(CNN) — Democrat Joe Biden suggested Tuesday that presidential rival Hillary Clinton doesn’t adequately understand recent events in Pakistan.

The Delaware senator was responding to news that Clinton suggested in two recent interviews that Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf is up for reelection this month.

Musharraf was actually reelected in October, and the upcoming Pakistani elections are parliamentary, not presidential.

“We have a number of candidates who are well-intentioned but don’t understand Pakistan,” Biden said at a campaign event Tuesday. “One of the leading candidates — God love her.”

“There are good people running,” continued the chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, who has made his foreign policy credentials a centerpiece of his long shot presidential bid. “But to say Musharraf is up for election! Musharraf was elected — fairly or unfairly — president six months ago. It’s about a parliamentary election!”

Clinton’s comments came in an interview with ABC Sunday, in which she said, “[Musharraf] could be the only person on the ballot. I don’t think that’s a real election.”

The New York senator also made similar comments during an interview with CNN’s Wolf Blitzer last week, saying then, “”If President Musharraf wishes to stand for election, then he should abide by the same rules that every other candidate will have to follow.”

Source: politicalticker.blogs.cnn.com

The smartewst woman in the world had no comment.

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John E. Carey and Muhammed Khurshid provide invaluable insight into the tribal areas, and the general unrest in Pakistan.

The insurgents are an uncompromising lot. Besides a loose commitment to the enforcement of Sharia, they have no precise goals, and often it appears they are waging war on Pakistan’s state apparatus because there is no other way in which they can make themselves felt. They are well armed, the mountainous terrain and the porous border with Afghanistan help them, their supply lines are intact, and that is the reason why they have shown extraordinary resilience and tenacity.

In a nutshell, their ability to fight on is independent of the government’s constitutional nostrums. On the other hand, the military-led government will now be hard put to show results and convince the world and the Pakistani people that the enforcement of emergency had paid dividends and helped it make gains against the militants. This appears doubtful.

By coming down hard on the liberal elements in society, the military has denied itself a source of strength in the war on the religious extremists. The round-up of politicians, leading lawyers and human rights activists will cast the regime in a negative image, and the world would not be wrong in coming to the conclusion that the generals had used the war on terror as a ploy to strengthen their stranglehold over the country. Because of the gravity of the situation we demand that the emergency be lifted at the earliest, the government should give a deadline within which the purposes for which the emergency was proclaimed will be achieved, that notwithstanding the curbs on the media, political activity will not be curtailed, and the general election will be held as originally planned — in January next.

Only a government deriving a popular mandate can pull Pakistan out of the bog and maintain its unity and integrity.

Read more at Peace and Freedom II

from Myway news

The suicide attack that killed up to 136 people and shattered former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto’s joyous return from exile bore the hallmarks of a warlord tied to al-Qaida and the Taliban, authorities said Friday. Forensic experts studied a severed head to determine the bomber’s identity.

Baitullah Mehsud - a top militant leader on the unstable Afghan border - threatened this month to meet Bhutto’s return to Pakistan with suicide attacks, according to local media reports.

The top security official in the province where the attack took place suggested that Bhutto’s camp had not seriously considered the need for security for her return after eight years in exile.

“They got carried away by political exigencies instead of taking our concern seriously,” said the official, Ghulam Muhammad Mohtarem.

Bhutto’s procession had been creeping toward the center of Karachi for 10 hours with supporters thronging her armored truck when a small explosion erupted near the front of the vehicle. That was quickly followed by a larger blast, destroying two police vans escorting the procession. Interior Minister Aftab Khan Sherpao said the vehicles on the left side of Bhutto’s truck had borne the brunt of the blast, one of the deadliest in Pakistan’s history.

There was no immediate claim of responsibility.

From Ummah News:

PESHAWAR — A suicide bomber disguised in a woman’s burqa blew himself up at a busy police checkpost in northwest Pakistan Monday, killing at least 16 people including four policemen, officials said.

The blast happened on the outskirts of Bannu, a key garrison town near Pakistan’s troubled tribal areas bordering Afghanistan, where the army is battling Al-Qaeda and Taliban militants.

It was the latest in a string of deadly attacks in Pakistan since government troops stormed the Al-Qaeda-linked Red Mosque in Islamabad in July, and comes days before President Pervez Musharraf seeks re-election.

“A man disguised in a burqa got out of an autorickshaw when police stopped the vehicle for a search at a checkpoint. He then blew himself up,” police officer Asar Islam told AFP.

Examination of remains “confirmed that it was a male suicide bomber” wearing women’s clothing, while initial reports of a possible female attacker had been discounted, Bannu police chief Ameer Hamza Mahsud said.

A doctor at the local hospital, Mohammad Usman, also confirmed that the attacker was a man.