PAKISTANI TALIBAN THREATEN ATTACKS IN U.S. & EUROPE.

*** If another attack against innocent people happens - the area where these guys operate is gonna be turned into glass. And, in WHICH universe could you justify the killing of children? Anyone who supports these animals should be similarly targetted for removal from the earth (the very punishment according to Shariah). MS ***

DERA ISMAIL KHAN, Pakistan (Reuters) - Pakistan's Taliban threatened on Friday to launch attacks in the United States and Europe "very soon."

The warning came after a renewal of militant violence in Pakistan this week that is piling pressure on a U.S.-backed government overwhelmed by the flood crisis.

"We will launch attacks in America and Europe very soon," Qari Hussain Mehsud, a senior Pakistani Taliban leader and mentor of suicide bombers, told Reuters by telephone from an undisclosed location.

A suicide bomber struck at a rally in the Pakistani city of Quetta on Friday, killing at least 54 people in the second major attack this week.

The attack on the Shi'ite rally expressing solidarity with the Palestinian people came as the United States said the devastating floods are likely to hold up army offensives against Taliban insurgents.

"Unfortunately the flooding in Pakistan is probably going to delay any operations by the Pakistani army in North Waziristan for some period of time," U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said in Afghanistan where he is visiting U.S. troops.

Senior police official Hamid Shakeel told Reuters that at least 54 people were killed and about 160 wounded in Quetta.

Dozens of dead and wounded lay in pools of blood after the blast that also engulfed vehicles in flames.

Hours later, the al Qaeda-linked Taliban took responsibility for the attack, saying it was revenge for killings of radical Sunni clerics by Shi'ites, further challenging the unpopular civilian government. "We take pride in taking responsibility for the Quetta attack," Mehsud told Reuters.

Earlier in the day, the Taliban also claimed responsibility for bombings on Wednesday at a Shi'ite procession in the eastern city of Lahore in which at least 33 people died. These blasts were the first major attack since flood waters tore through the country. The Taliban and their allies often target religious minorities in a campaign to destabilize the government.

The Taliban said the U.S. decision to put it on its list of terrorist organizations was a sign of being scared.

Aside from its battles against homegrown Taliban, Pakistan is under intense American pressure to tackle Afghan Taliban fighters who cross the border into Pakistan's lawless tribal areas to attack U.S.-led NATO troops.

The United States has stepped up missile strikes by pilotless drone aircraft against militant targets in Pakistan's Pashtun tribal lands since the start of 2010. On Friday, U.S. drones fired missiles at two targets in North Waziristan tribal region, killing seven militants, including two foreigners, intelligence officials said.

Pakistan has said the army would decide when to carry out a full-fledged assault in North Waziristan, where Washington says anti-American militants enjoy safe havens, at the time it considers appropriate.

In another attack in the northwest, a suicide bomber killed one person outside a mosque of the Ahmadi sect, who consider themselves Muslims but whom Pakistan declares non-Muslims.

Attention has focused on the Pakistani Taliban again after U.S. prosecutors this week charged its leader, Hakimullah Mehsud, in a plot that killed seven CIA employees at an American base in Afghanistan last December.

Islamist charities, some of them linked to militant groups, have at the same time joined in the relief effort for the millions affected by the worst floods in the nation's history.

U.S. officials are concerned that the involvement of hardline groups in flood relief will undermine the fight against militancy in Pakistan as well Afghanistan.

ECONOMIC CRISIS

Anger is spreading over the government's sluggish response to the floods, raising the possibility of social unrest.

Pakistan is also facing economic catastrophe, with the floods causing damage the government has estimated at $43 billion, almost a quarter of the south Asian nation's 2009 GDP.

Some relief has come from the International Monetary Fund (IMF). It will give Pakistan $450 million in emergency flood aid and disburse funds in September to help the economy cope with the devastation.

Talks in Washington with a delegation led by Pakistan's Finance Minister Abdul Hafeez Shaikh on the terms of an $11 billion IMF loan program left him satisfied with the country's commitment to reforms, IMF chief Dominique Strauss-Kahn said.

Under the 2008 IMF loan program, Islamabad promised to implement tax and energy sector reforms and give full autonomy to the State Bank of Pakistan.

