I didn't see these on the Globe or Times' sites:
"Pakistani forces pound militant hideouts"
WANA, Pakistan (AFP) — Pakistani troops hammered militant hideouts and reinforced outposts in a tribal area where days of clashes have left more than 20 troops and 100 rebels dead, the army said.
There were no immediate details about casualties in the latest fighting in South Waziristan tribal district bordering Afghanistan, the hideout of a rebel commander accused of masterminding the killing of opposition leader Benazir Bhutto.
In the neighouring tribal zone of North Waziristan one soldier was killed and two wounded when Islamist fighters fired rockets at a paramilitary fort.
"Troops are engaging miscreants and attacking their hideouts," chief military spokesman Major General Athar Abbas told AFP. "We are reinforcing the (military) posts in South Waziristan because of the continued attacks from miscreants."
He said additional troops had been sent out to secure the posts which had come under repeated attack from militants. Troops exchanged fire again on Wednesday with militants at Ladha fort in South Waziristan, a day after clashes there left five soldiers and nearly 40 militants dead.
Islamic militants last week briefly seized control of a paramilitary fort and were repulsed when they tried to capture another in the troubled district. The troubles have spread to North Waziristan in recent days.
Two soldiers were killed there on Tuesday in an attack on a security post at Razmak and militants attacked again in the early hours of Wednesday.
"One security forces personnel embraced shahadat (martyrdom) and two others were injured. Security forces retaliated with artillery and mortar fire," the statement said.
Fighting between security forces and militants in the rugged tribal belt along the Afghan frontier has escalated since last month's assassination of former premier Bhutto.
Pakistan and the US Central Intelligence Agency have blamed the killing on Baitullah Mehsud, an allegedly Al-Qaeda-linked tribal warlord who is based in South Waziristan's rugged mountains."
After a while, I get sick of the propaganda.
I just want a violence and war-front update.
Not in MSM newspaper, though!
Why?
"44 Killed in Pakistan Militant Fighting" by CHRIS BRUMMITT
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (AP) — Islamic militants in Pakistan attacked a fort near the Afghan border Tuesday, one of two clashes with government forces that left seven troops and 37 fighters dead, the army said.
In Europe, President Pervez Musharraf said border attacks were "pinpricks" that his government must manage. Musharraf said "it doesn't mean much" that Osama bin Laden and deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri are still at large, and 100,000 Pakistani troops deployed to fight terrorists are not even trying to locate the two, believed to be in the border region.
The Pakistani president, in Paris on a European swing aimed to rebuild Western support for his embattled government, insisted the remnants of the former Taliban regime in neighboring Afghanistan are the "more serious issue."
"The 100,000 troops that we are using ... are not going around trying to locate Osama bin Laden and Zawahiri, frankly," he said. "They are operating against terrorists, and in the process, if we get them, we will deal with them certainly."
So HE KNOWS bin Laden is DEAD!
The attack on the fort, the second this month, occurred in South Waziristan, a lawless tribal region where al-Qaida- and Taliban-linked militants operate.
Thirty-seven militants and five troops were killed in the intense fighting, the statement said. Two other soldiers were killed in a clash in the neighboring North Waziristan, it said.
The violence in the border region, as well as a series of suicide attacks that have killed hundreds in recent months, is triggering uncertainty in the country ahead of Feb. 18 elections that many predict will weaken Musharraf's grip on power.
But Musharraf rejected claims that the violence was a sign of a resurgent Taliban. More than 150 rebels and soldiers are reported to have been killed in the region this month alone.
"There is no Taliban offensive ... being launched," he said at a conference at the French Institute of International Relations think tank. "These are pinpricks that they keep doing — and we have to manage all of that."
On Jan. 10, insurgents also attacked Lahda Fort. The military said then that between 40 and 50 of the attackers were killed. Last week, the militants overran a second fort in the region, leaving up to 22 soldiers dead or missing in a major embarrassment for the military.
The border region emerged as a front line in the war on terror after Pakistan allied itself with the U.S. following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks. Washington has given Pakistan billions of dollars in aid to help government forces battle militants.
Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said the Bush administration will fight efforts to curb billions of dollars in U.S. aid to Pakistan. Ahead of talks with Musharraf in Switzerland on Wednesday,Rice said it is critical that February legislative elections be free and fair.
