"Al-Qaeda's leadership secretly directed the Islamic militants whose armed revolt at the Red Mosque in Islamabad ended last week with more than 100 deaths after it was stormed by the Pakistan army."
-- "Bin Laden's deputy behind the Red Mosque bloodbath," Syed Saleem Shahzad, Asia Times Online
"A last-minute intervention by Pakistani President General Pervez Musharraf ended nine hours of negotiations seeking a peaceful end to the siege of the radical Lal Masjid (Red Mosque) in Islamabad.
Apparently saying he was 'heavily under duress from his allies', the president in the early hours of Tuesday [July 10] instead ordered in the military to end the seven-day saga. . . . Asia Times Online contacts believe that Musharraf was referring to Washington. . . . According to the contacts, Musharraf said, "They want targets in Operation Silence," referring to the code name for Tuesday's final assault on the mosque. That is, the militants should be arrested or killed."
-- "Pakistan's iron fist is to the US's liking," Syed Saleem Shahzad, Asia Times Online
So what if there was a little collateral damage. From the Times Online report again: "Although the interior ministry confirmed later that up to 25 women and children had been killed in the mosque, survivors suggested that the toll could be considerably higher. Asma Hayat, 15, said she had seen several classmates shot and had been told of 15 other girls killed. She claimed she had seen 'dozens' of 12 and 13-year-old boys dead."
Our "ally" (with friends like the Pakistan government, who needs. . .) may be engendering as much ill will -- towards us as well as itself -- as we are in Iraq. But, hey, at least they're not attacking on on our own soil. Would that Homeland Security Secretary Michael Chertoff, with his "gut feeling" about an attack this summer, equally as sure.
