Nanga Parbat basecamp slaughter

Until now, mountaineers were considered one of the few groups that remained impervious to the perceived perils of visiting Pakistan.

... it puts the episode on Everest this spring into some kind of perspective.

http://www.cnn.com/2013/06/23/world/asia/pakistan-gunmen-foreigners/index.html?hpt=hp_t2

Is this an independent attack?

A spokesman for the Pakistani Taliban claimed responsibility for the assault

In Syria, they are beheading Christians right now.

Jeez, some of you posters are head cases, IMO. Blame it all on Obama. What's next, Roswell? Oh yeah, Obama was there.

Get a life.

Just because there is political justification for dropping bombs on the object of your desire, it doesn't mean they're going to like it and not get back at you.

You want war without the other guy sending you a love letter once in a while ?

But we're the good guys! and we said sorry for burning alive all those innocent other people someone cared about while getting the bad guys.

Understand the reality of big phrases like collateral damage and how it can apply in both directions.

The Taliban have said that the 10 climbers shot dead in northern Pakistan were killed by a branch of the militant group set up to target foreigners.

They were forced to kneel and shot in the head, officials said, as more details emerged about Saturday's deadly assault at Nanga Parbat base camp.

Pakistan's cabinet met to discuss the attack and its impact on the country's already troubled tourist industry.

Climbers in the area of the world's ninth highest peak have been evacuated.

The Pakistani Taliban said that the new faction - named in local media reports as Junoodul Hifsa - was set up to take revenge for drone attacks in Pakistan.

The Taliban had earlier said that the attack was in retaliation for the killing of their second-in-command, Waliur Rehman, who died in a suspected US drone strike in May.

Rounded up
The nationalities of the foreign victims have now been identified as American, Chinese, Ukrainian, Slovakian, Lithuanian and Nepali. One Pakistani also died.

The BBC's Orla Guerin in Islamabad says the carefully choreographed assault was the worst attack on foreigners in Pakistan in a decade.

Survivors have yet to speak publicly about the attack but more details about their ordeal have emerged from local reports and from officials.


Police and army vehicles escorted the ambulances transporting the victims' bodies
At least 15 gunmen dressed in the uniform of local security forces carried out the attack. Even though it took place at base camp, this was at a height of 4,200m (13,779 ft) and the attackers would have had to travel for at least 18 hours by foot or by mule, correspondents.

I don't believe either side has a lock on the moral high ground in this "war."

How many Americans understand the difference between an Iraqi or a Persian, a Shia or a Sunni?

How many care?

China is a major ally and foreign aid donor to Pakistan. Killing their nationals will have far reaching ramifications.

because, of course, no one had ever been killed by Islamist Radicals before Op. Iraqi Freedom in 2003

We are far from immune from this unpleasantness.....the growing divide between groups here at home and the radicalization of some of those groups should be watched carefully.

I think the difficulty comes because there are certain situations where a violent, overwhelming response is the only survival option.

But i know that in the ME thousands of years of war practice has been the history

And what fundamentally is the difference in mind set between radical islam or radical christianity?

Radical Christianity almost never kills those who choose to not convert, radical Islam has a proven historical record of just the opposite.

“You must not lose faith in humanity. Humanity is like an ocean; if a few drops of the ocean are dirty, the ocean does not become dirty.”

..... Christianity almost never kills those who choose to not convert

The Inquisitions to combat "heresy" (Catholics murdering not quite good enough Catholics and Muslims) in general
American Indians could save themselves by converting to Christianity.
Salem witch trials.
Peruvian Inquisition in particular 1570 - 1820......1820!! of natives who refused to convert.
The Irish "troubles"
And many many more over the past 1000 years since Christianity took hold in Europe.

You cannot name ONE major religion that hasn't slaughtered others (men, women AND children) in the name of Religion.

John, Bruce
I doubt the Catholic Church was considered "radical" during the Crusades and the Inquisition. Nor when it was slaughtering native Americans. This was business as usual.

You cannot name ONE major religion that hasn't slaughtered others (men, women AND children) in the name of Religion.

Killing religiously or in the name of a religion has no difference in the minds of those killed.

horsesh#t

america is the greatest purveyor of violence the world has ever seen!

was true in world war 2

was doubly true when king said it,

and is 10x as bad today now that america doesnt have an actual enemy anywhere within a billion miles yet is busy tighten nooses around the necks of russia and china [ both nations we promised to help their people as soon as they overthrew their communists governments WHICH both did] in addition to bombing the middle east into pieces

while stalking africa with the same dirty tricks it formerly used in the americas WHILE arming every cut throat in central and south america via the fiction of a drug war


there hasnt been an a hot spot in 70 years where WE the AMERICANS wernt the chief investor in creating the unrest and then arming the worest offenders in the battle

My point is "intellectualizing?" Surely you jest. It's the exaxct opposite of that. I'm looking at the whole thing at the root, instinctual level, long before thought enters the picture. The intellectual reasoning begins once we start making up our mythologies about "why" we like to kill things, always in moral, religious, or defensive termjs, havikng nothing to do with the spectacular rush and addictive no-holds barred charge at the other guy.

