Police Chief Nawabzada Humayun Jogezai , son in law of the Balochistan Chief Minister, is involved in target killing of Hazaras in Quetta.....

The Gang Behind Target Killing of Hazaras

Source: Hazara News Pakistan - http://hazaranewspakistan.wordpress.com/2009/01/28/the-gang-behind-target-killing-of-hazaras/

Quetta January 29: Target killing of Hazaras in Quetta started since 2000 when Sardar Nisar Ali Hazara was attacked by “unknown” gunmen. His driver succumbed to severe injuries and died, while Sardar recovered the injuries.

In February 2001 five other Hazaras died in another terorrist attack on a passanger van.

Later on June 8, 2003 “unidentified” terrorists killed 12 Hazara policemen in Quetta.

Just a month after this tragic incident on July 4 2003, 2 suicide bombers blew themselves up in a Hazara mosque killing about 60 people. It didn’t stop here.

On March 2, 2004 a group of suicide bombers attacked a Muharram procession killing 80 Hazaras and critically injuring another 150.

In 2005, another major suicide attack was foiled when some Hazara policemen, risking their lives, encountered with suicide bombers hiding on the route of the Ashura Procession. The Hazara policement killed all three terrorists.

Though apparently the series of Hazara target killing seemed sectarian, but the real story behind the scene is ethnic. The militant group Lashkar-i-Jhangvi has been claiming responsibility for most of the attacks on Hazaras. After the suicide attacks of 2004, security forces arrested 5 high-profile masterminds of Lashkar. They were involved in all the attacks on Hazars since 2000. Balochistan High Court sentenced them to death; but last year, in 2007, all the five terrorists broke away from a high-security jail in Quetta.

During the series of attacks on Hazaras, the roles of some high-profile security officials have been controversial. Police Chief Nawabzada Humayun Jogezai is prominent among them. Mr. Jogezai, son-in-law to current Chief Minister Nawab Raisani, was the In charge of City Police Station. He ordered policemen to open fire on Hazara protesters on 6th July 1986 killing, about 25 Hazaras. Following this, Mr. Jogezai was transferred out of Quetta city. With his departure from the city, the situation calmed down and business of life got normal.

With the passage of time, Mr. Jogezai was promoted to Deputy Inspector General (DIG) Police. He came back to Quetta in 2003. With his arrival, terrorists once again attacked on Hazara police cadets, killing 12 on June 8, 2003. Mr. Jogezai, being the police chief of Quetta, could not make any success in arresting the culprits. Some Hazaras even suspected Mr. Jogezai was behind the attack on Hazara police cadets. With DIG Jogezai in Quetta, 2003 and 2004 proved the most tragic years in the history of Quetta. Suicide bombers attacked on Hazara Mosque 2003 and Ashura Procession in 2004, killing over 100 Hazaras. During the riots after the Ashura attacks, eyewitnesses claimed Anti Terrorists Forces (ATF) opened fire on Hazaras and, killing than a dozen mourners.

Here another name came on scene. Anti-Terrorist Force SP, Rahim Mandokhel, was said to have ordered ATF forces for targeting Hazara mourners. Later, the Judicial Tribunal Report of Balochistan High Court, probing the attack on Ashura Procession 2004, released on June 29, 2004, clearly said that Anti-Terrorist Force led by Rahim Mandokhel was involved in firing on mourners.

During the Ashura Procession attack riots, ATF forces killed about 40 Hazaras. Later on, after large protests by Hazaras, Humayun Jogezai and Rahim Mandokhel were transferred from Quetta. A new Police Chief, Shoaib Suddle (Now Director General of Intelligence Bureau, IB), played a vital role in breaking the circle of masterminds of target killings of Hazaras. During his appointment in Quetta, five masterminds of Lashkar-i-Jhangvi were arrested and later sentenced to death by a court. Mr. Shoaib Suddle, relative to former President General Musharraf, was transferred from Quetta. Security in Quetta remained calm till 2008.

Once again Nawabzada Jogezai came back to Quetta after the new Chief Minister Nawab Raisani’s government was formed. Right after his arrival, five masterminds of Lashkar-i-Jhangvi, having links with Ramzi Yousaf of Al-Qaeda, broke away from a high-security ATF Jail in Quetta last year. Regardless of the slow and corrupt system that failed to carry out the punishment, the escape was more serious question raising doubt on ATF and its jails. How could high-profile terrorists escape from a high-security Jail where a mosquito can’t fly?

With the beginning of 2009 and just months after Jogezai’s appointment in Quetta, several attacks were carried on Hazaras. In a riot after 2 Hazaras were gunned down in July 2008, police and ATF forces once again opened fire on Hazara protesters, killing 6 people in Hazara Town. Provincial Minister Jan Ali Changazi, talking to media, strongly condemned ATF for killing innocent citizens. The situation got severe when two weeks ago a Hazara Deputy Superintendent Police (DSP) Hassan Ali and 3 others were killed. Despite several target attacks on Hazaras in January, City Police Officer Humayun Jogezai failed to arrest any terrorists. We lost a great leader, Hussain Ali Yousufi, on Junuary 26. Mr. Yousafi had been critical of Police role in arresting the terrorists. Following the riots in which non-Hazaras burnt down private property, Mr. Jogezai warned to deal with with the protesters with iron hands.

This gang is not limited to CCPO Nawabzada Jogezai and SP ATF Mandokhel. Two other names are also taken by some sources. DIG Operations Wazir Khan Nasir and SP Investigation Ismail Lehri are also said be part of the gang. Sectarian elements such as Lashkar-i-Jhangvi are given free hand.

The Hazara Delegation, comprised of Hazara leaders and politicians formed after the martyrdom of Hussain Ali Yusafi, will demand President Zardari and Prime Minister Gilani to appoint honest police officers in Quetta, ones who are committed to keeping the city and its people safe. The Hazara people are peaceful, and demand and deserve a peaceable environment for positive contribution to the society.
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Talat Hussain: An analysis of Long March and Nawaz Sharif's options...

Qadam barhao Nawaz Sharif, hum tumharay saath hain?

Talat Hussain





PML-N’s dangerous gamble

IN a democracy, the right to protest is fundamental and, if conducted peacefully, should not be opposed. From this perspective, the PML-N’s decision to throw its weight behind the lawyers’ protest in Islamabad on March 9 is well within the norms of democracy. Moreover, the PML-N has not reached this point in undue haste: it joined the federal cabinet after signing the Murree Declaration which called for the restoration of the pre-Nov 3, 2007 judiciary and, after the PPP-led government failed to fulfil its promise, the PML-N has lobbied from the opposition for the full restoration of the judiciary for nearly nine months now. The government’s claim that the vast majority of the deposed judges have been reappointed and, therefore, the lawyers’ movement has lost its raison d’être is weak. The central figure in the judges’ issue is deposed Chief Justice Iftikhar Chau-dhry and until his restoration it is difficult to argue that the lawyers and their supporters have no reason to protest.

Yet, though we accept the justness of the lawyers’ cause and the PML-N’s right to support them, we question whether now is the time to return to the politics of agitation. The transition to democracy which began last February is still at a delicate stage and the challenges facing the country — from militancy to the economy to political stability — are immense. While the principles of democracy are clear, so is the ever-present threat from undemocratic forces in the country. The history of street protests in Pakistan suggests that what begins as a genuine grievance snowballs into a systemic crisis and is exploited by others to undermine a fragile democracy. Tens of thousands of protesters converging on Islamabad and engaging in a stand-off with the government is a situation that has the potential to deteriorate into an ugly confrontation, in which the only winners will be the undemocratic forces. The judicial institution is a key pillar of a democratic state and its integrity and independence must be defended. But Pakistan is one of those unfortunate states in which upping the ante in defence of one institution runs the risk of undermining other institutions. For all its defects, after nearly a decade Pakistan has a parliament that is genuinely elected and includes the representatives of every major party. It is there that the judges’ issue must be pressed, for the sake of the judges, parliament, the people — and democracy itself. (Dawn)

Nazir Naji



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Rahimullah Yusufzai: And the drone policy continues…

And the drone policy continues…

Saturday, January 31, 2009 Rahimullah Yusufzai

Pakistan abdicated its right to be taken seriously long ago when it first agreed to assist the US in fighting the Soviet occupying forces in Afghanistan, hosting, training and arming the Afghan mujahideen, and then did an about-turn in the wake of the 9/11 attacks to enable America to occupy the same country. Both decisions were made primarily at the behest of the US to advance the American agenda without calculating the consequences that such a policy would have for Pakistan. Pakistani society was radicalised due to the fallout of this policy and the consequences are now in evidence all over the country.

It is meaningless to indulge in a debate on whether the US is simply informing Pakistan, as Mr Gates disclosed about its drone attacks, and that too after the strikes have been made, or there is some kind of understanding between the two countries on the issue. In either scenario, the US doesn't want a negative answer. Conveying the information about the missile strikes to Pakistan is considered good enough and apparently non-negotiable. If the US hasn't already secured an understanding from the Pakistani government about the necessity of carrying out the drone attacks to target Al Qaeda figures, it could possibly do so by offering some carrots or by wielding the stick. Having given itself the right to launch pre-emptive attacks anywhere in the world to prevent harm to the US, superpower America is confident that it cannot be made accountable for its actions in our lopsided world where might is always right. Using this right, the US has attacked and occupied countries and bombed faraway places. it has gone too far in its revenge after 9/11 and created for itself a lot more enemies than it previously had.

In terms of airstrikes, Pakistan has suffered more US attacks than Syria, Yemen and Somalia for the simple reason that its tribal areas have been marked as a safe haven for Al Qaeda militants. All these countries are Islamic, just like Iraq and Afghanistan that are under US occupation, and this is a major reason for Muslims to complain that they are the real target of the US-led Western war against terror. It is true that some Al Qaeda operatives have been killed in the drone attacks and others are still hiding in the tribal areas or elsewhere in Pakistan, but the civilian casualties far outnumber of Al Qaeda militants eliminated and the outcome has been a further increase in anti-US sentiment. Still, the US is convinced that its policy is working as the drone strikes are considered an effective tool to hit Al Qaeda-linked militants and deny them safe havens in the tribal borderland. There is no realisation that this policy is destabilising Pakistan and making it increasingly difficult for its weak and directionless PPP-led coalition government to continue cooperating with the US.

Also, the missile strikes in Pakistani territory don't seem to have lessened the resolve of the Afghan Taliban or weakened their resistance against the US-led NATO forces in Afghanistan. Instead, the resurgent Taliban have forced the US to send another 30,000 troops over and above the 75,000 foreign forces already in Afghanistan by opening new frontlines and spreading their presence to 72 percent of the Afghan territory as a recent report by a European think-tank observed. If the US and its allies with all their might and technology cannot defeat the largely resourceless and outnumbered Taliban in Afghanistan, where questions of sovereignty have long been put to rest, how is it possible for America to destroy Al Qaeda and its allied Taliban and jihadi groups through occasional drone attacks in Pakistan's tribal areas? Killing a few Al Qaeda operatives or Pakistani and Afghan militants once in a while may provide a sense of achievement to the US military but it cannot be part of a successful long-term policy to combat militancy and extremism. Militant groups such as Al Qaeda and Taliban have a remarkable capacity to replace fallen comrades and attract new recruits, more so since the cause has a religious dimension. The motivation is to liberate your homeland from foreigners and the enemy is America. (The News)


The writer is resident editor of The News in Peshawar. Email: rahimyusufzai@yahoo.com Ghost Of TK Says:
January 31st, 2009 at 3:42 pm


Why is it that the “Violation of Pakistan’s sovereignty by American Drones” is WORSE than the “Violation of Pakistan’s Sovereignty by Taliban Drones”

Why do those who bemoan the US drone attacks overlook the breaches of Pakistani State’s sovereignty by Talib Faggots?

P.S. US Drone violations can be technically fixed by two things:

1. Acquisition of said drones by Pakistan clandestine services.
2. Sharing of intelligence.

But, How shall we stop the Talib Faggots from trampling all over Pakistan’s sovereignty?

Are the Talibs and the US Drone Masters NOT morally equivalent? or shall we say equally morally depraved?

Muhammad Usman Says:
January 31st, 2009

Crush talibans with full force, zero tolerance.
This menace has to go.

Some A hOLES WERE praising changez khan when he entered baghdad, he slaughtered them first.

Why dont these taliban sympathizer understand , ther throats will cut first, if god forbid, these evil people advance.


gditpp Says:
January 31st, 2009

@GoTK

P.S. US Drone violations can be technically fixed by two things:

1. Acquisition of said drones by Pakistan clandestine services.
2. Sharing of intelligence.
—————

Good suggestion.

But Who TF in the first place trusts Pak Army and its secret services. Wernt they hunting with the hound and running with hare all through the Mush era. Drones attacks started when the US finally got the wind of our double faced strategy of trying to appear controlling the fire while actually fanning it clandetinely. Simulateous and mutually oppossing actions of ISI’s overt and covert wings with the knowledge of GHQ have led us to the compromisg position that we find ourselves in today.

Here Dr Manzur Ejaz explains our dilemma:

When it comes to dealing with the Taliban and the US, the people of Pakistan seem to have a schizophrenic mindset. The average Pakistani rejects the Taliban’s interpretation of Islam but does not approve of the US strikes on them. He dislikes US influence but praises the rulers who can get more economic aid from Washington. He knows that Pakistan’s security forces have not succeeded in halting the Taliban advance so that in many areas the state has no writ; and yet he does not want the US to violate the country’s ‘sovereignty’.

Unfortunately, such self-contradiction is not limited to lay masses. The most powerful institutions of the state are either afflicted with the same malaise or have chosen to encourage a mindset prone to it.

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=20091\28\story_28-1-2009_pg3_3

Muhammad Usman Says:
January 31st, 2009

how ,when and who will be able to have dialogue with Taliban and have peace in return?

ANP has done peace deals with these and in result asfand was attacked.

Yo did that in waziristan and you got more violence
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Replicating the Al Anbar model in FATA, Pakistan? Some suggestions...

Replicating the Al Anbar model in FATA?

Saturday, January 31, 2009 Farhat Taj Al Anbar is a region in Iraq that was devastated by Al Qaeda inflicted violence. Several Sunni tribes of the region formed an alliance, supported by the US, and took up arms against the terrorists. The tribes successfully controlled Al Qaeda terrorism and stabilized the region. In media it was called 'Al Anbar Awkening'. All over the world think tanks studying the situation in FATA debate and discuss whether an Al Anbar style awakening is possible in FATA? Can FATA tribes take up arms against the Taliban and Al Qaeda? In my opinion there is tremendous potential for an Al Anbar style awakening in FATA. But there is one huge obstacle: the mistrust of the tribes in the military leadership, especially the intelligence agencies. The Taliban and Al Qaeda have been target killing tribal leaders and so far the military has failed to protect the latter. So far no one has even been officially accused or arrested of the target killing of more than 200 tribal leaders. The target killing of the tribal leaders started in South Waziristan almost at the same time when the US was bombing Taliban and Al Qaeda hideouts in Afghanistan in 2001 and the militants ran towards Waziristan. They were not welcomed by the tribal leaders. In order to have a strong foothold in Waziristan, the militants killed more than 120 tribal leaders. Clearly the then government of General Pervez Musharraf was playing a double game. On one hand it joined the US led war on terror, on the other hand it allowed the militants to kill the tribal leaders and replace the tribal order with the Taliban order. Next the killing spree was taken to other tribal areas including Khyber, Orakzai and Bajaur agencies. There is a strong perception among many Pakhtun that this killing was carried out with tacit consent of the intelligence agencies of Pakistan to create full leadership space for Taliban in the Pakhtun tribal society. This is the key obstacle that is preventing the remaining tribal leaders and young people in FATA from taking up arms against the Taliban and Al Qaida. Despite this there is still a strong potential in FATA tribal leaders and young people to challenge the terrorists. I conclude this from the surveys conducted by AIRRA, an independent think tank working on human security, regional cooperation and radicalization, previous events in the area and my personal discussions with young men and women of FATA: They pointed out that in tehsil Pranghar of Momand Agency, the people rose against the Taliban as soon as the Taliban first assaulted Momand Agency. Consequesntly, Tangi in district Charsadda is safe because of this event. Since 2004, we find sporadic uprisings against the Taliban but due to the inability of the Pakistani security forces, the leaders of Qaumi Lashkars (national laskars) were mostly target killed by the Taliban. If the elders and the youth of the Pakhtun belt are taken into confidence and assured that an anti-Taliban tribal army will not be marked for target killing, the uprising can succeed. But for that to happen Pakistan army and the government of Pakistan have to take some confidence building measures to restore the faith of the tribes. I had discussions with some tribal men and women during my recent visit to Pakistan. They suggested the following as confidence building measures. One, some, if not all Taliban leaders must be target killed by Pakistan army. Two, all security forces must be issued a kill at sight order against the first and second layers of all Taliban and Al Qaida groups in Pakistan. Three, the government should announce head-money for killing or capturing any top, second or third level leaders of the Taliban. They also said that the Pakistan army must closely coordinate with the tribal armies made against the militants. They pointed out that the tribal armies had been fighting for days and Pakistan army, stationed near by never showed up to help the armies besieged by the Taliban till the armies were massacred by the Taliban, armed with much more sophisticated weapons than the tribesmen. They said the tribal leaders must stay in some kind of hot line communication with the top leadership of Pakistan army and government and in case of any Taliban attack, Pakistan army must send air borne commandos to help the tribal armies. They also said if necessary Pakistan air force must carpet bomb the Taliban and they are not averse to the ISI buying some suicide bombers in some kind of intelligence cover and sending them to bomb the Taliban leaders in meetings, just like they bombed the tribal jirgas in FATA. I would request the government of Pakistan and the leadership of Pakistan army to engage in discussions with the tribal leaders to work out details to form tribal armies, to take on the Taliban. I would request fellow citizens all across Pakistan to morally support such tribal armies and build up pressure on Pakistan army to stand by the tribal armies until the Taliban are controlled and writ of the government restored. I would also request the international community to keep financial plans ready for prompt reconstruction and development of FATA after the elimination of the Taliban and Al Qaeda. (The News) The writer is a research fellow at the Centre for Interdisciplinary Gender Research, University of Oslo, and a member of Aryana Institute for Regional Research and Advocacy. Email: bergen34@yahoo.com

....

