Indian Military

ISLAMABAD: A teenaged suicide bomber in school uniform attacked a military training centre in Pakistan's northwest on Thursday, killing 27 people, most of them soldiers, and injuring at least 40.
The attacker, said to be around 14, walked into Punjab regiment headquarters' parade ground in Mardan, 115km north-west of Islamabad, and blew himself up as army recruits were lining up for the morning parade, officials and eyewitnesses said. An attack on the same facility killed more than 30 soldiers in 2006.
"The attacker from a civilian school near the academy was wearing a suicide jacket and carrying a school bag,'' said police officer Abdullah Khan. Soldiers in bullet-proof jackets and helmets cordoned off the blast scene standing alert on jeeps mounted with machine guns to prevent access to the site.
Pakistani Taliban spokesman Azam Tariq claimed responsibility for the attack and said it was carried out to avenge American drone strikes and Pakistani military operations in the country's tribal areas.

KARACHI: About 12 hours after storming Pakistan navy's key airbase in the heart of the port city of Karachi, heavily-armed Taliban militants were still holding onto parts of the base after destroying two US-made surveillance aircraft and killing 12 military personnel.
Pakistan army's elite Special Service Group (SSG) and naval commandos backed by helicopters were hunting down a group of 15-20 militants who attacked the naval premises last night in the worst assault on a military base since the Army Headquarters was besieged in October 2009 in Rawalpindi.
Security forces were engaged in a deadly gunbattle with armed militants since last night after the militants sneaked into the PNS Mehran, the naval air station within Faisal airbase, from three residential points adjacent to the air base.
Fifteen loud explosions were heard from the base, the headquarters of Pakistan's naval air arm, following the attack and intermittent firing was reported till this morning.
The security forces also killed four militants and have captured four alive, a senior security official said.

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan's powerful army chief General Ashfaq Kayani on Sunday called a "special" meeting of his top commanders to discuss the security situation, the military said, as the war of words with the United States escalated.
The extraordinary meeting of the corps commanders came against the backdrop of sharp U.S. allegations that Pakistan army's powerful spy agency supported the Haqqani militant group Washington blames for the recent attack on its embassy and other targets in Kabul.
In a terse two-line statement, the military said the commanders would "review (the) prevailing security situation."
Kayani, who is departing for London later tonight to address the International Institute for Strategic Studies and the Royal College of Defence Studies, is chairing the meeting.
"The meeting reflects the gravity of crisis," retired general, turned security analyst, Talat Masood said.
"They will issue a statement to express solidarity (within the military) and to show that they all are on one page.

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan's military will not take action against a militant group Washington blames for an attack against its embassy in Kabul, despite mounting American pressure to do so, a Pakistani newspaper reported on Monday.
Pakistan's army chief General Ashfaq Kayani met with his top commanders on Sunday in a "special" meeting to discuss the security situation, the military said, as the war of words with the United States escalated.
That emergency meeting came against the backdrop of sharp US allegations that the Pakistani army's powerful spy agency supported the Haqqani militant group Washington blames for the recent attack on its embassy and other targets in Kabul.
The commanders agreed to resist US demands for a Pakistani army offensive in North Waziristan, where the United States believes the Haqqani network is based, the Express Tribune reported, quoting an unnamed military official.
"We have already conveyed to the US that Pakistan cannot go beyond what it has already done," the official told the newspaper on condition of anonymity.

ISLAMABAD: The Pakistani military on Monday rejected the regret expressed by the NATO chief for a cross-border air strike that killed 24 Pakistani soldiers and warned that the action could have "grave consequences".
The regret expressed by NATO over the killing of the Pakistani soldiers is "not enough", chief military spokesman Maj Gen Athar Abbas said.
"The NATO strike can have grave consequences," he said. NATO secretary general Anders Fogh Rasmussen on Sunday said he had written to Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani to express regret over the "tragic unintended incident".
In a statement, he said: "I have written... to make it clear that the deaths of Pakistani personnel are as unacceptable and deplorable as the deaths of Afghan and international personnel."
Pakistan has reacted angrily to the killing of two dozen soldiers, including two officers, in the NATO air strike in Mohmand tribal region on the border with Afghanistan.

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan government is seriously contemplating the removal of powerful army chief Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani and ISI head Lt Gen Ahmed Shuja Pasha against the backdrop of a standoff on a memo alleging an army plot to seize power, according to a media report on Monday.
The government's "extreme unhappiness" with Kayani, currently on a three-year extension, and Pasha, who received a one-year extension in service last year, is an "open secret", The News daily quoted its sources as saying.
The two generals have been held responsible for forcing Pakistan to adopt an "extremely harsh stance" towards the US after last month's NATO air strike, the report said.
They also "adopted a diabolically opposing stance to that of the government" on the alleged memo that sought US help to stave off a possible military coup in Pakistan in May.
The Memogate scandal could cause "extremely serious problems" for the ruling Pakistan People's Party and some top leaders in their individual capacity if it is properly investigated, the report said.

ISLAMABAD: Pakistan's elected government will complete its tenure as there is no threat to democracy and the army has no intention of coming to power, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani has said.

"The army neither intends to come to power nor will it come to power. The judiciary is independent and pro-democratic," he told journalists at his official residence yesterday.

There is no threat to democracy as the civilian government came to power after making numerous sacrifices and winning the 2008 election, he said.

The army is part of the civilian government and is taking part in flood relief activities at the government's request, he added.

"Despite this if some people are engaged in a debate (about a threat to the government and the army coming to power), they are wasting their time," Gilani said.

He said those who consider the army and the civilian government as two separate entities are living in a "fool's paradise".