May 7, 2014:
India and China continue to negotiate their border disputes. Progress is being made and China has apparently decided to ease back on the Indian front for the moment, while increasing the pressure in the South China Sea.
Pakistan is coming under increasing international criticism for the growing number of murders committed by Islamic radicals against religious minorities. These deaths were up 20 percent in Pakistan last year, to 687. Pakistan is criticized for not doing enough to protect its minorities.
The truce with the Pakistani Taliban ended on April 10th and efforts to negotiate an extension have failed. As a result there has been an increase in Islamic terrorist activity and government attacks against the Taliban. This is tied to Afghan accusations that Pakistan is responsible for any successes the Afghan Taliban have. There is some truth to this as it is no secret that ISI (the Pakistani CIA) created the Taliban in the early 1990s and Pakistan has been supporting Islamic terrorism since the late 1970s. In the last few years more evidence of this Pakistani perfidy has come to light. For example, officially Pakistan still denies that they sheltered Osama bin Laden, but it’s no secret that Pakistan still tolerates sanctuaries for all manner of Islamic terrorists who operate inside Afghanistan. One of the biggest complaints Afghans have against the Americans is that the Americans are not more forceful in persuading Pakistan to shut down these sanctuaries. Pakistan insists it is innocent and the civilian government in Pakistan will, at most, admit that it cannot control its own military, which is most responsible for providing support to Islamic terrorists. The sad fact is that this is all self-inflicted. Over three decades of government sponsored propaganda supporting Islamic terrorists has left a lot of Pakistanis still willing to accept excuses for all the terrorist violence. Many Taliban insist that they are not terrorists but simply trying to make Pakistan a better place. A growing number of Pakistanis see the flaws in this approach, but the Islamic terrorists and their supporters are still able to threaten critics with violence and that keeps many anti-terrorism Pakistanis quiet. The public anger against the Pakistani Taliban and the military is growing but so far the generals refuse to renounce their use and support of Islamic terrorists, even though many of these Islamic radicals have declared war on the military.
May 6, 2014: In the Pakistani northwest (North Waziristan) fighting between feuding Taliban factions left another dozen dead. In the last month this feud has left over sixty Islamic terrorists dead. The dispute is over the peace negotiations with the government, which some Taliban factions consider a waste of time. There are a lot of other things these factions disagree on and a growing number of these groups are no longer willing to just talk about it.
Pakistan is allowing vehicles and other military equipment for Afghanistan to be flown from the port of Karachi into Afghanistan. This is necessary because Pakistan has been unable to halt Taliban attacks on trucks going through the Khyber Pass into Afghanistan.
May 5, 2014: In Kashmir Pakistani troops fired across the border at Indian soldiers, who returned fire. There were no casualties. There two similar incidents in April, after no such violence for two months. In December 2013 India and Pakistan agreed to halt this violence. This came after there were more than 200 such incidents in 2013 and India threatened to escalate if Pakistan did not stop it. Pakistan blames India for all this, but there have been plenty of witnesses over the years who all agree that it is Pakistan instigating nearly all these attacks.
In southwest Pakistan (Baluchistan) troops clashed with tribal separatists, leaving ten of them dead. Three soldiers were wounded. There continue to be a lot of arrests of tribal separatists, as well as illegal kidnappings and murders of separatist activists.
WHO (World Health Organization) has asked Pakistan to require anyone leaving the country first obtain proof that they have been vaccinated against polio. WHO wants this because Pakistan had the highest number of polio cases (93) of any country in 2013 and has been unable, because of Islamic terrorism, to vaccinate a large number of its citizens. Pakistan responded that it would make polio vaccination available at major airports so people could quickly receive the oral vaccine before leaving the country. The government is continuing its efforts to vaccinate tribal populations in the northwest. There Islamic terrorists have been attacking the vaccination teams despite police escorts.
May 4, 2014: In northwest Pakistan (South Waziristan) Pakistani troops concluded a week of attacks by capturing several key hilltops from local Taliban. Pakistan used air power and suffered five dead on the ground while killing at least 16 Taliban.
May 3, 2014: In northeast India (Assam) troops were sent into an area where several days of fighting between tribal rebels and Moslem migrants has left at least 32 dead. Over 5,000 people fled their homes to escape the violence. The main cause of this violence are unresolved disputes over land ownership.
May 1, 2014: In northwest Pakistan (North Waziristan) gunmen killed a pro-government tribal leader during a drive-by shooting.
In southern India (Chennai) two bombs on a passenger train left one dead and 14 wounded. Islamic terrorists are suspected although no one has claimed responsibility yet.
April 30, 2014: In Kashmir a teenager killed in a clash with police caused another round of large anti-Indian demonstrations by the Moslem majority there.
