Breaking: Taliban Attack Kabul Hotel, Ten Reported Dead

by Ed Driscoll

 

At Hot Air, Allahpundit writes:

In progress as I write this. Sounds … Mumbai-esque.

A group of suicide bombers attacked the Intercontinental Hotel in Kabul Tuesday, and fighting was ongoing with Afghan security forces, Chief of Criminal Investigation Mohammed Zahir told CNN.
A spokesman for the Taliban, Zabiullah Mujahid, said a group of Taliban bombers was responsible for the 10 p.m. attack on the hotel, which is popular among international guests. There were no immediate details on casualties.
The hotel is located on a hill on the outskirts of Kabul and is typically protected by heavy security. A news conference was scheduled to take place Wednesday in the hotel to discuss the planned transition of security from international to Afghan forces.

The hotel’s power has reportedly been cut, presumably by the bombers. Why they’d bother doing that if this is a simple suicide-bomb mission, I’m not sure. Alternate theory: Like Mumbai, this is not a simple suicide-bomb mission.

Associated Press reporters at the scene heard bursts of gunfire and saw shooting from the roof of the five-story Inter-Continental hotel that sits on a hill overlooking the city. Police ordered bystanders to lay on the ground for safety. There was no immediate word on casualties in the rare, nighttime attack in the Afghan capital.
A guest who was inside also said he heard gunfire echoing throughout the building. Streets leading to the hotel were blocked and the electricity was out…
Azizullah, an Afghan police officer who uses only one name, told an Associated Press reporter at the scene that at least one bomber entered the hotel and detonated a vest of explosives. Another police officer, who would not disclose his name, said there were at least two suicide bombers.

The Times says there could be as many as six suicide bombers on the scene, and reportedly at least three are carrying light and heavy weapons. According to a Taliban spokesman, who took credit for the attack on behalf of the group, the attackers “are breaking into each room and they are targeting the 300 Afghans and foreigners who are staying.” Systematic murder, in other words, not indiscriminate explosions; presumably, they’re wearing vests in case they’re cornered by U.S. and Afghan troops and want to take a few with them at the moment of truth.

The Christian Science Monitor reports the attack “appears to have left at least 10 people dead,” but as Allah noted this is very much a still-developing situation.
Ace adds, “the Intercontinental chain is a brand name. They like going after things with brand names,” which dovetails into this AP report:

The Inter-Continental—known widely as the “Inter-Con” opened in the late 1960s, was the nation’s first international luxury hotel. It has at least 200 rooms and was once part of an international chain. But when the Soviets invaded Afghanistan in 1979, the hotel was left to fend for itself.

Along with pretty much the rest of whatever little infrastructure that otherwise primitive nation had slowly begun to develop in the post-World War II-era.

From: http://pajamasmedia.com/eddriscoll/2011/06/28/breaking-massive-taliban-attack-on-kabul-hotel/

Pakistan Attacks Kill Scores, Taliban Deny

 

OnIslam & News Agencies

Taliban deny responsibility for the attacks, which killed scores in Peshawar

PESHAWAR – At least 34 people were killed Saturday, June 12, in twin bombings in the Pakistani city of Peshawar, the latest attacks since Al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden's killing last month.

"The first blast was quite small but as people gathered close to the site of the explosion, the second one, which was real big one, went off," a senior local police officer told Agence France-Presse (AFP).

A small blast rocked the Khyber Super Market district at 11: 30 pm, which drew onlookers before a second powerful explosion jolted the area.

read more: http://www.onislam.net/english/news/asia-pacific/452629-pakistan-attacks-kill-scores-taliban-deny.html

Suicide car bomb razes Pakistan police station

The building is located in a highly secure area

Four people have been killed and 22 others wounded in a suicide car bomb attack on a police station in Peshawar, in north-west Pakistan.

The force of the blast flattened the building, police said. Emergency workers were searching for bodies and survivors in the rubble.

The building was close to Pakistani army facilities and the US consulate.

Pakistani Taliban said they carried out the attack, the fourth since Osama Bin Laden was killed on 2 May.
The deadliest attack was a twin suicide bombing which killed more than 80 people, most of them paramilitary recruits, in the north-west two weeks ago.

Last week, the Pakistani Taliban bombed a US consulate convoy in Peshawar, killing one Pakistani passer-by and wounding 10 others.

