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Old 09-02-2006, 07:38 AM   #1 (permalink)
Hari_Om
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'We must do something about Pakistan'

Perhaps the best way for Canada to “ push Islamabad more vigorously for co-operation “ is by threatening to send Celine Dion to perform in Pakistan.

Judging by what some Canadian’s here are saying, that might be a rather effective tool in deterring any recalcitrant behaviour on the part of the Pakistani’s :

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MAYWAND, AFGHANISTAN

'We must do something about Pakistan'

As suspicions about Pakistan's role in the Afghan war grow, the West seeks reassurance from Islamabad, GRAEME SMITH writes


Under a waning moon, with no electricity for light, the headquarters of Afghan forces in the Maywand district of southern Afghanistan was cloaked in heavy darkness.

Despite the late hour, district leader Haji Safullah remained awake in his concrete bunker, sitting cross-legged on ragged carpets, talking with police commanders about how to defeat the Taliban.

"Pakistan," the former mujahedeen warrior said, his voice a growl in the dark. "We must do something about Pakistan."

As the Taliban insurgency grows in southern Afghanistan, so do suspicions about Pakistan's role in the war. Afghans tend to blame their old nemesis for everything wrong in their country, but their accusations about the Taliban finding money, shelter, weapons and fighters on the other side of the border are getting more specific these days. Mr. Safullah rhymed off the names of Taliban leaders living in neighbourhoods and compounds around Quetta, in west-central Pakistan, and complained bitterly that his men can't hunt insurgents in those havens.

The frustration of such front-line commanders has been percolating upward in recent months, through the ranks of foreign soldiers, NATO officials, and Western diplomats. During a visit to Islamabad yesterday, Canada's Defence Minister praised Pakistan's assistance but pressed for more. "In my ideal world, they could do even better because that way our troops will be safe," said Gordon O'Connor, who was on a tour this week through Afghanistan and Pakistan.
And diplomats say that each NATO soldier killed by a Taliban bomb or ambush adds weight to an emerging consensus among Western allies, roughly mirroring the conclusion of the battle-scarred Afghan commander: Something must change inside Pakistan, quickly.

On a leafy patio in Kabul, a senior Western diplomat took a long sip of sparkling water when asked whether foreign troops are really fighting a local uprising in the country's south. What about the argument, he was asked, that the NATO forces have been drawn into a proxy war, a struggle against fighters whose instructions come from a neighbouring country?

"It's a bit of both," the official said, with an uncertain shrug.

The answer wasn't vague for the sake of diplomacy. Nobody has a clear picture of the connections between elements in Pakistan and the Taliban, or how the insurgents draw support from inside the country without, apparently, any meaningful interference from Pakistani authorities. Analysts often point to the deep historical ties between Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency, which helped nurture the Taliban in the early 1990s, giving them support that helped the movement grow from a religious backlash against corrupt warlords into a theocracy that dominated most of the country.

Some published reports, such as one about Taliban leaders travelling in cars with official ISI licence plates, suggest that Pakistan intelligence retains its links with the insurgents. But does the military regime in Islamabad know about, or control, its ISI agents in the borderlands?

"We don't have evidence of that. But we know Pakistan could, and should, be doing more to stop the Taliban," a senior Western diplomat in Islamabad said.
Canadian diplomats interviewed in Pakistan last month suggested that Canada must push Islamabad more vigorously for co-operation.

"We're not as aggressive as we could be," one diplomat said.

Mr. O'Connor's visit this week is the 18th known delegation from Ottawa to Islamabad since the beginning of 2005. That means the Canadian High Commission in Pakistan is busier than most of Canada's missions abroad, but the diplomatic traffic is slower than the bustle among other Western countries. Britain's High Commission in Islamabad says it welcomed 40 official visits, not including military delegations, in the same time period. The U.S. embassy reported "30 to 35," also excluding military guests.

The Western allies have similar goals in Pakistan, analysts say, but Canada's aims grew more distinct since it took responsibility for security in the troubled Afghan province of Kandahar this year. Kandahar shares a mountainous border with Baluchistan, the vast swath of Pakistan's tribal regions. Baluchistan has a reputation as a Taliban recruiting ground, a haven for insurgent training camps and home to many of the movement's leaders.

Canada wants Pakistan to crack down on the insurgents coming from Baluchistan, but diplomats say it's difficult to reverse the habitual neglect with which counterterrorism officials inside and outside Pakistan have treated the southern tribal belt.