Simply put, aggression is to violence and "self-defense" was booze is to alcoholism. You remove the aggression and the booze, you still have the problem to
deal
with, but the means suddenly change because they have to.

It's no surprise that a Drone pilot feels like it's another day at the office while killing people in Afghanistan from a booth in Florida. Lunch at 12 pm and then back at it...

cave dwellers with technology.

how about this - evangelical fundamentalism .... as applied to the whole barrel of apples.

A very small percentage of people resort to violence to solve their problems. That percentage goes up under the right pressures but still remains in the minority.

Please elaborate upon the "Pashtunwali."

Revenge and hospitality are the central principles of the Pashtunwali, which sets forth the "demands of honor." These two principles are called badal and melmastia.

Badal is the duty of a victim to settle the score with a person who has injured or insulted him. The obligation of badal extends to the injured or insulted clan as a whole; likewise, the injury may be avenged by action against the aggressor's clan, not just the aggressor. The duty to avenge an injury remains as long as a single member of the injured clan survives. This practice has given rise to blood feuds wiping out entire families and small tribes.

The second demand of the Pashtunwali is melmastia, or hospitality and protection of guests. Violence or injury to a guest is rare, because of the obligation of melmastia and also because the host would acquire the obligation of badal to avenge the attack on his guest. The protection generally extends only to the home of the host, but may encompass a wider area for a guest of the community or tribal leader. A possession of the sponsor would traditionally be worn by the guest, as a symbol of protection, or the guess might be accompanied by an escort or given a letter of safe passage, called a badragga.

Melmastia is not to be confused with a process called nanawati, in which the one who caused the injury, in order to avoid the consequences of badal, throws himself at the mercy of his victim. In nanawati, the aggressor arrives at the victims' home, bringing with him his women, unveiled and bearing the Koran, along with a sheep to be sacrificed. The victim may forgive the aggressor or not, and still retains the right of badal.

The Pashtunwali also provides for the pardoning of an offense committed by a sayyid (a descendant of the Prophet Mohammad) or a mullah, and prohibits the killing of a woman, a Hindu, a minstrel, a boy not yet circumcised, a man taking refuge in a mosque or shrine, or a man engaged in battle who begs for shelter.

cave dwellers with technology

Not only do you not care, you have virtue and honor and all kind of ritious stuff piled on top of killing. My only point is that this is entirely true, by your own admission, which renders abasurd any arguments or discussions about the subject, seeming that the outcome will always issue direcly from your conviction that "some people need a killing."

For the killing to ever stop, this conviction will have to change - we can easily see why.

In the meantime, believing as you do, there is no reason to get upset about Americans getting shot up in Pakistan because you've already said "you don't care."

So around and around we go . . .

JL

I think you can swap out Islamic Fundamentalism and religious pretexts and apply this equation to most any aggressive act. We Americans have used horrific aggression pimping "democracy" under pretext of "promoting freedom." So long it is or our choosing and meets our criteria.

JL

if muslims extremists wanted to come and get us,
it would have been over and done long ago

they would have won
period

anyone complaining they are a threat are just pussies who learned how to cry like wefare queens and now get their kicks providing the wanker backdrop to corperate owned reps sending welfare to defense contractors who life off scaring old and dump people

Perhaps Ron Anderson suffers from what historians call: "American Exceptionalism." To wit: The self-serving belief of Americans that they are different (and superior) to all other countries, nations, governments, etc.

American Exceptionalism......American Hubris.

Bluering, you need to get out of the country to see what the rest of the world thinks of this so-called humility and benevolence.

This is the best thing going. Couldn't wait to come home.

And why is the rest of the world trying to move here? Those Talibanis can't wait to get here
and get a 7-11 franchise.

yes bluering christians do this and they take pictures of it. Then they do even worse things.

Course it depends how you define christian.

I'll bet you would be hard pressed to find a KKK member who didn't consider themselves good Christians.

thats what our special forces and cia assest are in the business of!

dont you know the first thing about counter insurgency actions?

"for every gurilla there are 9 civilians providing him with food clothing and shelter... they are the enemy we engage!"


your heros are simple murders who love to kills civilians in their sleep...

they almost neverhave to fight as is their design via intel and planning


if they do, theyve screwed up

Only the dead have seen the end of war.

Some of the least aggressive people I have met were in the military.

