NOVANEWS

NOVANEWS

A NATO helicopter attacked a Pakistani army post near the Afghan border on Tuesday, injuring two soldiers and further increasing tensions following the U.S. raid that killed Osama bin Laden, Pakistani officials said.

A similar event last year in which two Pakistani soldiers were killed prompted Pakistan to close for over a week a key border crossing that NATO uses to ship supplies into landlocked Afghanistan.

NATO coalition spokesman Lt. Col. John Dorrian confirmed there were helicopters flying near the Pakistani border Tuesday and that there was “an incident.” The alliance was investigating, he said.

A Western military official said the incident started before dawn, when a NATO base in Afghanistan received intermittent direct and indirect fire from the Pakistani side of the border.

Two helicopters flew into the area to provide support, one of which fired across the border after twice receiving fire from the Pakistani side, said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.

The Pakistani army said in a statement that its troops fired on the helicopter after it entered Pakistani airspace in the early hours of the morning. Two of its troops were injured when the helicopter returned fire, it said.

The attack took place in the Datta Khel area of the North Waziristan tribal region. The area is a known sanctuary for Taliban and al-Qaida militants and has been targeted repeatedly by covert U.S. drone strikes.

NATO said it was still trying to determine whether the helicopter crossed in to Pakistani airspace.

“We’re investigating the incident to determine a flight path by examining GPS waypoints in the helicopter computer, to construct a sequence of events and ultimately determine what led to the exchange of fire,” said Dorrian, the NATO spokesman.

He declined to say which coalition country was involved. But most of the helicopters that fly in that part of Afghanistan are American.

Dorrian said NATO will work with the Pakistani government to determine what happened, saying they expect it will reflect the same good cooperation seen in recent military operations along the border. In recent weeks, NATO and Pakistan have launched coordinated offensives against militants on their respective sides of the border.

“This is going to be transparently looked into,” Dorrian said.

The Pakistani army said it has lodged a strong protest and demanded a meeting with NATO officials to discuss the incident.

Last September, a U.S. helicopter attack killed two Pakistani soldiers at an outpost near the Afghan border, prompting Pakistan to close a key border crossing used by NATO for 11 days. The U.S. later apologized, saying the pilots mistook the soldiers for insurgents being pursued across the border from Afghanistan.

Relations are even more tense now following the Navy SEALs raid on May 2 that killed bin Laden in Abbottabad, an army town only about 35 miles (55 kilometers) outside the Pakistani capital, Islamabad.

The Pakistani government is outraged that the U.S. carried out the operation without telling Pakistan first, and many U.S. officials have expressed disbelief that bin Laden could have lived in Abbottabad for at least five years without the authorities’ knowledge. However, the U.S. has also said it has not found any evidence yet that Pakistani leaders knew of bin Laden’s whereabouts.

The helicopter attack comes a day after U.S. Sen. John Kerry wrapped up a 24-hour visit to Islamabad in which he worked to salvage the relationship with Pakistan, but also warned the government that “actions, not words” were needed to get ties back on track. Kerry was the most high-profile American to visit Pakistan since the raid on bin Laden.

Kerry said Pakistan had agreed to immediately take several “specific steps” to improve ties, but did not say what they were. The only tangible signs of progress were a remark by Kerry that Pakistan had agreed to give America the tail of a classified stealth helicopter destroyed by U.S. commandos when it malfunctioned during the raid and an announcement that Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton would soon announce a trip to the country.

But there have also been signs of Pakistan’s anger.

The Pakistani government sent the United States a written request following the bin Laden raid, asking Washington to reduce the number of American military personnel in the country, said a U.S. military official Tuesday, speaking on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the issue.

There are currently more than 200 U.S. military personnel in Pakistan, some of whom are tasked with training Pakistani troops, said the official. Pakistan has asked the U.S. to reduce the number of trainers in the country, but the official would not specify the numbers involved.

Also Tuesday, Pakistani security forces shot and killed four would-be suicide bombers, including three women, when they tried to attack an army checkpoint in the southwestern city of Quetta, said Daood Junejo, the city police chief. A fifth suicide bomber detonated his explosives but did not injure anyone, the police chief said.

Security forces stopped the five as they approached the checkpoint in a car, said Junejo. One of the men got out of the car and blew himself up. The other four, who were also wearing suicide vests, were shot when they tried to lob grenades, he said.

However, local TV footage showed what appeared to be security forces shooting at two of the women as they were laying on the ground, one of them with her hand raised over her head.

NOVANEWS

LONDON: US troops will be deployed in Pakistan if the nation’s nuclear installations come under threat from terrorists out to avenge the killing of Osama bin Laden, the Sunday Express can reveal on Sunday.