For a sample of the success of the Iraq Operation, read this op-ed on BBC Urdu dot com published 30 January 2009.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/urdu/regional/story/2009/01/090131_iraq_provincial_elections.shtml

....

English version:


Iraqi PM hails vote as 'victory'

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri Maliki has hailed a largely peaceful vote for new provincial councils across the country as a victory for all Iraqis.

Voting was extended by one hour due to a strong turnout, including among Sunni Muslims who boycotted the last polls.

The first nationwide vote in four years is being seen as a test of Iraq's stability ahead of a general election due later this year.

Thousands of soldiers and police were deployed around polling stations.

The election is also being seen as a quasi-referendum on the leadership of Mr Maliki.

"This is a victory for all the Iraqis," he said, after casting his vote in Baghdad's highly-protected Green Zone.



http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/7862177.stm
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Video Story of Swat Pakistan, a heaven turned into a hell by the Taliban and their accomplices in ISI

Fizza Afridi:

This is about Swat, a city of breathtaking natural beauty turned into a nightmare by those who use the name of Islam but all their actions are against Islam.



Some Comments:

agentr777 says:

The bottom line is pakistan has turned into hell becuz of islam. If it were jews, or chinese or sm1 else they wud hve developed it and made it a popular tourist spot. But alas! The same applies to kashmir. Ppl of kashmir are busy fighting with army, it was called heaven on earth, not now.Anyway ultimately, its ppl of kashmir who are suffering. They shud stop the war, and start developing tourism, cuz believe me there is humongous amount of money in it.

NTFSA says:

thanks for sharing the video..

Everyone knows Taliban is not about Islam..

I pray they all die and dwell in hell.

Mohmands says:

Da talibano pa islam day lanat we da Allah...da toll taliban chareen dee aow chareen toll omar kona warkaee...chi ilaam na we da duneya no atombom jahazoona mobile tv radio rocket da tol ba pa sa joreghee chi dwee pay nan jahad kaee...aow chi gazay langayghee no haspatal kay bay pa ghaza kay sok lass mandee chi bachay sahee salamat washee...baigharatoo duneya kam zay ta warasaida aow tasoo kam zay ta wapas laray...Allah mo tabah ka

.....

Geo investigates on Swat

An excellent analysis by Rabia at Grand Trunk Road

Has anyone seen this hour-long edition of Geo Investigates on the topic of Swat? There were an enormous number of issues with this show. First of all, he interviewed a bunch of people, who wanted Shariah. Then they spent a really long time talking about the speedy justice offered by the Taliban in the most propagandistic of ways — they showed the 3 day trial process that occurs, then the Taliban lightly lashing someone, and then patting him on the back as he got up. There was a long discussion about why the people of Swat have not had access to speedy justice since the 70s. Of course there is truth in this, but it is also standard Taliban propaganda that this journalist was basically doing for free. Not only that but he also got local bureaucrats to basically agree with him.

Considering the fact that journalists are not allowed in Swat, he must have received special permission and protection from the army. He extensively interviewed Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas and the interesting (and disgusting) thing was that when he would do a little section on say, speedy justice of the Taliban, our proud army spokesman, Athar Abbas, would sadly nod his head and say something like “We are all to blame” (i.e. this insurgency was a natural consequence of the existing social conditions in Swat).

It was also really comical watching Athar Abbas talking about how the army is still acquiring the technology to jam Fazlullah’s radio station. The weak explanation he gave was that the latest technology enables the Taliban to move their broadcasting equipment, even on motorcycles and the army didn’t have the technology to counter this.

Then, this journalist actually got to meet and interview Muslim Khan, Fazlullah’s second-in-command. This makes absolutely NO SENSE to me. I guess journalists can do whatever they want, but I do get the feeling that this guy was there under the protection of the army. (this might not be true). In which case, why couldn’t the army take out Muslim Khan?

It should be pretty obvious to anyone watching this program that this journalist and Athar Abbas were both pushing the idea that this situation is not recoverable and also, is what the people want. It’s very convenient for this guy to put up all these interviews of people asking for Shariah, etc, since people of Swat are not allowed to speak out against the Taliban on pains of death (not that this journalist mentioned that little problem). This entire show was essentially army propaganda to negotiate and settle.

Geo Investigation Part 1

Geo Part 2



Geo Part 3



Geo Part 4



Geo Part 5

....

Why Swat was let down

The Prime Minister’s Interior Adviser, Mr Rehman Malik, has told the Senate that a new strategy had been worked out to combat militancy in Swat but he was prepared to discuss it only in camera. He appeared confident that the terrorists would be flushed out of Swat “in a few weeks”. As he spoke, the army renewed its operation in the valley targeting the Taliban hideouts with artillery and helicopter gunships. It appears that a new vigour has come into the military effort to liberate the people of Swat from the tyranny of the warlord, Fazlullah.

The Senate also heard some of the surveys carried out in the Tribal Areas by Pakistan Institute of Legislative Development and Transparency (PILDAT), making clear what the people really thought of the Taliban. To questions whether they approve of the Taliban governance, their policy of destroying schools, blowing up CD shops and enforcing their brand of sharia, all responses up to 90 percent were in the negative. This explodes the “theorisings” of the many TV critics of military operation — “this is not Pakistan’s war” — in the region. What was shown repeatedly and recklessly on private TV channels in the past as the local population’s support to the Taliban and their opposition to Pakistani troops fighting “America’s war” has now been revealed as pure fabrication and mere opposition politics.

Mr Malik also stripped the veil from those elements who have been active in the commission of terrorism in Swat. He named “Al Qaeda, Tehrik-e-Taliban as led by Maulana Fazlullah, Tanzeem-e-Islami, the Tora Bora group, and the Qari Mushtaq group”. He could have named a few more but that may have revealed flaws in the policy of the state towards “non-state actors” that it employed as “freedom fighters” in the past. More precisely, giving more details would have revealed the folly of not getting rid of the terrorist outfits instead of allowing them to change their names under flimsy legal justifications and letting them function as charity organisations. In short, one can say that the state’s policy of allowing multiple centres of power to emerge in the country under the guise of jihad has facilitated the possible emergence of many “statelets” within Pakistan from where the world could be threatened.

The “supply” connection of South Waziristan with Swat was also brought out by Mr Malik when he said that warriors and suicide-bombers were supplied by a Taliban commander named Qari Hussain Ahmed, through Maulana Namdar. Since eyewitnesses of the Swat mayhem have seen groups of non-Pakhtun foreigners beheading Swatis at will, it cannot be ruled out that Al Qaeda is strongly represented here. Mr Malik says that Swat got less attention from the army because of the distraction of Bajaur and Mohmand in the neighbourhood. Thus one won’t be surprised in some future time to learn that Al Qaeda leaders like Osama bin Laden, Ayman Al Zawahiri and Baitullah Mehsud took their R&R in Swat because of its exemption from the attention of the state.

The people of Swat have paid with their lives and their way of life because of the past flip-flop of policy and strategy in Islamabad. Additionally, the ANP government has suffered immeasurably because of this dereliction of duty and responsibility. The people of Swat had opted for the secular-nationalist ANP after rejecting the clerics who had a soft corner of the sharia of Fazlullah. The elected ANP leadership in Swat was cruelly treated and made to flee the area while Islamabad was distracted by the internecine activities of the politicians. The “unanimous” resolution of the parliament actually tells the army to “get out of the Trial Areas” while it now transpires that the people of Swat were actually praying for the Pakistan Army to come and relieve them of their torture. (Daily Times)
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About

Let us build Pakistan

Welcome to our critical reflections on Pakistan's politics, society and arts. In the main, the blog offers a selection of editorials and op-eds from the Pakistani and international press. The blog is a project of 'Critical Supporters of Pakistan People's Party' (CSPPP); syndicated since June 2008.

Editor: Abdul Nishapuri

Co-editors: Sarah Khan, Omar Khattab, Jarri Mirza, Ahmer Asif

Critical Supporters of Pakistan People's Party (CSPPP)



Formed in June 2008, this group is committed to providing constructive criticism on the policies of Pakistan People's Party while remaining committed to the original 1970 manifesto of the party based on the following four principles:

Islam is our Faith
Democracy is our Policy
Socialism is our Economy
All Powers to the People

For further details or to be a part of this endeavour, contact: pakistanteam@gmail.com

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Afzal Khan Lala: Veteran Pashtun leader defies Swat Taliban

Veteran Pashtun leader defies Swat Taliban

* Three-time attack survivor Afzal Khan on top of Taliban’s most-wanted list
* Favours military action, says government has to regain control

ISLAMABAD: Veteran ethnic Pashtun politician Muhammad Afzal Khan has refused to leave home in Swat, even though the Taliban have repeatedly tried to kill him, and says the people should stand up to the militants.

Swat was, until recently, one of Pakistan's top tourist destinations, but the Taliban have all but taken over the scenic mountain valley, imposing their severe interpretation of Islamic law and slaughtering opponents with impunity.

Many families have fled, while residents say many policemen have either deserted or simply refuse to act against the Taliban, who have shot, blown up or beheaded numerous officers.

But Khan, an 82-year-old former cabinet minister known as Afzal Lala, or Afzal the Elder, has chosen to stay on to try to rally resistance to the Taliban.

"I'm from this soil. It's my home. My tribe is here," Khan told Reuters in a telephone interview. "I want to live among my people. I won't run away."

The Taliban's grip on the valley, just 130km northwest of Islamabad and away from the lawless Afghan border, highlights Pakistan's deteriorating security.

The government has vowed to regain control of the valley by talking to the Taliban who lay down their arms. But there's no sign of that.

Top target: The Taliban have tried to kill Khan three times and have placed him on top of a list of politicians and prominent residents they have demanded appear before their ‘courts’. Residents refer to the list as a ‘hit list’.

Khan blames the government for failing to provide proper security, leading to the exodus of fearful people from the valley, and says people have to stand their ground. "I ask my friends and the people of Swat to return to their homes. It's our land. It's our problem, we have to sort it out."

As well as attacking the security forces, the Taliban have banned girls from classes and destroyed about 180 schools while broadcasting edicts and threats over their illegal FM radio. They have threatened to throw acid on men who do not grow beards and recently killed a woman singer and left her body in a square in the valley's main town.

Military action: Khan is a member of the Pashtun nationalist Awami National Party that rules the North West Frontier Province and is part of the ruling federal government coalition.

The party opposes the Taliban, many of whom are also Pashtun, and several of its members have been killed by the militants and its leaders have been targeted by suicide bombers. Most party leaders have fled from Swat.

Khan is in favour of military action against the Taliban, saying the government had to regain control. "If the government fails, if your last option is exhausted, then this region will fall into their hands," he said, adding that talks should only start “if militants laid down their arms”.

The Taliban, led by rebel cleric Fazlullah, are trying to set up their own administration, including their ‘Islamic courts’, but Khan said no one took that seriously. "I don't accept it, the people don't accept it," he said. But many people failed to understand why the military had not gone after the Taliban, he said. The military launched a big offensive in the valley in late 2007. The Taliban withdrew to the remote side valleys to avoid government artillery and slipped back later.

Khan, who lives in a well-guarded house surrounded by fruit trees, said he had faith. "Being a Muslim, I have faith in Allah. Nothing can happen to me no matter if Fazlullah puts my name on his list or not." reuters (Daily Times)

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Swat: Diary of a school girl in Pakistan

A Pakistani seventh grade schoolgirl is writing a diary after Taleban militants in the troubled north-western Swat district ordered schools to close as part of an edict banning girls' education. Militants seek to impose their austere interpretation of Sharia law and have destroyed about 150 schools in the past year. In the third extract of her diary written in part from the relative safety of Islamabad, she chronicles her first impressions of the city after arriving from Swat and events leading up to her family's departure.

BBC Urdu dot com:

Link to English and Urdu versions:

http://letusbuildpakistan.blogspot.com/2009/01/swat-diary-of-pakistani-schoolgirl.html
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Imran Khan's letter to Barack Obama: A critical commentary

Dear President Obama,

Your extraordinary ascent to the U.S. Presidency is, to a large part, a reflection of your remarkable ability to mobilize society, particularly the youth, with the message of "change." Indeed, change is what the world is yearning for after eight long and almost endless years of carnage let loose by a group of neo-cons that occupied the White House.

Understandably, your overarching policy focus would be the security and welfare of all U.S. citizens and so it should be. Similarly, our first and foremost concern is the protection of Pakistani lives and the prosperity of our society. We may have different social and cultural values, but we share the fundamental values of peace, harmony, justice and equality before law.

No people desire change more than the people of Pakistan, as we have suffered the most since 9/11, despite the fact that none of the perpetrators of the acts of terrorism unleashed on the U.S. on Sept. 11, 2001, were Pakistani. Our entire social, political and economic fabric is in a state of meltdown. Our sovereignty, dignity and self-respect have been trampled upon. The previous U.S. administration invested in dictators and corrupt politicians by providing them power crutches in return for total compliance to pursue its misconceived war on terror.

There are many threats confronting our society today, including the threat of extremism. In a society where the majority is without fundamental rights, without education, without economic opportunities, without health care, the use of sheer force and loss of innocent lives continues to expand the extremist fringe and contract the space for the moderate majority.

Without peace and internal security, the notion of investing in development in the war zones is a pipe dream, as the anticipated benefits would never reach the people. So the first and foremost policy objective should be to restore the peace. This can only be achieved through a serious and sustained dialogue with the militants and mitigation of their genuine grievances under the ambit of our constitution and law. Since Pakistan's founding leader signed a treaty in 1948 with the people of the country's Federally Administered Tribal Areas and withdrew Pakistani troops, they had remained the most peaceful and trouble-free part of Pakistan up until the post-9/11 situation, when we were asked to deploy our troops in FATA.

Even a cursory knowledge of Pushtun history shows that for reasons of religious, cultural and social affinity, the Pushtuns on both sides of the Durand Line (which marks the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan) cannot remain indifferent to the suffering of their brethren on either side. The Pushtuns are proud of their history of resisting every invader from Alexander onwards, to the Persians, Moghuls, British and the Russians (all superpowers of their times) who were all bogged down in the Pushtun quagmire. So, no government, Pakistani or foreign, will ever be able to stop Pushtuns crossing over the 1,500-kilometer border to support their brethren in distress on either side, even if it means fighting the modern-day superpower in Afghanistan. Recent history shows how the mighty Soviet Union had to retreat from Afghanistan with its army defeated even though it had killed over a million Afghans.

To an average Pushtun, notwithstanding the U.N. Security Council sanction, the U.S. is an occupying power in Afghanistan that must be resisted. It is as simple as that. Therefore, the greatest challenge confronting U.S. policy in Afghanistan is how to change its status from an occupier to a partner. The new U.S. administration should have no doubt that there is no military solution in Afghanistan. As more innocent Pushtuns are killed, more space is created for new Taliban and even Al-Qaida recruits--revenge being an integral part of the Pushtun character. So, as with Iraq, the U.S. should give a time table for withdrawal from Afghanistan and replace NATO and U.S. forces with U.N. troops during the interim period.The Pushtuns then should be involved in a dialogue process where they should be given a stake in the peace. As the majority's stake in peace grows, proportionately the breeding ground for extremists shrinks.

The crucial lesson the U.S. needs to learn--and learn quickly--is that you can only win against terrorists if the majority in a community considers them terrorists. Once they become freedom fighters and heroes amongst their people, history tells us that the battle is lost.

Terrorism worldwide is an age-old phenomenon and cannot be eliminated by rampaging armies, no matter how powerful. It can only be contained by a strategy of building democratic societies and addressing the root causes of political conflicts. The democratization part of this strategy demands a strategic partnership between the West and the people of the Islamic world, who are basically demanding dignity, self-respect and the same fundamental rights as the ordinary citizen in the West enjoys. However, this partnership can only be forged if the U.S. and its close Western allies are prepared to accept and coexist with credible democratic governments in the Islamic world that may not support all U.S. policies as wholeheartedly as dictators and discredited politicians do in order to remain in power.

The roots of terror and violence lie in politics--and so does the solution. We urge the new administration to conduct a major strategic review of the U.S.-led war on terror, including the nature and kind of support that should realistically be expected of Pakistan keeping in mind its internal security interests. Linking economic assistance to sealing of its western frontier will only force the hand of a shaky and unstable government in Pakistan to use more indiscriminate force in FATA, a perfect recipe for disaster.

The stability of the region hinges on a stable Pakistan. Any assistance to improve governance and social indicators must not be conditional. For the simple reason that any improvement in the overall quality of life of ordinary citizens and more effective writ of the state would only make mainstream society less susceptible to extremism. However, if the new U.S. administration continues the Bush administration's mantra of "do more," to which our inept leadership is likely to respond to by using more force, Pakistan could become even more accessible to forces of extremism leading to further instability that would spread across the region, especially into India, which already faces problems of extremism and secessionist movements. Such a scenario would benefit no one--certainly not Pakistan and certainly not the U.S. That is why your message of meaningful change, Mr. President, must guide your policies in this region also.

Source: http://www.forbes.com/2009/01/29/obama-afghanistan-taliban-opinions-contributors_0129_imran_khan.html


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Some Comments

MalangBaba Says:
January 30th, 2009

This aticle of IK is not for consumption of Obama but for few ‘urdu’ readers to ask them ‘Don’t dump me for Nawaz Sharif’.

I don’t think anyone who matters in USA will even know what he wrote.

This is a first round of Sharif-Imran Malakhra.



amirtai Says:
January 30th, 2009

I agree 100% with MalangBaba. This letter is just a point scoring for Pakistani politics. Imran knows very well that US president is not more than a puppet and has to pursue the policy of think tanks institution.

I do not agree with most of what Imran Khan has said. I would rather ask Imran! What are you doing to stop the bloodshed of Pushtuns, especially in Bajaur and Swat?

We’ve seen you and your family members leading the Lawyers movement, and even for Gaza. Why don’t we see the same energies for those suffering in Swat? Please stop portraying the pushtuns as warmongers, and differentiate between those who are getting funding and support from agencies (drug money) and those who are suffering.

I would say about the situation in Swat. An honest operation, lasting only two weeks can restore peace n calm to the region. But if our army is only killing innocent civilians, and letting the militants roam freely, then they cannot restore peace in a 1000 years (already almost 17 months of the operation).

There is no need to have talks with those who slaughter people in front of children, who destroy the very signs of civilization and who push a whole generation to the dark ages (destroying schools). There is only one solution: STOP funding them, and start killing them (not innocent women and children).

