Posted on 07/30/2004 8:31:43 AM PDT by Dog
ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - Pakistan's prime minister-designate Shaukat Aziz survived an assassination attempt on Friday, according to a reporter traveling with him on an election campaign tour.
Private Geo television said two people were killed, including Aziz's driver.
"As he (Aziz) came out of a public meeting, there was a blast. Many people have been wounded. Some also died. But with the grace of God he is safe and sound," the journalist said.
The attack took place close to the town of Attock in the northwest of the central Punjab province, where Aziz, currently finance minister, is campaigning for a by-election on August 18.
Jeffers its shaping up to be very busy....two terrorist attack in different countries so far today..
Well this wasn't unexpected-the Islamic powerhouses like Pakistan, Saudi Arabia (& who knows, maybe Iraq) are looking as if they imploding from their present forms & will probably end up as hardcore theocracies.Everyone knows that the already unpopular ruling establishments there are pro-American (the Al-Sauds are the most proAmerican rulers you can get in Saudi Arabia).I really don't think America is doing a smart thing by cozying up to the Pakis & not yet hardening against the Saudis,irrespective of the short time benefits-it's like nursing vipers in your bosom.America-Pakistan relations have reminded me of a onenight stand,which gives lots of pleasure ,but also leaves one with the risk of getting.....
Take it from an Indian-you cannot establish successful,long term democracy in places where religious sentiment runs high be it Iraq or Pakistan-One of the prerquisites of democracy is tolerance,which is totally against Islam in the true sense.Musharraf & the Al-Sauds don't have a big guarantee period left,irrespective of how much military aid they get from Washington.
This is what happens when contracts are awarded to the lowest bidder.
"....two terrorist attack in different countries so far today.."
Key words in that sentence are "so far".
Keep up the vigilance.
Wow
What a day
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) -- Pakistani Prime Minister designate Shaukat Aziz survived an apparent suicide bomb attack on his motorcade Friday that killed at least four people and injured two dozen, police and other officials said.
The attack came the same day the government announced the arrest of a senior al-Qaida operative on the FBI's most wanted list.
Suspicion in the blast fell immediately on Islamic militants, angry over the government's decision to back the U.S.-led war on terrorism.
In December, there were two failed attempts to assassinate President Gen. Pervez Musharraf, who blamed al-Qaida for the bombings. On Thursday, the government acknowledged that it has held talks with Saudi officials about sending troops to Iraq as part of a Muslim peacekeeping force.
The bombing occurred at about 7:20 p.m. as Aziz, the finance minister who has already been tapped to take over as prime minister, was traveling through a bazaar in Fateh Jang, a town 35 miles southwest of the capital, Islamabad, said Mohammed Haidar, a local police official.
A man approached Aziz's car on foot on the busy street and then the blast went off, a senator from Aziz's ruling party said he was told by the prime minister-designate afterward.
"I spoke with Shaukat Aziz. ... His driver and a suicide attacker were killed," Sen. Mushaid Hussain, of the Pakistan Muslim League-Q party, told The Associated Press. "He (Aziz) was calm, cool and composed."
An Interior Ministry spokesman said at least four people were killed and two dozen injured in the attack. Geo Television reported six dead and 25 injured.
Mohammed Hassan, a senior Aziz aide, said the 60-year-old politician was safe. Another source close to Aziz told The Associated Press on condition of anonymity that the politician had returned to his home in the capital, Islamabad.
Aziz, a former Citibank executive credited with turning around Pakistan's economy under Musharraf, was in Fateh Jang to campaign for an upcoming by-election in an effort to win a seat in the lower house.
Musharraf's ruling party has said they want him to be prime minister, but the senator must first gain a seat in the Aug. 18 vote to be eligible. A victory is all but assured.
Opposition parties have denounced the proceedings as an affront to Pakistani democracy, five years after Musharraf seized power in a bloodless coup.
After Prime Minister Zafarullah Khan Jamali stepped down last month, Chaudry Shujaat Hussain was appointed caretaker prime minister while the political machinations are completed to allow Aziz to step in.
The attack followed the announcement early Friday that Pakistan had arrested Ahmed Khalfan Ghailani, a Tanzanian on the FBI's most wanted list who is wanted in the 1998 twin embassy bombings in East Africa.
Hussain said there was no evidence that the two were linked.
The attack also follows two attempts by Islamic militants in December 2003 to assassinate Musharraf, the ultimate powerbroker in this conservative Islamic nation of 150 million people. The second attack was close enough to kill several members of his entourage and more than a dozen passers-by.
----- Associated Press writers Munir Ahmad and Sadaqat Jan contributed to this report.
In fact, there are some fanatical Muslims that even accused him of having been an atheist.
I think you're confusing mindless anti-Americanism-which is stoked, in part by religious figures-with a fervid religiosity, which I don't think most Pakistanis share.
The contradictions of Pakistan can be amusing.
JIhadis trained and succored by the ISI and the military, , now turn on their own.
Couldn't happen to a more deserving bunch of guys.
So much for Jinnah's "legacy", that little scotch drinking, ham eating hypocrite.
Here's a nice tidbit, dog, -foxes in the henhouse syndrome....
THere had been rumors of an incident at Karachi Airport where a hijack plot was thwarted in the past few weeks.....