April 29, 2014: In northwest Pakistan (South Waziristan) a roadside bomb killed five Islamic terrorists. The bomb was apparently placed by a rival Islamic terrorist group.
April 28, 2014:
In northwest Pakistan, just across the border from Afghanistan’s Paktika province a force of some 300 Haqqani Network gunmen from Pakistan attacked an Afghan army base. The soldiers were prepared and held off the assault and soon NATO warplanes showed up. About half the attackers were killed or wounded and the survivors fled across the nearby Pakistani border. The attackers suffered at least sixty dead trying to achieve a media-worthy victory. Haqqani has suffered nothing but defeats lately and is disappointed that the Afghan Army, which has taken over security in the border are during the last year, tends to be as steadfast as the foreign troops they replaced. Haqqani and the Taliban are hoping that when foreign troops leave at the end of the year they will take all their airpower with them. That is less likely now that the recent Afghan presidential elections produced two runoff candidates, both of whom are willing to sign a Status of Forces agreement that will keep some U.S. combat aircraft in Afghanistan indefinitely. Despite that prospect the Pakistani Taliban negotiated a ceasefire with the Pakistani government so that they can assist the Afghan Taliban in defeating the Afghan security forces in preparation for a Taliban takeover of Afghanistan. That is pure fantasy, as the security are largely staffed by non-Pushtuns who will do anything to prevent the Pushtun dominated Taliban from taking over the country as happened in the 1990s. Most Afghan Taliban have noted that Afghan soldiers and police are nearly as lethal as the foreign troops, even without air support. The ceasefire in Pakistan has lapsed in April and efforts to renew it have failed.
Elsewhere in northwestern Pakistan (Peshawar) someone fired two rockets at the airport, but missed.
In southern Pakistan (Karachi) a bomb went off in a mosque religious school killing three students and wounding ten others. Rival religious radicals are suspected as Sunni and Shia Islamic terrorists have been making a lot of attacks recently.
April 27, 2014: In northwest Pakistan (South Waziristan) a roadside bomb killed three soldiers and wounded three more.
India successfully test fired an anti-missile missile capable to destroying long range ballistic missile warheads. These would be coming from China.
In southwest Pakistan (Quetta) t
he senior Afghan Taliban military leader, Mullah Qayum Zakir, resigned because of ill health. There are rumors that Zakir was actually forced out because of the Taliban failure to disrupt the April 5th presidential elections in Afghanistan. This was a major defeat for the Afghan Taliban and there is a lot of anger within the organization over years of similar failures. Zakir has been around since the 1990s. He was captured shortly after the American attack in late 2001 and was sent off to Guantanamo. Corrupt Afghan officials persuaded the U.S. to transfer Zakir back to an Afghan prison in 2007, where he could be interrogated more thoroughly. Instead the Afghans freed Zakir, who resumed his leadership role in the Taliban from the safety of the Pakistani city of Quetta (where Pakistan provided sanctuary for the Afghan Taliban and even forbid American UAV missile attacks).
April 25, 2014:
In southern Pakistan (Karachi) a bomb went off near a Shia mosque killing four people. Elsewhere in Karachi a police commander (Shafiq Tanoli) was killed by a bomb. This was the eighth attempt on Tanoli’s life. The killers were Islamic terrorists, who were mad at Tanoli to capturing or killing so many Islamic terrorists over the years.
April 24, 2014: In eastern India (Jharkhand) a Maoist roadside bomb killed two policemen and six voting officials. The Maoists opposed the recent elections but failed to keep many from voting. In Kashmir a voting official was killed by gunmen, who also wounded five other people.
In northwest Pakistan (Khyber) Pakistani warplanes hit two Islamic terrorist bases, killing about forty people.
April 23, 2014: In Pakistan the military has asked the government to shut down the largest private TV news channel (Geo) for accusing the military of being behind an April 19th attack against a prominent TV journalist (Hamid Mir) who frequently criticized the ISI and the army. Mir survived the attack and the army denied it had anything to do with it. Similar attacks have been traced back to the army and ISI in the past. In Pakistan it’s understood that openly criticizing the ISI or army can have unhealthy consequences. The army is using jammers to block Geo from being received on military bases and is also banning newspapers that are also making these accusations. The military is also mobilizing its political and media allies to back this attack on Geo.
In Kashmir separatist threats and violence resulted in only about 25 percent of voters turning out for the national elections. In the rest of India turnout was over 50 percent and sometimes as high as 70 percent.
April 22, 2014: In eastern India (Jharkhand) police arrested three Maoist leaders, who were caught transporting firearms and ammunition.
In northwest Pakistan (Khyber) eight policemen and one civilian died in two Islamic terrorist bombings.