(Additional reporting by Saud Mehsud, Haji Mujtaba, Zeeshan Haider and Augustine Anthony: Writing by Michael Georgy; editing by David Stamp)

BLASTS KILL 25 WOUND OVER 170 IN PAKISTAN

*** Now what is more important, helping people from the results of floods or killing Shia's? What a twisted, twisted sense of priorities. I have only ONE question for these animals: WHAT plan do you have for the economy, for urban planning once this magical Islam-land fantasy state you have set up is created?

WHAT success have you brought the Ummah, ANYWHERE you have been active??? I am officially declaring Pakistan a failed state. MS ***



LAHORE, Pakistan (Reuters) - Three bombs exploded at a Shi'ite procession in the Pakistani city of Lahore on Wednesday, killing at least 20 people and wounding over 170, piling pressure on a government already overwhelmed by floods.

Police said two suicide bombers blew themselves up in a crowd, after a lull in violence during the floods, the type of attack that Pakistani Taliban militants have claimed in the past.

Sajjad Bhutta, a senior Lahore official, told Reuters the death toll had climbed to 20, with at least 170 wounded. Rescue services said 25 were killed.

Separately, the U.S. Justice Department said prosecutors had charged the leader of the al Qaeda-linked Pakistani Taliban, Hakimullah Mehsud, for the plot that killed seven CIA employees at an American base in Afghanistan last December.

Mehsud, believed to be in the tribal areas of Pakistan, was accused of conspiracy to kill Americans overseas and conspiracy to use a weapon of mass destruction, the Justice Department said. The charges confirm Pakistan's Taliban insurgents have extended their reach overseas.

Soon after the Lahore blasts, a mob set fire to a police station. People also beat policemen, witnesses said.

Pro-Taliban Sunni militants frequently attack Shi'ites as part of a campaign to destabilize the U.S.-backed government.

The renewed violence came as millions of Pakistanis continued to struggle for food and water more than a month after the worst floods in the country's history, deepening concerns over the stability of the country.

The floods have ravaged Pakistan's economy, Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani said, with massive job losses and soaring inflation expected to hurt a nation whose stability is vital to the U.S. war against militants in both Pakistan and Afghanistan.

"The floods have inflicted damage to the economy which may, by some estimates, reach $43 billion, while affecting 30 percent of all agricultural land," Gilani said briefing the cabinet.

Agriculture is the mainstay of the economy, with cotton the main cash crop. The sector is a major source of employment.

Facing the prospect of long-term economic pain, Pakistan hopes the International Monetary Fund (IMF) will soften the terms of an $11 billion loan. Pakistani and IMF officials are meeting in Washington to work out the impact of the floods.

"This economic loss will translate into massive job losses affecting incomes of thousands of families, which may have serious social implications," said Gilani, whose government was heavily criticized for its slow response to the catastrophe.

Pakistan's military has taken charge of relief efforts, but Islamist charities, some linked to militant groups, have also stepped in, raising concerns they may exploit public anger.

BLACKLIST

The United States on Wednesday formally added Mehsud's Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, or Taliban Movement of Pakistan, to its blacklist of foreign terrorist organizations subject to travel and economic sanctions.

The TTP is the main Pakistani militant alliance which operates from Pakistan's northwest. It is suspected of being behind most bomb and suicide attacks across Pakistan.

Before the floods struck a vast swath of the country, the army said it had scored major gains against the Taliban. In renewed air strikes in the northwest, Pakistani forces killed up to 62 militants, their family members and other civilians with no ties to the fighters, officials said on Wednesday.

Washington has repeatedly urged Pakistan to go after militant sanctuaries in the northwest saying these have helped boost the Afghan insurgency, now at its deadliest. Pakistan says it is doing all it can to fight the militants.

Testing ties further, Pakistan's army said on Wednesday it scrapped talks with U.S. military officials after a military delegation sent to Washington had to go through "unwarranted" airport security checks.

British Deputy Prime Minister Nick Clegg said it could take Pakistan years to recover from the floods with threats from water-borne disease and opportunistic militants. "The danger always is that you get groups who have an ulterior motive who provide aid to try to curry favor," he said after visiting an aid camp.

