Terror Attack Warnings Issued in Pakistan

Pakistan continues to face terrorist threats and intelligence agencies have issued increased security warnings in face of possible terror strikes across the country.

According to local media reports, the county’s major government building, offices and officials from law enforcement agencies have been placed on militant hit lists.

Awami National Party (ANP) leaders including North Western Frontier Province information minister Mian Iftikhar Hussain and other leaders are among the target list of pro-Taliban militants, a Press TV correspondent reported on Sunday.

Meanwhile, the military said at least five militants were killed and eight others injured during an offensive in the South Waziristan Agency in northwest Pakistan.

Security forces have also claimed to have seized several landmines and rocket launchers in Quetta city in southwest Pakistan late on Saturday.

via Source.

Suicide Bomber Strikes Near Nuclear Facility in Pakistan

A Taliban suicide bomber has killed seven people near a nuclear weapons complex in Pakistan’s Punjab province. Bill Roggio at The Long War Journal has the details .

The suicide bomber detonated outside a security checkpoint near the Kamra Air Weapon Complex in the district of Attock, Geo News reported. Three security personnel and four civilians were killed in the blast, and 12 more were wounded.

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The Kamra Air Weapon Complex is one of three military industrial production facilities in the Wah Cantt, according to Global Security. The Pakistani Ordnance Factories, a collection of 14 factories that produce arms and ammunition for the Pakistani armed forces, and Heavy Industries Taxila are also contained within the Wah Cantt. More than 40,000 Pakistanis are employed at the factories.

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UPDATE: A Taliban suicide bomber killed seven people outside a key Pakistani air force facility yesterday, with officials quick to deny suggestions the target was linked to the country’s nuclear program. Source

Terror Threats Closes Pakistan Schools

In the southern Sindh province, which is home to Pakistan’s financial capital Karachi, 50 000 schools and colleges have shut down until Sunday according to several news reports.

Pakistani schools and colleges have closed because of fears about militant attacks after twin suicide bombings at a university campus on Tuesday, officials said.
The federal government and armed forces already announced that they were closing their schools as a precaution against terrorism.

Two suicide bombers attacked the International Islamic University in Islamabad on Tuesday, killing four students and wounding at least 18 others. The bombers struck at mid-afternoon inside a women’s cafeteria and a faculty office in the Islamic law department at the school, which is popular with foreign students.
Source

“This is an internal security lapse. We have already advised the educational institutions to tighten their security,” Interior Minister Rehman Malik told reporters after the Islamabad university blasts on Tuesday.

Source

India PM Warns of Credible Terror Threat From Pakistan

Alarmed by evidence that Pakistan-based terror groups were plotting fresh attacks, Prime Minister Manmohan Singh on Monday sounded an alert about the continuing threat. “There is credible information about ongoing plans of terrorists in Pakistan to carry out fresh attacks. The area of operation of these terrorists today extends far beyond the confines of Jammu and Kashmir and covers all parts of our country,” Singh said while addressing a meeting of chief ministers on internal security in the capital.

The PM did not name any specific group.

Sources, however, said the warning was based on intercepts of chatter among terrorist leaders, including 26/11 accused Lashkar operatives Zaki-ur Rahman Lakhvi, Zarar Shah and Abu al Qama.

The intercepts pointed to a plot for another massive terror attack via sea route, but this time involving local Lashkar modules, not Pakistani jihadis. The conspiracy has not ripened yet because of the disarray among Lashkar’s local collaborators due to the crackdown on Indian Mujahideen.

via PM sounds terror alert: Credible threat from Pak – India – NEWS – The Times of India.

Terror and Pakistan’s Nuclear Assets – Counterterrorism Blog

Every Pakistan watchers knew about those events. Bill Roggio has highlighted these events in his reports too (esp. in Long War Journal). But, Shaun Gregory (“The Terrorist Threat to Pakistan’s Nuclear Weapons,” CTC Sentinel, Vol. 2 (7), July 2009) has analyzed these events to expose the vulnerability of Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal, the “pillar of Pakistan’s national security”.

