Showing posts with label NATO Terrorists. Show all posts
Showing posts with label NATO Terrorists. Show all posts
With the US poised to pull out of Afghanistan in 2014, Pakistan will be left to face the terrorism problem alone for the most part. Leaving a small residual force to train the Afghans and a smaller counter-terrorism force of special operations to fight against al-Qaeda after the legal mandate of the American forces ends, the US will have set a new equation quite effectively. As for now, the impasse in the US-Afghan negotiations on a bilateral security agreement is increasing Washington’s frustration and bringing it closer to exercising a ‘zero option’ for real. Mr. Obama will be reminded of the time when he hammered away at Republican rival Mitt Romney on the issue last year, saying that the latter had no timetable for bringing the troops home from America’s longest war. Since his credibility has already been eroded by the broken promise of Obamacare, he may feel pressured to live up to his word. The effects of such an extreme measure on Pakistan will be immediate and crippling: more suicide bombings and instability as the emboldened and triumphant Taliban hungry to avenge Hakimullah Mehsud’s killing and no longer pressed by coalition forces in Afghanistan, turn their sights on Islamabad.
Nothing puts the country in a more miserable position than the way the leadership is bending over backwards to engage the Taliban in peace talks. With its groveling and pleading, it has provided legitimacy and representation to a group that is adamant on inflicting wide-scale destruction. To add fuel to the fire, a toxic pro-TTP narrative is being promoted vigorously. Up north, in KPK, the PTI has vowed to block NATO routes.
One wonders how the provincial government aims to achieve that given that it does not have security and foreign policy in its portfolio and what repercussions this will have on national solidarity. At a time when the government is paralyzed by confusion and fear and is struggling to muster up the will to take a stance and frame a policy, the politics of agitation that may have served the PTI well in the pre-election days, will stir a lethal brew for Pakistan now. The time for such a move is most inopportune: with the dwindling economy and the deteriorating law and order situation, the country might not pass another test for resilience. On the international level as well, agitation has never helped achieve desired objectives: not too long ago, the routes were blocked after 24 of Pakistan’s soldiers were martyred in Salala. An unwilling and half-hearted apology from the US came on July 3, 2012- routes were open again and things were back to square one.
A temporary blockade will most likely not have a policy-changing impact, especially when US has made a landmark achievement by eliminating Mehsud. At home, Mehsud was declared a ‘martyr’ by the JUI. Suddenly, the deceased terrorist leader had a human side to him and much information was shared about his generosity, and good sense of humor. The Taliban, perhaps not entirely in vain, attributed their loss to the complicity of the Pakistani government in the drone program. In the given context, PTI’s move to block NATO routes is more about domestic politics than a breach of Pakistan’s sovereignty.
Little will be achieved out of creating national discord at a critical juncture in history- energies should instead be focused on figuring out a strategy to help guide actions and gaining what Pakistan can out of the limited time that the US has troops on the ground in Afghanistan. Instead, one can see local politics taking precedence as the opposition and government remain fixated on making personal gains and playing it safe. The smell of fear is real and in very much in the air. Pakistanis are watching unamused as the hypocrisy of the leadership is unfolding: they know for a fact now that in the grand scheme of things, they can trust neither the Pakistani nor the American government but only the Taliban to live up to their promises.
TACSTRAT ANALYSIS
By Enum Naseer
By Enum Naseer
A NATO terrorist attack has hit a water pipes factory in al-Brega, murdering six guards, this being the factory which makes pipes for the great man-made irrigation system across the desert which brings water to seventy per cent of Libyan homes, according to sources in Libya. The factory was hit after the water supply network was destroyed on Friday.
July 22 2011. A date for humanity to remember. NATO hit the Libyan water supply pipeline. It will take months to repair. Then on Saturday they hit the pipeline factory producing pipes to repair it.
Since when is a water pipes factory in al-Brega a legitimate target to impose a no-fly zone to protect civilians? Since when is the water supply pipeline itself a legitimate target?
NATO has committed another war crime, targeting a civilian water supply network which brings water to 70% of Libya's population, according to Pravda.Ru sources in Libya. The general manager of the Man Made River Corporation which controls the pipeline reports it was hit in a NATO strike on Friday. In another clear violation of the law, a consignment from Italy of 19 000 AK-47's was caught in Ajdabiyah by the Libyan authorities, according to Libyan military sources.