(Additional reporting by Zeeshan Haider and Augustine Anthony in Islamabad and Chris Allbritton and Rebecca Conway in Pabbi, Svetlana Kovalyova in Milan and Andrew Quinn and Jeremy Pelofsky,in Washington; Writing by Michael Georgy; editing by Noah Barkin)

PAKISTAN SUICIDE BOMBING OF SUFI SHRINE

*** Sufi's were always known to be both pious as well as law-abiding. They are the total opposite of the barbarians crusading around in the name of Islam. There WAS no Islamic terrorism before the early 1950's - it is a recent scourge that plagues the world through the darkness of its philosophy; to kill, maim and otherwise be mean-faced and scowling.

Sufi's - as they are sometimes termed - have been around for CENTURIES and are among the most loving, kind and peaceful people - so good that people visit their graves LONG, LONG after they've left this earth.

These extremist dogs are just jealous. MS ***


FROM: LAHORE, Pakistan (Reuters) - Three suicide bombers struck a Sufi shrine in Pakistan's eastern city of Lahore on Thursday, killing at least 18 people and wounding 45, officials said.

A large number of devotees were visiting the shrine of the Persian Sufi saint, Syed Ali Hajwairi, in the heart of the city when the attacks occurred.

"One attack took place at the gate of the shrine and two were in the basement," Sajjad Bhutta, the top city administrator, told Reuters.

The shrine at Data Darbar is one of the most famous in Pakistan, attracting hundreds of devotees every night, with Thursdays being the most popular nights. The complex includes a mosque and a police station in the basement.

Lahore, the cultural capital of Pakistan, has suffered from frequent violence in recent weeks. More than 80 people were killed in twin attacks on the mosques of the minority Ahmadi sect in May.

ISLAMIST REVOLUTION IN PAKISTAN IMMINENT ?

*** You cannot forcibly suppress intense religious and nationalist desires and hope they will simply go away. They have a nasty habit of coming back again with an even higher level of violence. With rampant corruption and looting, what is the solution? You can only build them walls so high. MS ***

ISLAMABAD–When many Pakistanis discuss their country's tumult, they do so with a furrowed brow or a grimace.

Not Maulana Abdul Aziz.

A radical and charismatic Islamist leader who was a central figure in a bloody showdown between security forces and religious conservatives three years ago, Aziz now says he's confident Pakistan is indeed on the road toward becoming a "true Islamic state." He says Pakistan is on its way to adopting strict sharia law – forcing the women of this country of 170 million to begin observing purdah, or being removed from public life.

Aziz is among Pakistan's most controversial personalities and has preached in front of massive crowds, encouraging suicide bombings and repeatedly promising the country is on the verge of "an Islamic revolution" and that "the blood of martyrs will bear fruit."

In July 2007, Aziz and his supporters brought this nation's capital to a standstill when they barricaded themselves inside Islamabad's Red Mosque for more than a week as thousands of supporters rallied outside.

Eventually, police stormed the mosque, formally known as Lal Masjid, and 102 people were killed, including Aziz's brother and son.

Aziz himself was captured when he tried to escape. He fled the mosque wearing a burqa, the head-to-toe veil worn by female students at his conservative seminary.

Sitting in his small home office in central Islamabad, surrounded by eight of his followers and a machine-gun toting security guard, the 60-year-old Aziz spoke with the Star at length about Pakistan's deteriorating security situation, Canada's planned withdrawal from Afghanistan and his embarrassment over being caught fleeing the mosque while wearing a burqa.

"Our friends talked to us and said one of us had to get out at any cost," Aziz says, referring to himself and his brother Abdul Rashid Ghazi.

"I just took it as an order and followed what I was supposed to do. Maybe I was embarrassed (about wearing the burqa), but maybe this is what God had planned for me. I didn't want to go out, I wanted to be martyred. My son was inside. Why would anyone want to go?"

Sharia law in Pakistan "is coming very soon," Aziz assures. "Our country is in a very precarious state. There is no peace and looting, mugging, murder and kidnapping are increasing."

Indeed, the streets of the capital are blanketed with police checkpoints, blast walls and barbed wire, and people are tense.

At a coffee shop in an affluent section of Islamabad, several teenagers gather for hot chocolate and sandwiches.

"Our friends are too afraid to come out of their houses," one says.

