On Wednesday afternoon, GEO TV reported that one of their employees, a Pakistani journalist, was shot and nearly beheaded by attackers in a Taliban-operated region of Pakistan. The victim, Mosa Khankhel, was reporting the recent peace deal formed by the Pakistani government and Taliban militants in Swat Valley moments before his death. The peace deal resulted from the intense and heightened violence in Swat, however it is not predicted to be all that effective.
The last anyone heard of Khankhel he was with Sufi Mohammed, the Taliban’s representative throughout the peace deal negotiations, and the two were traveling via caravan. Khankhel went missing on the trip. Three hours later, his body was found with three bullet wounds and it appeared that his attackers had tried to behead him.
Khankhel was GEO TV’s network correspondent on the Peshawar bureau based in North West Frontier Province. His death marks the 24-hour period after Pakistan’s government acknowledged the Taliban’s interpretation of shari’a law in the whole Malakand Division (including Swat and it’s neighboring districts). Meaning that he died a day after Pakistan offered a significant concession to the Taliban in it’s efforts to stop Taliban militants from wreaking havoc on the region with their beheadings, kidnappings, death threats, and demolition of girls’ schools. The agreement entailed that the government in the Swat Valley recognize shari’a law in exchanged for a 10-day cease fire by the Taliban.
The Swat Valley has become increasingly more dangerous as it is the, “deepest advance by militants into Pakistan’s settled areas”. The militants have flocked to Swat because it is well outside the federally controlled tribal region along the border with Afghanistan. Swat has also been infiltrated by forces allied with the Maulana Fazullah’s formerly-banned Islamic group, Tehreek Nifaz-e-Shariat Mohammadi (TNSM) which is loya to the Taliban fighters. The peace deal that Khankhel was covering was the most recent attempt by the Pakistani civilian government which came to power last year to promote peace through diplomacy in areas where Taliban and al Qaeda leaders are perceived to go unchallenged. However, critics continue to note that most of Pakistan’s previous attempts to negotiate with Taliban have resulted in the resurgence of the fundamentalist Islamic militia.
TNSM was once headed by Sufi Mohammed, who was the last person to see Khankhel alive. Mohammed was incarcerated in 2002 for his participation in the recruitment of thousand of fighters to challenge U.S. forces based in Afghanistan. But last year, Sufi Mohammed was released from jail after he negotiated with Pakistani authorities and came to the agreement to cooperate with the government.
Last May, the Pakistan government released that it had negotiated a peace deal with the rebels in Swat Valley. A couple months later the Taliban took control of Swat and began a vicious movement against government officials, forcing the leader of the secular Awami National Party to flee due to multiple death threats. Pakistan is currently under extreme amounts of pressure to reprimand the rebels within its boundaries as multiple attacks have overflowed into Afghanistan and interfered with the U.S./NATO campaign against militants; this overflow, specifically airstrikes, has oftentimes brought about human casualties and thus has sparked more tension between the U.S. and Pakistan.
Seven hours worth of surgery completed by four teams of surgeons managed to stabilize the condition of a Connecticut woman at Stamford Hospital after she was attacked by a chimpanzee on Monday. Dr. Kevin Miller identified the victim as 55 year old Charla Nash who is reported as being in critical but stable condition as of late. Nash had been summoned to the home of her friend Sandra Herold, 70, to elp calm the chimp, Travis, who had once appeared in TV commercials for Coca Cola and Old Navy.
As soon as Nash got out of her car, Travis immediately jumped on her and began to bite and maul her face. Stamford Police Captain Rich Conklin reported the attack as “unprovoked, brutal, and lengthy”. As a result, Nash experienced extensive injuries to her face and hands. Hand specialists, plastic surgeons, and specialized ophthalmologists, orthopedic surgeons and trauma personnel are currently treating her.
Herold had asked Nash to come to her house after 14-year-old Travis had escaped. As Nash was being attacked, Herold continued to attempt to pull the chimp off of her. After several failed attempted she called 911 and then stabbed Travis with a butcher knife and repeatedly hit him with a shovel. When the police arrived on the scene they were forced to shoot the chimp multiple times before he returned to the house where he was later discovered dead.
It remains to be scene if Travis had Lyme disease. However police believe that the attack may have been provoked by Nash’s new haircut that altered her appearance “significantly”. Conklin reported that Travis had been acting “rambunctious” forcing Herold to put Xanax in a cup of tea and encouraging him to drink it. Conklin said that this hadn’t been his divisions first interaction with Travis; in 2003 he had escaped and “wreaked havoc” in the Stamford community for a matter of hours.
Travis’ body was moved from the home and was later taken dismembered and taken to two different locations; his head went to the state lab for a rabies and the rest of his body was taken to the University of Connecticut for an animal autopsy.
A Royal Air Force officer told CNN that all 18 passengers aboard a helicopter that crashed off the coast of Scotland survived the accident. The Super Puma crashed an estimated 120 miles east of Aberdeen while approaching an offshore platform. All of the passengers were be recovered from the water by divers from the five helicopters came to the rescue and it is believed that there are no major injuries. The RAF was offering helicopter assistance to the Aberdeen Coast Guard during the rescue; victims were using the emergency signal beacons on their lifejackets to summon the rescuers. It was unclear whether or not the pilot of the Super Puma had issued a mayday before the helicopter crashed.
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