The international community has two choices: to turn a blind eye like cowards and allow NATO to murder Libyan children, murder Libyan civilians and support terrorists with their strikes - we have received information that white phosphorous is being used against Libyan government positions now that NATO is getting desperate- remember Napalm anyone?? The second option is for the international community to use the proper channels to bring pressure on NATO itself and on the politicians in its member states to stop this murderous atrocity, this outrage against civilization and international law, now.
You vote for this campaign? Then you are a child murderer, or sympathise with child murderers. Cameron, Obama and Sarkozy have the blood of hundreds of innocent people on their hands.
If NATO's contribution to protecting civilians is bombing their water supply then the international community will respond to this heinous war crime, whether or not the politicians do. Will anyone please do something about this horrendous war crime? Or will we all sit back while NATO destroys water supply lines, a civilian structure? Is this protecting civilians or is this an act of revenge because NATO is losing?
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the SPY EYES Analysis and or its affiliates. The contents of this article are of sole responsibility of the author(s). SPY EYES Analysis and or its affiliates will not be responsible or liable for any inaccurate or incorrect statements and or information contained in this article.
Source: www.freedomsphoenix.com
With Gaddafi dead and its “military job now done,” NATO has declared its campaign in Libya one of the “most successful in NATO history.” However, untold casualties and a country devastated by war call into question the alliance’s notion of success.
Coming through on last week’s promise to end military operations in Libya, on Friday NATO Secretary-General Anders Fogh Rasmussen declared the military operation in Libya would be wrapped up on October 31, the Associated Press (AP) reports.
His announcement came a day after the United Nations Security Council passed a resolution to lift the no-fly zone over Libya.
Speaking from Brussels, Rasmussen said that following the death of Gaddafi, military operations were able to wind down quickly, noting triumphantly that “Operation Unified Protector is one of the most successful in NATO history,'' as cited by AP.
US President Barack Obama was equally full of praise for the operation. Speaking on the popular late night talk show The Tonight Show with Jay Leno, Obama told the host operations in Libya "only cost us a billion dollars" and no US troops were killed or injured.
The price of success Speaking on March 31, Bishop Giovanni Innocenzo Martinelli, Apostolic Vicar of Tripoli, reported that “the so-called humanitarian air raids have taken the lives of dozens of civilians in various areas of Tripoli.” The senior cleric went on to say “in the district of Buslim, a building collapsed because of the bombing, killing 40 people,” as cited by Agenzia Fedes, the information service of the Pontifical Mission Societies.
However, despite the decision to turn a blind eye to the casualty figures, one of the few instances the alliance could not deny culpability in was a June 19 NATO missile strike that resulted in the deaths of nine civilians.
Attacks of this nature were happening on a daily basis throughout the intense bombing campaign.
Speaking in September, the health minister in the new Libyan government estimated that at least 30,000 people had been killed and 50,000 wounded during the first six months of the war. Some, however, have estimated that the real figure could be much higher.
Writing back in September, Thomas C. Mountain, an independent journalist currently living in Africa who was a member of the 1st US Peace Delegation to Libya in 1987, estimated that NATO had dropped over 30,000 bombs on Libya, with an average of "two civilians killed in each attack.” Thus, Mountain has estimated that some 60,000 Libyan civilians had been killed by NATO air strikes alone by the end of August.
Shortly thereafter, when rebel forces began the siege of Sirte, Moussa Ibrahim, a spokesman for the now-deceased Libyan leader Muammar Gaddafi, told Reuters via telephone on September 19 that "in the last 17 days, more than 2,000 residents of the city of Sirte were killed in NATO air strikes."
As of today, some 26,000 NATO sorties and 9,600 strike missions have been conducted by NATO, with an average of four bombs used per attack.
A country in ruinsThough it may never be known just how many died in “the most successful operation in NATO history,” the alliance has shown little interest in rebuilding a nation that has in many ways been wrecked by its seven-month military campaign.
According to Palestinian human rights activist Shawan Jabarin, “The military operation damaged everything in Libya, not just Gaddafi and his regime, but the society [as well].”
Former MI5 agent Annie Machon went further, telling RT that NATO’s intervention had plunged Libya back into the Stone Age.
“They’ve had free education, free health, they could study abroad. When they got married they got a certain amount of money. So they were rather the envy of many other citizens of African countries. Now, of course, since NATO’s humanitarian intervention, the infrastructure of their country has been bombed back to the Stone Age,” Machon asserted.
“They will not have the same quality of life. Women probably will not have the same degree of emancipation under any new transitional government. The national wealth is probably going to be siphoned off by Western corporations. Perhaps the standard of living in Libya might have been slightly higher than it is now in America and the UK with the recession,” she concluded.
