Serious stuff! - Taliban forces Overrun Pakistani Military HQ - Nuke Security Compromised!

This story is not getting wide attention yet but is a very serious development. The two most notable points are that they took hostages with possible links to the nuclear security systems and they are attempting to take control of a large region where the weapons are stored. This is a serious attempt and likely timed with events in Afghanistan and Iraq in mind.

From Debka;

[link to debka.com]

Taliban gunmen invade Pakistan's military HQ, push towards its nuclear arsenal

DEBKAfile Special Report

October 10, 2009, 3:00 PM (GMT+02:00)

Defending Pakistani army HQ against Taliban

Two Pakistani officers were taken hostage and a lieutenant general was among the eight soldiers killed in a gunfight with presumed Taliban gunmen following their audacious invasion of the Pakistan's army headquarters in capital Saturday, Oct. 10. The hostages were not named. DEBKAfile reports that lodged in the HQ compound is the secret department in charge of securing Pakistan's nuclear weapons.

As gunmen dressed as soldiers burst into the army HQ in Islamabad, Pakistani paramilitary forces battled a second group of insurgents to recover control of a road tunnel which connects the towns of Darra Adam Khel and Kohat in the North West Frontier Province.

On May 15, DEBKA-Net-Weekly exclusively named Kohat and the Wah Cantonment Pakistani Ordnance Complex in the city of Kamra, both in the NWFP, as keys to Pakistan's nuclear and missile arsenals.

Our military sources stressed at the time that Kohat's fall to the Taliban would cut off Islamabad and the Pakistani high command from Kamra and its nuclear arsenal. This appeared to be the object of the Taliban push on the tunnel-road coupled with the assault on military headquarters.

In a rare news conference, Khalid Kidwai, chief of Pakistan's strategic planning division which controls its nuclear program, rejected international fears that Pakistan's weapons could fall into the wrong hands and warned against any foreign intervention over the issue. "'The state of alertness has gone up," he admitted without going into details, but stressed: "There is no conceivable scenario, political or violent, in which Pakistan will fall to the extremists of the al Qaeda or Taliban types."

He spoke the day after the chief of Pakistan's army, General Ashfaq Kiyani, dismissed as "unrealistic" fears that al Qaeda could seize the country's nuclear weapons.

The assault at Pakistani army headquarters was far from over Saturday afternoon: Two officers were still in the hands of at least two assailants who survived the almost-one hour battle which left four gunmen and eight soldiers dead, including a lieutenant general.

DEBKAfile reported earlier: The attacks occurred at a defining moment in Washington for the Afghan/Pakistan conflict. President Barack Obama is completing a military review of US military strategy in the two arenas with his top advisers and military commanders. The conference is tilting toward shifting the US military focus away from the Taliban to al Qaeda, despite three factors now illustrated in blood Saturday:

1. Just as Taliban and al Qaeda are inseparable, so too are the Afghan and Pakistan warfronts.

2. Those two organizations hold the initiative, not the American army. They are capable of answering the White House's decisions on strategy in unexpected places and ways.

3. Pakistan, America's chosen senior ally in the war against Taliban and al Qaeda, is a broken reed in military terms and too vulnerable to lean on.

Saturday, Pakistan's president, Ali Zardari, saw those adversaries striking inside the headquarters of his armed forces in the capital, demonstrating their ability to reach into any part of his government, including the presidential palace, and topple his regime. This is exactly the same tactic the two partners in terror are pursuing in Kabul. Insurgents or al Qaeda were also admitted to be within range of key locations for Pakistan's nuclear and missile arsenals.

For some weeks, the Pakistani army has been concentrating a large force of more than 100,000 men for a big offensive against Taliban and al Qaeda strongholds in the lawless tribal territories of Waziristan bordering on Afghanistan. The attack on its headquarters in Islamabad carried a message: If this offensive goes forward, Pakistan's major cities will pay the price.

On Oct. 8, a car bombing later claimed by Taliban killed 49 people in the Khyber Bazaar of Peshawar. Monday, five people died in the bombing of a United Nations aid agency in Islamabad.

Zardari's army chiefs are flatly opposed to the understanding he is developing with the Obama administration for $1.5 billion in US aid in return for launching a major Pakistani military offensive against Taliban and al Qaeda. They accuse the US of interfering in relations between civil government and the military.

The attack on the army's headquarters Saturday would have been taken as a gesture of support for the opponents of a US-Pakistan alliance. It was also a warning that Pakistan's nuclear arsenal may not be entirely safe from terrorist control.