Posted on 07/08/2007 6:38:11 PM PDT by elhombrelibre
After days of avoiding an all-out assault on the mosque/madrassa complex, Pakistani President Gen. Pervez Musharraf reportedly has issued orders to storm the Pakistani capital of Islamabad's Red Mosque. The government also has claimed that Islamist militants holed up in the mosque include both wanted hard-core Pakistani jihadists as well as foreign fighters -- mostly Arabs -- affiliated with al Qaeda. The six-day security operation to dislodge Islamist militants from the Red Mosque thus appears to have entered a decisive stage.
(Excerpt) Read more at stratfor.com ...
Endgame?
Thanks I’ll go have a read.
If Pakistan falls, I suspect we'll have the world in a pretty nervous state. In fact, I'm betting the Indians are on full red alert.
This is even a nightmare for the Chinese...it's one thing to arm the Paks to keep India in check, it's another to have an Islamic state with nukes in your own backyard.
Yes, even the Russians will see the danger here.
While the Jihadis would have a very limited ability to strike the US with these weapons, everyone in central and southern asia will be quite distressed.
Several influential members within the ISI have very strong loyalties to the man - Not to mention broad support within the Pak Mil HQs -
Of course, the state of Pak is in about a turbulent of time as we've seen in the past 5 years.....And without question there must certainly be some hardliner jihadist types within both the ISI and Pak Mil who would love to seize control via a coup (and likely think the time may be now or never)....
How strong are those ISI loyalties to Mush?? That is the big question...and is Mush willing to gamble with his life that they are strong enough....
“While the Jihadis would have a very limited ability to strike the US with these weapons...”
Not if the delivery system is a rusty, Nigerian-registerd freighter parked in a Los Angeles harbor and the payload is a warhead from one of Pakistan’s missiles.
Why would they risk total destruction?
Stratfor is wrong - Musharraf has not issued orders to storm the mosque - Think about it... with what 12,000 troops in an around Islamabad storming the mosque would be... what a 2-3 hour operation at most (not 6 days) - No storming of mosque ordered
On Friday morning Musharraf offered amnesty to all inside provided they surrender and lay down their arms - this was rejected and the occupants said they would never surrender - FRiday evening was the last time afaik that mediators were allowed to enter the mosque (to delver the amnesty proposal)
The "foreign fighter" Arab story has yet to be confirmed and the "cleric in a burka" story has already been shot down - the guy was not trying to escape.
“Why would they risk total destruction?”
Because they don’t care.
bttt - looks like Pakistan has gone native FRiends
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