Pakistani Taliban Detonate Car Bomb Next To U.S. Consulate Vehicles

[High_Gravity]

Pakistani Taliban Detonate Car Bomb Next To U.S. Consulate Vehicles

PESHAWAR, Pakistan — A Taliban car bomb struck an armored vehicle taking American government employees to the U.S consulate in northwest Pakistan on Friday, officials said, in a strike the militants said was in revenge for the raid that killed Osama bin Laden.

Two Americans suffered minor injuries, but one Pakistani passer-by was killed and at least 10 others were wounded in the attack in the city of Peshawar, officials said. The strike was the first on Westerners since the May 2 raid by American commandos on bin Laden's hideout in an army town around three hours from Peshawar.

The Pakistani Taliban, an al-Qaida-allied group behind scores of attacks in recent years, claimed responsibility.

"We say to the Americans and NATO that we will carry out more deadly attacks and we can do it," Taliban spokesman Ahsanullah Ahsan said in a phone call from an undisclosed location. "We had warned that we will avenge the martyrdom of Osama."

The Americans were traveling in two cars from their homes to the heavily protected consulate building when a car bomb exploded nearby, said U.S. Embassy spokesman Alberto Rodriguez and police in the city. The Americans from the hit car were whisked away from the scene in the second vehicle. The most serious wound was a possible broken hand, he said.

Rodriguez had initially said Friday's attack was carried out by a suicide bomber, based on accounts from eye witnesses. He later called The Associated Press to say it was a planted explosive device of some kind. Pakistani police said it was a car bomb, presumably detonated remotely.

Rodriguez declined to say what job the Americans held. The consulate is home to diplomats, security contractors and – it is widely believed – CIA staff hunting al-Qaida and associated groups. Both the consulate building and a previous top officer there have been attacked in the past.

The unilateral U.S. raid that killed bin Laden in Abbottabad badly damaged Pakistani-American relations already frayed since January, when a CIA contractor killed two Pakistanis in the city of Lahore. The incident prompted Pakistan to demand a reduction in U.S. military personnel in the country, and infuriated the Pakistani army over what it claims are American spies operating in the country.

Peshawar lies just outside Pakistan's tribal regions, where al-Qaida and the Taliban have bases.

Pakistani Taliban Detonate Car Bomb Next To U.S. Consulate Vehicles

 

[waltky]

Looks like China has 'flipped' Pakistan...

Pakistan looks east to 'good friend' China
Friday, May 20, 2011 – At breakfast at my hotel I was having trouble with the cornflake dispenser. It was one of those tall cylindrical containers with a lever at the bottom that needed to be turned for the cornflakes to tumble out, only the lever was stuck. I gave up in frustration and almost walked into a young woman who'd been observing my dismal efforts.

"Dui Bu Qui," (“excuse me”), she said, addressing me in Mandarin, before simply opening the top of the container and ladling out her cornflakes. She then returned to a table of what looked to me like Chinese businessmen. She was by far the smartest-dressed at the table, the translator I assumed, while the men – ruddy faced, a bit rough around the edges, and looking a little uncomfortable in dark suits and ties – were fairly typical of the traders or small town entrepreneurs I'm more familiar with on trips to provincial China.

I looked further around the restaurant. There were several more tables of what looked to me like Chinese businessmen, while at the back, more discretely seated, was a more polished group, Chinese diplomats or bankers perhaps, pouring over some documents. (Possibly the latest photos of the American stealth helicopter downed in the Osama bin Laden raid, one colleague mischievously suggested. The Chinese military is allegedly anxious to get a look at the plans for the sophisticated chopper that was capable of evading radar detection). The reason I mention this is because this restaurant, in one of Islamabad's best and most secure hotels, has always been an anthropologists dream.

At any one time the scene provides a wonderful insight into what's going on, who's up and who's down in turbulent Pakistan. Journalists, diplomats, business people and spooks rub shoulders around the buffet table with Pakistani government officials and bearded frontier tribesmen in flowing robes. On a recent morning, there were several tattooed Western men with shaven heads and bull-necks, some sort of security for one of the aforementioned I assumed, for whom "low-key" was clearly not part of the training.

China, Pakistan’s ‘all-weather friend’

See also:

China Selling Pakistan 50 Fighter Jets
Friday, May 20, 2011 - China has agreed to provide Pakistan with 50 more fighter jets in a deal clinched during Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani's trip to Beijing, Pakistani defense officials said Friday.

Gilani's four-day visit highlighted Pakistan's warm ties with China at a time of heightened tensions with Washington over the killing of Osama bin Laden in a Pakistani town by American special forces. Pakistan is seen as eager to show a demanding Washington that it has a strong diplomatic alternative in uncritical ally China.

Defense Minister Ahmad Mukhtar said Pakistan was seeking delivery within six months of the JF-17 Thunder jets, a single-engine multirole fighter developed in cooperation between China and Pakistan. Mukhtar, who was in Beijing with Gilani, gave no details about financing, but put the price per plane at $20 million to $25 million, higher than many defense experts' estimates of $15 million.

China's Foreign Ministry said it had no information about the agreement and calls to the Defense Ministry rang unanswered. The planes known as the FC-1 Xiaolong in China are offered for export as cost-efficient replacements for aging workhorses such as the MiG-21 and Northrop F-5 Tiger, defense experts say.

Pakistan's initial squadron of 14 was used alongside U.S.-made F-16s to bomb insurgent strongholds in South Waziristan in 2009, and its air force long was expected to procure more. Defense cooperation is a major aspect of what Pakistan and China call their "all-weather friendship," a term Islamabad accentuates in contrast to more fickle Washington relations.

More China Selling Pakistan 50 Fighter Jets | CNSnews.com