I do agree with him that US should change its role from an occupier to a partner and same thing should be applied in Pakistan as well.


SangeenKhan | 01/29/09

Imran is simply ISI puppet and his ideas on this situation are absolutely ridiculous and not worth a look for any US foreign policy official, let alone US president.
Being a Pashtun and a pakistani citizen its my conviction that there is no pashtun nationalistic struggle against the foreign troops in afghanistan rather a bunch of terrorists from Punjab, arab countries, central asian republics etc are fighting for their own agendas and play havoc with the lives of innocent pashtuns. In the tribal areas all this is happening in connivance and colloboration of Pakistani national security apparatus. Being a pashtun I fully support international presence in afghanistan untill process of institution building is complete. Leaving afghanistan at this moment, westren world will commit a grave crime. Lets recall what happened to afghanistan and pashtuns after the withdrawl of USSR.
Pashtuns intelligencia around the world supports US and Nato presence in Afghanistan at this moment of history.


Pukhtoon | 01/29/09

.."A dialogue can only be successful if it stands on mutually respected ground between the two parties. In this case the common ground can be the law of Pakistan, the Code of Pakhtunwali and Islam. The Taliban respect neither of the three. The Taliban have no respect for the law of Pakistan. There is abundant proof of it in their attacks on the security forces, destruction of infrastructure including bridges, hospitals and education institutions etc. Some of my friends who have had face to face discussions with foot soldiers of the Taliban informed that the Taliban do not accept the authority of the law of Pakistan. The Taliban have no respect for the code of Pakhtunwali. The most revered institution under the code is jirga. Even the mighty empires that the Pakhtun resisted- the Muslim Mughal Empire and the non Muslim British Empire did not violate the respect of Jirga- I do not know of any attacks on Jirga that were carried out by the Mughals and the British. The Taliban have repeatedly bombed jirgas all across NWFP and FATA. The code of Pakhtunwali dictates that there shall be no attacks on women and children. The Taliban have repeatedly violated the dictate by brutally killing women and children. The Taliban have violated the respected norms of Islam. Islam never justifies any disrespect of dead bodies. The Taliban takes pride in their humiliation of dead bodies. Islam orders every Muslim man and woman to get education. The Taliban forbid education for both girls and boys. In Islam there is no compulsion in religion. The Taliban imposed their version of the religion through terror and violence. How can there be a dialogue in such conditions with the Taliban. It is perhaps due to the lack of mutually respected grounds that almost all agreements between the Taliban and the Pakistan army fell apart." (http://www.thenews.com.​pk/print1.asp?id=157179)​
The important question you should be addressing is that Who are the Taliban? Who created them? Who are Supporting Them


Pukhtoon | 01/29/09

Being a PTI member, I myself do not agree with most of what Imran Khan has said. I'll start by asking a question from Imran .. What are you doing to stop the bloodshed of Pukhtoons, especially in Bajaur and Swat? We have seen your energies in the Lawyers movement, and even for Gaza. Why don't we see the same energies for those suffering in Swat? Please stop portraying the pukhtoons as warmongers, and start differentiating between those who are getting funding and support from different agencies, and those who suffer. I would give you an example of the situation in Swat. An honest operation, lasting only two weeks (maximum) can restore complete peace to the region. But if our army is only killing innocent civilians, and letting the militants roam freely, then they cannot restore peace in a million years (and we have already seen almost 17 months of the operation).

There is no need to have talks with those who slaughter people in front of children, who destroy the very signs of civilization and who push a whole generation to the dark ages. There is only one solution: STOP funding them, and start killing them (and not innocent civilians).

I do agree with a few things in your article though and that is Afghanistan the "US has to change its status from an occupier to a partner." I also agree with "you can only win against terrorists if the majority in a community considers them terrorists. Once they become freedom fighters and heroes amongst their people, history tells us that the battle is lost."

But even your own sentence differentiates between the stages .. terrorists and freedom fighters. Many people have joined the militants because of revenge (and yes you are right here too), and those people might lay down their arms if negotiated with. But there is another party there as well. They are the ones you call terrorists, and these people can not be negotiated with. Allow me to paste an extract from article in the news (Space limit, continued in next comme



Salloo | 01/29/09

Some of what Imran bhai says is silly. Pushtuns are not the only ones looking for revenge - Americans are too, for 9/11. Tribal areas were not peaceful from 1948 until 9/11. They have always been restive - since Alexander's/Sikandar's time. He does not mention that Afghans do not recognise the Durand line - and that has long been a sore point between Islamabad and Kabul.

I think the biggest problem is that Karzai is about as good a nation-builder as Arafat was. He is running a very corrupt govt - which i think is as big a problem for Afghanistan as the Taleban.

But Imran bhai is right about difficulty in building a nation when security is crap. No easy answer. I think Pakistan and perhaps Iran need to play a more important role in Afghan security. Perhaps invite their armies to police the border districts of Afghanistan???


ardesh2000 | 01/29/09

This is like saying let's not irradiate or cut out cancer from the body, let's try to make peace with it and give it dignity.

The only real answer is sustained bombardment and elimination of terrorist infrastructure and people.


sdhume | 01/29/09

"The democratization part of this strategy demands a strategic partnership between the West and the people of the Islamic world, who are basically demanding dignity, self-respect and the same fundamental rights as the ordinary citizen in the West enjoys."

Surely even Imran Khan can't believe such hogwash. So that's why they're razing girls' schools in Swat? Or banning Yoga in Indonesia?

http://online.wsj.co​m/article/SB123315945310​924601.html

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gditpp Says:

My dear “Long March” is the dress rehearsal of the bigger drama soon to be staged on a larger level and in front of a wider audience. PTI and PMLN are both basically right wing, conservative, urban, middle class parties vying for voters from Indian Punjab/Jammu Kashmir ancestry who have mostly settled down in North central Punjab. Before 1977 pakistani politics was predominantly based on ideologies but Zia mardood in an attempt to break the national federal character of politics encouraged regional, linguistic biradari based politics; Nawaz Sharif and MQM are Gen “Zulmat’s” gift to the national politics in an attempt to break the dominance of PPP in Punjab and Sind. It is a sad and direct result of this strategy that someone like Imran Khan could only gather around five thousand votes from Islamabad and Lahore and he too has to resort to the politics of biradari/tribe to contest elections from rural Mianwali to reach national assembly. Frankly I don’t think Imran would get a landslide victory in the near future; if he can win even ten natonal assembly seats in the next election I would consider him to be well on the road to success.

Ghost of TK says:

Lest we forget!

Imran Khan getting a “Hero’s Welcome” By IJT Peace and Prosperity Activists Ghunda Jamatia’s.

More of the PTI Chairman getting OWNED by Jamatia thugs.

But Jamatia’s posing as PTI defenders never speak of this.

I guess the point was to put him in his place and to teach him a lesson he’d never forget. Since then, it seems our “Saviour” has developed a severe case of “Stockholm Syndrome” and doesn’t tire of speaking of the virtues of Qazi and the “Isliaami Niziaam”

Not to mention he hasn’t dared to set foot on UofP campus and thrown PTI student activists to the criminal thugs posing as Pro-Islam Activists of “Islami” Jamiat.

..

Utmankhel1 Says:

I was sad that day, but now i realise he probably deserved that. While talking of terrorists and sitting beside Qazi, he does not remember it is this same Qazi who has created these monsters. What the hell of a munafiq is this man. Always talking of Law and Justice, doesn’t he think Qazi should be tried for his role in creation of Terrorists for Hizb-e-Islami and Lashkare-animals …

MalangBaba Says:

@amirtai
“There is no need to have talks with those who slaughter people in front of children, who destroy the very signs of civilization and who push a whole generation to the dark ages (destroying schools). There is only one solution: STOP funding them, and start killing them (not innocent women and children).”

I agree with U completely. I think the root cause of militancy in NWFP is the ‘pleasing policy’ of past and present government. These Jahil fanatics don’t understand the language of peace. The only solution is ruthless military operation. The problem is that militants are hiding among civilians and use them as human shield. Killing of innocents is difficult to avoid in these circumstances but military must use caution and better intelligence to stop flow of funds and arms and also to minimize civilian casualities.

I think Pakistani media is not playing a +ve role and unduely glorifying Talban. That must be controlled. We need to completely support Army in their difficult operation against insurgency or else Pakistan will be another Afghanistan or Somalia.

MalangBaba Says:

@parrot pakistani wrote: “I dont agree with people who says Our Obama is IMRAN KHAN…. i think IK is much better than Obama……”

Obama Ka Baap Hay.

It is possible that Imran’s Jewish sons from Jamima or Christian daughter (tarion) become UK PM or US president of future. Who knows?

BTW: IK’s children r being raised by their mothers as per their way of life. All know that Jewish ancessotry runs from mother.

dara Says:
January 31st, 2009


What this drama is , cheap publicity? has this letter been sent over to White house or this is only for Pakistanis to read?
First of all Obama doesn’t know Imran Khan , and secondly even if he did, why he listen to a so called leader who doesn’t have any popularity in masses., who boycotted the democratic process ( elections) and who supported a Gen when he was in uniform and at his peak ( referendum).
Imran needs to establish him self as leader of this country, needs to challenge real establishment to break the status quo, then if he writes a letter will have some meanings.


haneef.gujar Says:
January 31st, 2009


imran cheetah hai. but he is a little confused. last week in urdu university he was saying there is nothing wrong with “sharai nizam” and then a few sentences later he said it is wrong to use “deen” for politics. imran i know you mean well but we want rule of law not “sharai nizaam” whatever the heck that means


darT Says:
February 1st, 2009

@haneef.gujar

yaara imran is not cheeta he is more like a choota, he is often found weighing the tesicals of jamatiya mafia so its better not to waste time talking about this

MalangBaba Says:
February 1st, 2009 at 9:00 pm
comment-top

a blogger wrote: ” Everyone should remember Bacha Khan and his supporters ANP are people who were against the great Jinnah and voted against the making of Pakistan. ”

So did the religious extremists like Jamaat Islami, Ahrar, Khaksar, Jamiat Ulma Hind (current JUI). Many of these extremists now dictates us their Nazria as ‘Nazria Pakistan’. Bacha Khan was a very honorable man and Jinnah respected him very much. I am a Punjabi but I consider Bacha Khan a great person. At least he was not a hypocrite.



a blogger wrote: “According to one article in Urdu BBC which one of the American has written,, there is no leadership in Pakistan and even does not seem any slight sign of it”

Leaders are not born out of vaccum. They r the product of time and circumstances. Unfortunately we got some great leaders like Jinnah, Suharwardi, Bhutto and BB but we killed them. Now we are left with Zardaries, Sharifs and IKs. They are not natural leaders. Real leaders are fearless, lead by example, give hope, trigger change, and above all connect themselves with people. I agree Pakistan lacks leadership at this point.

“I would love to work with Imran Khan ……the way he speaks shows purity and sincerity but unfortunately people like him can’t come forward to be leaders, because of highly involvement of national and international selfish powers.”

The biggest problem with IK are thrre:
1. he does not walk his talk
2. he fails to connect with masses
3. he is an aristocrate from heart

Real leaders don’t need media to glorify themselves. Bhutto, BB, Arafat, Nasir, Chavez, Khomeini, Ghandhi, Mandala, Nikroma and countless other leaders were never favoured by media. Media by nature protects ’status quo’ and interests of ‘upper classes’.

This is the reason IK can never win the hearts of masses. Zardari is much better than him at least he is fearless and no coward.


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FahadAfridi Says:
February 1st, 2009 at 9:59 pm


@ImranKhanforpm,

Bacha Khan was the greatest Pakhtun leader in last 100 years and an honorable leader who who struggled for freedom against the British and Indic/Pakistani colonists till his last breath. Jinnah did not even spend 1 day in jail for freedom but was assigned Pakistan by the British as part of divide and rule policies.

Why does it give you heartburn that Pukhtuns want to unite with other Pukhtuns and do not like to be killed by your Taliban and Army cabal?

“I have been a Pashtun for six thousand years, a Muslim for thirteen hundred years, and a Pakistani for twenty-five.” - Bacha Khan

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Muhammad Usman Says:
February 1st, 2009 at 10:47 pm
comment-top

Fahadafridi

Your argument is flawed regarding union of puktuns.

Is afghanistan a pakhtun country , no sir it is not.

Afghanistan is third rate country, which is law less for many centuries, ruled by warriors.

Some time in histrory inviting communists to rule and now capitalism to rule.

What ashame.

Did any one from paksitan invited russians to inavade afghanistan. What should pakistan do to stop russians advance into its territory.

Sorry sir you are fundamentally wrong.

I can agree with you on PUKTONKWA, AUTONOMY,

But not on this union stuff.



Any way what ever you say about JINNAH sahab, his status in history will remain what he was.

He was man of integrety, honour.

He was not the person showing his vote on television.

#
Utmankhel1 Says:
February 2nd, 2009 at 2:42 am
comment-top

I don’t want to talk about Jinnah, as i don’t want to listen about Bacha Khan. Both are dead, God give them eternal peace. You know what u respect Jinnah for, and we know why we keep Bacha Khan in esteem.

Imran Khan has lost everything. After Shaukat Khanum and cricket, he did not deserve to go down in history as 2nd in command to a crook like Qazi. If extremism is what Imran stands for then he is already a loser as that space is pre-occupied by many whom Imran will struggle to match in meanness, like Qazi,Masood Azha, Baitullah Mehsood, Muslim Khan etc ………. though one would be dishonest not to appreciate the pace at which this man is going down

This letter is a testimony to his cheap tactics of getting sympathies of the religious right. And most importantly, by twisiting facts to match his idiotic ideas, he is loosing credibility in the eyes of people who have even a slight knowledge of the history and current situation of the region.

Pukhtuns will not spare him especially, as this man is bent upon labelling them terrorists.

Evey child knows where the afghan jihad was planned and where the movement of taliban started but imran khan does not know. By talking of terrorists he just does not remember to mention GHQ RAWALPINDI, where everything has been planned. An evidence of the meanness of this person is that despite knowing that America/Obama is well aware of every double game that pakistan has played but still he is writing to them in ‘Open Letter’, which shows the letter is not meant for policy makers in Washington but for the sheeple of pakistan.

In the end, on a positive note, dear Pakhtun brothers, we need not worry, because Obama does not make policies on the letters of Qazi Imran Khan, he knows history of Soviet War Jihadis and Taliban creation in GHQ Rawalpindi, and he knows everything about the double game pakistan is and has been playing in Afghanistan, FATA and Swat.

So, Imran Khan we know you what you want to get, and Obama knows well where to hit………..


Muhammad Usman Says:
February 2nd, 2009


Well my pukhtun friends , how conviemtly u forget this jihad was planned by fathers in amreeca.

They are not our friends either.
I am not all fan of imran, what i am saying is it was not pak/ghq who invited russians and certainly not pak who is inviting new colonial masters.
Forget about imran think about who the enemy is.
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The day the army chief was reported as visiting Swat....

The day the army chief was reported as visiting Swat, two observations appeared on the editorial page of a national daily:

The first was: “People now have their reservations about the operation. They ask pertinent questions about it. They see a lack of willingness on the part of the state to curb the militancy. This perception is now held by the intelligentsia, particularly the Pakhtun intelligentsia. They contend that if the state’s military can stand up to a military as strong and large as India’s, how can it not handle an internal insurgency carried out by a few thousand armed men?” (Five thousand terrorists are fighting twenty thousand troops.)

The second serious observation was: “However, even some of the more historically accurate narratives which acknowledge the deep consensual relationship between the religious right and the military establishment do not consider how this relationship has evolved and why the religious right is able to make inroads into society (regardless of whether it is supported by the establishment or not)”.

But one can understand the situation in the light of the media-supported mass sympathy for the terrorists of Lal Masjid in 2007, which redounded to the advantage of the Swat Taliban. Why should the army oppose something that the channels-led people find acceptable? But after more than a year, and despite these channels, public opinion has changed and it is time to grasp the nettle of terrorism-supported parallel government in Swat. (Daily Times)
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Another Shia killed, eight abducted from Hangu - Terror of Taliban and Sipah-e-Sahaba reigns the NWFP; Pakistan Army is a silent accomplice....

One killed, eight abducted from Hangu

Staff Report

HANGU: A person was killed and eight others abducted in several incidents of violence in Hangu district of NWFP, official sources said on Thursday.

They said unidentified armed men opened fire on a vehicle near Tutkas graveyard in the district’s Tal tehsil. The passengers were travelling from Kurram Agency to Hangu.

A man, Johar Ali, was killed in the firing, while the assailants abducted the other three men, identified as Malik Askar Ali, Syed Ali Shah and Haji Mali Khel, the sources said.

Separately, unidentified men abducted two persons from Tura Waray road in the Doaba police station precincts. An Afghan private security guard, Syed Agha, was abducted from Tal city, while unidentified men abducted a government contractor, Fazal Akbar, and Imtiaz, an employee of NADRA in Orakzai Agency, from separate areas of the district.

Meanwhile, the Taliban in the neighbouring Orakzai Agency took over two checkposts vacated by security personnel, official sources and locals said.

Speaking on condition of anonymity, the locals said there was no writ of the government in Orakzai, as security personnel have vacated checkposts for fear of the Taliban. The Taliban announced the imposition of sharia in the agency last month, barring women to visit bazaars and banning all modes of audio and video entertainment. (Daily Times)

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PAKISTAN: 2 EXECUTED BY TALIBAN IN TRIBAL AREAS

(AGI) - Miranshah, Jan. 29 - Pakistani Taliban are on the attack in the tribal areas, the remote and wild mountain regions at the Afghan border, where the central government has little to say. According to security sources, the guerrillas have captured and executed two individuals accused of collaborating with the authorities. One, a young man in his thirties, was suspected of spying for the American troops, he was shot near Daigan, a village around 40km north of Miranshah, the capital of North Waziristan. The other, a policeman, suffered a similar treatment. He was captured together with four others in Tal, 45km north-east of the capital. The five, all Shias, were on their way to Parachinar, capital of another tribal area, Kurram. The policeman was killed, his companions were kidnapped and taken to an unknown location. The Taliban, like their allies of al-Qaeda, are all Sunnites who accuse the Shias of heresy. Meanwhile around 50 rebels have started a raging battle against the regular troops of Pakistan near Bannu, in the north-western province of North West Frontier, close to the border with North Waziristan. The rebels were forced to withdraw after two hours of fighting however, leaving two dead and five injured behind.

http://www.agi.it/world/news/200901291550-pol-ren0038-art.html

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Mob tries to burn houses of Ahmadis in Layyah

Shame on extremist Muslims who cannot respect the faith and practices of their fellow Pakistanis.