A few days later, several dozen young professionals gather at a rooftop house party for a barbecue that features an open bar serving whisky and vodka. Debate at one point turns to whether someone remains conscious for a few final seconds after they are beheaded.

At one point, someone close to the house fires a dozen or so rounds from a machine gun into the air. It's a neighbour upset over the loud music, the host explains, turning down the volume of a Black Eyed Peas song.

"Maybe Aziz is right," one guest remarks.

In some Pakistani circles, the debate isn't over what Aziz says, but that he's allowed to say anything publicly at all.

Several security analysts say they are baffled at the release on bail of Aziz, who travels freely between the Lal Masjid and his home a few blocks away.

"He's a living martyr," says Ahmed Rashid, a leading Pakistani terrorism analyst and author of Jihad: The Rise of Militant Islam in Central Asia. "Aziz is a great risk and a symbol of extremism."

Aziz says he now faces 27 criminal charges of inciting violence against the state and is awaiting trial.

"There were many benefits," Aziz now recalls of the siege.

"If we struggled for 1,000 years we wouldn't have achieved the same progress as we did through this one incident."

TALIBAN : NOW HIRING

*** Deal with the conditions that give rise to such desperation and you will win. Bomb the land of its insurgents, walk away and leave those conditions remaining --- and you'll have no choice but to come back to fight again. MS ***

FROM: http://www.thestar.com/news/world/pakistan/article/763739--taliban-target-jobless-youth

Pakistan–Since Tajamal Hussain lost his job in a textiles factory two months ago, the 19-year-old has walked the streets of this gritty city searching for work.

Trouble is, the Taliban seem to be the only ones hiring nowadays.

"Yes, I will consider joining," Hussain said, sipping tea in a shanty in Faisalabad's factory district.

"I have to eat."

International attention for months has been focused on South Waziristan, a remote, mountainous region up against the Afghan border where Pakistan's army is battling Taliban fundamentalists. Yet a storm is also brewing in Faisalabad, some 270 kilometres south of the capital, Islamabad, and Pakistan's third largest city with a population of 5 million.

A booming textiles trade once attracted young, unskilled labourers from across the country, but these days, with an energy crisis crippling Pakistan, factories are closing and an estimated 200,000 textile workers have lost their jobs.

That has left Hussain and others like him stewing in the back alleys of a city with a history of close ties to extremism. Several Islamic militants – including Abu Zubaydah, Al Qaeda's purported No. 3 operative – have been captured here.

"Pakistan is a country of 170 million people, where half of them are under age 21 with poor prospects for their future," said South Asia specialist Daniel Markey, formerly with the U.S. State Department.

"This is a hard story to tell. I don't think the West realizes how huge it is. These problems are not going to end when Bin Laden's head is on a platter."

On a recent morning, another group of laid-off textile workers helped illustrate why the Taliban may draw more recruits from this city.

Muhammad Shafique is 37 and has worked the looms of Faisalabad since he was 12. His wife and two children live in rural Samundri, while Shafique shares a room with three other labourers.

Over cups of chai and countless cigarettes, Shafique spent an hour explaining to a visitor how disastrous it would be to support the Taliban. "We already have a crisis and joining hands with terrorists would only make it worse," he said.

But as the morning wore on and, perhaps, his sugary tea took effect, Shafique's tone changed. "I will join any fight against America," he said in a loud voice, his stare flinty.

Already, Faisalabad's unemployed are growing desperate.

In the space of a week, a bank was robbed and a man taking his two daughters to school was stopped by armed gunmen.

"They pointed the gun at him and his daughters and told him to get off his motorcycle," said Wazir Ahmad Wato, who works for a community organization on water and sanitation issues. "This is becoming usual here and there's no doubt the Taliban are watching and can take advantage. They have agents everywhere."

Wato said it's unclear how much the Taliban pays new recruits, but recent rumours suggest a payout of 500,000 rupees, ($6,275 Canadian) to would-be suicide bombers.

Police superintendent Yousaf Ali Houral doesn't doubt the Taliban are combing the streets of Faisalabad for supporters. "They will exploit the situation," he said.

Gareth Price, head of the Asia program at London research centre Chatham House, said it may be just a matter of time before the textile industry's woes add to Pakistan's security misery.

"Tens and hundreds of thousands of young men are losing their jobs," he said. "The next question for Pakistan is what do they do? Do they blame the government and go and get linked up with extremists? The answer to that question will determine what happens to the country."

