Pakistan Conflict Monitor

Indian Army Presence Soars amid Deadly Kashmir Protests

Army Presence Soars amid Deadly Kashmir Protests, The Associated Press, 7 July 2010

EXCERPT: "India's regular army patrolled the violence-hit streets of Kashmir to enforce a round-the-clock curfew for the first time in two decades Wednesday after weeks of deadly unrest in the Muslim-majority region. Anti-India protests have grown increasingly strident. Residents accuse government forces of killing at least 15 people in street demonstrations over the past month, including three on Tuesday — raising concerns the situation could spin out of control. [...] In a separate incident, an Indian official said a patrolling Indian border guard was killed by gunfire late Tuesday from Pakistani forces positioned across the disputed Kashmir frontier. The official, J.S. Oberoi, said it was a violation of a 2003 cease-fire and that the Indian troops had lodged a formal protest with their Pakistani counterparts. Another Indian soldier was shot dead earlier Tuesday but Oberoi said it was unclear whether it was firing from Pakistani guards or by insurgents trying to sneak into the Indian portion of Kashmir from Pakistani territory. Pakistan offered a different version of events, saying Indian troops opened fire on Pakistani border guards around dawn Tuesday and once again in the evening."

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Related articles:
Two die in gunfire at India-Pakistan border, Reuters Africa, 7 July 2010
IHK CM accuses Pakistan of "sabotaging" peace talks, Daily Times, 7 July 2010
Syed Salahuddin addresses rally in Islamabad, The Times of India, 6 July 2010
Top LeT commander among two killed in Sopore, Sify News, 22 June 2010

Related posts:
Kashmir police investigate Indian soldiers accused of murdering civilians, 30 June 2010
Deadly clashes continue in Kashmir, 29 June 2010
Kashmir peace options: Crisis Group, 3 June 2010
Hardliners vow jihad to liberate Kashmir, 23 March 2010
Kashmiri separatists seek Saudi mediation, 17 March 2010
Symbiosis of peace and development in Kashmir: An imperative for conflict transformation, 27 January 2010

Pakistan's Taliban Offer Prisoner Swap

Pakistan's Taliban Offer Prisoner Swap, AFP, 22 June 2010

EXCERPT: "Taliban militants in Pakistan's northwest Tuesday offered the government a prisoner swap in return for 33 missing soldiers, threatening to kill the men if the proposal is rebuffed. A Taliban spokesman told AFP that Pakistani authorities should 'face the consequences' if they did not agree to the swap, calling for the details to be worked out in talks with tribal elders in Mohmand tribal district. Security officials say 33 soldiers are still missing since the Taliban attacked a checkpost in a remote part of Mohmand along the Afghan border. Six soldiers were killed in the attack and their bodies handed over to tribal elders last Thursday, officials said. Another 25 soldiers strayed into Afghanistan after the clashes, but were handed back to Pakistani officials. [...] Major Fazal-ur-Rehman, a spokesman for the paramilitary Frontier Corps, confirmed that 33 soldiers were missing but said authorities had received no offer of a swap with the Taliban."

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Related articles:
Pakistan troops die in clashes with Taliban in Orakzai, BBC News, 22 June 2010
4 security men, 43 Taliban militants killed in clashes in Pakistan, Daily News and Analysis, 22 June 2010
Pakistan claims 20 militants killed in tribal region air strike, Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty, 22 June 2010
In Pakistan's tribal zone, a ruthless war against the Taliban has driven more than a million from their homes, The Guardian, 20 June 2010

Related posts:
Troops die in clashes with Taliban in Orakzai, 21 June 2010
Govt searches for missing troops captured by Afghan Taliban, 17 June 2010
Locals fear militant comeback after army declares Orakzai "victory", 14 June 2010
Orakzai campaign concluded: Pakistani army, 1 June 2010
Taliban exploit porous Afghanistan-Pakistan border, 5 February 2010

Troops Die in Clashes with Taliban in Orakzai

Pakistan Troops Die in Clashes with Taliban in Orakzai, BBC News, 21 June 2010

EXCERPT: "Pakistan's military says at least three soldiers have been killed in clashes with Taliban militants in the troubled tribal region of Orakzai. Security officials told the BBC that fighting started after the Taliban ambushed a military convoy. At least 13 militants were also killed, the army says. There is no independent confirmation of the claims. [...] The Orakzai region has been the scene of several search operations by Pakistani security forces in recent weeks. Taliban militants, fleeing army operations in the other parts of the tribal belt, have been trying to establish safe havens in the area. 'Militants used rockets to attack the convoy in the Kasha area of lower Orakzai,' a military spokesman told the BBC. 'Three soldiers were killed and five injured when their vehicle was struck.' Security forces retaliated with heavy weapons, the official said. 'As a result 13 militants were killed and dozens were injured.' Locals said the convoy was on its way to the city of Kohat from Kalia, the main town of lower Orakzai."