....

Mob tries to burn houses of Ahmadis in Layyah

* HRCP alarmed over four children’s detention on blasphemy charges
* FIR says local MNA’s uncle ‘probed’ the incident at his outhouse

By Abdul Manan

LAHORE: A mob – led reportedly by members of banned religious organisations – tried to set ablaze houses of Ahmadis in Layyah on Thursday, a day after four children belonging to the minority community were detained on charges of blasphemy, police and residents told Daily Times.

Twenty policemen had been deployed to the village, a police official said.

Police had registered a case (number 46/9) in the Kot Sultan police station against Tahir Imran (16), Tahir Mahmood (14), Naseer Ahmad (14), Muhammad Irfan (14), and Mubashar Ahmad (45) under Section 295-C of the Pakistan Penal Code.

The Ahmadiyya community has denied the charge, the first ever against children since the Section 295-C was introduced in 1986.

Asma Jahangir, the chairwoman of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP), said that it was heinous to use the law against children. The HRCP was finding facts about the incident, she said, and would soon send a team to Layyah.

Religious scholar Javed Ghamidi said the children were safer in police custody.

The children belong to Chak 172/TDA, a village about 25 kilometres from Kot Sultan. Last week, the locals had stopped the Ahmadi children from praying in the central Gulzar-e-Madina mosque, Kot Sultan Station House Officer (SHO) Rauf Khalid told Daily Times.

But they continued to use the latrines, where they have been accused of writing blasphemous material, according to the first information report (FIR).

Noor Elahi Kulachi – a retired schoolteacher, and, as the SHO confirmed, a member of the banned Sipah-e-Sahaba – complained to Iqbal Hussain Shah, the uncle of the local National Assembly member Saqlain Shah. According to the FIR, Iqbal Hussain called the SHO and the people who had seen the writings to his outhouse, where they “probed the incident” to find the Ahmadi children guilty.

But the local leader of the Ahmadiyya community alleged that Kulachi – who was also a member of Jamaatud Dawa – had pressured Iqbal Hussain to direct the police to register the case, and the latter complied because of the Jamaatud Dawa votebank in the constituency.

Saqlain Shah, an MNA from the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz, denied his uncle had pressured police. But he said representatives of the Ahmadiyya community should have visited his uncle’s residence for the matter to be resolved in line with local traditions, instead of denying charges.

He also said that Ahmadis had first lodged cases against local Muslims (for violating the Loudspeakers Act and under the Maintenance of Public Order) after being disallowed to hold a religious meeting, and should now “face the truth”. He said he would visit the village on Saturday, and that his uncle was trying to pacify the villagers.

The SHO said he had registered the case after consulting the district police officer and a deputy inspector general of police. The inspector general of police had also been informed, he added. (Daily Times)

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Nawaz Sharif threatens Asif Zardari? An analysis of "Long March"

Nazir Naji






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Tanvir Qaiser Shahid



Some Comments:

Mohammad Musa Islam Islam Says:

To those who love nawaz shareef: that is your right but don't deny the histry.

1. who was with general jeelani,

2. who was with general zia ,

3. when general zia dismissed junejo government who was with general zia.

4.who was in IJI , it was made by general aslam beg and hameed gul,

5.who supported midnight jackals and main culprits of that action major amir and bregadier Imtiaz were with nawaz shareef or PP

6. relations with COAS from aslam to musharaf were not good at all why,

7. attack on supreme court and relations with sajjad ali shah and finally removal of sajjad ali shah from cj.

8.talking against PCO judges and nominating saeedu zaman siddiqui for the post of president of pakistan who was also a pco judge, he took oath of zia pco now my dear read this and think again

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Some thoughts on Swat: the devastation caused by the army's till-now half-hearted attempts to defeat the insurgents is inexplicable

Some thoughts on Swat
Friday, January 30, 2009
Charles Ferndale

For months I have been reading assiduously the comments in Pakistani newspapers concerning militancy in the NWFP and FATA. This newspaper, in particular, has distinguished itself in its coverage of this tragedy. The courage, passion and tenderness that writers have shown in their articles and letters suggest to me that, contrary to appearances, Pakistan may still have a future. Of the regions now riven with bloody strife, the one about which I should like to comment here is Swat.

I have read everything I can find about Swat, the Taliban, and the trouble there. I have also spoken to many friends with close blood ties to Swat, who also have homes there. I visited Swat often when it was still a place of peaceful beauty and great hospitality. However, in all my reading and discussions, the things most absent have been reliable answers to centrally important questions. We seem to know much less than we need to know, if we are to understand what is happening in Swat.

Here are some of the things we don't know. When I say "we," I mean well informed people outside what Pakistanis call the "agencies." We don't know what, if anything, these "agencies" know. We don't know who is financing the militants. We don't know how many hardcore militants there are, nor how many supporters they have, nor what proportion of their supporters is coerced into their support. We do not know to what extent the militancy in Swat is a popular uprising. We don't know how many of the leaders of the insurgency are not Swatis. We don't know how they are being supplied and resupplied. In short, we don't know anything we would need to know if we were the people responsible for a successful suppression of the insurgency. I have heard lots of speculative answers to these questions, but I have never been offered anything as useful as a fact.

Nevertheless, some facts do seem to be emerging from this ghastly turmoil. A group of people, whom others call Taliban, are committing utterly disgraceful acts of brutality upon people who have done no one any harm (unless we were to share with the perpetrators of these atrocities their psychopathic views of good and bad). They are acting contrary to those principles of Islam that the vast majority of decent Muslims accept. Their actions are abhorrent. It is possible that few of their supporters approve of the atrocities committed by some of them, but we don't know what proportion approves or disapproves of these actions. Theirs is a guerrilla war. All guerrilla wars share some common elements: first, they cannot prosper without the support of a significant proportion of the population among whom they hide (the "support" need not be voluntary); and, second, in order to defeat a well organised, well-financed insurgency, the opponents of that insurgency must field at least ten fighters to every one fielded by the insurgents.

From what I have read, there is nothing to suggest that the Pakistani army is fielding ten fighters for every militant, so, according to military experience, it will fail. The soldiers fielded by the government are mostly Punjabis, who may or may not be willing to die for the salvation of Swatis. The result is that the military is resorting to tactics (shelling, bombing, mortar fire, etc.) which are sure to kill and injure many more civilians than insurgents, thus causing even greater suffering and further hatred of the government.

From what I read, the devastation caused by the army's till-now half-hearted attempts to defeat the insurgents is much, much worse than the atrocities being committed by the insurgents; though the insurgents' atrocities are more colourful.

That such a strategy should pass without outrage in Pakistani society is evidence of the tendency for outraged people to think unclearly. I read daily in the Pakistani press strident criticism of America's overlooking of the fact that its policies to kill a few militants may often lead to many civilian deaths. Yet when it happens in Pakistan, the occurrence passes with much less criticism, or is altogether ignored.

A brief survey of Swati history shows that the people of that beautiful valley have suffered repeated invasions from stronger groups, who have snatched their land, wealth, homes and daughters and who have tortured, imprisoned, expelled or killed all who opposed them. (Sound familiar?) The only good leader they seem to have had was the last Wali, under whose wise and fair guidance they showed themselves to be the nicest people on earth. A friend of mine knew the last Wali and asked him what was his secret of good governance. The Wali replied "impartiality." But ever since the Wali was deposed in 1969, impartiality is exactly what few Swatis have enjoyed. Quite the contrary, they have had removed from them the close personal care of their indigenous leader, only to be oppressed by greedy, arrogant, brutish, insensitive outsiders whose power base was not gained by popular approval but was imposed by force from a central government and its cronies, indifferent to the interests of the indigenous habitants of Swat.

Can one blame them for perhaps turning to terrible people for defence against those whom they may have seen as worse people? Alas, they may now have discovered that their hoped-for saviours are actually as bad as, or worse than, their oppressors were; it seems now to be their dreadful fate to be killed by their "liberators" too.

Why is no Pakistani government capable of impartiality? Why has it always lacked all sense of social justice? What Swat needs is the dedicated attention of well-financed people who really love its people. Richard Holbrooke's comments about America being unable to afford to create a Valhalla in Swat bode ill for the Swatis. Were the Americans better informed they might know that before 1969, Swat was a Valhalla that financed itself. America's policies destroyed it.


The writer is a freelance contributor living in Karachi. Email: charlesferndale@yahoo.co.uk
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Ayaz Amir: The Long March: Seeking enlightenment, a way out of the confusion

Seeking enlightenment, a way out of the confusion
Islamabad diary

Friday, January 30, 2009
by Ayaz Amir

A pundit, so-called, is meant to clarify things, to throw some light where darkness reigns. But I am confused myself and seek an answer to some very confusing questions.

My preferred Chief Justice of Pakistan, and like me the chief justice of choice of a vast number of Pakistanis, is Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry. If chief justices were to be chosen in an election he would win hands down, leaving all rivals far behind.

But what confuses me is the matter of his restoration. Can he be restored without President Asif Zardari being shown out of the presidency? Can a pistol be put to Zardari's head to make him agree to restore Chaudhry and the other deposed judges to their rightful positions? In other words, can this be done as long as the PPP is in power?

So what is the long march announced by the lawyers' community meant to achieve? They plan a sit-in before parliament and the Supreme Court (both being close to each other) in order to force the government's hand. But will the government's hand be forced? It won't be unless the lawyers storm the Supreme Court and physically install Iftikhar Chaudhry in the chair he once occupied. Can the lawyers do this? Are they even aiming to do this? And is the government in Islamabad so weak as to allow this to happen?

The lawyers' movement has shown amazing tenacity. When cynics expected it to wither away it survived and kept going. Zardari maintains it was Benazir Bhutto's 'wisdom' which created the conditions for General Pervez Musharraf to take off his uniform. This is selective and self-serving history.

What made Musharraf a liability in American eyes (and the US was his protective godfather) was his fatal weakening by the lawyers' movement. The path to democracy thus was paved by the sacrifices rendered by Pakistan's lawyers and the historic stand taken by the Supreme Bench headed by Justice Khalilur Rehman Ramday -- the bench which ruled against Musharraf and restored Chaudhry as chief justice.

But despite these striking and unprecedented successes the lawyers' movement was not able to ignite a mass movement on the lines of the 1968 movement against Ayub Khan or the 1977 rightist upheaval against Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. People lined the routes of the journeys Iftikhar Chaudhry made to various bar associations, and they showered him with more rose petals than perhaps anyone else in our turbulent history, but they erected no barricades and stormed no Bastilles.

From which we might infer that while the long march will excite public interest and people with great interest will watch the event unfolding on television, we are not going to see a million men and women, or even half that number, marching up Constitution Avenue and occupying the Supreme Court..

As for the sit-in, even if it is impressive, it's a bit hard visualizing it lasting for too long. If an army marches on its stomach, as Napoleon said, for a sit-in to go on, the least you need are adequate toilet facilities, which are rather skimpy around the place where the sit-in is supposed to take place.

Lawyers have every right to agitate for the rule of law and the restoration of the rightful judiciary headed by Iftikhar Chaudhry. They owe this to themselves and to the people who were so inspired by their movement. But their leaders should not set unrealistic aims. No street agitation can bring Iftikhar Chaudhry back and the movement's leaders do themselves no service by spreading the impression that somehow this miracle will come about with their long march.

Aitzaz Ahsan, Ali Ahmed Kurd, Munir A Malik and Hamid Khan -- some of the leading lights of the lawyers' movement -- are experienced enough to know that not every agitation is guaranteed to attain success. They should be satisfied if there is an impressive popular turnout on March 9. But if they aim too high and then fall short, they will only be paving the way to disillusionment and a collapse of morale.

Indeed, making it sound as if the long march will lead to decisive results is a sign not of confidence but desperation. This is a country where dictators have regularly stamped upon the constitution, where even elected leaders have not had much respect for the rule of law, where the highest judges at every turn in our history have provided succour and relief to military usurpers. Undoing this legacy is a vital task. But what makes anyone think that this task can be accomplished between one sunrise and one sunset?

Indian independence was achieved after decades of struggle. It took almost a century before apartheid in South Africa was buried. Behind Barack Obama's rise to the presidency lies the saga of the civil rights movement.

Yes, we need an independent judiciary, one that serves the people and defends the laws of the land, one that is not a handmaiden of tinpot dictators. The rule of law must prevail. But to hitch these absolutely vital aims to a single day's events is to betray impulsiveness, not resolve or strength of purpose.

Iftikhar Chaudhry and his fellow judges, Bhagwandas and Ramday chief amongst them, have performed what in Pakistan's context can rightly be described as an historic role. They upheld the rule of law and in so doing stood up to a dictatorship, contributing mightily to its decline and fall. What if the democratic government replacing that dictatorship has betrayed popular expectations, and its own pledges, by not restoring the Supreme Court sacked by Musharraf on Nov 2, 2007?

Which worthwhile struggle is without its share of betrayals or setbacks, of hopes unfulfilled? Ask the Palestinians, ask the ghost of Martin Luther King. Was Mohammad Ali Jinnah happy with the moth-eaten Pakistan he got? He wasn't but he had no choice: he could either take it or leave it. No revolution in history has lived up to its promise. Things desired are different from what they turn out to be. Which doesn't mean that we fold up our hands and give up the fight. But it does mean we not lose sight of reality.

To repeat the obvious, unless our lawyer friends know something that we don't, Zardari is not about to fall. And as long as this remains the state of play Iftikhar Chaudhry is not about to be restored.

What I also don't understand is our confusion about parliamentary sovereignty. If parliament is sovereign, then the matter of the judges' restoration should be left to parliament to decide. What the mood in that supposedly sovereign body may be, may not be to everyone's taste or liking. But then if parliamentary sovereignty is to be something more than a catchphrase, we are left with no choice except to abide by whatever dominant mood therein prevails.

I hate to say it but there is no majority backing in the National Assembly for the restoration of the pre-Nov 2 judiciary. Tragic but true. Lawyers have every right to protest against this state of affairs. They have every right to carry on their struggle. But it is scarcely wise to mislead public opinion, and perhaps mislead oneself into the bargain, by setting impossible deadlines.

Huge rallies against the Iraq war have been brought out in western capitals, far bigger demonstrations of popular fervour than anything we can imagine in Pakistan. But these rallies have been part of a movement which still continues. Pakistan's lawyers have done a great job and public sentiment is with them but it will be to their good to realise that the road ahead is long and arduous.

It is true there is much anger against the Zardari dispensation. Hopes raised by the last elections have given way to a feeling of disillusionment. But then, however hard it may be to swallow this, Zardari is democratically-elected president of Pakistan and the PPP enjoys majority support in the National Assembly. It took an election, not an armoured brigade, to see George Bush stepping into the sunset. We have to get used to the idea, however uncomfortable it may be, that we will have to wait for an election to see the last of the Zardari era.

Our political class refuses to learn from history. At a time when national unity should be the most precious commodity of all, knives are being sharpened for a fresh round of political confrontation, the PML-N talking in terms of popular mobilization and the PPP fishing for trouble in Punjab. Pakistan is facing serious threats, perhaps to its very existence, because of the fallout from America's war in Afghanistan and the growing Taliban threat in Swat and FATA. But the political class, not for the first time, is demonstrating its incapacity to see beyond its short-term interests. The people of Pakistan deserve better. (The News)

Email: winlust@yahoo.com


Some Comments:

gditpp Says:
January 31st, 2009

If Mian sb really means business then he and the lawyers should take the long march to RawalPindi instead of Islamabad and should make Dharna right in front of GHQ.

It was the then COAS Gen Mush, the Corps Commander and the head of ISI(Gen Kiani) who were responsible for the Martial Law of nov 3, 2007 and the removal of Iftekhar Chaudhry. If they mean business they should go to Rawalpindi. Dharnas in front of Presidency Islamabad were OK as long as Musharraf occupied it but now with a Civilian president there it would only be a show for getting political mileage. It is GHQ who is responsible for giving Mush the departing guard of honour, it is the sitting COAS who allowed Mush to occupy Army House for more than the legally permitted time, it is the military top brass who is not letting Dr Abdul Qadeer Khan free. First at least define the real enemy.

But that is perhaps asking for too much. The Dharna Brigade do not want to take on the Army. Thats why Iftekhar Chadhry and the Supreme Court allowed Musharraf to contest elections in Uniform. That is the reason why Justice Iftekhar didnot name the “third person” responsible for his removal on Nov 3, 2008 in front of Pindi Bar Club.

The real Bastille to storm lies in Rawalpindi. But it would need real-life courage to go there.

In my assessment PPP is not quite ready to fight anyone else’s battle, not at least for now. It is in fact trying for a national reconciliation. Neither it needs to prove if it is anti establishment or not, the political history of Pakistan speaks for it.

I rather think that the time is ripe for the new claimants seeking the title of forces of anti-establishment to come forward and offer some real sacrifices. Lets have a shaheed Quaid from PTI, Jamat e Islami or PMLN for a change.
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Dealing with Swat: General Kayani's assurance, too little, too late?

Dealing with Swat
Friday, January 30, 2009

The COAS has said that the militant menace in Swat will indeed be overcome. Visiting Swat, General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani pledged to take measures to restore the writ of the state. Ahead of his arrival in Mingora, the military spokesman stated that 'decisive' action against militants had been planned. All this makes one wonder that why did it take so long for the government to order such action given that a sense of drift had set in the valley for quite some time and dozens of residents had been brutally killed by the militants. The background to the current militancy is that Operation Rah-e-Haq was initiated against the extremists in the valley towards the end of 2007 and was wrapped up in mid-January with the military and the government claiming success. Soon after this, the ANP assumed office in Peshawar, and one of their key electoral planks was to talk peace with Swat's militants. However, this otherwise sensible approach was not responded in kind by the Swat Taliban who in fact began targeting the local ANP leadership soon after the party took the reins of the NWFP government.

But it has almost been a year since that happened and one needs to wonder what took the government [read military] this long to order a fresh operation against the militants especially since with each passing day they only consolidated their grip over the valley – and in fact by the end of 2008 it was widely believed that much of Swat was under the control of Fazlullah and his men. While President Zardari has now been asserting that matters will be brought under control, we can only wonder why this wisdom did not dawn earlier. After all the attacks on schools in Swat, the action against those opposing the Taliban and the expanding control of the militants were hardly a secret. The dangers posed have been highlighted by the burning of a school in Bajaur. Quite evidently, the 'inspiration', if it can be called that, has come from events in Swat. The militant onslaught there must be stopped before the same kind of mayhem is created in other areas of the country.