Outside of the damage done to Libya’s infrastructure and economy, Thursday’s UN resolution also expressed "concern at the proliferation of arms in Libya and its potential impact on regional peace and security," as cited by Reuters.
As the circumstances surrounding Muammar Gaddafi’s death remain a mystery following his capture by a mob on the streets of Sirte, analysts fear that armed groups answering to no central authority could prove to be the new ruling model for some time to come in NATO’s newly-liberated Libya.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the SPY EYES Analysis and or its affiliates. The contents of this article are of sole responsibility of the author(s). SPY EYES Analysis and or its affiliates will not be responsible or liable for any inaccurate or incorrect statements and or information contained in this article.
Source: RT.
Libya has retreated from a claim that Moammar Gadhafi was killed by cross fire and says it will prosecute those guilty of killing him after his capture.The interim government changed its position after a week of sustained criticism of the ousted leader's captors, who used camera phones to record his final minutes.
Videos -- including images of a wounded Gadhafi apparently being sodomized with a stick or a knife or some other spike-shaped weapon -- caused widespread revulsion outside the country and strong denunciations by the transitional government's international backers.
National Transitional Council Vice Chairman Abdel Hafiz Ghoga, a human-rights lawyer, said Libya would try to bring to justice anyone proven to have fired the shots that killed Gadhafi.
"Whoever is responsible for [Gaddafi's killing] will be judged and given a fair trial," he told the Saudi-owned Arabic-language al-Arabiya satellite news channel Thursday, explaining Libya's new government has "a code of ethics" for handling prisoners of war.
The killing was likely "an individual act and not an act of revolutionaries or the national army," Ghoga said.
A rebel fighter who identified himself as Senad el-Sadik el-Ureybi claimed in a leaked video a couple of days after Gadhafi's capture that he shot and killed the former ruler.
"We grabbed him. I hit him in the face," the fighter said in Arabic. "Some fighters wanted to take him away and that's when I shot him twice, in the head and in the chest."
He said he didn't like the idea of Gadhafi being caught alive. He also said if took a half hour for Gadhafi to die after being shot.
His account was not independently confirmed.
Whoever killed Gadhafi is widely known in Misurata, Libya, as is the Katiba Ghoran unit he belonged to, Britain's Guardian reported Friday.
Misuratan forces played important roles in the fall of Tripoli Aug. 21, and in and the south coastal city of Sirte, Libya, Oct. 20, where Gadhafi was captured, bloodied but alive, in a wastewater drain.
Gadhafi had tried to flee Sirte, as fighters battling the vestiges of his fallen regime wrested control of his hometown.
The ousted dictator died of bullet wounds to his head and chest on the way to a hospital, a post-mortem indicated.
Until now, the official account from Libya's fledgling government said Gadhafi was killed in cross fire in fighting with loyalists after his capture.
NTC Chairman Mustafa Abdul Jalil said Monday he ordered an inquiry to determine how Gadhafi was killed, suggesting the fatal bullets might have come from Gadhafi supporters who feared he would implicate them in atrocities if he survived and was put on trial.
The U.N. Security Council voted unanimously Thursday to lift the no-fly zone over Libya and cancel its authorization for military action Monday, despite an NTC request for NATO to stay until the end of the year to stop Gadhafi loyalists from fleeing to neighboring countries.
After the vote, NATO, which led the air campaign against the loyalists, confirmed it would cease operations by 11:59 p.m. Libyan time Monday, when it would hand control of Libyan air space back to local authorities.
Separately, Gadhafi son and previous heir-apparent Saif al-Islam Gadhafi, 39, was reported in Niger Friday.
The Guardian cited officials in Niger as saying Gadhafi planned to join his brother Saadi Gadhafi and former Libyan intelligence chief Abdullah al-Senussi in exile.
But it also cited LIbyan officials as saying the London-educated Saif al-Islam Gadhafi hoped to fly to the International Criminal Court in The Hague, Netherlands, for trial to avoid a fate like his father.
The court, which has no death penalty, issued an arrest warrant for him and Senussi for alleged crimes against humanity -- charges both men deny.
Disclaimer: The views expressed in this article are the sole responsibility of the author and do not necessarily reflect those of the SPY EYES Analysis and or its affiliates. The contents of this article are of sole responsibility of the author(s). SPY EYES Analysis and or its affiliates will not be responsible or liable for any inaccurate or incorrect statements and or information contained in this article.
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