The paper published in the CTC Sentinel (Combating Terrorism Center, West Point) has triggered a pitched debate in the region and in the Western World whether Pakistan’s nuclear infrastructures are secure or not , especially in the face of those (mentioned below) terror attacks that occurred in the last couple of years. Gregory’s article underscores three terror strikes on nuclear weapons facilities in Pakistan, questioning the physical security of the coveted nuclear assets:

“These have included an attack on the nuclear missile storage facility at Sargodha on November 1, 2007, an attack on Pakistan’s nuclear airbase at Kamra by a suicide bomber on December 10, 2007, and perhaps most significantly the August 20, 2008 attack when Pakistani Taliban suicide bombers blew up several entry points to one of the armament complexes at the Wah cantonment, considered one of Pakistan’s main nuclear weapons assembly sites.”

(Correction: The twin attack at the Wah Cantonment actually took place on August 21, Thursday, 2008, not on August 20 as chronicled in the paper).

Let’s revisit those terror events, all perpetrated by Taliban and Al Qaeda elements.

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Jihadis Have Attacked Pakistans Nuclear Facilities 3 Times

Pakistan’s nuclear facilities have already been attacked at least thrice by its home-grown extremists and terrorists in little reported incidents over the last two years, even as the world remains divided over the safety and security of the nuclear weapons in the troubled country, according to western analysts.

The incidents, tracked by Shaun Gregory, a professor at Bradford University in UK, include an attack on the nuclear missile storage facility at Sargodha on November 1, 2007, an attack on Pakistan’s nuclear airbase at Kamra by a suicide bomber on December 10, 2007, and perhaps most significantly the August 20, 2008 attack when Pakistani Taliban suicide bombers blew up several entry points to one of the armament complexes at the Wah cantonment, considered one of Pakistan’s main nuclear weapons assembly.

These attacks have occurred even as Pakistan has taken several steps to secure and fortify its nuclear weapons against potential attacks, particularly by the United States and India, says Gregory.

In fact, the attacks have received so little attention that Peter Bergen, the eminent terrorism expert who reviewed Gregory’s paper first published in West Point’s Counter Terrorism Center Sentinel, said “he Gregory points out something that was news to me and shouldn’t have been which is that a series of attacks on Pakistan’s nuclear weapons facilities have already happened.”

Pakistan insists that its nuclear weapons are fully secured and there is no chance of them falling into the hands of the extremists or terrorists.

But Gregory, while detailing the steps Islamabad has taken to protect them against Indian and US attacks, asks if the geographical location of Pakistan’s principle nuclear weapons infrastructure, which is mainly in areas dominated by al-Qaida and Taliban, makes it more vulnerable to internal attacks.

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Senior Adviser Warns of Armageddon in Islamabad

A senior adviser on South Asia to three U.S. presidents is now warning about “Armageddon in Islamabad.”

At the request of President Obama, Bruce Riedel, a former CIA expert on the region, also chaired an interagency policy review on Afghanistan and nuclear Pakistan. His latest assessment says, “A jihadist victory in Pakistan, meaning the takeover of the nation by a militant Sunni movement led by the Taliban … would create the greatest threat the United States has yet to face in its war on terror … [and] is now a real possibility in the foreseeable future.” It would bolster al Qaeda’s capabilities tenfold, Mr. Riedel concludes. It would also give terrorists a nuclear capability.

Pakistan’s “creation of and collusion with extremist groups has left Islamabad vulnerable to an Islamist coup,” concludes Mr. Riedel, a senior fellow at the Brookings Institution’s Saban Center for Middle East Policy in a lengthy study in the July/August issue of the National Interest. An Islamist coup would not be possible without the collusion of at least some army units in Rawalpindi, the garrison town 20 minutes from Islamabad. Pakistan has suffered four military coups in 60 years, living half its existence under military rule.

Beginning with the war against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s, the Islamization of Pakistan was organized by the late military dictator Zia ul-Haq, and encouraged and funded by Saudi Arabia and the United States as a counter to communist ideology. This spawned thousands of single discipline madrassas (free Koranic schools) that, in turn, spawned thousands of jihadis brainwashed to hate American, Indian and Israeli apostates. It also led to the creation of such nationwide terrorist groups as Lashkar-e-Taiba (LET) and Jaish-e-Muhammad (JEM) under the supervision of ISI for the Kashmir front against India. Officially banned, they moved underground.

Pakistan’s all-powerful Inter-Services Intelligence agency (ISI) also “volunteered” some 10,000 young jihadis from the Mohmand tribal agency to fight U.S. troops in Afghanistan, but the Taliban had already collapsed and the untrained youngsters were quietly shipped back to Pakistan with denials on all sides.