The plan, which would be activated without President Asif Ali Zardaris consent, provoked an angry reaction from Pakistan officials last night. Barack Obama would order troops to parachute in to protect key nuclear missile sites. These include the air forces central Sargodha HQ, home base for nuclear-capable F-16 combat aircraft and at least 80 ballistic missiles.

A US source told the Sunday Express: The plan is green lit and the president has already shown he is wiling to deploy troops in Pakistan if he feels it is important for national security. However, news of the plan has further increased tension between the US and Pakistan with relations already at an all-time low after the Operation Geronimo raid by the US Navy Seal special forces team that killed bin Laden at the house where he had been hiding in Abbottabad, near to a Pakistan military academy.

An angry Pakistani official said: Pakistan has an elaborate command and control structure and is fully capable of defending its strategic assets under any circumstances and does not need any assistance from any country, including the US, to safeguard its nuclear installations.

The plan reflects growing concern over reprisals for the al-Qaeda terror leaders death. More than 80 people were killed and 140 injured when two Taliban suicide bombers struck at a military academy in the north-western town of Charsadda on Friday.

Alex Neill, of the Royal United Services Institute, said: The United States places its own national security issues above all other sovereignty issues and trust in Pakistans abilities are extremely low.

If Obama can persuade congress that placing US troops at the installations is necessary to protect US citizens from possible nuclear attack, then thats what he will do. The Pentagon on Saturday refused to deny the existence of the plan, with a spokesman saying only: We are confident that Pakistan has taken appropriate steps towards securing its nuclear arsenal.

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The strikes came fresh off the Pakistani parliament’s resolution over the weekend reiterating the demand that the US stop all unilateral strikes against the nation. The US has been escalating the number of strikes in recent weeks.
Perhaps the oddest aspect of today’s attack was that sources inside the Pakistani government claim that the US quietly issued an “apology” for the killings almost immediately after they happened.
The secretive apology has created speculation as to its purpose. Surely the drone strike was not accidental, but is the apology an attempt to signal that such strikes are winding down or just an attempt to placate the Pakistani government?

NOVANEWS

WASHINGTON — The father of Pakistan’s nuclear bomb has vigorously defended the program as sparing his country the fate of Iraq or Libya, amid signs that Islamabad is ramping up its weapons capacities.

Writing in Newsweek magazine, Abdul Qadeer Khan said that Pakistan’s nuclear weapons had prevented war with historic rival India, which he accused of pursuing a “massive program” due to ambitions of superpower status.

“Don’t overlook the fact that no nuclear-capable country has been subjected to aggression or occupied, or had its borders redrawn. Had Iraq and Libya been nuclear powers, they wouldn’t have been destroyed in the way we have seen recently,” Khan said.

Khan also argued that Bangladesh would not have won independence in 1971 if Pakistan had nuclear weapons. India supported Bangladesh’s independence, which came after a nine-month struggle that was harshly put down by Pakistani forces.

Many Pakistanis regard Khan as a hero for building the Islamic world’s first nuclear bomb. India and Pakistan carried out nuclear tests in 1998.

He admitted in 2004 that he ran a nuclear black-market selling secrets to Iran, Libya and North Korea. But Khan later retracted his remarks and in 2009 was freed from house arrest, although he was asked to keep a low profile.

Western powers in March launched a military campaign against Libya over concerns of violence against civilians. Libyan leader Moamer Kadhafi agreed in 2003 to end his nuclear program and tried to reconcile with the West.

Pakistan has been increasingly worried about its nuclear program after US forces on May 2 managed to enter the country covertly to kill the world’s most wanted man, Osama bin Laden, who was living in the garrison city of Abbottabad.

Khan lashed out at Pakistanis who contend that the country, which suffers grinding poverty and receives billions of dollars in US assistance each year, cannot afford its nuclear program.

“The propaganda about spending exorbitant sums on the nuclear program circulated by ignorant, often foreign-paid, Pakistanis has no substance,” he wrote.

But Khan also said that Pakistan’s “incompetent and ignorant rulers” never devoted enough resources to development, which he argued should have been easier due to the protection ensure by nuclear weapons.

While Khan said he was not familiar with the latest developments in Pakistan’s nuclear program, Newsweek published a commercial satellite image that appeared to show expedited construction at the country’s Khushab nuclear site.

The Institute for Science and International Security, which assessed the image, said it showed “significant progress” on a fourth reactor. A frame of a building was now visible, which did not appear in a picture taken in January.

The Washington-based think-tank said that plutonium from the new reactors would allow a “dramatic increase” in production, potentially allowing Pakistan to double its annual production of nuclear weapons.

