General Kayani, clad in a G-Suit, is helped into the co-pilot seat of an F-16
by Air Chief Marshal Rao Qamar Suleman for an aerial view of the ground
situation in the area of operation.

ISLAMABAD: Chief of the Army Staff General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani and Chief of the Air Staff Air Chief Marshal Rao Qamar Suleman have reiterated their resolve to defeat terrorists who were challenging the writ of the state.

General Kayani and Air Chief Marshal Suleman, who visited the PAF operational base on Monday along with senior officers of both the forces, expressed complete solidarity in successfully meeting the challenges.
Addressing airmen on the occasion, General Kayani said that the Operation Rah-i-Raast was launched after efforts to resolve the matter by peaceful means had failed. ‘We want to see a peaceful Swat once again,’ he remarked.
He said that the present situation was different from a war situation in which the enemy was well-known. In the current situation it is difficult to pinpoint the enemy.
He paid tribute to the men and officers who laid their lives for the cause of the country and also to people who had to leave their homes. He said around 126 men and officers had embraced Shahadat and another 50 were wounded. He said that the Pakistan Air Force and Pakistan Army were working in unison and taking part in the operation shoulder-to-shoulder.
Air Chief Marshal Suleman also said that the PAF and army were carrying out joint operations to eradicate the menace of terrorism. He said the morale of the forces was very high and they were determined to curb the nefarious designs of the elements who had challenged the writ of the state. He said a small group was terrorising the majority and forcing it to follow its dictates. The ground forces, he said, would always found the PAF on the forefront.
Expressing satisfaction over the progress of the operation, he said that security forces had made good progress. He said a number of hideouts, ammunition dumps and training camps of terrorists had been targeted and destroyed with pinpoint accuracy and precision.
General Kayani announced that all officers and men at the Operational Base would get double salary, like the ground forces taking part in the Operation Rah-i-Raast from July 1, as announced by the government.

Later, General Kayani clad in a PAF G-Suit, co-piloted an F-16 aircraft for an aerial view of the ground situation in the area of operation.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu delivers a keynote speech
in which he laid out his peace policy at Bar-Ilan University in Ramat Gan,
near Tel Aviv...

RAMAT GAN: Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu on Sunday endorsed for the first time the creation of a Palestinian state, provided it was demilitarised, after weeks of pressure from Washington.

The White House called his speech ‘an important step forward.’ But Netanyahu also said the Palestinians must recognise the Jewish character of Israel, a condition Palestinian president Mahmud Abbas has long rejected. He also ruled out a halt to all Jewish settlement activity as demanded by the United States.
‘If the Palestinians recognise Israel as the state of the Jewish people, then we arrive at a solution based on a demilitarised Palestinian state alongside Israel,’ Netanyahu said.
‘The Palestinian territory will be without arms, will not control airspace, will not be able to have arms enter, without the possibility of striking alliances with Iran or (the Lebanese Shia militia) Hezbollah.’

Netanyahu also ruled out a complete stop to settlement activity in the occupied West Bank —which the Palestinians have said is a condition for relaunching talks —and said Palestinian refugees would not be resettled inside Israel's borders.
The Palestinians recognised Israel as a state in 1993 as part of the Oslo accords but have refused to recognise it as ‘Jewish’ because doing so would effectively mean giving up the right of return for Palestinian refugees, a key Palestinian demand since Israel was created in 1948.
The Palestinians quickly slammed Netanyahu's speech, which Abbas spokesman Nabil Abu Rudeina said ‘torpedoes all peace initiatives in the region.’ ‘It hobbles all efforts to save the peace process, in a clear defiance of the US administration,’ he told AFP.
Hamas movement ruling the Gaza Strip condemned it as reflecting a ‘racist, extremist’ ideology that denied Palestinian rights.
The speech was billed as a response to Obama's address to the Muslim world 10 days ago in which he reiterated Washington's ‘unbreakable’ bond with Israel but also called the Palestinian situation ‘intolerable.’
White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said in a statement Obama ‘welcomes the important step forward in Prime Minister Netanyahu's speech.’ The US statement reiterated Obama's commitment to a two-state solution, with a Jewish state of Israel and an independent Palestine ‘in the historic homeland of both peoples.’
Obama ‘believes this solution can and must ensure both Israel's security and the fulfillment of the Palestinians' legitimate aspirations for a viable state, and he welcomes Prime Minister Netanyahu's endorsement of that goal,’ it said.

In recent weeks Washington had increased pressure on Israel's new government to endorse the idea of a Palestinian state and halt all settlement activity.
The Obama administration's position raised fears in Israel that its main ally may ease its support as it tries to improve relations with the Muslim world. The US stance put Netanyahu in a difficult position, as his heavily right-wing 10-week-old government could collapse if he gives in to too many of Washington's demands.