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Related articles:
70 militants killed in Upper Orakzai, The Express Tribune, 21 June 2010
25 more Taliban killed across FATA as Pak forces continue offensive, Sify News, 21 June 2010
20 militants killed in Orakzai blitz, The News International, 21 June 2010

Related posts:
Locals fear militant comeback after army declares Orakzai "victory", 14 June 2010
Militants attack security forces in Orakzai, Mohmand, 9 June 2010
Taliban still in Orakzai; Haqqani network "retreating" from North Waziristan, 3 June 2010
Orakzai campaign concluded: Pakistani army, 1 June 2010
Military takes counter-insurgency approach in Orakzai, 6 April 2010

Militants Attack Security Forces in Orakzai, Mohmand

Clashes in Orakzai, Mohmand Kill 46 Militants, DAWN, 9 June 2010

EXCERPT: "Dozens of militants attacked a security convoy in an area near Afghanistan where Pakistan declared the Taliban defeated, sparking a battle that killed six soldiers and 40 militants, an official said Wednesday. The clash in Orakzai tribal region illustrated the challenge facing Pakistan as it tries to oust insurgents hiding along the Afghan border. Pakistan’s declarations of success in some parts have often been premature. Fifteen soldiers were also wounded in the late Tuesday fighting, government administration official Samiullah Khan said. The army's offensive in Orakzai came on the heels of an operation against the Pakistani Taliban in the South Waziristan tribal area. Many militants in South Waziristan were believed to have fled to Orakzai, though the top Pakistani Taliban leaders are believed to be in North Waziristan, an area the Pakistani army has resisted attacking. [...] Information from the region has been nearly impossible to verify independently because Orakzai is remote, dangerous and access to it is severely restricted. The army said on June 1 that Orakzai had been cleared of militants and that fleeing civilians could expect to return home soon. More than 200,000 people are believed to have poured out of the area since the end of last year."

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Related articles:
Six FC troops killed as Taliban storm checkpoint, The Express Tribune, 9 June 2010
Pakistan Taliban commander killed in tribal area, People's Daily Online, 9 June 2010
Eleven militants killed in Orakzai clashes, DAWN, 7 June 2010

Related posts:
Taliban still in Orakzai; Haqqani network "retreating" from North Waziristan, 3 June 2010
Orakzai campaign concluded: Pakistani Army, 1 June 2010
Pakistan forces repel attack on security post, kill 40 militants, 19 May 2010
Overview: What have Pakistani offensives achieved?, 27 April 2010
More than 200,000 flee violence in tribal regions, 9 April 2010
Military takes counter-insurgency approach in Orakzai, 6 April 2010

Terrorists Storm Hospital Treating Mosque Attack Suspect, Victims

Terrorists Fail to Reach Comrade in Lahore Hospital, DAWN, 1 June 2010

EXCERPT: "Terrorists targeted Lahore’s Jinnah Hospital on Monday midnight to 'free or kill' their fellow, who was injured in Friday’s attack on Ahmadis’ worship place in Model Town, leaving at least five persons dead and six injured. Some 10 Ahmadis and terrorist Moaz alias Amir Moavia were under treatment in the hospital when the terror attack took place at around 11.45pm. Acting Lahore police chief SSP Chaudhry Shafiq Ahmed told Dawn that four terrorists wearing police uniform stormed the hospital’s intensive care unit (ICU) on the first floor and opened indiscriminate fire on the policemen deployed outside the entrance to guard the injured terrorist. 'The terrorists then entered the ICU block where they had an exchange of fire with policemen present there. Failing to clear the passage to reach Moaz, they managed to flee,' the SSP said. He said an ASI, two constables and a man and a woman were among the dead while four others injured. He said that one of the terrorists was injured in the gunbattle. 'The terrorists came to either kill or free Moaz but they failed,' he said. Soon after the incident, Jinnah Hospital’s chief executive Prof Javed Akram had claimed that '12 people were killed in the attack'. However, his claim could not be verified from the city morgue as only five dead bodies were brought there."

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Related articles:
Terrorists attack Jinnah Hospital, Daily Times, 1 June 2010
Terrorists fired indiscriminately in hospital attack, The Express Tribune, 1 June 2010
Terror strikes Lahore, 12 dead, The Express Tribune, 1 June 2010
Four dead in attack on hospital in Pakistan, The New York Times, 31 May 2010
"Ahmedis were target of militants since long", The News International, 31 May 2010

Related media and report:
Lahore's Jinnah hospital attacked [video], The Express Tribune via YouTube, 1 June 2010
Islamic militancy getting worse, not better: The recent attacks on the Ahmadi mosques in Lahore, Pakistan Security Research Unit, 31 May 2010