Within Pakistan, the biggest obstacle to a crackdown is the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (JUI), a staunchly anti-imperialist party that promotes a rigid enforcement of Islamic law. A political summary prepared for Canadian diplomats in Islamabad says the JUI "is still believed to be supporting the uprising of the 'local' Taliban from the tribal areas, and Baluchistan."

The document adds: "Taliban fighters are apparently recruited and trained in these areas."

Despite the JUI's unsavory connections, President Pervez Musharraf has relied on the party's strong regional voting base in previous elections.

"Part of the quid pro quo with the JUI was, 'If you want to go after al-Qaeda because of the American pressure, fine, but we will differentiate between al-Qaeda and the Taliban, because we the JUI support the Taliban,' " said Ahmed Rashid, a prominent writer on Afghan issues.

Sitting in the elegant study of his home in Lahore, Pakistan, Mr. Rashid leaned forward in his chair to emphasize his next point: The United States focused on hunting al-Qaeda after the invasion of Afghanistan in 2001, at the expense of fighting the Taliban.

"What happened after the war ended was simply that the Americans were insisting on a wrap-up of al-Qaeda," he said. "That was translated by the Americans, very conveniently, as meaning Arabs; not Afghans, not Pakistanis. The focus was on the NWFP," he said, referring to the North West Frontier Province on the northern side of Pakistan's tribal areas where Osama bin Laden was believed to be hiding.

"Because the focus was there, that very conveniently left the Taliban, who were based essentially in Baluchistan, completely alone," he continued. "Which is why they were able to revive and resurge."

For the United States, this strategy in Pakistan has achieved significant goals. Since 2001, Pakistan has arrested more than 600 al-Qaeda operatives, including major terrorism suspects such as Ramzi bin Al-Shibh and Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, alleged organizers of the 9/11 attacks.

But the U.S. strategy left NATO with an unpleasant surprise when the international force assumed responsibility for Afghanistan this year: U.S. intelligence agencies had little useful information about the Taliban revival in the south.

Foreign militaries have misunderstood their enemy, said Mohammad Ziauddin, resident editor at the Dawn newspaper group in Islamabad.

Western officials often refer to Mullah Mohammed Omar, the one-eyed former leader of the Taliban government, and his sadistic field marshal, Mullah Dadullah, as key leaders of the insurgency.

But those two leaders are merely "foot soldiers," Mr. Ziauddin said.

"They take orders from the JUI," he said. "It's not a Taliban uprising. It's a section of the Pashtuns who are pissed off, and they're organized by the JUI to take back Kabul."

Some diplomats and analysts disagree with Mr. Ziauddin, saying it's not clear whether the JUI has such control over the militants. But there's broad agreement with his two main points: That the JUI feeds the insurgency with its support, whether material, or merely ideological, as the party claims; and that the Pashtun tribe feels marginalized in the new Kabul government.

The Pashtuns have dominated Afghanistan for centuries. As the main ethnic group of southern Afghanistan, Pashtuns led the Durrani Empire in the 18th and 19th centuries, and they formed the core of the Taliban movement that conquered Kabul in 1996.

Pashtun resentment may slowly decline, analysts say, as the northern tribes that overthrew the Taliban in 2001 are increasingly balanced with representation from elsewhere in the country.

But the JUI's influence in Pakistan seems poised to grow. The leader of the JUI's largest faction, Maulana Fazl-ur-Rehman, was appointed as the leader of the opposition in 2004, and his party now dominates the provincial governments in Baluchistan and the NWFP. Among the JUI's ardent followers, Taliban victories in Afghanistan only increase the Islamic party's prestige inside Pakistan.

And while General Musharraf is a moderate politician, analysts say, recent defections from his governing coalition will force him to rely even more heavily on the JUI's support during the election next year.

This leaves Canadian diplomats with an exceptionally difficult task in Pakistan, Mr. Rashid said: "We are heading for an even bigger catastrophe."

xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

PAKISTAN: THE PROXY WAR
TERROR TIES


Pakistan connections have emerged in a host of terror plots in recent years, from the 9/11 attacks that launched the war on terror, to the most recent Britain-based plot to blow a series of U.S.-bound planes out of the sky.

Attack on the USS Cole: Yemeni national and alleged al-Qaeda operative Jamil Qasim Saeed Mohammed, sought by the United States in the October, 2000, attack that killed 17 sailors, was secretly handed over to U.S. authorities by the Pakistani intelligence service at Karachi airport in October, 2001. Al-Qaeda lieutenant Tawfiq Attash (a.k.a. Khallad), suspected of planning the bombing and co-ordinating the activities of at least two of the hijackers who crashed into the Pentagon on 9/11, was arrested by Pakistani forces in Karachi.