Pakistan is the sole country blocking talks in the Conference of Disarmament that would lead to an international agreement banning production of new nuclear bomb-making material.

Pakistan said that Senator John Kerry, on a mission to Islamabad to ease tensions in the wake of bin Laden’s killing, assured Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani that the United States had no designs on taking over the country’s nuclear arsenal.

“He said that he can write this with his blood, that we have no interest in Pakistan’s nuclear assets,” Gilani’s office said in a statement.

But the statement quoted Kerry as hoping that Pakistan’s nuclear weapons would be “well-protected and secure” under a “proper command and control system.”

NOVANEWS

 


AP
 

BEIJING — Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani began a visit to China on Tuesday with his country’s old ally looking more attractive after the U.S. killing of Osama bin Laden further strained Islamabad’s ties with Washington.

The sentiment is mutual, with China now in the process of shoring up its relations with Islamabad, Afghanistan and several other Central Asia states in step with an expected diminished U.S. presence as it winds down military operations in Afghanistan.

For Pakistan, Beijing represents an uncritical friend ready to provide aid, investment and military assistance. To the leaders in Beijing, ties with Pakistan and other countries in its neighborhood offer a bigger diplomatic footprint, better access to resources and a larger stable of allies to challenge U.S. supremacy.

“Pakistan wants to give a show that it is an independent actor and has options, and China offers a model of a functioning non-democratic state,” said Indiana University China scholar Elliot Sperling.

Gilani arrived in Shanghai on Tuesday evening, the official Xinhua News Agency reported.

Although Gilani’s four-day visit was planned well in advance, it comes at a critical time for his country’s relations with the U.S., which have been thrown into crisis over the American raid that killed bin Laden in the northern Pakistani city of Abbottabad on May 2. Pakistan has called it a violation of its sovereignty and threatened to retaliate if there are any similar operations in the future.

While American politicians served up withering criticisms of Pakistan’s failure to find bin Laden’s hide-out — or the possibility that officials were protecting him — China offered welcome reassurance, praising Pakistan as resolute in the fight against terrorism.

Gilani made Pakistan’s appreciation clear, singling out China in a testy May 9 speech to parliament as Islamabad’s “all-weather friend.”

China-Pakistan ties were forged shortly after the founding of the People’s Republic in 1949 and have thrived in part on both countries’ distrust of their mutual neighbor India.

Gilani’s visit is formally pitched as part of celebrations of the 60th anniversary of diplomatic ties, and he is scheduled to meet with top Chinese leaders and oversee the signing of a series of agreements beginning Wednesday.

“Further consolidating and developing our friendship and cooperation is the common aspiration of the two peoples,” Chinese Foreign Ministry spokeswoman Jiang Yu said at a regularly scheduled news briefing Tuesday.

Along with billions of dollars in investment — up to $30 billion over the next five years, according to agreements signed last year — China supports Pakistan’s nuclear power industry and sells it military hardware including surface-to-air missiles, navy frigates and fighter jets.

China for its part receives strong diplomatic backing from Pakistan in the region and among Islamic nations who might otherwise be more critical of China’s repressive policies toward its Muslim Uighur minority.

Among other benefits: Pakistani officials have suggested they might offer Chinese experts a chance to examine the wreckage of a sophisticated U.S. helicopter that crashed during the operation to take out bin Laden.

Strong Pakistan ties also help anchor China’s improving relations with other countries in the region.

A visit by Afghan Foreign Minister Zalmay Rasoul this month put a fresh sheen on bilateral relations at a time when the reduction in U.S. troop strength is expected to open up space for other countries to expand their influence there.

Days earlier, Beijing had underscored its regional heft by hosting forces from Kyrgyzstan and Tajikistan for joint anti-terrorism drills in the western Chinese region of Xinjiang, part of its embrace of Central Asia through the Chinese and Russian-dominated Shanghai Cooperation Organization.

Still, there are questions as to how much further China is willing to go in building up relations with Islamabad. China also needs to keep its crucial but delicate relationship with Washington in balance, and wouldn’t want to be seen as exacerbating tensions between the U.S. and Pakistan.

Sperling said he doesn’t expect much of substance to result from the visit, although China is happy to accommodate Pakistan’s desire to alter perceptions.

China is also deeply concerned about radical Islamic threats on its border and has little interest in backing Pakistan’s support for the Taliban in Afghanistan to counter Indian influence.

Greater turmoil in Afghanistan would be a “challenge instead of an opportunity for China,” said Zhao Gancheng, director of South Asia studies at the Shanghai Institute for International Studies.

“China is willing to have cooperation with any Afghanistan government and provide help within its ability, but the role will be limited,” he said.