Any of these arguments can be moronically reduced to a direct conflict with a direct threat, but what I and others am talking about is not so much immediate self-defense scenarios, but aggression as a stragedy for peace - a far more nuanced subject.

The problem is when aggression remains the go-to stradegy, you feed a closed loop. If you're fine with that, and the fall out, then you're simply one of those who will perpetuate the cycle while telling yourself there is no other way. And verily, so long as you believe tat as gospel, you will be 100% correct. You'll get no argument from me on that count.

JL

[DAWN] The massacre of 10 foreign climbers on Pakistain's "Killer Mountain" a year ago came after a failed attempt
"Curses! Foiled again!"
to capture a Chinese-American to use him as a high-value bargaining chip, officials and bully boy sources have said.

The June 22 attack at the base camp for the 8,126-metre Nanga Parbat, Pakistain's second-highest mountain — nicknamed for its treacherous terrain — was the deadliest assault on foreigners in the country for a decade.

Continued from Page 2



Through interviews with multiple officials, turbans and negotiators assigned to bring the culprits out of hiding, AFP has been able to piece together a picture of the events surrounding the slaughter and its aftermath.

One year on, with tourism in the northern Gilgit-Baltistan region still suffering, most of the 10 suspects implicated in the attack are still on the lam, while sources close to the investigation have cast doubt on the guilt of some of those incarcerated
"Maw! They're comin' to get me, Maw!"
.

The victims were identified as three Ukrainians, two Chinese — including Chinese-American Chen Honglu — two Slovakians, one Lithuanian and one Nepalese as well as a Pak guide.

But dual national Chen was the prime target, according to bully boy sources.

Mystery commanders
The story begins in early June 2013, when a local jihadist contacted other fighters to tell them two mysterious commanders had arrived from out of town and wanted to meet.

The northern Gilgit-Baltistan region, high in the Himalayas, has been relatively immune to the bully boy insurgency plaguing the country in recent years.

The men met at a house in the town of Chilas, where the two strangers, wearing all-enveloping burqas, were introduced as important Taliban cadres from Afghanistan.

The local fighters were briefed on the planned Nanga Parbat operation.

"They were told that the mission was about kidnapping a foreigner in order to later bargain for the release of an important Taliban capo," an investigator assigned to the case said.

Militant sources told AFP the Chinese-American was the specific target, with the plan being to trade him for Taliban in Afghanistan.

The men then met a local sectarian group in a forest, recruiting two more fighters — against the sectarian group leader's wishes — to bring their number to 10.

They left for the Nanga Parbat base camp in the early evening, wearing the uniforms of the Gilgit Scouts, a paramilitary police unit.

"The two burqa-clad commanders had taken off their burqas and were in military uniforms like the rest of us but their faces were covered with a cloth," a bully boy source told AFP, explaining that they were supposed to grab the target.

But as the attack unfolded in the freezing night, Chen burst out of his tent and tackled one of the turbans using martial arts techniques.

The bully boy, named Mujeeb, panicked and shot him, destroying the main purpose of the mission and infuriating the shadowy masked commanders.

The remaining climbers were then tied up and shot one by one.

"It all happened because of Mujeeb," said a local source who spoke on condition of anonymity.

"The actual plan had been to kidnap a Chinese-American but his reaction led to the killing of himself and 10 others," he said.

This account was corroborated by two officials from the team investigating the attack.

After the slaughter, the attackers walked for five hours to a remote village where they buried their uniforms and had breakfast before walking on to another village and dispersing.

High-value target
Beyond Chen's US nationality it is unclear why he became such a valued target of the group.

The 50-year-old studied electrical engineering at Tsinghua University in China, and worked for some time in Caliphornia, an impregnable bastion of the Democratic Party, before returning to Shanghai, according to the Alpinist magazine.

In a video clip recorded by negotiators who met with him, Mujeeb owned up to the killing of Chen but told them he would not surrender because he acted in "self-defence".

"What did you expect me to do, wait for him to kill me? I panicked and opened fire," Mujeeb said on the video.

More than four months went by before authorities made their first arrests in the case.

A total of 18 people were detained, of whom five are still in jug — but several bully boy sources say only one of them was involved in the attack, while the rest were forced to confess.

Mujeeb remains in hiding in the forests of the district, where from time to time he makes audio recordings of jihadist poetry that find their way to the markets of Gilgit town.

Bashir Qureshi, a member of the negotiating team, said there were many grey areas in the case.

"Nothing is clear, they have mixed up four different cases to give an impression that all the perpetrators have been arrested but the real perpetrators are still on the lam," he said.

The 50-year-old studied electrical engineering at Tsinghua University in China, and worked for some time in Caliphornia, an impregnable bastion of the Democratic Party