Taliban gunmen stormed a military-run school in the northwestern Pakistani city of Peshawar on Tuesday, killing at least 126 people, including scores of children, officials said, in the worst attack to hit the country in over a year.
The information minister for the province, Mushtaq Ghani, said most of the dead in Tuesday’s attack were students, children and teenagers, from the public school.
Officials told AFP the overall death toll stands at 130.
The horrific violence, carried out by a relatively small number of militants from the Tehreek-e-Taliban group, a Pakistani militant group trying to overthrow the government, also sent dozens of wounded flooding into local hospitals as terrified parents searched for their children.
The attack began in the morning hours, with about half a dozen gunmen entering the school — and shooting at random, said police officer Javed Khan. Army commandos quickly arrived at the scene and exchanged fire with the gunmen, he said. Students wearing their green school uniforms could be seen on Pakistani television fleeing the area.
Khattack said fighting was still underway in some parts of the school and that roughly the same number of students have been wounded. He said the 84 killed were all “children” but hospital officials earlier said at least one of the fatalities was a teacher and that one security official was also among the dead.
It wasn’t clear how many students and staff were still inside the facility. A student who escaped and a police official on the scene earlier said at one point about two hundred students were being held hostage. Both declined to be identified because they were not authorized to speak about the situation.
The school is located on the edge of a military cantonment in Peshawar, but the bulk of the students are civilian.
There was conflicting information about how many attackers carried out the violence, but it was a relatively small number.
The Pakistani military launched a widespread military operation in the North Waziristan tribal area in June, vowing that it would go after all militant groups that had been operating in the area. With the launch of the operation, security officials and civilians feared a backlash by militants targeted by the military but until Tuesday a widespread backlash had failed to materialize.
Tuesday’s attack calls into question whether the militants have been crippled by the military or will be able to regroup.
[Key phrase below: "...the supply from Israel would reduce Europe's current dependence on natural gas from Russia]
Israel is pushing for the European Union (EU) to approve the construction of a pipeline running from the Middle Eastern country to supply Cyprus, Greece and Italy with natural gas. The proposed EastMed pipeline will carry gas from the Tamar and Leviathan gas fields located in the Mediterranean Sea, to Southern Europe.
Israel has proposed that EU countries invest in a multi-billion euro pipeline to carry its natural gas to the continent, noting that the supply from Israel would reduce Europe’s current dependence on natural gas from Russia… The project would require a multi-billion euro investment from Europe to build a pipeline from Israel’s Mediterranean cost to Cyprus, from where the gas would be carried on to Greece and Italy
The West is lacking options with regards to reducing dependence on Russian gas in the foreseeable future and is desperately (and unsuccessfully) trying to find alternatives.
As relations become increasingly frosty between the belligerent EU and Russia, many in the Washington now seek to split Moscow from Brussels, in attempt to isolate Russia. This strategy will only serve to drive Russia closer to Asia however, and strengthen the BRICS (Brazil, Russia, India, China and South Africa) alliance. Vladimir Putin recently announced the death of the South Stream pipeline due to pressure from Washington and EU Commission bureaucrats on the Bulgarian government, at the same time energy deals were struck with Turkey and India
The once rather ordered world we knew even a decade ago is becoming more and more dis-ordered. That’s not to say it’s chaotic because chaos is merely the emergence of new patterns we do not yet understand. This is dis-order. And it is being fostered by ridiculous power-addicted people in the West who are flailing around to try to hold on to their eroding power over our world and over us. I say ridiculous because we need only look at the initiatives they have launched in recent months to advance their power agenda
Now the same ridiculous American Oligarchs hovering around such loveless characters as David Rockefeller, have come to the brilliant strategy of unleashing their “super-weapon” against Putin’s Russia—full-scale oil price war. Backed by The US Treasury’s neo-con David S. Cohen, whose title is aptly named as Under Secretary for Terrorism and Financial Intelligence, the John Kerry State Department in September came up with the bright idea to rerun the 1986 State Department-Saudi operation to collapse Russia by getting the Saudis to collapse oil prices.
The execution of the oil collapse has so far been technically flawless. Oil prices on average have plummeted almost 30% since September. The only problem is that the power-addicted Oligarchs and their ridiculous neo-con hired thinkers overlooked the fact that, in the process, they would bankrupt their very vulnerable shale oil bonanza
The Russians are apparently not as alarmed as they were in 1986, the previous time Washington and the Saudis ran such a price collapse operation. Lukoil part-owner Leonid Fedun told the press recently, “The shale boom is on a par with the dot-com boom. The strong players will remain, the weak ones will vanish.” According to a report on RT, Russian Economic Development Minister Aleksey Ulyukaev told a meeting of cabinet ministers after the OPEC decision that the government had cut its oil price estimate for its 2015 Budget from $100 to $80 a barrel. ö Low oil prices will not ruin the economy the Russian Economic Development Minister Aleksey Ulyukaev has said, adding that the oil price estimate for the 2015 budget has been slashed to $80 a barrel from $100 a barrel. “We aren’t going to collapse,” he said.
So much for the Oligarchs’ ridiculous plans to make USA into the New Saudi Arabia and bankrupt Russia in the process
Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov on Monday branded new sanctions approved by the US Congress against Russia as hostile.