It is of course better to act late, rather than to fail to do so at all. In this respect, the military's declaration of a new resolve is welcome. On the other hand, there should also be some analysis of what went wrong before. For some time, the ANP has been expressing concern about the state of the operation in Swat. Perhaps if their warnings and their pleas for tougher action had been taken heed of, we would not have faced the crisis we face today. There is a dimension to this which reaches beyond the borders of Swat or even Pakistan. Over the last decade, the image of Pakistan as a safe, civilized country has tumbled dramatically. It is now ranked as one of the most dangerous places on earth. This has affected investment, tourism and a great deal else. Our decision makers must remember that as the horrific tales from Swat make their way into the international media, Pakistan's standing will continue to fall further. This must not be allowed to happen. The military and the government must work together to prove that the suggestions that they have colluded with militants in Swat are entirely untrue. This they can best do by stamping out militancy in the area, apprehending key leaders and restoring to the blood-stained valley the peace its people so desperately seek. (The News)
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An example of the Shariat of the Taliban; Where is Imran Khan on this?

Scuffle over dress code

Friday, January 23, 2009
Militant, ex-Jihadi among three killed in Mingora

By our correspondent

MINGORA: Militants gunned down Amjad Islam, teacher of a private school who himself waged a Jihad against the Soviet forces in Afghanistan, for not hiking up his shalwar (trouser) above his ankles.

However, the issue did not end here but the militants went to the slain teacher’s house and gunned down his father, Ghani Akbar, a lawyer by profession. The militants later hung Amjad’s body from a pole in the Matta College Square.

Locals said that the militants on Thursday morning asked the teacher of the Hira School at the College Square to hitch up his shalwar above his ankles. However, Amjad told them he was a former Mujahid himself and knew everything about Islam but nobody could be forced to pull up shalwar above the ankles.

Continuing arguments, the teacher said that he had also saw the Taliban rule in Afghanistan who did not force into doing so, then how could they do? The arguments angered the militants and a scuffle took place. Amjad, who had a pistol, fired at the militants, killing Khalid on the spot and wounding two others.

The schoolteacher was trying to flee but the militants fired at him and attacked him with daggers. He was killed on the spot. His body was hung from a pole and warned the locals not to touch his body till Friday morning.

After killing the teacher, the militants scurried towards his house and dragged out his father, Sahibzada Ghani, and sprayed him with bullets. Locals said that Ghani was a religious and humble person and was respected in the area. The body of the schoolteacher, however, was taken to his house after the intervention of a local Jirga.

http://www.thenews.com.pk/top_story_detail.asp?Id=19834

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Imran Khan demands the imposition of Shariah in Pakistan

http://letusbuildpakistan.blogspot.com/2009/01/imran-khan-demands-imposition-of.html

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Comments:

we_are_nuts Says:
January 27th, 2009 at 8:51 pm

Imran Khan’s Sharia?

http://www.thenews.com.pk/top_story_detail.asp?Id=19834

Where is Imran Khan on this?

Why is there no outrage over this? Why aren’t there BLOCK headlines in newspapers across Pakistan about this? Why isn’t PK Politics asking it’s visitors to discuss this? FU*K THE PALESTINIANS AND FU*K THE ARABS!

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Ghost Of TK Says:
January 28th, 2009 at 12:42 am

@W.A.N: “Why is there no outrage over this?”

Because brozzer, these are RAW+ISI agents (if you are to believe Qazi’s umreeka-palat lesbian daughter) and this is not the true taliban.

P.S. “Kia yeh waaqi hamari jang hai?”

P.P.S. “Why isn’t there outrage over the army BOMBING the Chechen/Uzbek/Arab Insurgents “civilians and wymmynz und childrenzez? — who are actually ISI RAW agents — but somehow our Islamists feel the pain for these foreign agents all the same.

ppps. chalen choRen.. zara yeh to bataen… “Kia yeh hamaari jang hai?”

P.Q.R.S. Zarrin Mazari is a RAW fabrication. However.. Aafia Siddiki is the present day zul-jinah … Oh the humanity!!! The daughter of the nation, Afia Siddiqui was RRRRRAAAPPEED!!! oh THE HEW-MANA-TEEEEEE!!! GURGLE GURGLE…

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Ghost Of TK Says:
January 28th, 2009 at 1:16 am


Meet Rita Katz

http://www.newyorker.com/archive/2006/05/29/060529fa_fact

Or … How I stopped worrying and learned to love the Zionist infiltrators disguised as “fundamentalist” Muslims

...
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Swat: Some excerpts from Mullah Fazlullah's Taliban FM Radio (Shariat Channel)

The following are a few excerpts from Mullah Fazlullah's FM Radio in Swat, which he has been successfully operating, first under the auspices of the MMA Government in the NWFP and now with the (unholy) blessings of the Pakistan Amry (ISI):

1. Kafir means Kafir Police, Kafir Fauj.

2. Momin means Momin Taliban

3. Wazir-e-Azam is Kharr-e-Azam, Wazir-e-Aala is Kharr-e-Aala

4. Appreciation of the 'beautiful' scenes of slaughtering of the kuffar

5. Good news: So many soldiers killed in India, Mubarak (congratulations); so many Shia killed in D.I. Khan, Mubarak.

6. Announcement of the future line of action and Fatwas, including hit list and prohibition of girls education.

Report by BBC Urdu dot com, Abdul Haye Kakar

سوات: طالبان کا پیغام ہواکےدوش پر

عبدالحئی کاکڑ بی بی سی اردو ڈاٹ کام، پشاور

	مولانا فضل اللہ روپوش مگر ان کا ایف ایم چینل اپنا کام کر رہا ہے

سوات کے طالبان ایک محتاط اندازے کے مطابق نہ صرف اسّی فیصد علاقے پر قابض ہوچکے ہیں بلکہ ایف ایم چینل کی صورت میں اب ان کی اجارہ داری ہوا کی لہروں پر بھی قائم ہوچکی ہے۔

اگرچہ سوات میں دو سال قبل ایک درجن سے زائد غیر قانونی ایف چینل چل رہے تھے اب صرف ایک ہی چینل کی نشریات سنائی دیتی ہیں۔ یہ چینل ’مولانا فضل اللہ ایف ایم چینل‘ کہلاتا ہے۔

سوات کی شدت پسندی کو اگر ’غیر قانونی ایف چینل کی شدت پسندی‘ کہا جائے تو بیجا نہ ہوگا۔ کیونکہ اس چینل نے دو ہزار چھ میں اپنے قیام کے بعد صرف دو سال کے مختصر عرصے میں ایک باقاعدہ مسلح گروپ کی تشکیل میں مدد دی۔

ابتدا میں مولانا فضل اللہ نے لوگوں کا دل جیتنے کے لیے درسِ قرآن، دینی مسائل پر لوگوں کے سوالوں کے جواب اور سماجی کاموں میں ایک دوسرے کی مدد کرنے پر زور دیا۔ پھر رفتہ رفتہ ان نشریات پر ’جہاد‘ کی افادیت کا رنگ غالب آنے لگا۔ اس تبدیلی نے جوانوں کی ایک کھیپ تیار کی، لوگوں کے چندوں سے تقریباً تین کروڑ روپے کی لاگت سے امام ڈھیرئی مرکز کی تعمیر کاکام شروع ہوا جس میں مقامی لوگوں نے بلا معاوضہ کام کیا۔

سکیورٹی فورسز اور طالبان کے درمیان لڑائی کے آغاز کے بعد مولانا فضل اللہ پس منظر میں چلے گئے اور ایف چینل پر تقریر کی ذمہ داری مولانا شاہ دوران نے سنبھال لی ہے۔

مولانا شاہ دوران نرم لہجے مگر طنز و مزاح سے بھر پور انداز میں طالبان کی جانب سے احکامات پیش کرتے ہیں۔ ان کے ایک سامع نے بتایا کہ مولانا شاہ دوران نے سیاسی لیڈروں اور اعلی عہدوں کی پیروڈی بنارکھی ہے جیسےزرادری کو غداری، گیلانی کو گیلنے، وزیراعظم کو خ۔۔۔ اعظم اور وزیر اعلی کو خ۔۔۔ اعلی پکارتے ہیں۔

	مولانا فضل اللہ نے اپنے ایف ایم چینل کے ذریعے علاقے کے نوجوانوں کو متاثر کیا

اس سامع کے بقول مولانا دوران قرآنی آیات اور احادیث پڑھنے کے بعد ان کا ترجمہ یا تشریح ’طالبان کی سوچ اور کارروائیوں‘ کے تناظر میں کرتے ہیں۔ مثلاً جب وہ کہتے ہیں کہ ’یا ایہی الکافرون‘ تو وہ اس کا ترجمہ کرتے ہوئے کہتے ہیں: ’اے کافروں، اے پاکستانی فوجیوں، اے پولیس والو، اے ایف سی والو۔۔۔ اور ’یا ایہی المؤمنین‘ کا ترجمہ ’اے مومن طالبان‘ کرتے ہیں۔

رات کے ساڑھے سات سے دس بجے تک جاری رہنے والی نشریات چار حصوں یعنی درسِ قرآن، چندہ دینے والوں کا شکریہ، ’خوشخبریاں‘ سنانے اور دھمکیاں دینے پر مشتمل ہوتی ہیں۔

مذکورہ سامع کا کہنا ہے کہ مولانا شاہ دوران اسلامی تاریخ کے واقعات کچھ اس انداز سے پیش کرتے ہیں جس سے طالبان کی کارروائیاں، جیسے لوگوں کا سرقلم کرنا وغیرہ صحیح ثابت ہوسکے۔ ایک دفعہ انہوں نے کہا کہ گزشتہ رات تقریر کے بعد جب وہ ساتھیوں کے ساتھ بیٹھ گئے تو انہوں نے ان سے ایک جہادی سی ڈی دیکھنے کی فرمائش کی اور بقول ان کے ’میں نے جب سی ڈی دیکھی تو اس میں ذبح کرنے کےاتنے خوبصورت خوبصورت مناظر تھے کہ مزہ آگیا۔‘

وہ اپنی تقریر کے دوران ملکی اور بین لاقوامی سطح پر تشدد کے ہونے والے بعض واقعات مزے لے کر بیان کرتے ہیں جس سے وہ خوشخبریوں کا نام دیتے ہیں۔

مقامی لوگوں کا کہنا ہے کہ ماضی کے مقابلے میں ایف ایم چینل کے سننے والوں کی تعداد بڑھ گئی ہے۔ اس کی وجہ یہ ہے کہ لوگوں کو یقین ہوگیا ہے کہ طالبان ایک قوت ہے اور وہ جو کہتے ہیں کرکے دکھاتے ہیں۔

یہ خبریں وہ ایک اخبار سے پڑھ کر سناتے ہیں۔ جیسے ایک بار انہوں نے کہا کہ ’زمبابوے میں بیماری پھیل گئی ہے سو افراد ہسپتال میں داخل، مبارک ہو مبارک! تھائی لینڈ میں ایک دھماکے میں چھ افراد ہلاک ہوگئے ہیں، مبارک مبارک! انڈیا میں بعض فوجی قتل، مبارک ہو مبارک! ڈیرہ اسماعیل خان میں بم دھماکہ چھ ہلاک، مبارک ہومبارک!‘

مقامی لوگوں کا کہنا ہے کہ ماضی کے مقابلے میں ایف ایم چینل کے سننے والوں کی تعداد بڑھ گئی ہے۔ اس کی وجہ یہ ہے کہ لوگوں کو یقین ہوگیا ہے کہ طالبان ایک قوت ہے اور وہ جو کہتے ہیں کرکے دکھاتے ہیں۔

سننے والوں میں زیادہ تر پرائیویٹ سکولوں کے مالکان، ان اداروں میں پڑھنے والے بچوں کے والدین، مینگورہ میں خواتین مارکیٹ کے دوکاندار، این جی او سیکٹر میں کام کرنے والے اور کاسمیٹک انڈسٹری کے مالکان شامل ہیں۔

ان لوگوں سے جب بات کی تو ان کا کہنا تھا کہ وہ شوقیہ نہیں بلکہ اس لیے ایف ایم چینل سن رہے ہیں کہ انہیں اندازہ ہوسکے کہ طالبان کا اگلی ’لائن آف ایکشن‘ کیا ہے، یعنی کس کو قتل کرنے کی دھمکی دی جاتی ہے، سکولوں کے بارے میں ان کی سوچ اب کیا ہے اور جنگ کی تازہ ترین صورتحال کیا ہے۔

اس یف ایم چینل کی نشریات سوات سے باہر مردان کے بعض علاقوں تک بھی سنی جاسکتی ہیں اور ان میں زیادہ تر لوگوں کا کہنا ہے کہ مولانا شاہ دوران کے مزاحیہ انداز گفتگو سے لطف اٹھانے کے لیے وہ ان کی تقریر سنتے ہیں۔

http://www.bbc.co.uk/urdu/pakistan/story/2009/01/090128_swat_fm_radio_kakar.shtml
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A column on Nawaz Sharif - By Haroon-ur-Rashid

Monkeys (Qazi Hussain Ahmed, Imran Khan, Nawaz Sharif) are fighting on their share of 'cheese'. But where is the cheese?




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BBC Urdu dot com Report: The relationship between PPP and PML-N

http://www.bbc.co.uk/urdu/pakistan/story/2009/01/090128_ppl_pmln_differences.shtml

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Some Comments:

Ma Says:

Standing on principles or out of fear that Long March might turn out to be actually succeessful despite his non participation. I think he doesnot want to give free space to Imran Khan because it is he who is going to take away most voters from PMLN in Punjab. PPP voters wont really swing anyway.

gditpp Says:
January 28th, 2009 at 8:02 pm

What if PPP in fact restores Justice Iftekhar, what will it loose. Zardari is secure in presidency for five years (ref. Justice Wajih in rehttp://www.blogger.com/post-edit.g?blogID=7899636627771578704&postID=5456375926149133018cent Meray Mutabiq) and would Justice Iftekhar really wants to put NRO to question. As far as I remember Athar Minullah, the spokesperson for Justice Iftekhar, ruled out this possibility a few months back.
IMHO it is not PPP leadership it is infact GHQ and military top brass who is really reluctant for his restoration. Wasnt Justice sb thrown out after the Corps commanders approval.

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Ma Says:
January 28th, 2009 at 8:14 pm

I think the best way to fix them up would be to announce a Long March By PPP toward Lahore and then see who brings more people on roads Zardari or everyone else.

a minority cannot dictate a majority by agitation.

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Ma Says:
January 28th, 2009 at 8:18 pm


@Jamhooriat

PPP is not acting as LONDI for establishment. what PPP is doing is same what i did in 1988. trying to do what it can in a limited ‘Iqtadaaar’.

i think in current circumstances this is not Ideal but acceptable.


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areeza Says:
January 28th, 2009 at 9:08 pm
comment-top

If this long march fails or NS make another deal with Zardari before this long march, then NS should go back to self asylum in saudia forever.


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UKbarrister Says:
January 28th, 2009 at 10:36 pm
comment-top

The People of Pakistan are indeed crying out for a change, but the selection of Nawaz Sharif is NOT a change, but simply a reversion. The Change the People of pakistan desire and deserve is a change in the way Pakistan is governed. They deserve a change in manner of their education, their justice system. A change in the way basic amenities are provided. The People of Pakistan cannot simply oscilate between hope and dispair year in and year out.

Dont forget Pakistan as JUST had democratic elections and Mr Zardari has a mandate to govern. There is no getting away from that. Mr Zardari has to be made accountable for his term and action in office, this is what the people of Pakistan are failing to see.

There is a lot to be said for peacefull direct action against a government which is failing to provide for the basic needs of its people.

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MalangBaba Says:
January 29th, 2009 at 2:29 am
comment-top

No one can stop Ziaists from day dreaming. The lawyers movement is dead long ago. People are not supporting it the way they did in 2007. This is clearly shown by the kind of response Iftikhar got in lahore.

So far lawyers movement achieved nothing except helping BB and Nawaz Sharif. This time Nawaz Sharif is using Lawyers just as a bargaining chip with Zardari. Those who think that March 9 Imran Khan will the ruler of the country are just palying with their own dreams.

For those who have bhabbits of dreams here is a story that is published by a very reliable source i.e. BBC.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/urdu/pakistan/story/2009/01/090128_ppl_pmln_differences.shtml

I have high hopes that there will be Muk Muka before March between PPP and NS. None of them can afford another military intervention.

Kurd Ka Dharna Phir Reh Gaya Dharay Ka Dhara
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An account of terrorism related deaths in Pakistan in 2008; Mullah Military Alliance; an evil legacy of General Zia

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Will the "Swati Taliban" capture Islamabad or Will Islamabad capture them? An outcome of Musharraf's double-cross policies in the war on terror...

Nazir Naji


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"Friends" of democracy in Pakistan and the "well-wishers" of PPP - Asadullah Ghalib

Ghulma, Mustafa Khar, Mumtaz Bhutto, Asghar Khan and the Zardari phobia

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Swat and the Mullah Military Alliance: Two pictures and a column - Abbas Ather

Army will restore writ in Swat: COAS

* Commanders brief COAS on security situation in valley
* Kayani meets Pashtun leader Afzal Lala, lauds his stance against the Taliban

Staff Report

RAWALPINDI: Pakistan Army has the ‘will and resolve’ to defeat terrorists, restore peace and establish the writ of the state in violence-hit areas, Chief of Army Staff (COAS) General Ashfaq Kayani told troops during his visit to Swat on Wednesday.

The visit comes a day after the third phase of Operation Rah-e-Haq against the Fazlullah-led Taliban began on Tuesday.

Gen Kayani also lauded the morale of troops. A statement by the Inter-Services Public Relations directorate said the COAS “took stock of the situation” in Swat during the visit.

Military commanders briefed him on the security situation in Swat and Peshawar Corps Commander Lt Gen Masood Aslam briefed him on operational plans, it said.

Gen Kayani gave fresh directions for the operation. The COAS also met notables of Swat and the civil administration.

A private TV channel said he also met Pashtun leader Afzal Lala and lauded his stance against the Taliban. Lala said political leaders would not be able to stay in Swat if they were not protected. He called for more government and media attention to Swat.


