy Tariq Mehmood
Sepoy Naeem
Sepoy Ibrahim
Sepoy Ahmed Khurshid
Sepoy Asghar Abbas
Sepoy Hafiz Manzoor
Sepoy Abdul Razzaq
Sepoy Ghulam Abbas
Sepoy Rizwan
Sepoy Imran Yusuf
Lance Naik Tariq Mehmood
Lance Naik Raza Mohammad
Havaldar Mushtaq
Havaldar Aslam
Havaldar Mumtaz
Subedar Mannan
Captain Usman
Major Mujahid Ali Mirani

True these kind of statements are irresponsible and show that, humanity shouldn't be associated with a person uttering such words.

 

[Mujahid]

 

[Al Bhatti]

Something evil came to my mind last night. Is there "memogate 2" currently running behind the scenes?


It might be very much possible. Who knows probably this time it will be army vs civilian govt. unlike "memogate 1" or maybe the same civilian govt. vs. army or maybe ................... (other options are also available)

 

[Rig Vedic]

Pakistan should this incident as an opportunity.

1 - Force the USA to lifting tariffs on Pakistani goods being imported to USA. This will cause Pakistan's economy to improve by opening up the huge US market to Pakistani goods.
2 - Give us better communication systems and establish a joint communication on the border areas.
3 - More Advanced Weaponry such as Cobra Gunships, F-16 fighters, etc.
4 - More aid in developing Pakistan's crumbling Electrical Grid.
5 - And most important of all, compensation to the victim's families.

All these things will not solve the fundamental question. Pakistan should first make a strategic decision that it wants an independent, democratic, sovereign Afghanistan, with the freedom to choose which countries it wants to be on good terms with.

 

[F.O.X]

It was an accident.

NATO was conducting operations in this area when they mistook the Pakistani outposts as Taliban bases.

Yes Accident Happen , if it happens once it is an Accident , if it happens twice it is coincidence but if it continues to happen then it is anything but accident .

do you think NATO/US force are this unprofessional that they would mistake a Pakistani Check post with Pakistani Flag where they have conducted various flag meeting as a Taliban hideout ? please Come with a batter excuse saying that it was an accident is just pathetic & shows the american mentality .

They have sunk so much deep in power that if they kill someone innocent it is an Accident , but if their own people get killed Then its an act of War . You lost 3000 people in Twin tower ACCIDENT & in return you killed more then a million who did not even had to do anything with that ACCIDENT .

Ignorance is a Bliss & America is right at the bottom of it.

 

[Raja.Pakistani]

Its nice to know that some western have balls to admit mistakes of their own government and have ability to criticise their own peoples just like this guy john.


i know their is something wrong with the world when people overlook the deaths of 24 innocent, allied soldiers - who didn't had anything to do in the one side attack/accident that took place. That's 24 families, mothers, daughters and kids now mourning their beloved ones. Still you are trumping USA's drum unnecessarily.
The issue is not if pakistan is 'pushing the envelope' the issue is to find out why did the incident took place when the US and NATO had clear coordinates of all Pakistani checkpoints like this one.

It's been 10 years since 9/11 and compared to the ~3000 people who last their lives in 9/11, Pakistan alone has had 40,000 casualties (defence forces fighting the allied US war against taliban + civilians dead in casualties like bomb blasts [taliban outrage at pakistan army for helping US] and casualties from drone atacks).

You dn't have to be a genius to know andcompare 3000 vs 40,000 deaths. All human lives are equal. It's about time the US stops it's bullying across the globe and retreat back to its homeland. With all the US debt that it owns to chinese, there'd be no better time to worry about their own economy than Pakistan and the taliban.
What would have happened if it was USA? We must respect that Pakistan's Sovereignty.
To me if they are able to outset US and its allies it will be a great victory for Pakistan.
Its time for new relationships.

The West has been in here for a long time. Its time for them to go.
After all the conspiracies they have made. Its the west that have made Pakistan a Hell. When ever they stepped foot on another soil it is be made into a hell.

 

[Pak123]

Clinton regrets Pak boycott of Bonn Conference

BUSAN: US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton on Wednesday voiced regret that Pakistan had announced a boycott of a meeting on Afghanistan in Germany and urged it to consider.

