Word: majors
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...during Musharraf's rule, analysts say, that militants from southern Punjab who were once favored as proxies by the army turned on their masters. Some of the weekend attackers, said Major General Abbas, belonged to "splinter groups" from Jaish-e-Mohammad (JeM) - another banned terrorist organization that emerged in 2000 as an anti-Indian insurgent group staging attacks across Kashmir's line of control. When that front simmered down, and U.S. troops arrived in Afghanistan, they discovered a new cause. "There was pressure on the group from inside," says Amir Rana, an expert on Pakistani militancy. "They thought that this...
...itself under attack on multiple fronts. A day after an élite unit of army commandos secured the release of 39 hostages, bringing to an end a 22-hour siege of its military headquarters that left 25 people dead over the weekend, the Taliban struck again. In the fourth major attack in eight days, a suicide bomber killed 41 people in a marketplace near Swat on Monday, underscoring the militants' enduring ability to strike across the country...
...attackers had at some point been trained in South Waziristan, a tribal area along the Afghan border that has long been a training ground for insurgents, Major General Athar Abbas told reporters at military headquarters in Rawalpindi on Monday. A telephone intercept, "which was recorded between Taliban commander Wali-ur-Rehman talking with some other terrorist, revealed that this attack was planned in South Waziristan," he added. "Wali-ur-Rehman was asking for him to pray for the fedayeen attack...
...terrorists were "well-equipped with automatic weapons, IEDs, mines, grenades and suicide jackets," said Major General Abbas. After a 45-minute firefight at a checkpoint, Aqeel and his six surviving colleagues took 45 hostages, including several civilians. Taking sanctuary in a security office near the main gate, Aqeel issued a lengthy list of demands. The hostages would only be safe, he threatened, when some 100 terrorists currently in Pakistani custody were released. Other demands included an end to "American bases" inside Pakistan and that former military ruler and President, General Pervez Musharraf, be placed on trial. (See pictures...
...Major General Abbas was at pains to insist that JeM itself - which was implicated in the 2001 attack on the Indian parliament and the murder of U.S. journalist Daniel Pearl - was not directly involved. But other observers are not convinced, and say that its fugitive leader, Masood Azhar, is believed to be somewhere in Waziristan. Nor is it clear if the Pakistan army has severed its links entirely with the outlawed terrorist group, as its presence in and around the southern Punjabi city of Bahawalpur grows undisturbed. A heavy concentration of madrasahs in the area has become a breeding ground...