Eight bullet-ridden bodies found in Swat

PESHAWAR: Bullet-ridden bodies of eight civilians were found dumped in Swat on Wednesday, officials and residents said. The bodies were found at two separate locations in Mingora. “Five bodies were recovered from one place and three from another,” a security said. It was not clear whether the civilians were killed during the military offensive or executed by the Taliban. Authorities have intensified efforts to win back control of the valley from the Taliban, with several towns under curfew and orders to shoot violators on sight. afp (Daily Times)

Also read:

How do ISI officials view the Shariat peace deal in Swat and other aspects of the Talibanisation....

Swat — towards a Wahhabi state?

Swat: the other view; a tale of how 'those in power' facilitated Taliban in spreading their tentacles in the peacefull valley of Swat....

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Swat, o Swat! Could it be that the former "assets" of the state are now turning their guns on their former benefactors?

Thursday, January 29, 2009
Kheyam Khan

The people of Swat are confused. They wonder how the might of the Pakistan Army cannot subdue the Taliban of Swat. The Swat insurgency and the "counter-insurgency" must be given priority attention by the country's intelligentsia.

With the beginning of "Operation Rah-e-Haq" in November 2007 people hoped that security in the region will improve. They were optimistic about the operation and welcomed the military with flowers and garlands. But gradually over time this trust receded and now it is practically non-existent.

People now have their reservations about the operation. They ask pertinent questions about it. They see a lack of willingness on the part of the "state" to curb the militancy. This perception is now held by the intelligentsia, particularly the Pukhtun intelligentsia. They contend that if the state's military can stand up to a military as strong and large as India's, how can it not handle an internal insurgency carried out by a few thousand armed men?

And whenever the state expresses and acts on the will to bring law and order to the region it is able to do so, as happened in the February 2008 election. Before the election everyone was concerned whether the election was possible in the Swat valley. But to everybody's amazement it was not only held but held peacefully, except in one constituency.

People ask who made the "miracle" possible then. Again this goes in the line of the argument that if "powerful state actors" will it then things can be settled in weeks.

The Swat issue started with the advent of the Taliban in Afghanistan. The TNSM was founded in 1989 in Malakand Agency at a time when the Soviets were leaving Afghanistan. The rise of the TNSM in Malakand Division at a time when the Taliban were gaining power in Afghanistan is not mere coincidence.

Overnight an elderly man rose from the hills of Maidan and became a hero. Before that nobody knew who Sufi Mohammad was. And later his movement was crushed in a couple of days because the state willed it – and after that there was complete peace in the valley. Tourists again began to pour back in and life once again became vibrant.

The peace was broken when the son-in-law of Sufi Mohammad gave his first sermon on the FM radio. It was post-9/11, and there was apparently drastic shift in Pakistan's foreign policy. Pakistan became a frontline state in the war on terror, but the Pukhtun intelligentsia thinks – and this is conception shared by many others as well – that its "assets" had to be guarded as well, and hence Swat was made a "haven" for some of them.

The unwillingness of the state to fight the militancy head-on, they claim, was evident by the way it loosened the grip which it had established over the militants in their stronghold of Gut Peuchar in Matta tehsil. Many residents of the valley wonder whether this was done by design.

Another claim is that the tactics and strategies the Swat militants use are not the work of semi-literate mullahs. The intention is to crush any hint of resistance from among the local population and hence the daily killing of people and the hanging of their dead bodies in public squares. Similarly, targeting the leadership is a tried-and-tested war tactic throughout history. Could it be that the former "assets" of the state are now turning their guns on their former benefactors? This is a question on a lot of people's minds. (The News)

The writer is a researcher and has written this under a pseudonym for the sake of his own safety. Email: kheyamkhan @gmail.com
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Some observations on the war in Swat

Thursday, January 29, 2009
Aasim Sajjad Akhtar

Over the past few weeks a vigorous debate has raged on these pages about the nature of the war taking place in Swat. It is important to congratulate the editors of these pages for providing space to this debate; one of Pakistan's most pressing crises is an intellectual one, deriving from a lack of exchange of ideas without fear of suppression.

The debate has pitted those who claim that the situation in Swat is a reflection of long-standing class inequities against those who refute this notion of 'class war'; while the former suggest that the 'Taliban' has generated support amongst the subordinate classes the latter argue that the 'Taliban' has imposed itself in the area on the basis of brute force. At the risk of generalization, let me venture that those who argue that there is a clear class dimension to the war in Swat are convinced that US imperialism and its client Pakistani military are bigger enemies of the people than the 'Taliban'. On the other hand, those who emphasise the brutality of the 'Taliban' above and beyond the machinations of the US and Pakistani militaries argue that the 'Taliban' is the biggest menace facing society.

There is a need to move beyond the binary of the 'Taliban' and the Pakistani/American militaries. This is not to suggest that the principal protagonists of the so-called 'war on terror', namely the Pakistani and American militaries should not be identified as such, but only to make clear that the relationship between the 'Taliban' and the Pakistani military is very, very shady.

Nonetheless there is a need to transcend the superficial analyses that are floating around in the popular media where conspiracy theorists typically identify the age-old 'enemies of Pakistan' as creating chaos in the shape of the 'Taliban'. However, even some of the more historically accurate narratives which acknowledge the deep consensual relationship between the religious right and the military establishment do not consider how this relationship has evolved and why the religious right is able to make inroads into society (regardless of whether it is supported by the establishment or not).

In short, I concur with the proposition that there is a class dimension to the war in Swat in the sense that long-standing social schisms have been exploited by the 'Taliban' to generate support. I believe however that there is a need to recognize the tremendous ideational power that Islam plays in the wider society. If the 'Taliban' engenders at least some support from historically marginalized social groups by promising to attack the edifice of class and state power in the area, then these same social groups are also moved by the promise of eternal salvation.

I recognize the points that have been made about the changes in society on account of migration that has spouted now sources of wealth and attendant worldviews. But here it is worth pointing out the sociological roots of the original jihadi/sectarian organizations, such as the Sipah-e-Sahaba (SSP) which was supported by the relatively mobile urban merchant classes of small-town Punjab who wanted to challenge the monopoly on political power of the incumbent landed class (that happened to be primarily Shia and could be made the target of a Sunni supremacist politics of exclusion). Thus the new wealth that has changed the landscape of Swat society may not necessarily have changed the configuration of local politics and the 'Taliban' may be seen as a vehicle to challenge the prevalent political hierarchy.

I also think that the romance of the 'Taliban' amongst ordinary people in Swat has worn off to a significant extent. So historically marginalised social groups were originally enamoured by the 'Taliban's' lure of salvation in both 'deen' and 'duniya'. However even if the 'Taliban' has provided material benefit for some segments of Swat's population, it has also resorted to unbridled use of force to operationalise its 'Islamic' dictates to the point where it has become clear that it does not offer the glorious alternative order that it claimed to do.

Having said this, by continuing to rain bombs down upon innocent people, the Pakistani military is providing every incentive to the local population to look at the 'Taliban' as an alternative to the violence of the state. And thus the nebulous relationship between the 'Taliban' and the military emerges as a central part of the tragic story of the Swat war.

In conclusion, by suggesting that the 'Taliban' exploits historically evolved conflicts within society, one is not arguing that it's warped millenarian vision actually represents a progressive alternative. But it is also true that simply decrying the 'medieval' and 'barbarian' project of the 'Taliban' and therefore implicitly providing a mandate to the militaries that have imposed war on Swat and other parts of the Pakhtun belt will serve only to sharpen the appeal of this millenarian vision. What Swat really needs is a genuinely anti-imperialist force to resist the so-called 'war on terror' and build a progressive and equal society not through brazen coercion but through popular mobilization. (The News)


The writer is a political activist associated with the People's Rights Movement. He also teaches colonial history and political economy at LUMS. Email: aasim@lums.edu.pk
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Imran Khan condemns murder of Yousufi

In the following news item, Imran Khan seems to condemn the sectarian killing of the Hazara / Shia leader in Quetta. However, Imran Khan did not care to pinpoint and condemn "the elements [who] are conspiring to split the nation". He also did not explain how "we get united to foil nefarious designs of the miscreant elements."

So much for the rhetoric. How can we expect Imran Khan to condemn the terrorists of Taliban / Sipah-e-Shahaba when he seems to support their stance instead of the Pakistani nation's stance on the war on terror?


Imran condemns murder of Yousufi
Wednesday, January 28, 2009

Islamabad: Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) Chairman Imran Khan Tuesday strongly condemned the bomb blast in DI Khan and murder of Hazara Democratic Party’s Chairman Hussain Yousufi in Quetta.

He termed the murder of Hussain Yousufi as heinous crime, adding that such elements are conspiring to split the nation. He said that it is high time “we get united to foil nefarious designs of the miscreant elements.”

He expressed his deep grief and sorrow over the loss of lives and sympathy to those injured and prayed for early recovery of the injured.

He said that the whole nation should get united against the elements, which want to destabilise the country.

He urged the government for adopting an effective policy to ensure protection to life and property of citizen and improve law and order in the country.

http://www.thenews.com.pk/print1.asp?id=159528

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28 January 2009: Another Shia youth killed in D.I.Khan. The Taliban cum Sipah-e-Sahaba terror reins the city.

Why does not Government arrest the District and City Police Offers as well as Commandants of Pakistan Army / ISI in the area and investigate the series of sectarian killings, done by the Taliban / Sipah-e-Sahaba, sponsored by the ISI's internal jihad wing.

Gunmen kill Shia Muslim in DI Khan

PESHAWAR: Gunmen killed a Shia Muslim in Dera Ismail Khan on Tuesday, police said, in at least the second sectarian-linked attack to blight the country in 48 hours. “Unidentified gunmen shot dead Athar Hussain Shah on the Dayal road while he was returning to town from his nearby farm and then escaped,” local police official Tauqir Abbas said. Abbas said the victim was the son of a caretaker at a local Shia mosque. “It seems to be a sectarian killing,” the official said. There was no immediate claim of responsibility for the attack. afp (Daily Times)
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Mourning Swat: A paradise lost - Wusatullah Khan

BBC Urdu dot com

http://www.bbc.co.uk/urdu/pakistan/story/2009/01/090127_swat_history_wusat_zs.shtml
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Taliban + Sipah-e-Sahaba + Al Qaeda + Jihadis = A case of multi-directional terror in Pakistan

A case of multi-directional terror

Days after a Baloch terrorist organisation killed two innocent Punjabis in Quetta to “avenge injustice to the Baloch”, the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, a sectarian organisation aligned with Al Qaeda and Taliban, has killed the Shia Hazara leader Hussain Ali Yousafi. In consequence, protesting Hazaras have rampaged in Quetta, damaging property, vowing more if the government didn’t catch the killers. More sectarian mayhem occurred the same day in Dera Ismail Khan in the NWFP, when a leader of Sipah Sahaba and a member of the NWFP assembly were targeted with a cycle-bomb, claiming five more lives as collateral damage. The same day, Tehran radio reported that several members of Iran’s border security forces were killed near the Pakistani border in an ambush allegedly set up by elements from inside Pakistan. The ominous observation made in the report was: “Pakistan has become a backyard for rebels and drugs smugglers” and that “Iran could help if Islamabad is not able to secure its side of the boundary”. This looks like the gelling of a new policy of pre-emptive action inside Pakistan by Iran to save its citizens from being killed by Pakistan-based anti-Iran organisations like Jundallah. The “complaint” is of the same order as the protests lodged with Pakistan, vociferously and not so vociferously, by neighbours like Afghanistan, India, China, Uzbekistan and Russia.

Just as an element of Pakhtun nationalism within the Taliban movement is killing people in Afghanistan along with the citizens of Pakistan, Baloch nationalism threatens to cross the border and give Iran a casus belli. Again, the likely reaction from the neighbour will not indict Pakistan directly but plead Pakistan’s incapacity to look after itself to infiltrate Pakistani territory. Therefore those who think in Pakistan that Islamabad has isolated itself by accepting to participate in the war against terrorism led by the United States should look closely at where Pakistan’s multidirectional terrorism is leading it. The development of a common target for the Baloch militants and the Taliban is most frightening. This means that two kinds of terrorisms might pool their resources to challenge the state of Pakistan even more seriously.

Presidential statements about Swat, where the writ of the state disappeared long ago, are hardly credible. Mr Zardari says the Taliban will not be allowed to impose their agenda, as if he leads a consensus within the state to go out and confront the Taliban. The opposite truth is that he is backed by a “unanimous” resolution of Parliament which most Pakistanis think mandates removal of the Pakistan army from the Tribal Areas. The political opposition of the PPP and a section of its allies within the coalition actually believe that the army should return from their operations against the terrorists. The Taliban have in fact imposed their agenda and are ruling vast areas with their rough justice, which they call sharia. Three thousand Taliban warriors in Swat have 20,000 state troopers cowering in bunkers.

Fear of being targeted forces the politicians and the media to focus on other far less critical challenges, like Article 58-2(b) of the Constitution and the restoration of a deposed chief justice. The example in antithesis is the ANP, in the cross-hairs in the NWFP because it articulates its opposition to the terrorists. Isn’t Punjab too within the orbit of the policy of intimidation through sharia? Lahore seized four bombs from three locations in the Lower Mall police limits on Monday, all weighing three to four kilograms and timed to explode. Had they not been discovered, there could have been more bloodshed on a single ill-starred day in Pakistan.

This is not an occasion for routine condemnation and more threats of toppling the government in power. This is the day when Pakistan must take another look at its “national consensus” underpinning its foreign policy. The only way out is for Pakistan to seek a much closer coordination with its neighbours and the global community to survive as a state. (Daily Times)

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Bane of sectarian violence


A DEPLORABLE side effect of the communalisation of the state in Pakistan is the sectarian frenzy it has released in the country. Had it not been for the fact that the people by and large still display a spirit of tolerance in their inter-sect dealings, as was seen during the month of Muharram, society could well have been up in flames. It is no coincidence that extremists of all shades who preach jihad and justify violence in the name of religion also call for the destruction of minority sects they believe do not fall within the ambit of Islam. But what needs to be viewed with serious concern is that, as the extremists spread their tentacles all over the country, sectarian incidents are on the rise. The killing of the Hazara Democratic Party chairman in Quetta on Monday is a brutal demonstration of this phenomenon. This comes in the wake of a series of assassinations, bomb attacks on imambargahs, target killings and even self-styled executions in Hangu, Kurram, Karachi and Balochistan. The casualties of the last few months run into hundreds. This undercurrent of sectarian violence has not been addressed the way it should have because it has been masked by the mayhem unleashed by terrorists claiming to be fighting an anti-imperialist war for the imposition of the Sharia or the army’s crackdown on the warring Baloch nationalists.

Apart from causing loss of life — which should be condemned in the strongest terms possible — the evil of sectarianism, if left unchecked, could prove to be the undoing of our already fragmented social and political fabric. As the Quetta incident shows, the community’s angry reaction to the killing of a high-profile leader can be violent and result in the destruction of property and the breakdown of law and order. Thus the fissures widen as a strategy of imposing peace without addressing the root of the problem allows the perpetrators to attack again when the situation permits. What is harrowing is that the avowedly sectarian outfits, many of which mushroomed under the Islamisation policy of Ziaul Haq, have been allowed to flourish even when they are officially banned. The Lashkar-i-Jhangvi, which claimed the killing of the Quetta leader, is one such example of how sectarianism grew blatantly under the benign patronage of the state.

It is a pity that governments of the day, by relying on the crutches of religion, failed to anticipate the outcome of their flawed approach. Sectarianism was inevitable when obscurantists were appeased and given a free rein to preach violence. The need of the hour is that the government cracks down forcefully on banned religious groups before their violence spills into neighbouring states and others compel us to act. (Dawn)
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Asadullah Ghalib: Defining Jihad

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Many people said that if the ISI was sincere with the Pakhtuns it must target-kill the entire Taliban leadership just like the Taliban did with elders

What Pakhtuns think
Wednesday, January 28, 2009
Farhat Taj

There are many Pakhtun who argue that some elite state intelligence agencies and the Taliban, as of Swat for example, are 'natural allies' and feed on each other. The Taliban want a besieged and helpless population whom they can rule with impunity. The ISI, they claim, is facilitating this rule and in return the Taliban create chaos and violence. Some may ask the obvious question: why would any one want chaos and violence in the area?

Two arguments are put forward by many Pakhtuns in this regard. Some refer to the well-known but often-discredited theory of strategic depth, which envisions that Afghanistan will become the fifth province of Pakistan and that the central Asian Islamic states will become its client states. Thus Pakistan will become a robust regional power vis-a-vis India in South Asia and acquire a leadership role in the Muslim world. Therefore, by having a region close to Afghanistan which is full of violence and chaos is a way of preventing the US, India and Iran from establishing a firm foothold in the area. Also, US and NATO forces are in Afghanistan, which means that it is important to have a kind of a buffer between Afghanistan and the rest of Pakistan. Furthermore, many American think-tanks are of the view that a chaotic FATA is bad for both US and NATO forces because it allows the militants a haven to launch attacks inside Afghanistan, and then retreat back to Pakistan.

There are of course many other Pakhtuns who do not give credence to the theory of strategic depth. Their view is that if the conflict in FATA were to end and the region became peaceful, the flow of dollars from America would stop. There are also Pakhtuns who believe that foreign intelligence agencies such as RAW, Mossad or the CIA are involved in the violence. But they too primarily blame local state actors and their pursuit of the doctrine of strategic depth or of an unhindered flow of aid money from America as primary motives for what is happening in the area. They are just not ready to accept that the Taliban can and are able to occupy large parts of Pakistan without the tacit consent or support of these state actors. Of course, one has to only look at the past and see that it is a part of the public record that people like Nek Mohammad were welcomed with open arms by the then Peshawar corps commander or that some Taliban leaders were given funds in exchange for changing their ways – and which they did not!

One man said: "Look at the ease with which the Taliban have been occupying Waziristan for years and now Swat. How is that possible given that we have one of the largest and well-trained armies in the world?"

What I have written in the two parts of my article are views gained from travelling very recently across NWFP and parts of FATA. I spoke to internally displaced people of FATA in NWFP, daily wage-earners, public transport drivers, shop-keepers, low-ranking government employees, journalists, lawyers, students, teachers and housewives. Almost everywhere people were resentful of the military leadership and the ISI and held them responsible for the brutal excesses of the Taliban. They were not even willing to give the benefit of the doubt to the ISI. Many people said that if the ISI was sincere with the Pakhtuns it must target-kill the entire Taliban leadership just like the Taliban have done in the case of over 200 tribal leaders and must restore the writ of the government in the Taliban-occupied areas.