‘It was a brilliant speech but it had one miserable phrase that laid the cornerstone for the creation of a state of Palestine,’ Likud MP Danny Danon said following the premier's address.
‘I will do everything in my power in parliament to prevent this from happening.’ The main settlers' organisation in a statement condemned the speech.
‘We deplore that the prime minister has agreed to the creation of a demilitarised Palestinian state after he has said for years that such a state, even demilitarised, would be a threat to Israel,’ the Yesha Council said.
But Daniel Ben Simon, an MP from the centre-left Labour party, part of Netanyahu's coalition, called it a ‘revolutionary speech’ and said Israel's centrist parties should encourage the hawkish prime minister.

He added that such support could ‘lead to a miracle of a peace agreement with the Palestinians under a centre-right government, something at which left-wing governments never succeeded.’
A western diplomat speaking on condition of anonymity said the speech ‘is certainly encouraging and gives us a lot of work with.’

‘I think everyone understands Israel's concerns and the demand for a demilitarised (Palestinian) state has always been part of the agenda.’ Washington provides Israel with 2.4 billion dollars of annual military aid as well as diplomatic support, making the United States its most important ally.

Israel and the Palestinians relaunched their negotiations at a US conference in November 2007, but the talks made little progress and were suspended during Israel's blistering war on Gaza in December and January.

Netanyahu on Sunday also responded to the elections in Iran, saying the ‘biggest threat to Israel, the Middle East and the entire world is the crossing of a nuclear weapon with radical Islam.’

ISLAMABAD, June 15 (Reuters) - Pakistan's military has begun an all-out assault on the stronghold of al Qaeda ally and Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud in the South Waziristan border region near the Afghan border.
Following are some details about Mehsud.

-- In late 2007, Mehsud proclaimed himself leader of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), or the Movement of Taliban of Pakistan, grouping around 13 factions across the country's northwest. Pakistani Taliban leaders have sworn allegiance to Afghan Taliban leader Mullah Mohammad Omar.

-- Mehsud's ascendancy came after then president and army chief Pervez Musharraf provoked a wave of militant violence by ordering troops to crush an Islamist uprising in Islamabad's Red Mosque in July 2007. Mehsud has been blamed for organising many of the suicide bomb attacks in Pakistan since then.

-- Musharraf's government and the Central Intelligence Agency both made Mehsud the number one suspect in the gun and suicide bomb attack that killed Benazir Bhutto in December 2007. Mehsud denied it, and many Pakistanis, including members of Bhutto's party, harbour other conspiracy theories about who was behind the former prime minister's assassination.

-- Mehsud was born in 1974 in Bannu, a district in North West Frontier Province that lies at the gateway to Waziristan. His ancestral village of Shaga is in South Waziristan, the poorest of seven Federally Administered Tribal Areas from the ethnic Pashtun belt straddling the border with Afghanistan.

-- In a region known for the recalcitrance of its tribes, Mehsud belongs to the Bromikhel, one of the most backward sub-clan's of the fiercely independent Mehsuds.

-- He was educated to the age of 12 in a madrasa or religious school, and is barely literate. Before becoming a full-time guerrilla leader he was a truck driver.

-- His father was a minor cleric. Clerics occupied a low rung of tribal society until the upheaval of the 1980s, when American and Saudi money and arms poured into the region to fuel the jihad, or holy war, against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. The turmoil of those times upset old hierarchies, and clerics became more wealthy and more influential. -- After an earlier offensive the military signed the "Sararogha" peace deal with various militant leaders in South Waziristan, including Mehsud. Some critics say the authorities effectively bought off the militants by paying "compensation" for the offensive in the tribal lands.

-- Journalists who have met Mehsud describe him as physically unimposing, round-faced beneath the mandatory beard, and he favours a traditional Sindhi cap more often than the turban common in the region. He also suffers from diabetes. He has two brothers among his followers.

(Writing by Simon Cameron-Moore, Editing by Dean Yates)

Updated at: 1344 PST,
Monday, June 15, 2009

ISLAMABAD: The Chief of Army Staff (COAS) General Ashfaq Pervez Kayani said we do not need foreign advice about the ongoing operation ‘Rah-e-Rast’ which is launched to bring the astray people on the right track (Rah-e-Rast).Talking to media, army chief said no one could understand our country better than us and the best possible result could be evolve in the present situation for long term betterment. There is a difference between conventional war and present war. In the ongoing war, it is difficult to distinguish friends and enemies. General Kayani said this is not the war of Islam and Baitullah Mahsud and Fazllulah are not religious scholars. Pakistan was created in the name of Islam, its base is Islam and it would remain exist. Our sacrifices could be successful if Malakand affectees return back to their homes.Air Chief Rao Qamar Suleman at this occasion said enemies are targeting our children, elders and scholars. The extremists are trying to impose their philosophy on the country. Pakistan Air Force’s performance is exemplary in war against extremism.