After U.S. troops invaded Afghanistan on Oct. 7, 2000, ISI spread the word among tribal chiefs in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) that “Pakistan is next.” A two-star ISI general “briefed” tribal chiefs after the battle of Tora Bora in December 2001 on U.S. plans “following the conquest of Afghanistan.” This reporter was briefed by one of the chiefs the next day. The Bush administration, the general had explained, plans to attack Pakistan in an attempt to seize its nuclear arsenal and “leave it naked to Indian aggression.”

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Paksitan – Terror Attack On Norwegian and Swedish Embassies Thwarted

A man with two tons of explosives in his possession has been arrested in Pakistan’s capital Islamabad. According to reports the man had planned to blow up the Norwegian and Swedish embassies in the city.

In addition, the Hungarian, Czech and South African embassies were also among the targets for the man’s terrorist attacks, the Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet reports.

The newspaper quotes a central source as saying that the Swedish military presence in Afghanistan was the reason for the planned attack.

Also Norway is participating in the ISAF forces in Afghanistan. The Norwegian Foreign Office has declined to comment on the reports, but security at the Norwegian embassy has been stepped up.

One year ago the Danish embassy in Islamabad was attacked, and six people were killed.

Source

Hat Tip – Infidels Are Cool

300 Suicide Bombers On Way To Islamabad – Baitullah Mehsud

300 suicide bombers are on their way to Islamabad, Pakistan and plan to attack the capital and certain local officials of foreign embassies there, Interior Ministry sources said.

The suicide bombers also plan to attack Rawalpindi and Lahore and are being led by five top Taliban commanders who are close aides of Baitullah Mehsud, the leader of the country’s unified Taliban movement, according to the sources.

The commanders have left North Waziristan for Islamabad and would supervise the terrorist operations planned by Baitullah  Mehsud in these cities, the sources added.

Pakistan’s Interior Secretary Syed Kamal Shah confirmed the report, saying that  security measures had been adopted to thwart such  threats. The law enforcement agencies have planned counter strategies to deal with the situation, the secretary said.

Source

Mumbai Terrorists Had List of 320 World Targets

The plotters behind the Mumbai attack, which left more than 170 people dead, had placed India’s financial capital on a list of 320 worldwide locations as potential targets for commando-style terror strikes, the Guardian has learned.

It suggests that Lashkar-e-Taiba, the outlawed terror group that planned much of the attack from Pakistan, had ambitions well beyond causing mayhem in India.

Western intelligence agencies have accessed the computer and email account of Lashkar’s communications chief, Zarar Shah, and found a list of possible targets, only 20 of which were in India.

Two of the November 2008 attack’s key planners – Shah and Lashkar’s operations chief, Zakiur Rehman Lakhvi – are now in police custody in Pakistan.

Islamabad’s decision to bring criminal charges against nine men accused of involvement in the Mumbai attack has partly placated Indian officials. But officials in New Delhi have been warning that they want to see people brought to justice for terrorist acts.

“If the west can prosecute people for crimes against humanity in The Hague or use rendition to interrogate them in undisclosed locations then what is stopping them now? After all, [western] citizens were killed in Mumbai too,” an official said.

The US has been trying behind the scenes to co-ordinate intelligence exchanges between the two nuclear-armed rivals. The CIA has worked hard to be seen to help New Delhi – including by recovering phone numbers deleted by the terrorists on their satellite phones.

via Mumbai attackers had hit list of 320 world targets | World news | guardian.co.uk.

Senior U.N. Official Kidnapped in Pakistan

A senior U.N. official was kidnapped in southwest Pakistan and his driver was shot dead, a U.N. information officer told CNN.

The official’s name has not been released because his family has not been officially informed, said Ishrat Rizvi, a U.N. information officer in Islamabad.

The official was kidnapped in the town of Chaman, near the city of Quetta, the provincial capital of Balochistan. The exact time of the incident is unknown. Law enforcement agencies are investigating.

Islamabad – Airport Evacuated Due To Suicide Terror Threat

Days after the deadly Marriott hotel suicide bombing that left 53 dead, Islamabad is again on tenterhooks on Thursday with specific intelligence inputs coming that suicide bombers are planning to target the Benzair Bhutto international airport in the capital.

As per reports coming in, intelligence agencies believe that six Fidayeen militants have sneaked into the capital and are preparing to carry out a deadly strike at high-value targets, with the airport being the prime target. Read more