People are especially angry over the presence of so many foreign Taliban militants and refer to them as no better than 'mad dogs'.

I would humbly request the army chief and the ISI director-general to pay heed to what the people of NWFP and FATA are saying and to act to remove their grievances. This is crucial both for both Pakhtun society as well as for the survival of the state. It should be remembered that although an ethnic minority, the Pakhtuns are better integrated in the state structure than other minorities such as the Baloch or Sindhis. They have served the nation with their blood in times of war and also in other state-related duties. If the current violence is left unchecked, and given the perception – right or wrong – among many Pakhtun that certain state institutions are behind it or are acquiescing in it, the further integration of the community with the rest of the country will be put at risk.

Last, but by no means least, I would also request fellow citizens to build up pressure on the government and the military to decisively deal with the Taliban and restore the government's writ in FATA and NWFP. The armed forces are financed by taxpayers hard-earned money and we all have a right to demand that the army provide us security and protect us from extremists who want to butcher us and destroy are way of life. (The News)


The writer is a research fellow at the Centre for Interdisciplinary Gender Research, University of Oslo and a member of Aryana Institute for Regional Research and Advocacy. Email: bergen34@yahoo.com
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SOS from D.I.Khan. Why has Police and Army failed to protect Shias in D.I. Khan?

D I Khan bomb blast
Wednesday, January 28, 2009

So attuned have we become to living in an age of violence that we now barely seem to notice acts of terror unless they kill a significant number of people. Indeed these incidents often barely make it into the news. Human life it seems has become increasingly dispensable. Murder no longer moves us. The cycle bomb blast in the town of Dera Ismail Khan ranks as a minor incident by our standards. Only six people died. This no longer counts as a high number. But the unexplained incident is an example of the regular, almost constant violence that we now live amidst. There seems to be no escape from it.

There have as yet been few studies of the impact this violence has on people. The fact is though that fear is now a part of life. Everywhere, people tend to avoid public places that they believe could be targeted by terrorists. The kinds of lives we lead have changed. The question is whether anything can be done to ensure that these changes do not become permanent ones. Incidents such as that at D I Khan are reminders of the challenges we face. So far, when such blasts or acts of other random killings have taken place in the past, we have seldom received information as to who carried them out, or why. This failure to bring people to any kind of justice only adds to the insecurity and air of uncertainty that exists everywhere. It has created a sense of trauma that exists in many places, despite the resilience of people accustomed to fending for themselves. But the fact is that as the situation continues to worsen, fewer and fewer are able to do so. The poor, such as those who died in the latest act of random terror, are the most vulnerable, the most likely to be killed in bazaars, in the streets or in other places. The state must move in now to protect these people and re-establish its role as an institution able to bring order to the lives of its citizens. (The News)

Please consider signing this petition.

SOS from Pakistan - Save Pakistani Shias Petition

http://www.petitiononline.com/ShiaSOS/petition.html
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Systematic killing of the Hazara community in Balochistan...

Targeting Hazaras
Wednesday, January 28, 2009

The killing of the chairman of the Hazara Democratic Party in Quetta adds to the violence inflicted on the minority community. The murder, for which the Sunni extremist group, the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, has claimed responsibility, has been labelled a sectarian one. The Hazaras, a distinct ethnic group which make up about 9 per cent of the Afghan population, have lived in the region for centuries. Most are Shias. There are believed to be about 200,000 Hazaras in and around Quetta, with the figure increasing as a significant number fled Taliban rule in Afghanistan. The persecution of the Hazaras by the predominantly Pukhtoon Taliban has been well documented and was another ugly feature of that era in Afghan history.

In July last year six members of the same community were killed in Quetta. This led to days of protests in which over a dozen people died. The HDP, angered over the murder, has issued a new strike call. The incident points to the growth of Talibanization in Quetta, with the LeJ known at least indirectly to be linked to the wide network of militants that has spread throughout our country. But the action against Hazaras also exposes the growing ethnic divides in our society, notably in Balochistan. Nationalist sentiments here sometimes take on ugly ethnic dimensions. Some Baloch nationalist publications attack minority groups living in the province for centuries, including Punjabis, Pathans and Hazaras. Even in Sindh, some groups call for settlers from other parts of the country to be driven out. These developments are dangerous ones. Both ethnic and sectarian tensions have already torn our society apart and created deep fissures that run through it. We need somehow to patch these over and recreate the harmony that once existed in our cities and towns. Quetta, as a place that is among the most volatile, should be a centre where such initiatives are begun without delay, bringing together communities and preventing a descent into a still greater orgy of violence during the months ahead. (The News)

For a detailed account of the sufferings of the Hazara community, visit:

http://hazaranewspakistan.wordpress.com/

....

BBC Urdu dot com report:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/urdu/pakistan/story/2009/01


http://www.bbc.co.uk/urdu/pakistan/story/2009/01/090114_quettafiring_ayub.shtml
http://www.bbc.co.uk/urdu/pakistan/story/2009/01/090126_quetta_killing_nj.shtml/090127_hazara_funeral_strike_zs.shtml

....

Hazara tribesmen under attack in Quetta

* Hazara MPA says killings of minorities motivated by religion
* Says Quetta has been communally harmonious until recently

By Malik Siraj Akbar

QUETTA: Hazara tribesmen in Balochistan, numbering around 300,000, are currently living under unprecedented terror, uncertainty and insecurity.

The tribe, residing in Balochistan for more than a century, have been subject of discrimination by the majority Balochs and Pashtuns due to their ethnic background and religious affiliations. While a majority of Hazaras is Shia, local Baloch and Pashtun are Sunnis. The Hazaras in Quetta have been targeted by some religious quarters for some time now, with more than two dozen men from the minority tribe having been killed in the last two months. Lashkar-e-Jhangavi (LJ), a banned Sunni organisation has accepted responsibility for most of the killings.

The common notion that the LJ was solely targeting Shia scholars was negated when it claimed responsibility for the January 26 murder of Hussain Ali Yousafi, chairman of the Hazara Democratic Party (HDP) - an accepted and acclaimed secular and democratic leader.

Motivation: Syed Nasir Ali Shah, a Hazara and a member of the National Assembly, told Daily Times that the killings were not Hazara-specific. The slayings were religiously motivated, Shah said, adding the acts were being carried out by forces that wanted to convert Balochistan into a ‘Talibanised’ province.

“Those who are carrying out these assaults are trying to create sectarian disharmony between the Sunni and Shia sects in Quetta,” he said, adding that the target killings were meant to widen the gulf between the Sunnis, Shias and Hazaras against the local Baloch and Pashtuns.

Harmony: Shah said historically, Quetta had been communally harmonious. He said people from all sects used to participate in religious ceremonies of the others until recently.

Attacks on the Hazaras first began during the military regime of General Ziaul Haq. On July 6, 1985, the military government tried to forcibly stop a Shia procession in Quetta, when 30 people, including some policemen, were killed.

In 2001, eight Hazaras were killed when their vehicle was ambushed near the city’s Poodgali Chowk. Another 12 Hazaras, all police cadets, were gunned down on June 8, 2003 when they were on their way to a training centre near Sariab. On 4 July, 2003, in one of the worst acts of sectarian violence in the history of Pakistan, some 58 people, most of them Hazara Shias, were killed, while around 200 were injured when a suicide bomber attacked Imambargah-e-Kalan in Quetta.

Another 38 persons, mostly Hazaras, were killed in an assault on March 2, 2004. The incident left 200 people injured. On July 19, 2008, nine Hazaras were killed in Quetta in a clash between the police and Hazara protesters. HDP Secretary General Abdul Khaliq Hazara said sectarianism in Quetta increased during the regime of former President Gen (r) Pervez Musharraf.

“We are a liberal, secular people. Hazara community, however, entirely comprises of Shias. Now, some invisible forces are trying to target our democratic leaders on the simple grounds that our religious affiliations coincide with Shia Islam,” he said.

In his seminal book ‘War and Migration’, Alessandro Monsutti classifies the Hazara migration to Balochistan in the following phases:

From 1878-1891: Following the second Anglo-Afghan war, the first Hazaras came to Quetta to seek employment in British-run companies under the Raj. They are thought to have worked on the building of roads and the Bolan Pass railway as well as enlisting in the British army of India. At that time, there could have been no more than a few hundred Hazaras in Balochistan. From 1891-1901: The subjugation of Hazarajat by Abdul Rahman, between 1891 and 1893, triggered a mass exodus of Hazaras to Turkestan, Khorasan and Balochistan.

From 1901 to 1933: The situation in Afghanistan returned to normal under Habibullah (1901-1919), the son of Abdul Rahman. He offered amnesty to the Hazaras but this proved to be of little help in improving the lot of the Hazara community in Afghanistan. In 1904, the 106th Pioneers, a separate regiment for the Hazaras formed by the British, offered greater careers prospects, social recognition and economic success.

From 1933-1971: The regiment of Hazara Pioneers was disbanded in 1933. Deprived of this social and professional outlet, Hazaras went to settle in Quetta between the 1930s and 1960s, although the process of migration never completely dried up.

From 1971-1978: Following the 1971 drought, Hazaras then settled in Quetta or went to Iran in search of work. Between 1973 and 1978, tensions over the Pushtunistan issue between the Daud government and Pakistan were an additional factor in the Hazara migration. After 1978: Following the Communist coup in April 1978 and the Soviet Union intervention in December 1979, the migratory movement assumed hitherto unprecedented dimensions.

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2009\02\06\story_6-2-2009_pg7_15
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True to form, Maulana Fazlur Rehman assured ministry for brother

True to form, Fazl assured ministry for brother

Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Rich senator from Mansehra with US background also made minister

By Rahimullah Yusufzai

PESHAWAR: When it comes to extending favours, JUI-F leader Maulana Fazlur Rehman seldom looks beyond his family. Once again on Monday, he chose his younger brother Maulana Attaur Rehman to be one of the two federal ministers from the quota of cabinet berths allotted by President Asif Ali Zardari to his party.

The other JUI-F nominee in the federal cabinet is Senator Azam Khan Swati, a wealthy politician from Mansehra district who lived in the US for years. Azam Swati, who in the past served as District Nazim of Mansehra, is sometimes referred to as one of the financiers of the JUI-F. He has been given the portfolio of tourism.

The JUI-F now has three federal ministers. Rahmatullah Kakar, who belongs to Balochistan, is federal minister for housing. He was inducted in the king-sized federal cabinet, which is becoming rather unwieldy, when an earlier batch of ministers was administered oath of office.

Maulana Attaur Rehman, elected MNA from NA-25 constituency in Tank district in the NWFP, was certain to become a minister. Though the name of Maulana Mohammad Qasim, the JUI-F MNA from Mardan who was re-elected in the February 2007 general elections despite the pro-ANP wave that swept the province, was sometimes mentioned as a likely candidate for a berth in the federal cabinet, he had little chance in comparison to the brother of the party head Maulana Fazlur Rehman. Maulana Qasim was compensated by recommending his name to become chairman of a parliamentary committee.

To his credit, Maulana Attaur Rehman too was re-elected as MNA in the last year’s elections. He polled 44,673 votes to narrowly defeat his PPP opponent, Dawar Khan Kundi. The latter approached the court and demanded recounting. But the resourceful Maulana prevailed and was declared as MNA by the Election Commission.

Of all the portfolios, Maulana Attaur Rehman has reportedly been given science and technology. Someone said he should have been made minister of religious affairs, Hajj and Auqaf.

Defending his selection as federal minister, a JUI-F leader said Maulana Attaur Rehman being an MNA and man of the masses would be better able to serve the electorate and stay in touch with party members. He argued that his name was recommended by the JUI-F shura to become minister. He refuted the impression that Maulana Fazlur Rehman had anything to do with his brother’s nomination as minister.

This isn’t the first time that Maulana Fazlur Rehman has preferred someone from his family to land a prized position. During the rule of the Muttahida Majlis Amal (MMA) from 2002-2008, he and Maulana Attaur Rehman were serving as MNAs. His two sisters-in-laws, Shahida Akhtar Ali and Rehana Ismail were elected lawmakers on the seats reserved for women. The former was an MNA and the latter MPA.

Later Maulana Lutfur Rehman, another brother of Maulana Fazlur Rehman, was elected an MPA in a by-election from their native Dera Ismail Khan. Needless to say, the MMA’s provincial government left no stone unturned to enable him to win the by-poll. Though Maulana Lutfur Rehman resisted the temptation of becoming a provincial minister at a time when his family was politically the most influential in the NWFP, he didn’t need to join the cabinet, as his position was even otherwise unassailable. He was among the most powerful lawmaker and politician at the time.

Maulana Fazlur Rehman fielded himself and three of his brothers on five assembly seats in the February 2008 elections. Maulana Lutfur Rehman tried his luck on two provincial assembly seats from Dera Ismail Khan and lost both. A younger brother Obaidur Rehman contested for another NWFP Assembly seat from Dera Ismail Khan and was defeated. The two older brothers, Maulana Fazlur Rehman and Maulana Attaur Rehman, had better luck as they won their seats. However, Maulana Fazlur Rehman won from another district, Bannu constituency after having lost his traditional assembly seat in Dera Ismail Khan.

Maulana Fazlur Rehman isn’t the only politician who keeps his family’s interest above everything else in politics. All top political families whether belonging to secular, nationalist or religious parties follow the practice. There aren’t any honourable exceptions on this count in Pakistan’s patronage-based politics. (The News)
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Obama vows to listen to Muslims: Obama's first interview as president (Al-Arabiya TV exclusive)

Obama's first interview as president (Al-Arabiya TV exclusive)



Obama vows to listen to Muslims
By Edward Luce in Washington

Published: January 27 2009

Barack Obama on Monday night granted an Arabic-language television channel his first formal interview as president – an unprecedented gesture that appeared aimed at offering the Muslim world a sharp contrast with his predecessor, George W. Bush.

Mr Obama, who in his inaugural address last week promised the Muslim world a “new way forward based on mutual respect and mutual interest”, told the Al Arabiya television channel that his administration wanted listen to the Muslim world and re-examine America’s “preconceptions” towards the region.

Mr Obama also went further than he had at any point during the general election in speaking openly about his own personal ties to the Muslim world.

“Now, my job is to communicate the fact that the United States has a stake in the well-being of the Muslim world, that the language we use has to be a language of respect,” he told the Saudi-owned station. “I have Muslim members of my family. I have lived in Muslim countries.”

Mr Obama spent four years of his childhood in Indonesia, which is widely tipped to be the first majority-Muslim country he will visit within his first 100 days in office.

He pledged his strong backing for the peace brokering efforts of George Mitchell, the former Senator, whom he appointed last week as his special envoy for the Israel and Palestine. Mr Mitchell is expected to visit the region within the next few days.

Mr Obama implicitly conceded in the interview that terms such as “war on terror” had proved counter-productive over the last seven years. “The language we use matters,” he said. “We cannot paint with a broad brush a faith as a consequence of the violence that is done in that faith’s name. I cannot respect terrorist organizations that would kill innocent civilians and we will hunt them down. But to the broader Muslim world what we are going to be offering is a hand of friendship.”

Just five days into office, Mr Obama has issued several executive orders declaring an end to torture and closure of Guantanamo Bay among steps including permitting US aid agencies to promote family planning after an eight-year hiatus.

The new president has also appointed envoys to the Middle East and Afghanistan-Pakistan.

In the midst of intense negotiations with Congress to push through an $825bn stimulus package, Mr Obama also on Monday offered a big boost to the environmental lobby by unblocking a Bush-era waiver that allows California and other states to impose higher carbon emission standards on industry.

The interview with Al Arabiya is likely to further antagonise conservative Republican critics of Mr Obama, who have already attacked his move to close Guantanamo within a year.

Copyright The Financial Times Limited 2009
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Swat: Taliban hit-list and two-finger sign

If international humiliation and domestic depression is what the Taliban wanted, they have found the device with which to do it in Swat. They have released a list of 43 people whom they have declared “wanted” and liable to punishment under the Taliban sharia. People on the list include former and current members of the national and provincial assemblies, district and local nazims, officials of political parties, local elders and other influential residents of the troubled valley.

And what is the Taliban sharia all about? Warlord Fazlullah says those on the list will face some sort of sharia court but he also says in the same breath that the “enemies” would “be arrested or killed by his men”. He promises that they would face the court only if they escape getting killed. The death sentence has already been passed and his men will most probably try to do the rough justice with their own hands. In his mind, Mr Fazlullah is content that the sharia court is there to back him up but only if he wants the court to do the job. There can be no doubt that he will make it clear to the court what kind of verdict he wants for his “enemies”.

This is not sharia. This is a clear stratagem of war. It becomes clear when he announces amnesty for those of his “enemies” who have stopped opposing him. This he has done without reference to the sharia courts he presumably has functioning in Swat. The charade is lost on no one except those who forgive the atrocities of these people because in their minds these have come about only because the army has not been withdrawn from Swat as per the “unanimous” resolution of the Pakistani Parliament. Publicists opposed to the government continue to bring up witnesses from the Swat region who complain only of the “atrocities” committed by the army through collateral damage.

One can make an easy prediction. The ANP claim that “good news” will come from Swat “in fifteen days” will have to be swallowed without a glass of water like the earlier papers signed with the warlord. The hit-list is in fact his answer to the ANP’s “good news”. The scene in Swat is depressing and it is all the more so because it is a warlord’s two-finger sign in the face of our mighty army. Swat is the war that Pakistan will have to fight if it wants to survive. All other “threats” are political red herrings. (Daily Times)

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No easy solution

THE news from Swat and Muridke is the latest evidence that militancy and terrorism are a hydra that defies an easy solution. Begin with Swat. Both the armed forces and the militants are changing tactics as fighting escalates. At the moment, the militants are in the ascendant and pressing ahead with the enforcement of their version of the Sharia. The Tehrik-i-Taliban have now demanded that some 50 prominent local political figures appear before a ‘court’ to answer what will presumably be ‘charges’ of ‘opposing’ Islam, i.e. the Swati Taliban. The charade is of course little more than a thinly veiled death threat. Given the disastrous security situation in the area, the Pakistan Army claims it has developed a “new strategy” to fight the militants which involves beefing up the troops in Swat and going after militants hiding among the locals and using them as human shields. Meanwhile, in Muridke the Punjab government has taken over the Jamaatud Dawa’s headquarters and appointed an administrator to oversee the welfare operations run by the group, including schools and hospitals.

