Mumbai attack: US, western pressure worked

[cosmicone]

Source: Times of India

NEW DELHI: Why did Pakistan do a volteface on the Mumbai attacks? After flinging around disinformation for the past few weeks, tossing names from
Austria to UK, US and Bangladesh, what possessed the government of Asif Ali Zardari to tread the straight and narrow?

It's easy to detect the hand of US and western pressure, particularly as it came a day after US special envoy Richard Holbrooke exited Islamabad. Even if Mumbai was not discussed with Holbrooke, as Pakistani foreign minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi insisted, a phone call from US President Barack Obama to Zardari on Wednesday had an entirely different effect.

According to sources, Pakistan's admission had a lot to do with its precarious finances and a threat of aid cut-off by the US which is trying to undercut its dependence on Islamabad for the success of the fight against Taliban.

Former high commissioner to Pakistan G Parthasarathy said, "Pakistan's acknowledgement of reality was brought about by relentless US pressure despite lack of concrete Indian action."

Read more: http://timesofindia.indiatimes.com/US-threat-to-cut-off-aid-forced-Paks-hand/articleshow/4120445.cms

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Way to go !!

I hope this pressure is ratcheted upwards until Pakistan coughs up all the terrorists it has created resulting in a civilized existence as a small, insignificant country.

[ananda]

1. Obama told Zardari..

.. that if Pakistan didn't start taking
strong measures against terrorism, then
he would withdraw NATO and have Indian
troops do it.

Hehheh

This tactic would never have occurred
to Bushinc..

[Diane R]

2. It's been so long since we've had a REAL president. Doesn't it feel good?

[xchrom]

3. i find holbrooke a fascinating character. nt

[ohio2007]

4. Pakistan admits India attack link ( end denial or lose your sovereignty to the Taliban )

Taliban is in "huge" amounts of Pakistan: Zardari
NEW YORK (Reuters) – The Taliban has established itself across a large part of Pakistan, forcing the country to fight a war against the hard-line Islamist group that is about Pakistan's own survival, President Asif Zardari told CBS News.

"(The Taliban) do have a presence in huge amounts of land in our side. Yes, that is the fact," Zardari told "60 Minutes" in an interview to be broadcast on Sunday, excerpts of which were released on Friday.

U.S. President Barack Obama said this week there was no doubt terrorists were operating in safe havens in the tribal regions of Pakistan, and the United States wanted to make sure Islamabad was a strong ally in fighting that threat.

Obama and Zardari spoke by telephone on Wednesday, the Pakistani foreign ministry said. The two discussed the surge in violence by al Qaeda and the Taliban, which has stepped up its insurgency against U.S. forces and the Afghan government.

Zardari said Pakistan had been in denial about the Taliban in the past. "Our forces weren't increased ... . We have weaknesses and they are taking advantage of that weakness," he said.



snip

http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20090213/ts_nm/us_pakistan_zardari_1

The country is split in two with Islamabad on the short end

A senior Pakistani official has admitted for the first time that last year's attacks in the Indian city of Mumbai were partly planned in Pakistan.

Interior Ministry chief Rehman Malik said that a number of suspects from the banned Lashkar-e-Taiba militant group had been held and may be prosecuted.

India's foreign ministry described it as a "positive development".

Tensions were high after Delhi said 10 gunmen from Pakistan were involved in November's attacks that killed 173. Pakistan denied any responsibility in the immediate aftermath of the attacks, but later admitted that the sole gunman captured alive was one of its citizens.

snip

'Surprised India'

India's foreign ministry welcomed Pakistan's admission.

"We would expect that the government of Pakistan take credible steps to dismantle the infrastructure of terrorism in Pakistan," it added in a statement.

There is genuine surprise in India at what is seen by some as a major turn-around by Pakistan, the BBC's Sanjoy Majumder in Delhi says. Top Indian officials are now meeting to examine the information that has been handed over before determining their next move.

snip

http://newsvote.bbc.co.uk/mpapps/pagetools/print/news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7885261.stm?ad=1

[ohio2007]

5. First ever anti-Taliban rally planned for Toronto

The first ever Pashtun, anti-Taliban rally is planned for Toronto on Sunday.

Pashtuns Canadian of Pakistan and Afghanistan origin are organizing the anti-Taliban rally “to protest the ongoing massacre of Pashtun people in Northern Pakistan by the Taliban”, says Inayat Khan Kakar, of the Canadian Pashtun Community in a media communique. “In our first ever anti-Taliban rally in Canada, we are protesting outside Queen’s Park to highlight the unreported “Genocide of 52 million Pashtuns” by the Taliban and militants.”

Pashtuns , here and abroad, are concerned that their “once peaceful and serene Swat Valley in northern Pakistan has now been transformed into another Afghanistan by the Taliban.”

Pashtuns are the majority of the population in Afghanistan and represent the largest ethnic minority in Pakistan.

Pashtuns, were prominent during the Afghan-Soviet War (1979-1989) as members of the Mujahideen. During the war against the Soviets and the civil war that followed, approximately 2 million Pashtuns fled to Pakistan as refugees. But the government of President Burhanuddin Rabbani, which seized power when the Afghanistan Soviet-backed government collapsed in 1992, fought to exclude Pashtuns from the most important positions.


snip

Pakistan-based journalist Hamid Mir reported in a Canada Free Press (CFP) yesterday that the local Taliban leadership in Pakistan has decided to send its fighters to Islamabad in reaction to the operations in Darra Adamkhel and Swat Valley and had issued a “hit list” of religious scholars they accuse of being collaborators of the “pro-American Zardari government”, which according to the Taliban is no different than the previous ousted Musharraf regime.

Many religious scholars whose names appear on the hit list are being ordered to leave the capital.

Taliban leader Maulvi Omar Khalid has threatened boys belonging to the banned Lashkar-e-Taiba to leave the tribal agency--or face death.

snip

While hundreds of innocent people have been beheaded and butchered, 300 educational institutions have been bombed and destroyed, people on the ground perceive that the Pakistan ISI/military is supporting the Taliban because of the infectity (sic) of the operation and (are) intentionally fanning extremist religious thought in the region,” says the Canadian Pashtun Community in its media communique. “Out of the 1.7 million local population about 700,000 people already have been forced to migrate to other areas by the war.


snip

http://canadafreepress.com/index.php/article/8417

Doubt it will get front page media coverage but it was one of several groups the US funded under the mujahadin banner

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w8Vmx9Pg5Js&feature=related

[Doctor Cynic]

6. It's a Canadian, lighter version of Free Republic. Don't listen to them.

[darkstar]

7. Oh..for over 8 years I thought that whole Musharrahf thing

thing was just some obscure answer to a "gotcha" question.