Sept. 11, 2001: Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the mastermind behind the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks on the United States, and implicated in several other al-Qaeda plots -- including Operation Bojinka, the 2002 bombing of the El Ghriba synagogue in Tunisia, and the kidnapping and murder of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl -- was born in the Baluchistan province of Pakistan. He was captured in a raid on a house in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, in March, 2003. Yemeni Ramzi Binalshibh, 9/11's operational leader and former roommate of hijacker Mohamed Atta, was captured after a gunfight in Karachi on the first anniversary of the attacks.

Los Angeles Airport Millennium bomb plot: Convicted bomb plotter Ahmed Ressam said that he had been recruited by Abu Zubaydah, a Palestinian and key bin Laden aide. Abu Zubaydah was captured March 28, 2002, in Faisalabad, Pakistan. Mr. Ressam also said that he had trained in 1988 at the Khalden camp, in eastern Afghanistan, under Ibn al-Shaykh al-Libi, a Libyan, whom he described as "the big chief . . . Ben Sheik." Mr. al-Libi was captured on the Pakistan border in December, 2001, and secretly handed over to Egypt in January, 2002.

Indonesian terror attacks -- 2002, 2003, 2004, 2005: The al-Qaeda-linked militant group Jemaah Islamiyah is blamed for a series of attacks in Indonesia since 2002, two in Bali and two in Jakarta, that altogether killed hundreds. According to a top Indonesian counterterrorism officer, tens of thousands of dollars were sent by courier from al-Qaeda leaders in Afghanistan and Pakistan to fund the wave of attacks. The cash was sent through Khalid Shaik Mohammed, al-Qaeda's former operations chief, who was arrested in Rawalpindi, Pakistan, in 2003.

Madrid train bombings -- March 11, 2004: In October, 2005, Mustafa Setmariam Nasar was captured by Pakistani agents in a friend's house in the border city of Quetta and turned over to U.S. intelligence operatives, according to two senior Pakistani intelligence officials. He was not a bombmaker or operational planner but one of the jihad movement's prime theorists for the post-9/11 world. Counterterrorism officials and analysts see his theories in action in terrorist attacks in Casablanca in 2003, Madrid in 2004 and London in 2005. In April, 2006, 29 suspects (Moroccans, Algerians and Spaniards) were charged in the Madrid bombings. Although they were inspired by Islamic militancy, no evidence of a direct Pakistani link has been shown.

London transit bombings -- July 7, 2005: Three of the four suicide bombers were British nationals of Pakistani descent from West Yorkshire -- Mohammad Sidique Khan, 30, of Dewsbury; Hasib Mir Hussain, 18, of Holbeck, Leeds; and Shehzad Tanweer, 22, of Beeston, Leeds. Officials in Pakistan have supplied documentation showing that Mr. Khan and Mr. Tanweer visited Pakistan during 2004.

Canadian terror plot -- June 2, 2006: Ringleaders of 18 suspects arrested in the plot are believed to have been in contact with as-yet-unidentified figures in Pakistan and Afghanistan. Several of the suspects are of South Asian heritage, though many are second-generation Canadians. One of the Toronto suspects is accused of seeking terrorist training in Pakistan, as are two Atlanta-based suspects who travelled there months after meeting the Ontario suspects. In all cases, Lashkar-e-Taiba, a radical Pakistan-based Islamist group, was to provide this training.

In an arrest closely linked to the Toronto roundup, British police arrested a U.K. citizen of Pakistani descent, Abed Khan, 21, on June 6, at Manchester Airport on his return from Pakistan. He allegedly visited Canada last year, at the same time as the two Atlanta men.

Mumbai train bombings -- July 12, 2006: Authorities have accused Lashkar-e-Taiba and the Students Islamic Movement of India, which is banned in India, of orchestrating the bombings. So far, 13 people have been arrested, and police reported that several admitted going to Pakistan for training in arms and explosives. On Aug. 22, police, acting on a tip from one of the earlier arrests, surrounded a hideout in central Mumbai. They arrested one Pakistani man and killed another who refused to surrender.

Transatlantic airline plot -- Aug. 10, 2006: Rashid Rauf, a Briton of Pakistani descent, was arrested in Pakistan before the mass arrests in London. Pakistani authorities describe him as a central figure in the plot. He allegedly met with top militants, such as Matiur Rehman, the 29-year-old al-Qaeda military commander in Pakistan. He remains in detention while British police are requesting his extradition in connection with the 2002 slaying of an uncle in Birmingham, rather than on terrorism charges. According to media reports, the Charity Commission is checking out allegations of links between the alleged bomb plot and a charity founded by a relative, Abdul Rauf -- Crescent Relief London, which raised funds for the Pakistan earthquake victims.