Speaking at an aid conference in South Korea, Clinton reiterated the US stance that the border killing of Pakistani soldiers was a "tragic incident" and pledged an investigation "as swiftly and thoroughly as possible."

"Frankly this is regrettable that Pakistan has decided not to attend the conference in Bonn because this conference has been long in the planning," Clinton told reporters.

"Pakistan like the United States has a profound interest in a secure, stable and increasingly democratic Afghanistan," Clinton said.

Clinton voiced hope that Pakistan would find a "follow-up way" to take part in talks on Afghanistan's future.

Nato air strikes killed 24 Pakistani troops on the Afghan border in disputed circumstances, inflaming new tensions between Islamabad and the West.

Clinton regrets Pak boycott of Bonn Conference

---------- Post added at 12:14 PM ---------- Previous post was at 12:13 PM ----------

US prepares to vacate Shamsi Air Base

ISLAMABAD: The United States is preparing to accede to Pakistani demands that it vacate a remote air base in Pakistan used for drone flights, but the move is not expected to have a significant impact on operations against militants, U.S. government sources say.

Washington is treading lightly not to aggravate an already fragile relationship that was bruised further by a NATO attack on a Pakistani military outpost last weekend that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers near the Afghanistan border.

Pakistan demanded that the United States leave the Shamsi Air Base within 15 days and blocked ground supply routes through Pakistan to U.S. forces in Afghanistan.

Three sources, who declined to be identified because of the issue's sensitivity, said U.S. planning is under way to leave the base, a remote facility in Baluchistan that has been a point of contention.

The cross-border incident escalated tensions between the two countries and the U.S. military is conducting an investigation to find out exactly what happened on the ground.

The moves by the Pakistanis to block ground supply routes and the air base were not expected to significantly hinder U.S. operations.

One U.S. government source said the United States has spent months preparing for a possible eviction from the Pakistan base by building up other drone launching and staging capability.

Earlier this year, after the U.S. raid that killed al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden, some Pakistani officials demanded that Washington vacate the Shamsi facility.

At the time, however, U.S. officials said that American personnel would remain at the base and would continue to conduct drone flights in pursuit of militants.

But in one concession, the United States stopped conducting lethal drone operations from that base and limited operations to surveillance flights.

U.S. officials believe that this time Pakistan appears much more resolute about carrying out the eviction threat. Vacating the air base was seen more as an inconvenience rather than a critical blow to drone operations which the United States also conducts from Afghanistan and possibly elsewhere.

The unmanned aerial vehicles may have a longer flight from Afghanistan but they are capable of hovering overhead for hours as they seek to spot suspicious activity and follow militants.

U.S. officials are reluctant to openly talk about drone operations because they are considered a covert CIA activity.

General Martin Dempsey, chairman of the U.S. military's Joint Chiefs of Staff, in London this week addressed the Shamsi issue without acknowledging the use of drones at the base.

"There are other options for stationing aircraft and other resources around the region," Dempsey told Britain's ITV News.

"It's a serious blow in the sense that the Pakistani government felt that they needed to deny us the use of a base that we've been using for many years," he said. "And so it's serious in that regard. It's not debilitating militarily."

BLOCKED SUPPLY ROUTE

The United States also has to deal with the blocking of the ground supply route through Pakistan to Afghanistan.

Congressman C.A. "Dutch" Ruppersberger, the senior Democrat on the House of Representatives intelligence committee, said that route accounts for less than half the supplies for international forces in Afghanistan and the military has contingency plans.

"We have a large distribution network to make sure that coalition forces are well-stocked," he told Reuters. "It's not going to affect our ability to follow through and execute our mission."

Yet alternate supply routes such as the northern distribution network are not a perfect substitute and there are concerns that the cost of keeping soldiers fed, armed and fueled without use of Pakistani roads would be excessive.

Ruppersberger, who visited Pakistan to meet with officials after U.S. forces killed bin Laden, said the relationship was poor at that point.

"We were starting to improve in the last month or so and then all of a sudden this unfortunate incident occurred, and now we're right back to where we were again," he said.

"It is to the advantage of both countries to work together," Ruppersberger said. "In the end that will come. It's about relationships, it's about trust, and unfortunately that hasn't been there for a while."

Ruppersberger would not comment on the Shamsi departure.

STILL INVESTIGATING

U.S. officials said there is still considerable confusion about details of the latest border incident.

