Is Pakistan about to explode?

Islamic militants seize Pakistani town
Nov 6, 8:06 AM (ET)

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AP) - Hundreds of Islamic militants seized a town in northwest Pakistan on Tuesday after outnumbered security forces laid down their arms, militants and police said.

About two dozen police officers and several troops offered no resistance to militants who seized three police stations and a military post in and around Matta, a town in the Swat valley.

"We didn't harm the police and soldiers and allowed them to go to their homes as they didn't fight our mujahideen," said Sirajuddin, a spokesman for Maulana Fazlullah, a firebrand cleric whose armed followers are battling security forces.

He said the militants had hoisted their black and white flags over the captured posts.

Once a popular tourist destination because of its mountain scenery, Swat is also an example of how Islamic militants are trying to extend their control of areas near the Afghan border.

A Swat police official confirmed that militants had seized Matta without a fight. He said authorities had sent helicopter gunships to target militant positions in the area.

The official, who sought anonymity because of the sensitive nature of his job, had no information on any fresh casualties.

Sirajuddin, who goes by one name, acknowledged that militant positions were under attack.

"This ruthless firing from helicopters is likely to kill civilians," he told an Associated Press reporter by telephone.

Authorities sent extra troops and police into Swat last month in a bid to curb Fazlullah's activities, but have yet to regain control. The government has cited the fighting to justify President Gen. Pervez Musharraf's declaration on Saturday of a state of emergency.

Meanwhile, security forces and riot police were deployed in full force at the airport in Islamabad on Tuesday ahead of the arrival of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto, who came to the capital from Karachi to meet with other political parties.

Hundreds of supporters and journalists waited outside the main gate, rung by troops, as she touched down.

Pakistan's deposed chief justice called on lawyers nationwide to defy baton-wielding police and protest President Gen. Pervez Musharraf's imposition of emergency rule.

"Go to every corner of Pakistan and give the message that this is the time to sacrifice," Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry, who is under virtual house arrest in Islamabad, told lawyers by mobile phone Tuesday. "The day will come when you'll see the constitution supreme and no dictatorship for a long time."

Musharraf, who took power in a 1999 coup, said over the weekend he was declaring a state of emergency to respond to a growing Islamic militant threat. He suspended the constitution, put a stranglehold on the media and granted sweeping powers to authorities to crush dissent. Thousands of people have been rounded up and thrown in jail.

...Meanwhile a suicide bomber kills 100 in Afghanistan.

Crazy Islamofacists!!! These idiot terrorists are vile coldhearted creatures who ought to be shot to death repeatedly!!! (Sorry, but I'm angry right now. 5 US soldiers were killed by IEDs on Monday.) These crazy little pricks do not care for human life- they have no dignity, no honor! All they have is hate and innocent blood on their hands! Of course, everyone will blame George W. Bush again, as if it was he who detonated the bombs that killed a hundred Afghanis, or the IED explosives that claimed the young lives of five US soldiers. No one will blame al-Qaeda or the Taliban- they'll be forgotten in the midst of all this Bush hate-mongering.
I hate all Islamic terrorists and all those who support them. I really do.