COMPILED BY JOHANNA ****A AND RICK CASH

Last edited by Hari_Om : 09-02-2006 at 07:42 AM.
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Old 09-03-2006, 21:13 PM   #2 (permalink)
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Perhaps the best way for Canada to “ push Islamabad more vigorously for co-operation “ is by threatening to send Celine Dion to perform in Pakistan.
Pakistan's actions (or lack of action) has not warranted sending Celine over there.

We would be critized the world over for the suffering of the Pakistani people, the damage to their economy and the trama of the little childern. It would be totally out of proporition.

The fall out would be far worse then Lebanon...
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Old 09-04-2006, 08:06 AM   #3 (permalink)
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Then how about asking Asim and his rock band to sing in Pakistan?....
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Old 09-06-2006, 20:47 PM   #4 (permalink)
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Then how about asking Asim and his rock band to sing in Pakistan?....
The use of WMD's is prohibited by numerous international treaties!
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Old 09-07-2006, 00:10 AM   #5 (permalink)
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The use of WMD's is prohibited by numerous international treaties!
Lol...
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Old 09-07-2006, 08:28 AM   #6 (permalink)
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Amnesty for bin Laden in Pakistan?

Watch the video.
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Old 09-07-2006, 12:29 PM   #7 (permalink)
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I wonder what story Mushy will cook up now to save his @ss and to keep the American $$$ rolling in....
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Old 09-07-2006, 13:26 PM   #8 (permalink)
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I wonder what story Mushy will cook up now to save his @ss and to keep the American $$$ rolling in....
Methinks that gentleman speaks with fork tongue.
On one hand he seeks to give the impression that he is gung ho on the WoT, on the other hand he; as Head of State, makes an agreement with Taleban forces.
An agreement; that is not an inconceivable notion, works to the detriment of the NATO forces engaged in fighting the Taleban and their AQ allies in Afghanistan. In that, if these self same forces do not have to worry about their rear flank, might be able to focus their attention solely against the NATO forces.
His credibility is starting to appear more and more suspect, even to outsiders with limited local knowledge.
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Old 09-07-2006, 16:49 PM   #9 (permalink)
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Musharraf is a very clever little tick.

He is in a win win situation as I have mentioned in some other threads.

No matter what you feel, he won't return the toys you gave him.
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Old 09-07-2006, 18:00 PM   #10 (permalink)
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No matter what you feel, he won't return the toys you gave him.
Sure he will Ray!
Once World Peace and Harmony is achieved…hold on a sec…thought I saw a heard of pigs fly by!
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Old 09-07-2006, 22:10 PM   #11 (permalink)
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http://atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/HI08Df03.html

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Pakistan: Hello al-Qaeda, goodbye America
By Syed Saleem Shahzad

MIRANSHAH, North Waziristan - With a truce between the Pakistani Taliban and Islamabad now in place, the Pakistani government is in effect reverting to its pre-September 11, 2001, position in which it closed its eyes to militant groups allied with al-Qaeda and clearly sided with the Taliban in Afghanistan.

While the truce has generated much attention, a more significant development is an underhand deal between pro-al-Qaeda elements and Pakistan in which key al-Qaeda figures will either not be arrested or those already in custody will be set free. This has the potential to sour Islamabad's relations with Washington beyond the point of no return.

On Tuesday, Pakistan agreed to withdraw its forces from the restive Waziristan tribal areas bordering Afghanistan in return for a pledge from tribal leaders to stop attacks by Pakistani Taliban across the border.

Most reports said that the stumbling block toward signing this truce had been the release of tribals from Pakistani custody. But most tribals had already been released.

The main problem - and one that has been unreported - was to keep Pakistan authorities' hands off members of banned militant organizations connected with al-Qaeda.

Thus, for example, it has now been agreed between militants and Islamabad that Pakistan will not arrest two high-profile men on the "most wanted" list that includes Osama bin Laden, his deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri and Taliban leader Mullah Omar.

Saud Memon and Ibrahim Choto are the only Pakistanis on this list, and they will be left alone. Saud Memon was the owner of the lot where US journalist Daniel Pearl was tortured, executed and buried in January 2002 in Karachi after being kidnapped by jihadis.
Pakistan has also agreed that many people arrested by law-enforcement agencies in Pakistan will be released from jail.