'Huge blast'

Police said the target of the latest attack was the building that housed the police's criminal investigation department.

"It was a huge blast which completely destroyed the three-storey building," AFP news agency quoted Liaqat Ali Khan, chief of police in Peshawar, as saying.

The building is in Peshawar's cantonment area close to the US consulate. Security is usually tight there.
A spokesman for Pakistan's Taliban said the attacks would continue until the US drone strikes and Pakistani military operations were stopped in the tribal regions bordering Afghanistan.

"We will further step up these attacks to avenge Osama Bin Laden's martyrdom," AFP quoted Ehsanullah Ehsan as saying.



http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-13537059?utm_source=twitterfeed&utm_medium=twitter

Pakistan retakes naval base after attack

 

Reuters – Soldiers depart from the Mehran naval aviation base after troops ended operations against militants in …

By Faisal Aziz and Michael Georgy Faisal Aziz And Michael Georgy – KARACHI (Reuters) – Troops recaptured a Pakistani naval air force base on Monday after a 16-hour battle with as few as six Taliban gunmen who had launched their attack to avenge the killing of Osama bin Laden.

The assault casts fresh doubt on the military's ability to protect its bases after a raid on the army headquarters in the city of Rawalpindi in 2009 and is a further embarrassment following the surprise raid by U.S. special forces on the al Qaeda leader's hideout north of Islamabad on May 2.

Interior Minister Rehman Malik said just six militants were believed involved in the attack on the PNS Mehran base in Karachi late on Sunday, destroying two aircraft and laying siege to a main building in one of the most heavily guarded bases in the unstable, nuclear-armed country.

"When they fired the first rockets, they were intercepted," said Pakistan's navy chief Admiral Noman Bashir. "Then they could not launch another attack on other aircraft and they tried to hide." He said it took three to four hours to sketch out a plan to contain the militants.

At least 10 military personnel were killed and 20 wounded in the assault that started at 10.30 p.m. on Sunday (1730 GMT), a navy spokesman said.

Malik said three militants were killed in the gunbattle while the body of a fourth was believed to be buried under the rubble of a collapsed wall. Two suspects were believed to have fled the scene, he added.
One of two attackers hiding in the building blew himself up while two others were gunned down elsewhere, Bashir said.

The Pakistan Taliban, who are allied with al Qaeda, said they had staged the attack to avenge bin Laden's death.

"It was the revenge of martyrdom of Osama bin Laden. It was the proof that we are still united and powerful," Taliban spokesman Ehsanullah Ehsan told Reuters by telephone from an undisclosed location.

LADDERS, GUNS, GRENADES

Malik said the militants, aged between 20 and 25, used two ladders to scale the walls of the base and jumped in by cutting barbed wire.

He said the militants had used guns and grenades in their attack on the base, 15 miles from the Masroor Air Base, Pakistan's largest and a possible depot for nuclear weapons.

PNS Mehran is ringed by a concrete wall with about 5 ft of barbed wire on top. An aircraft, armed with rockets, hangs on show on a stand outside.

As troops wound down their assault, some Karachi residents said they could not believe security could have been so lax.

"If these people can just enter a military base like this, then how can any Pakistani feel safe?" asked Mazhar Iqbal, 28, an engineering company administrator taking a lunch break in the shade outside the complex where a crowd had gathered.

"The government and the army are just corrupt. We need new leaders with a vision for Pakistan."
Malik said 17 foreigners -- 11 Chinese and six Americans -- were inside the base at the time. All had been evacuated safely. The Americans were contractors working for SAIC and Lockheed Martin doing maintenance on the aircraft.

Two P-3C Orions, maritime patrol aircraft supplied by the United States, were destroyed, said Colonel David Lapan, a Pentagon spokesman.
 
TALIBAN DENIES MULLAH OMAR KILLED
 
Pakistan has faced a wave of assaults over the last few years, many of them claimed by the Pakistani Taliban. Others have been blamed on al Qaeda-linked militant groups once nurtured by the Pakistani military and which have since slipped out of control.
 
The Taliban have stepped up attacks since bin Laden's death, killing almost 80 people in a suicide bombing on a paramilitary academy and an assault on a U.S. consular vehicle in Peshawar.
 