Related posts:
Arrests made over mosque attacks, govt to tackle Punjab militancy, 31 May 2010
At least 80 killed in attacks on minority sect, 28 May 2010
Pakistan fails to protect religious minorities from violence, discrimination: Report, 29 April 2010
Multiple attacks kill dozens in Lahore, 12 March 2010
Religion, politics and governance in Pakistan, 23 February 2010
2009 Department of State report on religious freedoms in Pakistan, 16 November 2009

Taliban Claim Retaliatory Suicide Attack on Police

Pakistan Taliban Claim Retaliatory Bombing, The Christian Science Monitor, 18 May 2010

EXCERPT: "A bomb blast aimed at a police van in the Pakistani city of Dera Ismail Khan on Tuesday killed 12 people, furthering a string of attacks in the northwest near where the Army is pursuing the Taliban. Some 10,000 troops are conducting a major operation in Orakzai tribal agency as part of a year of offensives in which the military has gained ground but failed to capture key leaders or prevent retaliatory bombings. While attacks have ebbed recently in Pakistan's biggest cities, they continue apace in the northwestern province of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa. Monday’s bombing killed up to four policemen, including senior officer Iqbal Khan, along with women and children. A Taliban spokesman told Agence France-Presse that the group had intended to kill Mr. Khan, who was 'so active against the Taliban.' The bombing appeared to have been attached to a bicycle and detonated remotely."

Read the full story.

Related articles:
Children among dead in Pakistan suicide blast, Sky News, 18 May 2010
Bomb kills Pakistani police officer, The New York Times, 18 May 2010
Seven Pakistani soldiers killed in militant ambush, AFP, 23 April 2010

Related posts:
Bombs hit police, kill at least 15, 11 February 2010
Suicide bombing kills police, civilians in Khyber Agency, 10 February 2010
Suicide bomber strikes mosque, police in NW, 18 December 2009
Pakistani police underfunded, overwhelmed, 30 November 2009
Spy, police installations under militant attack, 13 November 2009

Militants Strike in North Waziristan and Peshawar

Suicide Car Bomb Kills Four Pakistani Police, AFP via Yahoo! News, 27 April 2010

EXCERPT: "A suicide car bomb attack hit a Pakistani police checkpoint on the outskirts of Peshawar before dawn Wednesday, killing four police and wounding 10 people, including a woman, police said. The attacker struck close to the control post in Tir Bala village, on the main road from Pakistan's northwestern capital to Mohmand, one of seven districts in the Al-Qaeda and Taliban-infested tribal belt on the Afghan border. 'The vehicle was coming from the tribal area. It was full of explosives and the suicide attacker was coming from Mohmand,' police official Liaqat Ali said. 'Four policemen were killed,' he told AFP by telephone. The force of the explosion destroyed the simple, one-storey mud-brick building at the police post, damaged a nearby house and a mosque, police said."

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Militants, Troops Clash in N. Waziristan, The Associated Press via The Washington Post, 28 April 2010

EXCERPT: "Suspected militants attacked a paramilitary checkpoint Wednesday in a region where Pakistan has resisted U.S. pressure to wage an offensive against Islamist extremists, intelligence officials said. Four insurgents died, and one soldier was wounded. The clash was the second in less than a week in North Waziristan tribal region, and it could undermine truces that the army is believed to have struck with militant groups in the region. [...] The suspected militants' exact identities were not immediately known, but that stretch in North Waziristan is under the control of Hafiz Gul Bahadur, a militant commander who has focused on battling U.S. and NATO troops across the border in Afghanistan and is believed to have a truce with the army."

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Related articles:
Taliban strike in North Waziristan and Peshawar [blog], The Long War Journal, 28 April 2010
Terrorists thrive amid Pakistan's code of silence, ABC News, 28 April 2010

Related posts:
N. Waziristan Taliban commander vows to honour truce, 27 April 2010
Taliban ambush kills 8 troops in North Waziristan, 23 April 2010
US consulate in Peshawar attacked, 6 April 2010
Deadly bomb attack strikes Peshawar, 12 March 2010
Peshawar: Over 100 killed in market attack, 28 October 2009

NATO Tankers, Police Attacked as Taliban Fight Back

Bombs, Missiles, Bullets Leave 29 Dead in Pakistan, The Associated Press, 25 April 2010

EXCERPT: "A suicide car bomber attacked a prison van while gunmen torched six NATO oil tankers in separate strikes Saturday that killed four Pakistani police officers and wounded 10 others, authorities said. The army, meanwhile, kept up its pressure on the Pakistani Taliban in the tribal belt, killing 20 suspected fighters, while apparent U.S. missiles killed five alleged insurgents in a nearby northwest region, officials said. The oil tankers were hit in Chakwal district — a rare, possibly unprecedented such assault in Punjab province. Militants and ordinary criminals frequently attack trucks that travel along supply routes used by NATO and U.S. forces in Afghanistan, but usually in the northwest Khyber-Pakhtoonkhwa or southwest Baluchistan provinces. [...] On Saturday morning, a suicide car bomber targeted a prison van as it arrived at a jail in Timergarah to pick up prisoners to take to the nearby Swat Valley, senior police official Shakeel Khan said."