~Snip
Sindh province's authorities have declared a red alert in the volatile southern port city of Karachi after credible information that gangs of suicide attackers have been activated. Two separate gangs are led by sisters Arafa and Sofia Baloch. All routes to the US Consulate have been sealed off, and helicopters patrol the skies over military offices, while security on the ground is tight.
Closer to military headquarters, the establishment has been rocked by news that an official of the Inter-Services Intelligence in Karachi has been arrested in connection with the recent assassination attempt on the commander of V Corps in the city, in which a number of army personnel died. The official has been taken to Rawalpindi for interrogation, but questions remain about the loyalty of others within the establishment.
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/FG31Df04.html
Closer to military headquarters, the establishment has been rocked by news that an official of the Inter-Services Intelligence in Karachi has been arrested in connection with the recent assassination attempt on the commander of V Corps in the city, in which a number of army personnel died. The official has been taken to Rawalpindi for interrogation, but questions remain about the loyalty of others within the establishment.
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1155685/posts?page=608#608
I appreciate it.
This story just keeps getting more and more peculiar.
Maybe Bernard Henri-Levy was on to something.
Attaturk fought to throw out colonial powers & destroyed the powers of the Religious classes & strenghtened the military.Jinnah was far far different from him-he sided with the Brits & sought to split a nation on the basis of religion (with generous help from the Brits-"divide & rule" & Hindu fundamentalists).He was heavily egged on by the Muslim elite of erstwhile Punjab-even now if you go to Pakistan u see Punjabis enjoying positive discriminations-other Muslims of Baluchistan, Sindh & even Mohajirs ( people who migrated from modern India at independence or slightly later) all suffered & still do.Pakistan according to even neutral observers is a feudal society.The early rulers of modern India were committed to secularism & democracy & though Jinnah died in 48,he set out no firm vision-infact Jinnah unlike Gandhi & the Congress was the means to an end.Jinnah can honestly only be called a figure head of Muslim vested interests whose powers were magnified by the Brits.Besides a state formed on Islamic ideals alone ( Turkey was'nt -infact it was a move away from Islam under Attaturk)-needs to be rooted in Islam & Islam by nature is intolerant,period.A lot of folks refer to India as Hindu majority,it may be but it is a secular democracy & it has more Muslims than Pakistan or Bangladesh.
Any nation formed out on the basis of religion or theocracy is bound to be a mess (else how did it break up in '71 into 2 ,despite Nixon's best passive efforts),irrespective of its founding fathers.
>>Maybe Bernard Henri-Levy was on to something
Maybe??
OTH, every story from Pak is peculiar. Comes from having an establishment, military and political, that is schizophrenic, part prowest secularish, and part projihadiwahhabi.
Imagine the stories US agents and miltypes have from there that we'll never hear about.
However, when you actually begin to think of that prospect, it doesn't seem so ideal.
As horrific as the violence that engulfed India in the wake of its partition was-and the casualties incurred as a result of the three subsequent wars between India and Pakistan-it is nothing compared to what could have happened had most of the Muslims in India not seceded from this former British colony after it declared its independence.
While it's true that Pakistan, like Iraq, Syria and almost every other artificially created country that existed only after being sculpted by colonial powers, is not a homogeneous, contiguous nation, it is also not a completely fictitious entity.
Most Pakistanis are Muslims, even if most are not fanatical, Deobandi-type Muslims.
I agree with your point about Nixon and his attempts, through the use of strong-arm diplomacy by the State Department, to suppress the rebellion in East Pakistan, i.e. Bangladesh.
However, I still believe that Pakistan is a basically non-sectarian society-like Iran-which had Islamic extremism foisted upon it by an unelected junta.
Yup. If you haven't, read "The Main Enemy" by Bearden and Risen - a history of his time with the CIA.
His fictional take "the Black Tulip" is just OK.
Interesting article on the arrests from an Indian terror analyst guy.
~Snip
This is the sixth arrest of a top Al Qaeda or Al Qaeda allied operative from major towns of Pakistan since March 2002. Three were arrested from towns in the Punjab province--Abu Zubaidah in Faislabad, KSM in Rawalpindi, the twin town of Islamabad, where the General Headquarters of the Army are located, and Ghailani in Gujrat--- and three were arrested in Karachi--Ramzi Binalshibh , Walid bin Attash and Hambali's brother. Three --Abu Zubaidah, Hambali's brother and Ghailani--had been given shelter by the Lashkar-e-Toiba (LET) and the remaining three by the Jamaat-e-Islami (JEI).
13.There has so far been not a single arrest of any top Al Qaeda operative from the tribal areas near the Afghan border. bin Laden had also reportedly been given shelter in the Binori madrasa of Karachi till August 2002.His present whereabouts are not known, if he is still alive, but one should not be surprised if he is also living in one of the towns of Pakistan and not in the remote tribal areas, as often claimed by Gen.Pervez Musharraf, Pakistan's military dictator, and as believed by the US.
http://saag.org/papers11/paper1073.html
And here's one of the FBI's most wanted (full list at link)
* ADAM YAHIYE GADAHN: A 25-year-old U.S. citizen who is also known as Adam Pearlman. Reportedly grew up on a California goat ranch.
Whoa!
I just wish that we had more like him-or, like James Kalstrom or the late John O'Neill-working at the top echelon of our nation's intelligence services.
Personally, I'd ask James Woolsey to come back to the CIA if I were in the driver's seat.
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