MORE MUSLIMS KILLED BY PAKISTANI TALIBAN

FROM: http://ca.news.yahoo.com/s/reuters/100101/n_top_news/cnews_us_pakistan


ISLAMABAD (Reuters) - A suicide bomber blew himself up in an SUV at a volleyball game in northwest Pakistan on Friday, killing 75 people in a village that opposes al Qaeda-linked Taliban insurgents, police said.

The bomber struck as young men played volleyball in front of a crowd of spectators, including elderly residents and children, near the town of Lakki Marwat, officials said.

The bloodshed will put President Asif Ali Zardari's efforts to fight the Taliban under greater scrutiny, pressure he does not need at a time when corruption cases against his allies could be revived.

"It's just a disaster. I can see flesh, bodies and wounded all around," Fazl-e-Akbar, a witness, told Reuters by telephone. "It's dark. Vehicles' headlights are being used to search for victims."

Local police chief Ayub Khan said the bomber blew himself up in his sport utility vehicle in the middle of the field. A second vehicle was believed to have fled the scene.

"We have removed all bodies and wounded from the rubble and now the total death toll is 75, while 42 wounded were wounded," he told Reuters by telephone.

It was one of the bloodiest bombings in U.S. ally Pakistan since the October 2007 attack that killed at least 139 people when former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, Zardari's wife, returned home from self-imposed exile.

An attack on a sporting event is highly unusual, but could be part of the militants' strategy of bombing crowded areas such as markets to inflict mass casualties and spread fear and chaos.

VILLAGE MILITIA

Police said the village had formed an armed anti-Taliban militia, a phenomenon that started in Pakistan last year.

Despite major military offensives against their strongholds, the Taliban have killed hundreds of people in bombings.

Britain's Foreign Office described the attack as horrific and said it underlined the urgent need to fight extremism.

"It is a threat that the international community must help Pakistan to tackle, in the interests both of Pakistan's people and of wider stability," it said in a statement.

In a sign of growing security fears, the United Nations will withdraw some of its staff from Pakistan because of safety concerns, a U.N. spokeswoman said on Thursday.

"We have got to be on the offensive and launch precise strikes on (militant) training centres and hideouts. They're losing the battle. Nobody in our society supports them," North West Frontier Province's information minister, Mian Iftikhar Hussain, told Reuters.

Violence has intensified since July 2007 when the army cleared militants from a radical mosque in Islamabad.

MILITARY CALLS SHOTS

Zardari's options are limited. Security policies are set by Pakistan's all-powerful military, which nurtured militants in the 1980s to fight Soviet occupation troops in Afghanistan.

Washington wants Pakistan to root out militants who cross into Afghanistan to attack U.S.- and NATO-led troops. But doing so would require strategic sacrifices. Pakistan sees them as leverage against arch-enemy India in Afghanistan.

Washington, frustrated by what it says are inadequate efforts to wipe out the militants, has stepped up pilotless U.S. drone aircraft attacks on Taliban and al Qaeda fighters in Pakistan.

While the strikes killed high-profile figures, they have also generated anti-American anger, making it difficult for Zardari to accommodate his U.S. supporters. (MS: But no anti-Taliban sentiment when Muslims are killed by them?)

The latest attack came on a day of strikes in the southern city of Karachi, the country's biggest and its commercial capital, to denounce violence gripping the nuclear-armed nation.

The strikes were called by religious and political leaders after a suicide bomber killed 43 people at a religious procession on Monday. The Taliban claimed responsibility and threatened more violence.

"They are hired assassins. They are enemies of Pakistan. They are enemies of Islam," Interior Minister Rehman Malik told reporters on a trip to Karachi to show support for residents.

Security forces carried out patrols. But residents were taking no chances.

"We are already losing business and can't take the risk of going out today and opening our shops," said Saleem Ahmed, who sells electronics at one of the city's markets.

(Additional reporting by Faisal Aziz in Karachi and Alamgir Bitani in Peshawar; Writing by Michael Georgy; Editing by Mark Trevelyan)

*** Tell me about the Khilafa now, of Shariah O Noble Muslim warriors - how it was accomplished over piles of dead Muslims. MS ***