Local tribesmen inspect a burnt out a school following an attack by Taliban in the northwestern district of Upper Dir on June 3, 2011, about six kilometres from the border with Afghanistan's Kunar province. — Photo by AFPSo I'm reading this article here at DAWN and I notice the part that really made me scratch my head and spurred the title of this blogpost....the story is about the third day in a row of Taliban attacks by a huge swarm of Taliban coming into Pakistan from eastern Afghanistan and here's the section of the story that caught my eye:
After the first clash, Pakistan Wednesday conveyed “strong concern” to the Afghan ambassador to Islamabad, calling for “stern action” by Afghan and US-led Nato troops to crack down on militants in eastern Afghanistan.
Okay, so let me get this straight. After about 8 years of Taliban escapes from Afghanistan into Pakistan where those Taliban fighters found refuge, rest and reorganization....after about 8 years of Taliban sitting in safety in Pakistan and then making excursions into Afghanistan to stage attacks on U.S., NATO and Afghan forces....it's NOW that we have the Pakistanis criticizing the Afghans and NATO for allowing Taliban to come into Pakistan from eastern Afghanistan to wage some attacks? Have I got that right?
Talk about irony. When the U.S. under both Bush and Obama were clamoring for Pakistan to do more to root the Taliban out of the safe havens in northwest Pakistan, the Pakistanis put up their hands and claimed they couldn't do anything....and now, when the scourge of the Taliban have reversed their tactics and have targeted Pakistan, well the Pakistanis are now up in an outrage.
Well, all I have to say is this - when the Pakistanis were busy signing peace agreements with the savage Taliban, they should have been lighting them up with cluster bombs. When the Pakistanis refused to go into North Waziristan because there were some "favored" Taliban there, they should have sent in an army force of 50,000 to gut them out.
So, Pakistan, now that you are losing lives in northwest Pakistan to Taliban scurrying across the Afghan border....well tough shit....you had your chance...you blew it....now you are paying for it.
Hundreds besiege Upper Dir border area for third day
PESHAWAR: Hundreds of militants on Friday again besieged a Pakistani area on the Afghan border, shortly after troops claimed to have regained control after fighting killed 34 people, police said.
“Militants have attacked again. There are hundreds of them. They have besieged the area and torched a government school,” regional police chief Qazi Jamilur Rehman told AFP, saying that they had attacked from Afghanistan.
Rehman said reinforcements and helicopter gunships had been moved into the Nusrat Darra area in the northwestern Upper Dir district of troubled Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province in order to quell the attack.
The area is around 10 kilometres from the Shaltalu checkpost which was destroyed by militants in two days of intense fighting, killing 28 policemen and six civilians.
Police said up to 45 militants were also killed in those clashes, which started on Wednesday, but the information could not be confirmed independently as the bodies were not left behind on the battlefield.
Police earlier Friday told AFP that Shaltalu was under control.
“The area is in complete control of our troops. We have started a search operation,” Rehman had told AFP.
Rahim Gul, another police official at the nearby Barawal police station, confirmed the latest attack.
After the first clash, Pakistan Wednesday conveyed “strong concern” to the Afghan ambassador to Islamabad, calling for “stern action” by Afghan and US-led Nato troops to crack down on militants in eastern Afghanistan.
Shaltalu and Nusrat Darra are surrounded by mountains and forest, about six kilometres from the border with Afghanistan’s Kunar province.
Upper Dir is part of Pakistan’s northwestern Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province and borders the region where the military waged a major offensive to put down a local Taliban insurgency in Lower Dir, Buner and Swat in 2009.
Thousands of Pakistanis have died in bomb attacks over the last four years and thousands more soldiers have been killed fighting home-grown militants.
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