Saturday, August 13, 2011
Sindh observing shutter-down today
KARACHI: Violence incidents were reported across the city following the strike call for Saturday by Sindh nationalist parties against the restoration of Sindh Local Government Ordinance 2001, Geo News reported... All business communities, transporters and party workers are observing complete shutter-down and wheel-jam across the province...
Al-Qaedas focus is Pakistan: senior US commander
WASHINGTON Pakistan has replaced Iraq as al-Qaedas main focus, and the terror group has stepped up its efforts to destabilise the nuclear armed South Asian nation, a senior US military commander said.
Iraq is now a rear-guard action on the part of al-Qaeda, said General James Conway, head of Marine Corps and a member of Joint Chiefs of Staff, in an interview with Wall Street Journal correspondent Yochi J. Dreazen. Theyve changed their strategic focus not to Afghanistan but to Pakistan, because Pakistan is closest place where you have the nexus of terrorism and nuclear weapons.
Gen. Conway also offered a stark assessment of the Afghan situation, saying the Taliban have built a rudimentary command-and-control network that enables the groups leadership to direct attacks across the country. They move troops around. They resupply. They provide money. Its effective and its real. Its not just happenstance that these guys know where to go and what to do.
Senior US military and civilian officials have grown increasingly pessimistic about Afghanistan and Pakistan. Last month, Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of Joint Chiefs, told lawmakers he was planning to develop a new strategy for war in Afghanistan that would for the first time focus on both countries, which he said were inextricably linked in a common insurgency that crosses the border between them.
Top American commander in Afghanistan, Gen. David McKiernan, has asked for at least 20,000 additional forces, and incoming Obama administration has signaled it will send reinforcements sometime next year. The influx will push US troop levels there to more than 52,000, a record.
Gen. Conway said Pakistans best troops were deployed along its border with India and werent being used in the fight against militants. Pakistans leadership doesnt yet seem to accept that terrorism poses an existential risk to the countrys future, he claimed. Pakistan has to understand theres a dire threat there that they have to act against, he said.
He said attacks had killed al-Qaeda figures involved in planning attacks on targets in Europe and the US. It is important that we keep them on the run, he said. Still, he described US strikes as a high-wire act that risked damaging relations.
He said the US military needed to reorient itself in response to changing conditions in Iraq and Afghanistan. Iraqs security situation has improved so much that for the first time it smells like victory there, he said. The gains should clear way for withdrawal next year of many of 20,000 Marines currently deployed to the country, he added.
Gen. Conway said I dont think there is anybody in Iraq these days planning a strike on the US, he said. But I fear there are people in Afghanistan or Pakistan who could be doing that very thing.
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