"This move by the United States is of course hostile," he told Interfax news agency in an interview. "The President (Barack Obama) now has a choice whether or not to sign this law."
The US Congress on Saturday unanimously approved the Ukraine Freedom Support Act in both houses, which includes fresh sanctions against Moscow over its support of the pro-Russian insurgency in eastern Ukraine.
The measures, which are up to Obama to approve or veto, hit Russia's defense and energy sectors with conditional sanctions against firms that sell or transfer military equipment to the territory of Ukraine (as well as Georgia, Moldova, and Syria), with the goal of stopping the flow of weapons to separatists across the border.
Moscow's response to the sanctions will depend on whether they go into force and their "practical application", Lavrov said.
The US Congress on Saturday unanimously approved the Ukraine Freedom Support Act in both houses, which includes fresh sanctions against Moscow over its support of the pro-Russian insurgency in eastern Ukraine.
The measures, which are up to Obama to approve or veto, hit Russia's defense and energy sectors with conditional sanctions against firms that sell or transfer military equipment to the territory of Ukraine (as well as Georgia, Moldova, and Syria), with the goal of stopping the flow of weapons to separatists across the border.
Moscow's response to the sanctions will depend on whether they go into force and their "practical application", Lavrov said.
Lavrov also said that Moscow has the right to deploy nuclear weapons in Crimea after it became Russian territory in a disputed March referendum.
"The Russian state has every right to use its legitimate nuclear arsenal accordingly with its interests and its international responsibilities," he said. "Crimea became part of a state that...has such weapons."
NATO last month expressed concern that Russia was moving nuclear-capable weapons to the Black Sea peninsula.
"The Russian state has every right to use its legitimate nuclear arsenal accordingly with its interests and its international responsibilities," he said. "Crimea became part of a state that...has such weapons."
NATO last month expressed concern that Russia was moving nuclear-capable weapons to the Black Sea peninsula.
The Obama administration is shamelessly outsourcing the United States’ historic leadership in facilitating negotiations between the Palestinians and Israel of a workable, secure two-state solution to the United Nations and European governments. In putting its trust in these two centers of anti-Israel sentiment, the Obama administration refuses to say categorically that it would veto a UN Security Council resolution setting some sort of deadline for the creation of a Palestinian state and Israeli withdrawal to the pre-June 1967 lines.
Any Security Council resolution the Obama administration would agree to, which imposes pressure only on Israel to make more unilateral concessions for an illusionary “peace,” will serve to legitimize a United Nations timetable for Israel’s surrender to forces that wish to destroy it. The Gaza debacle following Israel’s decision to unilaterally withdraw from Gaza in 2005 and give the Palestinians a chance to build a prototype Palestinian state illustrates the danger Israel would face from being pressured into more withdrawals at this time.
The Palestinian Authority leadership is pressing for action on just such a Security Council resolution as early as this Wednesday, according to a Palestine Liberation Organization official and Palestinian UN Ambassador Riyad Mansour. The Palestinian resolution, to be sponsored by Jordan (a non-permanent member of the Security Council), would reportedly set a two year deadline for complete Israeli withdrawal from all “occupied” territories, although Jordan’s UN ambassador told reporters it was news to her that any action to vote on the resolution would be taken as soon as the Palestinians are demanding. There is some speculation amongst UN insiders that a vote on a Palestinian resolution could be put off until early in the new year. The Security Council makeup will then be even more inclined towards the Palestinian position, because Malaysia will be replacing South Korea as a non-permanent member of the Security Council.
The Palestinians are finding a very receptive audience in Europe for their use of the United Nations to sidestep direct negotiations with Israel. As the tide of anti-Semitism is rising to the surface and spreading once again throughout Europe, a number of European countries’ parliaments have adopted non-binding resolutions calling upon their respective governments to recognize a Palestinian state.
The idea reportedly would be to set out an expectation for a final peace agreement to achieve a two-state solution within two years. During the two year interval, the United Nations might accord full UN membership rights to an officially recognized Palestinian state.
The Obama administration, which would like nothing better than to see its nemesis Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu defeated in the upcoming March 2015 Israeli elections, is calibrating a position that appears intended to send a pointed message to the Israeli electorate. This message is not to count on the administration standing steadfastly with Israel on sensitive security concerns if Prime Minister Netanyahu is re-elected. The Obama administration is willing to consider a “compromise” Security Council resolution to pressure Israel into resuming negotiations against a backdrop of a framework withdrawal timetable, so that the administration can say it did all it could to avoid an immediate two year deadline and thereby not have to use its veto power to “protect” Israel.
No matter what kind of “common path” Secretary of State Kerry thinks he can achieve with the Palestinians and their Arab and European supporters on a Security Council timetable resolution, Israel must reject the path of forced withdrawal that could lead to its own destruction. As Prime Minister Netanyahu said during the regular Israeli cabinet meeting on Sunday, a UN Security Council-imposed deadline for Israeli withdrawal to the pre-June 1967 lines would bring “Islamic extremists to the suburbs of Tel Aviv and to the heart of Jerusalem. We will not allow this. We will rebuff this forcefully and responsibly. Let there be no doubt, this will be rejected.”
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