Malik said militants had planned to attack sensitive military installations as well as important figures at a meeting in North Waziristan -- a global hub for militants on the Afghan border -- after bin Laden's killing.
On Monday, at least seven militants, including three Arab nationals, were killed in a missile strike by a U.S. drone aircraft in North Waziristan, local intelligence officials said.
 
The Pakistani Taliban are led by Hakimullah Mehsud, whose fighters regularly clash with the army in the northwest, parts of which are bases for Afghan militants.
 
On Monday, an Afghan television station reported Taliban leader Mullah Omar had been killed in Pakistan, but the group denied it, saying he was safe and in Afghanistan.
 
The United States sees Pakistan as a key, if difficult, ally essential to its attempts to root out militant forces in Afghanistan.
 
Pakistan, however, sees militant groups as leverage to ward off the influence of its old enemy India in Afghanistan. The discovery that bin Laden was living in the town of Abbottabad has brought suspicion that militants may be receiving help from the security establishment.
 
Pakistan says its senior leadership did not know of bin Laden's whereabouts, but his presence, and his killing, have strained already fragile ties with the United States and deeply embarrassed Pakistan's military.
 
The military has come under intense domestic pressure for allowing five U.S. helicopters to penetrate Pakistan's airspace and kill the al Qaeda leader.
 
Many U.S. lawmakers are questioning whether to cut the billions of dollars of aid Pakistan receives to help root out militants.
 
On Monday, the Pakistani rupee fell to a record low against the U.S. dollar, partly because of concerns that growing tension with the West could choke off much needed foreign aid.
 
(Additional reporting by Chris Allbritton, Zeeshan Haider, Kamran Haider, Sahar Ahmed and Imtiaz Shah; Writing by Miral Fahmy; Editing by Nick Macfie and Alex Richardson)



http://news.yahoo.com/s/nm/20110523/wl_nm/us_pakistan_blast

ADL Commends Arrests of Florida Residents for Providing Support to Pakistani Terrorist Organization

Date: May 17, 2011

The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) commends Wifredo A. Ferrer, United States Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, John V. Gillies, Special Agent in Charge, Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI), Miami Field Office, and the members of the South Florida Joint Terrorism Task Force (JTTF) for their investigation leading to the arrest of two South Florida imams for allegedly providing support to the Pakistani Taliban.
Hafiz Khan, the imam at the Flagler Mosque in Miami, and his son Izhar Khan, imam at the Jamaat Al-Mu'mineen Mosque in Margate, are accused of providing material support to a terrorist group responsible for numerous deadly attacks against American interests in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Andrew Rosenkranz, ADL Florida Regional Director, issued the following statement:

“ADL commends the U.S. Attorney for the Southern District of Florida, the FBI Miami Field Office and the South Florida JTTF for their investigation leading to the arrest of Hafiz and Izhar Khan, and four others. While there have been several other cases of material support for terrorism that have emerged in Florida before, it is particularly disturbing to learn of the alleged involvement of local religious leaders in this case. We very much hope these arrests will serve as a meaningful deterrent for others who might attempt to aid other terrorist organizations.”

For information about terror fundraising and support in Florida, please see ADL’s online backgrounder: South Florida Imams Arrested for Supporting Pakistani Taliban.

Afghanistan: Fierce fighting follows Kandahar attack

Afghanistan: Fierce fighting follows Kandahar attack

Bridge for sale: Pakistan's army chief says his forces have broken the jihadists' "backbone"

In November 2009, Pakistan’s foreign minister, Makhdoom Shah Mahmood Qureshi, said that the Taliban is being routed along the Afghanistan border. “The operation so far has been very successful,” he revealed. “The resistance that we were expecting initially did not come with the same swiftness we were expecting.”

AP reported that “Pakistan’s armed forces hope to rout Taliban militants in the rugged mountainous region along the border with Afghanistan before winter sets in by late December.” That's late December 2009. Qureshi said that Pakistan’s armed forces have the Taliban “on the run. They are in retreat and there is disarray over there.”

In May 2009, Pakistani Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani said that the Pakistani military was just about to wrap up its offensive against the Taliban: “The operation against the terrorists is progressing very successfully and those who destroyed the peace of the nation are fleeing in disguise,” he said confidently. Only mop-up operations remained: “Troops will remain in the region until peace is ensured and all the displaced people return home.”


Full story: http://www.jihadwatch.org/2011/04/bridge-for-sale-pakistans-army-chief-says-his-forces-have-broken-the-jihadists-backbone.html