Importantly, this includes Ghulam Mustafa, who was detained by Pakistani authorities late last year. Mustafa is reckoned as al-Qaeda's chief in Pakistan. (See Al-Qaeda's man who knows too much, Asia Times Online, January 5. As predicted in that article, Mustafa did indeed disappear into a "black hole" and was never formally charged, let alone handed over to the US.)

Asia Times Online contacts expect Mustafa to be released in the next few days. He was once close to bin Laden and has intimate knowledge of al-Qaeda's logistics, its financing and its nexus with the military in Pakistan.

Militants at large
"Now they [Pakistani authorities] have accepted us as true representatives of the mujahideen," Wazir Khan told Asia Times Online at a religious congregation in Miranshah. "Now we are no longer criminals, but part and parcel of every deal. Even the authorities have given tacit approval that they would not have any objections if I and other fellows who were termed as wanted took part in negotiations."

Wazir Khan was once a high-profile go-between for bin Laden and one of his closest Waziristan contacts. He was right up there on the "wanted" list. Now he can move around in the open. "The situation is diametrically changed," he said.

From a personal point of view, things have changed for Wazir Khan and others like him, but in the bigger picture things have also changed diametrically.

Pakistan, the leading light in the United States' "war on terror" and a "most important" non-North Atlantic Treaty Organization ally, is returning to the heady times of before September 11 when it could dabble without restraint in regional affairs, and this at a time when Afghanistan is boiling.

"The post-September 11 situation [in Pakistan] was draconian," a prominent militant told Asia Times Online on condition of anonymity. "All jihadi organizations were informed in advance how they would be [severely] dealt with in the future and that they had better carve out an alternative low-profile strategy. But some people could not stop themselves from unnecessary adventures and created problems for the establishment. This gave the US the chance to intervene in Pakistan, and over 700 al-Qaeda mujahideen were arrested.

"Now the situation changed again ... we know the state of Pakistan is important for the Pakistan army, but certainly we know that the army would never completely compromise on Islam."

The truce between Islamabad and the Pakistani Taliban in Waziristan has been a bitter pill for Washington to swallow, although Pakistan's pledge to allow foreign troops based in Afghanistan hot pursuit into a limited area in Pakistan softens the blow a bit.

Islamabad's overriding concern, though, is to earn some breathing space domestically, as well as get Uncle Sam off its back.

The situation in Waziristan was becoming unmanageable - it's already virtually a separate state - and trouble is ongoing in restive Balochistan province, especially since the killing at the hands of Pakistani security forces of nationalist leader Nawab Akbar Bugti. Fractious opposition political parties have shown rare unity in attacking the government of President General Pervez Musharraf on the issue.

Redrawing the map
An article by retired US Major Ralph Peters titled "Blood borders" published in the Armed Forces Journal last month has given Pakistan some food for thought over manipulating the geopolitical game on its own terms and conditions.

Peters, formerly assigned to the Office of the Deputy Chief of Staff for Intelligence, where he was responsible for future warfare, argues that borders in the Middle East and Africa are "the most arbitrary and distorted" in the world and need restructuring.

Four countries - Pakistan, Iraq, Saudi Arabia and Turkey - are singled out for major readjustments. Pakistan and Saudi Arabia are also defined as "unnatural states".

Though the US State Department was quick to deny that such ideas had anything to do with US policymaking, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia and Turkey read much between the lines of talk of restructuring their boundaries.

Among Peters' proposals was the need to establish "an independent Kurdish state" that would "stretch from Diyarbakir [eastern Turkey] through Tabriz [Iran], which would be the most pro-Western state between Bulgaria and Japan".

Pakistani Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz recently visited Turkey and then Lebanon, where he announced that his country would not send any peacekeeping troops to the latter. Ankara then said that if peacekeeping forces tried to disarm Hezbollah, Turkey would pull out of the peace mission. These decisions are the result of back-channel diplomacy among Saudi Arabia, Turkey and Pakistan.

Across Pakistan's border in Afghanistan, the Taliban have control of most of the southwest of the country, from where Mullah Omar is expected soon to announce the revival of the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan - the name of the country before the Taliban were driven out in 2001. Once the proclamation is made, a big push toward the capital Kabul will begin.

The sounds of jail doors opening in Pakistan will jar with the United States, as will Islamabad adopting a more independent foreign policy and, crucially, aligning itself with the resurgent Taliban in Afghanistan, which once again could become a Pakistani playground.

Syed Saleem Shahzad is Asia Times Online's Pakistan Bureau Chief. He can be reached at saleem_shahzad2002@yahoo.com.
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Old 09-08-2006, 08:40 AM   #12 (permalink)
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The countdcown starts.
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