War! Pakistan Orders Troops to Open Fire on U.S. Forces!

DEVELOPING: Pakistan's army spokesman says its forces have orders to open fire if U.S. troops launch another raid across the Afghan border. Pakistani officials issued sharp protests to Washington after helicopters ferried U.S. commandos into Pakistan's South Waziristan region on Sept. 3 for a highly unusual ground attack into a militant stronghold.

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An Al Jazeera reporting on Pakistan Coalition

Well I think this USA Today Headline is Self-Explanatory

Please check out the USA Today website for the complete story. Interesting...

Pakistan: U.S. can't hunt bin Laden on its turf

NEW YORK (AP) — Pakistan's top diplomat said Saturday there are no U.S. or other foreign military personnel on the hunt for Osama bin Laden in his nation, and none will be allowed in to search for the al-Qaeda leader.

In an interview with The Associated Press, Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi said his nation's new government has ruled out such military operations, covert or otherwise, to catch militants.

"Our government's policy is that our troops, paramilitary forces and our regular forces are deployed in sufficient numbers. They are capable of taking action there. And any foreign intrusion would be counterproductive," he said Saturday. "People will not accept it. Questions of sovereignty come in."

LINK TO STORY/USA TODAY WEBSITE

In The News - Pakistan/Taliban connection?

via International Herald Tribune/Associated Press

US think tank: Pakistan helped train Taliban, gave info on US troops
The Associated PressPublished: June 10, 2008

KABUL, Afghanistan: Pakistani intelligence agents and paramilitary forces have helped train Taliban insurgents and have given them information about American troop movements in Afghanistan, said a report published by a U.S. think tank.

The study published Monday by the RAND Corp. also warned that the U.S. will face "crippling, long-term consequences" in Afghanistan if Taliban sanctuaries in Pakistan are not eliminated.

It echoes recent statements by American generals, who have increased their warnings that militant safe havens in Pakistan are threatening efforts in Afghanistan. The study was funded by the U.S. Defense Department.

"Every successful insurgency in Afghanistan since 1979 enjoyed safe haven in neighboring countries, and the current insurgency is no different," said the report's author, Seth Jones. "Right now, the Taliban and other groups are getting help from individuals within Pakistan's government, and until that ends, the region's long-term security is in jeopardy."

Pakistan's top military spokesman rejected the findings.

Not the Headline I want to see after all this time....

I can not say it is unexpected though. Via The New York Times (check website for complete story):

Taliban Leader Flaunts Power Inside Pakistan

PESHAWAR, Pakistan — With great fanfare, the Pakistani Army flew journalists to a rugged corner of the nation’s lawless tribal areas in May to show how decisively it had destroyed the lairs of the Taliban, including a school for suicide bombers, in fighting early this year.

Then, just days later, the usually reclusive leader of the Pakistani Taliban, Baitullah Mehsud, held a news conference of his own, in the same region, to show just who was in charge.

He rolled up in an expensive-looking Toyota pickup packed with heavily armed Taliban fighters, according to the Pakistani journalists invited to attend. Squatting on the floor of a government school, Mr. Mehsud, clasping a new Kalashnikov, announced he would press his fight against the American military across the border in Afghanistan.

“Islam does not recognize boundaries,” he told the journalists, in accounts published in Pakistani newspapers and reported by the BBC. “There can be no deal with the United States."

Mr. Mehsud’s jaunty appearance in his home base, South Waziristan, a particularly unruly region of Pakistan’s tribal areas, underscored the wide latitude Pakistan’s government has granted the militants under a new series of peace deals, and its impact in Afghanistan, where NATO and American commanders say cross-border attacks have surged since talks for those peace deals began in March.

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Please check out The New York Times Site

Pakistan: Missiles hit house, at least 20 dead

read this via USA Today, today. I wonder how many people really pay attention to what is happening in Pakistan and Afghanistan any more. - A Thinker

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) — A missile strike near the Afghan border destroyed the house of a suspected militant leader Sunday, killing at least 20 people, witnesses and state-run Pakistan Television said.

Seven missiles were fired in the strike in the tribal area of South Waziristan, the television report said. The Pakistani military said five or six explosions were heard near Wana, the main town in South Waziristan.

Local tribesman Rahim Khan told The Associated Press missiles were fired by an unmanned drone. At least two hit and destroyed the home of a local militant leader and Taliban sympathizer who goes by the single name Noorullah, Khan said.

Only U.S.-led coalition forces are known to have unmanned drones operating in the region. Coalition forces based in neighboring Afghanistan have also launched attacks inside the Pakistani border in the past.

Khan said the house — a huge, fortress-like compound — was known as a hub for visiting foreign militants. Four of those killed were not locals, he said without elaborating, and seven other people were wounded in the attack. Taliban supporters immediately surrounded the area