Wary of further damaging an already delicate situation, U.S. officials were reluctant to speculate about what happened before getting the results of military investigations.

"The focus of the administration at this point is on trying to find ways to show Pakistan that we're serious about investigating the incident and forging a cooperative relationship in the future," a U.S. official said on condition of anonymity.

"No one at this point has the complete narrative on what happened," Pentagon spokesman George Little said. "I think it's premature to articulate the facts of this incident."

A U.S. government source familiar with counter-terrorism operations along the Afghan-Pakistan border said the latest incident apparently grew out of an Afghan-U.S. special forces commando patrol operation.

Some early information from the region suggests that at some point the Afghan-U.S. patrol team came under fire from what they believed were militants. They then called in an airstrike, which hit a Pakistani military outpost.

Investigations into the incident now are trying to determine if the militants deliberately took up positions near the Pakistani outpost to confuse American and Afghan forces or whether Pakistani forces at the border outpost were somehow complicit in initially firing on the Afghan-U.S. patrol.

A U.S. military official, without commenting on details of the current incident, said the Taliban had previously tried to provoke cross-border fighting between Pakistani soldiers and NATO forces but problems were headed off by cross-border communication.

"It is something we've seen previously, yes. I wouldn't be surprised if something like that happened," the official said, without confirming anything about the recent incident.

Another key question is what happened to cross-border communication systems set up to avoid this kind of confusion.

The border between Afghanistan and Pakistan is badly marked, and disputed in many stretches. The terrain of steep mountains, dense forest and sparse population provides hideouts for militants who can move freely along the frontier.

The Pakistani and Afghan militaries and NATO-led alliance have tried to limit deadly mistakes by establishing communication links including a hotline to check on potential targets or warn of possible friendly fire.

The Pakistani military says it has given maps with permanent outposts clearly marked to NATO and the Afghan army. It also said there is a hotline between the two sides, but declined to say if it was used the evening of the attack.

A spokesman for the NATO-led International Security Assistance Force said he was not aware of a hotline. (Reuters)

US prepares to vacate Shamsi Air Base

 

[Omar1984]

 

[Mav3rick]

US gains absolutely nothing by bombing Pakistani Soldiers.

Such things happen during the Fog of War, when borders are not properly marked.

During World War II, US Navy shot down its own planes in Italy in 1943 killing 700 Soldiers.

So get a grip.

Why don't you guys use the same condemnation when the Taliban Terrorists kill our soldiers instead of using selective outrage when America accidentally killed ours?

Honestly? it saddens us, like all human beings, when blood is spilt by either side. Having said that, is it not a fact that you are the aggressors in Afghanistan? Isn't is a fact that you have brutally murdered innocent men, women and children? You have executed, that's right the word is executed, thousands of innocent civilians for each of your soldier so mate the condemnation is a lot stronger on your side. On the other hand, had the Afghans invaded the US and carried out similar acts we would have condemned Afghans in the exact same way as we condemn you.

P.S. The people that fight against your illegal occupation of Afghanistan are considered freedom fighters here, people who are fighting to free their country from terrorists....from you!

---------- Post added at 12:47 PM ---------- Previous post was at 12:45 PM ----------

Australia Foreign Minister Anti Pakistani Comments about this incident

Foreign Minister Kevin Rudd was unusually explicit on Pakistan’s dangerous double—game over the weekend.

“The view that I have is that it's quite clear that there is a line of supply of improvised explosive devices going into Taliban-controlled parts of Afghanistan from Taliban-controlled parts of western Pakistan,” said Mr Rudd. “That is my belief.”

He added: “If Pakistan is assisting this indirectly, or by whatever means … we have a real problem on our hands.”

Pakistan rage over deadly ISAF airstrike | News.com.au

Mr. Rudd must be confusing his terrorist ancestors, who were punished and sent to Australia to live in exile, with our soldiers.

---------- Post added at 12:47 PM ---------- Previous post was at 12:47 PM ----------

Not really. Nato forces have enough material stockpiled to keep functioning for 7 months even if all supply routes are closed.

Furthermore, they can airlift supplies into Afghanistan similar to the Berlin airlift and they are also using Central Asia to move 51% of their supplies into Afghanistan.

Yeah well then quit crying about the closed routes and enjoy alternate routes in peace!

 

[Omar1984]