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Related articles:
Swat Taliban claim responsibility for Timergara blast, target killing, The News, 26 April 2010
Attack on NATO tankers kills three policemen, DAWN, 25 April 2010
"Ten police injured" in Pakistan suicide strike, AFP, 24 April 2010
Extremists in Pakistan fighting back: Gen Petraeus, DAWN, 24 April 2010
A surge of their own, Newsweek, 23 April 2010

Related posts:
Taliban ambush kills 8 troops in North Waziristan, 23 April 2010
In Swat, Taliban back in action, 21 April 2010
Deadly suicide attacks strike northwest Pakistan, 19 April 2010
Suicide bomber strikes hospital in Quetta, 16 April 2010
US consulate in Peshawar attacked, 6 April 2010

Taliban Ambush Kills 8 Troops in North Waziristan

Pakistan Army Says Militant Ambush Kills 8 Troops, The Associated Press, 23 April 2010

EXCERPT: "Militants ambushed a Pakistani army convoy traveling in a tribal region that is mostly home to insurgent groups focused on the war in neighboring Afghanistan, killing eight soldiers, the military said Friday. The attack could raise pressure on Islamabad to wage an offensive in North Waziristan, which has largely escaped Pakistani army action in recent years despite U.S. pressure for a crackdown. Militant attacks on troops in the region have also been rare. The army statement said the attack Thursday occurred in the Datta Khel area of North Waziristan, and that the convoy was 'carrying out a routine movement' to the area from the town of Miran Shah. Sixteen soldiers were wounded in the ambush, one of the worst known to have occurred against the army in the border region in several months. The statement did not give many details. However, two intelligence officials in the northwest said tribesmen joined local Taliban fighters to stage the ambush after a 15-year-old boy in the area was allegedly shot to death by an earlier group of traveling soldiers."

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Related articles:
Inside Pakistan's tribal frontier: North Waziristan, Foreign Policy // The AfPak Channel, 23 April 2010
Militants kill four "US spies" in Miramshah, DAWN, 23 April 2010
Taliban ambush military convoy in North Waziristan, kill seven soldiers [blog], The Long War Journal, 23 April 2010
Clashes in Orakzai Agency, 50 dead, The Express Tribune, 23 April 2010

Related posts:
In North Waziristan, Taliban roams free, 22 April 2010
US, Pakistan reconcile on North Waziristan strategy, 14 April 2010
N. Waziristan operation launched, will take two months, 1 April 2010
US "trusts" Pakistan military on N Waziristan offensive, 14 January 2010
Pakistan eyes new front after S. Waziristan, 14 December 2009

Kashmir Attacks Increase "98 Percent" in Past Year

Villagers Caught Up in Kashmir Crossfire as Militants Infiltrate, The National, 12 April 2010

EXCERPT: "For nearly 70 hours, the sound of military helicopters beat overhead amid loud explosions and gunfire as a cat-and-mouse game ensued between soldiers and militants hiding in Mr Ganaie’s crowded village of Chinkipora in Sopore, in Indian-administered Kashmir. Mr Ganaie’s family, like other residents caught in the crossfire, managed to flee to safety, but nearly two dozen houses were flattened or severely damaged in the hunt, in which four Indian soldiers died. However, this latest encounter with rebels is an ominous sign of a new, lethal wave of militancy returning to haunt Indian-administered Kashmir after a long lull. The number of attacks has climbed by 98 per cent in the past year, resulting in more than 465 deaths, according to Omar Abdullah, the state’s chief minister. This sudden rise has been partly attributed to the infiltration of militants from Pakistan-controlled Kashmir, on the other side of the Line of Control, the de facto border. The army believes nearly 2,500 militants, trained in 34 camps in Pakistani Kashmir, are desperately trying to cross to the Indian side via melting snowcaps, including those from Hizbul Mujahideen, Lashkar-i-Taiba and Harkatul Mujahideen, all affiliated to the United Jihad Council (UJC), an umbrella group of nearly a dozen Pakistan-based militant groups, many of which are banned."

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Related articles:
Former Jammu and Kashmir police constable convicted of being LeT member, Daily News & Analysis, 13 April 2010
One dead, 24 hurt in Kashmir protest: Police, AFP, 12 April 2010

Related posts:
India stops Kashmir troop withdrawal amid fears of attacks, 29 March 2010
Hardliners vow jihad to liberate Kashmir, 23 March 2010
Kashmir militants "boosted" by govt, 5 March 2010
Unrest in Indian Kashmir enters second week, 8 February 2010