"The situation in Pakistan is very complicated, but our strong view is that we have to have a long-term, consistent, predictable relationship with Pakistan, not with any one person, but with the institutions of Pakistan," she said.
The border region, which has never been fully under the control of the central government, is believed to be home to Baitullah Mehsud, a militant leader blamed by Pakistan and the CIA for masterminding the Dec. 27 death of Benazir Bhutto in a gun and suicide attack.
A purported spokesman for Mehsud warned the military to stop its attacks in the region.
"The army is killing innocent people in our areas and we will take strong action by attacking soldiers wherever possible, if it does not stop such activities," Maulvi Mohammed Umar told The Associated Press by phone.
After the attack on the fort, two fighter jets bombed mountainside villages nearby, killing one civilian, said Rehmanullah Khan, who was injured in the leg by the bombing. Military spokesman Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas said jets had flown reconnaissance missions, but no bombs were dropped.
"We have shortages of food," Khan said from a hospital in the nearby town of Miran Shah. "Most of the homes are now empty because people have left."
Meanwhile, security agencies arrested a suspected militant in the southern city of Karachi in connection with the attack on Bhutto, an intelligence official told the AP.
Yousuf Mehsud, who the official said was a close aide to Baitullah Mehsud, was detained late Monday after a tip-off, said the official, who requested anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.
Last week, authorities arrested a 15-year-old boy they said was part of the team sent to kill Bhutto. Musharraf said Tuesday the boy had been "indoctrinated" by Mehsud."
I really am tired of the propaganda and lies, folks!
"Premature explosion kills bomber, three others in southern Afghanistan" by Daily Star staff
Wednesday, January 23, 2008
A would-be suicide attacker's bomb-filled jacket exploded unexpectedly as he set out on a mission in southern Afghanistan Tuesday, killing himself and three others, a provincial police chief said. Among the dead in the explosion in the town of Lashkar Gah were two sons of a man with whom the would-be bomber had been staying, Helmand police chief Mohammad Hussain Andiwal told reporters.
"The suicide attacker put on his suicide waistcoat and as he was leaving the room, his explosives went off, killing him, his associate and two sons of the owners of the house who gave them shelter," Andiwal said.
He said the house belonged to a man who had been a senior provincial police official during the six-year reign of the extremist Taliban regime, which was ended with a US-led invasion in 2001.
In a separate incident linked to a Taliban-led insurgency, rebel fighters attacked a supply convoy that was en route to a base for international troops in southern Kandahar Province Tuesday, the provincial governor said.
The attack in the western province of Farah killed an Afghan guard employed by a private US security firm, USPI, and "several Taliban," Governor Mohaidin Baluch said.
"Around 150 Taliban were part of the attack," he said.
The attack was in the Bakwa district, which is among several hotspots that have emerged in Afghanistan in the past two years, during which the Taliban insurgency has grown as the international community has focused on Iraq.
Taliban attackers hit the most secure and upscale hotel in the heart of the heavily protected capital, Kabul, a week ago, killing eight people - three of them foreigners - in a symbolic strike just meters away from the presidential palace. The foreign dead included an American and a Norwegian journalist.
Also Tuesday, a British soldier killed by a roadside mine blast in southern Afghanistan on Sunday was identified as Corporal Darryl Gardiner of the Royal Electrical and Mechanical Engineers.
WTF, readers? Why is AmeriKa's MSM censoring this?
Gardiner, 25, died during an operation to disrupt enemy forces and reassure local Afghans near Musa Qala in Helmand Province, the Ministry of Defence said.
Five other soldiers were wounded in the explosion and are now recovering.
"Corporal 'Daz' Gardiner was an exceptional young man and a man that the Brigade Recce Force will miss so much," said Major Tony Phillips, who heads the unit. "His death has been a bitter blow to us all."
More than 760 foreign soldiers have been killed in Afghanistan since US-led and Afghan forces toppled the Taliban in 2001. Last year was the most violent yet as resurgent Taliban attacks spread to relatively peaceful parts of the country and more suicide bombs hit the cities.
Insurgent attacks have continued into the new year with great frequency, fueled by what certain US officials have called NATO's under-deployment and the escalating civil unrest in neighboring Pakistan, where Taliban and Islamist forces have mounted a series of brazen attacks. - Agencies"
How come the AmeriKan MSM ain't reporting this shit, readers?
