Pakistani military kills over 60 militants after school massacre

PAKISTANI jets and ground forces have killed 67 militants in a north-western tribal region near the Afghan border, officials say, days after Taliban fighters killed 148 people most of them children in a school massacre.

Meanwhile, a Pakistani prosecutor said the government will try to cancel the bail granted to the main suspect in the 2008 Mumbai terror attacks a decision that outraged neighbouring India and called into question Pakistan’s commitment to fighting militancy.
The violence at a school in Pakistan’s northwest earlier this week stunned the country and brought cries for retribution. In the wake of the mass killing the military has struck targets in the Khyber tribal region and approved the death penalty for six convicted terrorists.

PAKISTAN MOURNS AFTER SCHOOL MASSACRE

The military said its ground forces late on Thursday killed 10 militants while jets killed another 17, including an Uzbek commander. Another 32 alleged terrorists were killed by security forces in an ambush in Tirah valley in Khyber on Friday as they headed toward the Afghan border, the military said.

Khyber agency is one of two main areas in the northwest where the military has been trying to root out militants in recent months. Khyber borders Peshawar, where the school massacre happened, and militants have traditionally attacked the city before fleeing into the tribal region where police can’t chase them.

The other area is North Waziristan, where the military launched a massive operation in June.

In the southern province of Baluchistan, Pakistani security forces killed a senior Pakistani Taliban leader along with seven of his associates in three separate pre-dawn raids, said a tribal police officer, Ali Ahmed.

Army chief Gen. Raheel Sharif late on Thursday signed death warrants of six “hard core terrorists” convicted and sentenced to death by military courts, the army said.

It was unclear when the military planned to hang the six men, but authorities generally move quickly once death warrants are signed. Such executions are usually carried out at prisons under the supervision of army officers and then the bodies are handed over to relatives for burial.

There was no information on the men or the crimes for which they were convicted.

The news comes after Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif on Wednesday announced that he would lift a moratorium on executions in terrorism-related cases. The government has not yet carried out any executions.

The lifting of the moratorium was aimed at demonstrating the government’s resolve. But the decision by an anti-terrorism court Thursday to grant bail to the main suspect in the Mumbai attack, Zaki-ur-Rahman Lakhvi, called into question that commitment.

Lakhvi is one of seven people on trial in Pakistan for the assault, but the trial has produced no results so far. It has been closed to the media.

India reacted with outrage to news of Lakhvi’s pending release.

Special public prosecutor Abu Zar Peerzada said he would appeal to the High Court to cancel the bail and said Lakhvi had not yet been released.

Source: http://www.news.com.au/

U.S. complains that Afghanistan releasing dangerous prisoners

KABUL, Afghanistan – The U.S. military on Tuesday slammed Afghanistan for continuing to order the release of prisoners who the United States believes are dangerous, but who Afghan officials say cannot be prosecuted because authorities lack evidence.
The dispute over the prisoners at the Afghan National Detention Facility at Parwan, north of Kabul, is the latest spat between the United States and Afghanistan as the U.S.-led military coalition tries to wind down its presence here by the end of the year.
The United States has contended that of 650 prisoners still in custody at Parwan, 88 are a threat to security and should not be released. From that group, Afghanistan has decided to release 65 despite “extensive information and evidence” against them, the U.S. military said Tuesday.
“The release of these detainees is a major step backward for the rule of law in Afghanistan,” the U.S. military said in a statement. “Some previously released individuals have already returned to the fight, and this subsequent release will allow dangerous insurgents back into Afghan cities and villages.”
Afghan officials issued a sharp rebuttal, saying the attorney general’s office and the National Directorate of Security Afghanistan’s CIA had reviewed the U.S. information and found insufficient evidence to continue to hold the prisoners.
“According to Afghan laws there is no information gathered about these detainees to prove them guilty, so they were ordered released,” Abdul Shakoor Dadras, head of the Afghan government committee responsible for the prisoner issue, said in an interview Tuesday night.
The dispute comes as Afghan President Hamid Karzai continues to delay signing a security agreement that could provide for several thousand U.S. troops to remain in Afghanistan beyond 2014 to conduct counter-terrorism and training operations. Karzai helped negotiate the terms of the deal, which were endorsed by an assembly of elders he also handpicked, but the Afghan leader has shown signs that he will not formally approve the agreement before the April 5 election to choose his successor.
The U.S. director of national intelligence, James Clapper, told a Senate panel  Tuesday that he doesn’t think Karzai will sign the deal, the first such statement from a senior Obama administration official. The administration has not set a deadline for Karzai but has warned that all U.S. troops would depart Afghanistan if a deal isn’t signed quickly.
The prisoner dispute has escalated over the last year since the U.S. military handed control over the detention center at Parwan to Afghan authorities.
Last month, the United States protested Afghanistan’s decision to release some of the 88 detainees, citing evidence that 30% of them had wounded or killed 60 international soldiers and that more had been responsible for Afghan civilian casualties.
The U.S. accused Dadras and his Afghan Review Board of “releasing back to society dangerous insurgents who have Afghan blood on their hands.”
Dadras rejected the claims, saying the United States “must trust and respect the Afghan legal system.”
“We are not releasing those detainees who are disrupting the internal security of Afghanistan,” he said. “The ones who are creating problems for the people of Afghanistan have never been and will never be released.”
He said the 65 prisoners could be released within days and added that the remaining cases would be decided upon soon.
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