Thread: Taliban attacks

Militant group claims responsibility for embassy assault in Kabul, prison raid in Pakistan
By Dylan Stableford | The Envoy – 5 hrs ago

The Taliban claimed responsibility for a series of coordinated attacks on and near several foreign embassies rocked Kabul on Sunday, as gunmen fired rocket-propelled grenades into the residences of Western diplomats near the so-called "green zone" of the Afghan capital.

The Taliban also were said to be behind a raid on a jail in northern Pakistan that freed hundreds of inmates and wounded at least four prison officials.

In Kabul, the Taliban said their "main targets were the German and British embassies and the headquarters of Afghanistan's NATO-led force," according to Reuters. Two rockets hit a British Embassy guard tower near Reuters' Kabul offices, the news service said. A supermarket near the German embassy was also struck.

According to the New York Times, gunfire and "several explosions broke out near the German and British embassies and a major NATO military camp, usually a heavily guarded area of the Afghan capital" just after 1:35 p.m. local time. Rockets landed near the British and Canadian embassies and World Bank office, the paper reported.

CNN reported that attackers took over a central Kabul hotel close to the presidential palace, United Nations office and several foreign embassies--and that the Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack in a text message.

Kabul police said there were at least two other attacks in progress near the presidential palace and Parliament.

A NATO spokesman confirmed the attacks, according to the Times, in as many as seven locations.

U.S. army forces there were seen moving through the area, though the U.S. embassy did not sustain an attack, reports said. However, the embassy was in "lock-down mode," according to CBS News.

In September 2011, suicide bombers led a 19-hour attack on the U.S. embassy. A spokesman for the International Security Assistance Force (ISAF) told Al Jazeera that the ISAF similar tactics were used in Sunday's attacks.

In an interview with Bob Schieffer early Sunday, Se. John McCain blamed the attacks, in part, on the Obama administration's pull-out of troops from Afghanistan, saying that the U.S. military exit had emboldened the Taliban.

Meanwhile, in northern Pakistan, Taliban militants raided a prison in Bannu, CNN reported, freeing 384 inmates. Four prison officials were wounded in the two-hour attack, CNN said. According to a Pakistani information minister, 21 of the 384 escaped prisoners were "high-profile" militants, and the raid was apparently designed to free a senior Taliban commander. "This is beyond terrorism," Iftikhar Hussain, the information minister of the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa Province, told CNN. "Such an attack challenges the writ of the state."


http://news.yahoo.com/blogs/envoy/ka...114445457.html

Protester dies after inhaling fumes from burning American flag
Published September 18, 2012 ~ FoxNews.com

Burning an American flag proved fatal for a Pakistani protester, who reportedly died from inhaling fumes from the ignited icon of independence. Some 10,000 people rallied this week in Lahore, the capital of the Punjab province, to protest the movie trailer that Muslims say insults Islam, according to the International Herald-Tribune. One participant, identified as Abdullah Ismail, died after being taken to an area hospital. Witnesses said he had complained of feeling sick from the smoke from American flags burnt at the rally.

The rally was organized on the city's landmark mall by the Tehreek Hurmat-i-Rasool. Despite a ban on rallies on The Mall, local officials blocked off the road leading to it from noon to 6 p.m., apparently to facilitate the event.

The film trailer that has spurred angry protests throughout the Middle East, "Innocence of Muslims," was produced by a California man. The trailer ridicules Islam and depicts the Prophet Muhammad as a fraud, a womanizer and a pedophile. But protesters asserted it was created with the backing of the U.S. government. “The U.S. must make a law against blasphemy – or we will not let the US consulates in Pakistan function,” a rally organizer told the paper.


Read more: http://www.foxnews.com/world/2012/09...#ixzz26sr7QexP

US Embassy in Pakistan besieged: Obama and Clinton beg demonstrators to stop
Posted by: Phineas on September 20, 2012 at 2:21 pm

Sovereign American soil is invaded, American diplomats are threatened and even killed, and all the President of the United States and his Secretary of State can do is go on Pakistani television and beg them to stop: http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/...f97_story.html

Marked by the U.S. Embassy seal, advertisements condemning an anti-Islam video appeared on Pakistani television on Thursday in an apparent attempt to undercut anger against the United States, where the film was produced. Hundreds of youths, however, clashed with security officials as they tried in vain to reach the embassy in Islamabad amid anger in many countries over the film’s vulgar depiction of the Prophet Muhammad.

The advertisements appear to be an effort by the U.S. government to dampen chaos surrounding the film and undo some of the damage to America’s image in the Muslim world. Violence linked to the movie has left at least 30 people in seven countries dead, including the American ambassador to Libya. Two people have died in protests in Pakistan.

(…)

The television ads in Pakistan feature clips of President Barack Obama and Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton during press appearances in Washington in which they condemned the video. Their words were subtitled in Urdu.

“We absolutely reject its content and message,” said Clinton in the advertisement.

A caption on the ad reads: “Paid Content.”

The advertisements end with the seal of the American Embassy in Islamabad, the Pakistani capital. It was not known how many channels were airing the ads or whether they were being run in other Muslim countries or just Pakistan.

An embassy spokeswoman declined comment.

She’s probably too embarrassed to speak.

Between this and the possible negotiations to release the Blind Sheikh, the craven, intellectually and morally bankrupt nature of this administration’s foreign policy stands naked for the world to see. Our enemies see the truth — challenge Obama and he’ll give you want you want. Deny the right of free speech? Sure, no problem! Release a mass-murdering terrorist who plotted even more horrific crimes? Let’s talk. As Bryan Preston asks, how soon should we expect the demand for Khalid Shiekh Muhammad’s “humanitarian release?”

Obama and Clinton expect appeasing a bunch of medieval savages to buy us peace and safety.

This is what it will really buy:
American blood, spilled by jihadis who’ll know that,
under Obama, they can get away with it.

**Posted by Phineas http://sistertoldjah.com/archives/20...ators-to-stop/