Muridke, with its pro-poor face, and Swat, with its uninhibited, brutal militants, represent the two ends of the militancy spectrum in Pakistan. The tactics for uprooting the Jamaatud Dawa/Lashkar-i-Taiba in Punjab and the TTP in Swat must therefore necessarily be different. However, there are at least two commonalities between the two very different battles.

First, no military or law enforcement action will be successful without full political support. In Swat, the TTP has successfully cowed the politicians and across the political divide there are voices questioning whether the state should use force to reassert its writ. While there can be no purely military solution to militancy, the politicians must not be bullied into appeasement. Today the TTP has a hit list of prominent Swatis; what’s to stop them from issuing another list of politicians from Peshawar or the NWFP or even Islamabad? In fact, appeasing the TTP in Swat today virtually guarantees the militants will spread their tentacles further afield in Pakistan. The same goes for the Jamaatud Dawa. If the provincial and federal governments do not work together to ensure the group is shut down for good, in all likelihood it will re-emerge later in a new form, and perhaps with an even more virulent ideology. Second, a winning counter-insurgency and counter-terrorism strategy has to focus on the welfare of local populations. The Jamaatud Dawa’s welfare network must be absorbed by the state and its beneficiaries continue to get the services. Similarly, in Swat the terrorised locals must be looked after and shielded from attack. Militancy will only be defeated when the population sees the state as a protector and ally, and not as part of the problem. (Dawn)
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PML-N, Nawaz Sharif, make a choice. Parliament? or Street Politics... - By Nazir Naji

Nazir Naji
(Daily Jang)

A threat of mid-term elections?

Looking at the intense war of statements between the ruling PPP and the PMLN, many observers are speculating that a “mid-term” election could be on the cards. For some reason, 2010 is the year when the PPP is supposed to bow out of power and yield elections. How this will be done is not clear in anybody’s mind. The media is hostile to the PPP government, and people brought under pressure by the economic crisis in the country are open to the possibility. Yet the political calculus in Parliament doesn’t indicate any mid-term change in Pakistan. In fact, there is evidence that the PPP will consolidate itself in power after March this year.

But for the same reason, March this year is also more realistic as the moment of possible political crisis in Pakistan than the year 2010. A part of the Senate will be up for election and the PPP is bound to increase its standing in the upper house, given the current strength of the parties. The lawyers’ movement, through its Long March, promises to prevent the PPP from achieving this. The Long March this time is supposed to be decisive in the intensity of its “dharna” in Islamabad. But judging from the weak “build-up” the movement received this weekend in Lahore, it hardly looks promising from the anti-PPP point of view. The political parties, including the ruling party in Lahore, the PMLN, were not able to manage the kind of show of strength needed for “toppling” the government in Islamabad through overwhelming street power. If anything, the blocking of the city’s traffic actually alienated many among the citizens from the movement.

Speculation is rife about the intentions of the PMLN. “Experts” say Mr Nawaz Sharif is not interested in destabilising the PPP government just yet but wants it to go in 2010 nonetheless. This doesn’t stand to reason. What will happen in 2010 that will be more dangerous for the PPP than the occasion of the Senate elections in 2009? Is the PMLN counting on the army to unseat the PPP through a martial law since Article 58-2(b) will either not be there or will be exercisable only by a PPP president? And if the army doesn’t do it, will another “dharna” by the lawyers’ movement do the trick? Nothing looks likely beyond 2009.

The PPP is moving adroitly in the direction of improving its position in Parliament. The MQM has been cajoled to join the coalition in Islamabad formally and get its ministers inducted in the cabinet expansion coming up shortly. It is the fourth largest grouping in the National Assembly and figures meaningfully in the electoral collegium for the Senate too. President Asif Zardari and Mr Altaf Hussain have also reached an agreement on the sharing of power in Sindh and the stage is set for the avoidance of cutting each other’s support for their Senatorial candidates.

On the other hand, the move to get the PMLN and the PMLQ to merge to prevent the undercutting of their Senatorial candidates has failed. The PMLN wants to go it alone, and it is not clear how it will fulfil its plan — if there is one — to cause the mid-term elections to take place in 2010. If the device is a no-confidence vote in the National Assembly, one should forget that it will happen any time during the current term of government. The PMLQ, however, is convinced that five years is too much for a government to eke out in power and has proposed in its draft 18th Amendment that the term of the National Assembly be curtailed to four years. Why four years and why not just two years? At least that is what some people say the opposition is aiming at as it plans to topple the government in 2010. (Daily Times)
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Asghar Khan, Democracy and Martial Law - Another Experiment? By Abbas Ather

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Derailed de-radicalisation

Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Zeenia Satti

Just like the Afghan war was allowed to turn into Pakistan's civil war, similarly, the Mumbai attacks are likely to usher in civil unrest in Punjab. While events in neighbouring countries adversely impact Pakistan's domestic politics, the same are cited internationally as the manifestations of Pakistan failing as a state. Both Musharraf and Zardari have allowed their country's political milieu to be defined by outside powers. When a state allows its domestic political relations to be determined by outside powers, it brings upon itself the misfortune of losing control over its polity and becoming thus a failed state. The Pakistani incumbents have hurled their country down this slope lock stock and barrel.

Counter terrorism is an evolutionary process. All over the world, governments try to de-radicalise radical groups through facilitating disengagement from radicalism and promoting involvement with peaceful activities. Political discourse on de-radicalisation and counter terrorism is occupied with developing mechanisms for "disengagement" from radicalism through an "integrated" approach.

It would be to Pakistan's long term advantage if radical groups could be disengaged from cross border military pursuits and engaged instead in peaceful activities inside Pakistan. The eradication of poverty and hunger, the professionalization of down trodden youth, provision of health care, education, and shelter for the homeless are all fit subjects for jihad in Islam. If a radical organization has already established such activities in Pakistan, the state should lend it hearty support and protection while continuing to monitor its activities.

Demobilization and disengagement, as defined in political science, are the best antidote to terrorism. At present, many countries in the world are strategizing "disengagement from radicalism" at different levels, including Yemen, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, India, Algeria, Indonesia, Colombia, and Malaysia.

Unfortunately, while governments beset with terrorism elsewhere are painfully striving to set up disengagement programs, the Zardari government has just shut down such a program in Pakistan. The post Mumbai clamp down on JUD and the closure of its schools is a political blunder. The LeT's transformation into JUD is a model of disengagement countries faced with radical groups dream of achieving. Islamabad could have utilized the Mumbai attacks to demobilize the LeT by standing up for JUD and rendering it open to international scrutiny. It could have used its media to provide extensive coverage to JUD's civic activities and should have lent it whole hearted praise. This would not only have instilled in the JUD and its followers a heightened sense of patriotism, it would also have helped it purge those elements that are given to violence. To de-radicalise, one has to facilitate cooperative relations and capacity development. Mumbai could have been utilized to promote a change in JUD syllabus.

Mumbai challenged the political world view of jihadi groups that seek a solution to the Kashmir problem through terrorism. The fact that the Mumbai attacks had a severely negative bearing on the Kashmiri struggle should have been the "cognitive opening" used by Pakistan to divide a wedge between the LeT and the JUD, to the detriment of the former so as to completely dehydrate its military life line. Islamabad could then tackle the LeT leadership to New Delhi's satisfaction but without a negative fall out on itself. Through erudite policy, Islamabad could promote a fundamental change within all its militarized groups' political understanding of the Kashmir problem, facilitating the abandonment of their cross border ventures.

Ever since the CIA had Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto and his secular, progressive politics eliminated through Pakistan's military, Pakistan has been steadily infiltrated with religious groups who are funded by petro dollars and adhere to a reactionary version of Islam espoused by Saudi Arabia. The Islamisation of Pakistan has thus gone on imperceptibly for almost thirty years during which time reactionary groups have dotted the entire landscape of Pakistan. Yet, Pakistanis have never empowered religious parties in any of their general elections. It is now well established that the sole exception of the MMA victory in the 2002 election was a fraud perpetrated by the Musharraf regime.

Militarily, in the past the Islamist groups were never a threat to Pakistan as the focus of their activities remained Indian occupied Kashmir and Soviet Occupied Afghanistan. Since 9/11, both India and the U.S have launched a policy towards Pakistan that has not only intensified the militarization of radical groups within Pakistan but has also cleverly shifted their target to Islamabad. Islamabad is unwittingly abetting this policy.

The Pakistani Islamist groups have come into being over a long period of time and were sustained by regional developments. The same developments can be used to dismantle these groups but Pakistan needs time for this. Those who show no patience in this task are averse to Pakistan's internal cohesion.

Zardari is providing even more incentive then Musharraf to the radical groups to swell their ranks and shift the target of their militarism to Islamabad. Disillusionment, after much hope has been shattered, makes people turn away from democracy to other means. The longing for a leadership that addresses the emotional grievances of people is making the Pakistani youth vulnerable to extremism. Zardari has refused to fulfil a single hope of the anti Musharraf movement. When such a government launches punitive action against any group, it not only reinforces the group's clandestine camaraderie but even promotes camaraderie where none already exists. Islamabad could have used the Mumbai attacks to promote de-radicalisation in an erudite manner; instead, it has pursued policies that are more likely to radicalise and destabilise Punjab. (The News)


The writer is a consultant and analyst of energy geopolitics based in Washington DC. Email: zeenia.satti@yahoo.com
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Countering extremism and Imam Abu Hanifa's advice - Syed Mansoor Hussain

Countering extremism - Syed Mansoor Hussain


If the coalition in the Punjab can survive then perhaps there is hope that these two parties will develop some sort of an understanding at the centre to mobilise Pakistanis against the real and immediate threat of religious extremism

I am a secular liberal and a Muslim. Many of my readers will think of this statement as an oxymoron. Similarly, if I say that the Jama’at-e Islami is a liberal party, most of my liberal and secular readers will probably go into a terminal state of ‘shock and awe’.

But then the JI does believes in the rule of law, in individual rights, free enterprise, democracy (as demonstrated by its being the only political party in Pakistan that elects its leadership in transparent elections every so often), and, above all, the equality of all under law.

Yes, there might be a quibble about what law we are talking about, but such quibbles are common even between avowed liberals and democrats of all sorts and can be solved through democratic means; the 17th Amendment and the reinstatement of the deposed chief justice being appropriate examples.

If we in Pakistan want to resist the rising tide of Muslim extremism, then we better realise that conservative Muslims like those of the JI for instance have a lot more in common with liberal Muslims than they have with the extremists that are blowing up girls’ schools, burning CD shops and forcing men to grow beards.

I have often griped about officialdom and the elite, and for good reason. But I have always gotten along rather well with ordinary people and, most surprisingly for me, with the devout and conservative Muslims that I have come across. I respect them and they respect me!

Indeed it has to be such mutual respect that forms the basis of collaboration between liberals and conservatives in the fight against religious extremism. After all, religious extremism attacks and undermines all of our beliefs and practices and will continue to undermine the rule of law and our ability to function as a free and a democratic society.

Confronting religious extremism is however complicated by the fact that there are two distinct forces that are using religion at this time. It is important in my opinion to separate them and tackle them differently. The first type of terrorism and violence we see in Pakistan these days is politically motivated. The second type is motivated by a desire to implement an extremist Islamic system within Pakistan.

As far as the politically motivated movement is concerned, it is primarily concerned with the US and NATO ‘occupation’ of Afghanistan and Pakistan’s support for this operation. At this point in time, there is little Pakistan can do to about this except keep trying to prevent the western border areas from becoming safe havens for those that are fighting US and NATO forces in Afghanistan.

In time, the US will leave Afghanistan and things will return to whatever counts as normalcy for that unfortunate country. Once that happens, hopefully much of the politically motivated violence we confront in Pakistan will subside. Unfortunately religious extremism will still be around and will continue to be a problem for Pakistan as a country and for us as a people. And only we as Pakistanis will be responsible for either restraining this impulse or giving into it.

My primary interest is therefore in the rise of religious extremism within Pakistan as manifested by the situation in Swat and the recent ‘anti-culture’ bombings in Lahore. Here I would like to make a simple point. I believe that most Pakistanis are not beholden to the extreme version of Islam that is being pushed by those that bomb girls’ schools in Swat or terrorise theatres in Lahore.

The problem, of course, is how to mobilise all those that oppose religious extremism. In the general elections last year, the parties elected are all opposed to extremism. Some might be more conservative than others but then that is the way politics plays out. Interestingly enough, the four major political parties in the country are sitting in coalition with each other either at the centre or in the provinces.

Immediately after the general elections, when the PPP and the PMLN decided to join hands at the centre and in the Punjab, people like me thought that this combination would indeed offer Pakistan an opportunity to have a ‘united’ front against extremism, both of the left and the right. And having these two parties together would also allow the country to face its financial and external problems more effectively. Sadly, over the last year these two parties have drifted apart.

Even though the ‘grand’ coalition at the centre is gone, the PPP and the PMLN still are coalition partners in the Punjab. If the coalition in the Punjab can survive then perhaps there is hope that these two parties will develop some sort of an understanding at the centre to mobilise Pakistanis against the real and immediate threat of religious extremism.

Extremism is not only a religious problem but also a law and order problem and if religious extremists destabilise the Punjab, it will undermine the PMLN government as well. The supremacy of the rule of law is then the one thing that can unite these two parties and others against the increase of religious extremism and its consequent violence.

Finally, I would like to quote Imam Abu Hanifa from his reply to a letter by Uthman Batti:

“I assert that all people of the Qibla are mu’mins and that none of them becomes an infidel by omission of works. He who has faith and also performs his duties is without doubt a mu’min and destined for Paradise. He who is devoid of both faith and works is an infidel and destined for Hell. He who has faith, but omits to act is certainly a Muslim, but a sinful one. It is up to God to punish or forgive him.”

Good advice and something to build on when it comes to accepting each other as Muslims. And yes, I want my Basant back! (Daily Times)

Syed Mansoor Hussain has practised and taught medicine in the US. He can be reached at smhmbbs70@yahoo.com
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Ahmad Hasan Dani: Death of a legend

Renowned historian, archeologist Prof Dani dies
Updated at: 1155 PST, Monday, January 26, 2009 (The News)

ISLAMABAD: Famous historian and archeologist Professor Ahmad Hasan Dani has passed away here on Monday. He was 89.

Prof. Dani was under treatment in Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (PIMS) since several days.

Government of Pakistan had awarded him Hilal-i-Imtiaz and Pride of Performance in acknowledgement of his services.

....

Ahmad Hassan Dani (Urdu: احمد حسن دانی) FRAS, SI, HI (born 20 June 1920, died 26 January 2009 in Islamabad) was a Pakistani archaeologist, historian, and linguist who is among the foremost authorities on South Asian archaeology and history. He was Emeritus Professor at the Quaid-e-Azam University and the director of Taxila Institute of Asian Civilizations. Throughout his career, Dani held various academic positions and international fellowships, apart from conducting archaeological excavations and research. He was also the recipient of various civil awards in Pakistan and abroad. As a prolific linguist, he spoke more than 14 local and international languages and dialects.

Visiting, research and honorary fellowships

During his Associate Professorship at Dhaka University, Dani worked as a Research Fellow at the School of Oriental and African Studies, University of London (1958–59). Later, in 1969 he became Asian Fellow at the Australian National University, Canberra. In 1974, he went to the University of Pennsylvania in Philadelphia as a visiting scholar. In 1977, he was Visiting Professor at the University of Wisconsin-Madison. Over the span of his career, Dani has been awarded honorary fellowships of Royal Asiatic Society of Bangladesh (1969), German Archaeological Institute (1981), IsMEO Rome (1986) and Royal Asiatic Society (1991).

Research expeditions

Dani was extensively engaged in excavation works on the pre-Indus Civilization site of Rehman Dheri in Northern Pakistan. He also made a number of discoveries of Gandhara sites in Peshawar and Swat Valleys, and worked on Indo-Greek sites in Dir. From 1985, he involved in research focusing on the documentation of the rock carvings and inscriptions on ancient remains from the Neolithic age in the high mountain region of Northern Pakistan along with Harald Hauptmann of Heidelberg Academy of Sciences, University of Heidelberg. In 1990–91, he led the UNESCO international scientific teams for the Desert Route Expedition of the Silk Road in China and the Steppe Route Expedition of the Silk Road in the Soviet Union.

Awards

* 2000 Hilal-e-Imtiaz, Government of Pakistan
* 1998 Légion d'honneur, President of the French Republic
* 1997 Aristotle Silver Medal, UNESCO
* 1996 Order of the Merit, Government of Germany
* 1994 Knight Commander, Government of Italy
* 1992 Aizaz-e-Kamal, Government of Pakistan
* 1990 Palmes Academiques, Government of France
* 1986 Gold Medal, Asiatic Society of Bangladesh
* 1969 Sitara-e-Imtiaz, Government of Pakistan
* 1944 Gold Medal, Banaras Hindu University

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Ahmad Hasan Dani

DR Dani was a scholar, historian, linguist, anthropologist and an archaeology and museum expert of sterling qualities and stature. He was the rare Pakistani who was respected around the world for his passion for history and the contribution he made to allied fields of knowledge. In a country where antiquities and the past are fading further into oblivion, he stood tall among the handful of petitioners for safeguarding and conserving cultural heritage. His passion for history was reciprocated by history itself when he became a part of

it as a key member of Sir Mortimer Wheeler’s team that excavated and completed the documentation of Moenjodaro in the 1940s. The Gandhara civilisation further up north, too, was among his beneficiaries in that he painstakingly documented the many sites and set up museums across Taxila and the Swat and Peshawar valleys. Rehman Dheri near Swabi was Dr Dani’s own find.

The scholar’s spread of activities was as vast as his interests. Spanning an entire land mass from the sub-continent to eastern China, Afghanistan, Central Asia and going all the way to the steppes, Dr Dani was part of many global teams of experts who worked on archaeological sites in the whole region. In his last decades, and as long as foreign tourism was part of the Pakistan landscape, he became the darling of both tourists and foreign academics who came here to see or study the country’s antiquities. Mild in speech and manner and extremely forthcoming when questioned about any of his fields, Dr Dani voluntarily made himself available to such audiences. He was one of the reasons for the increase in European and Japanese study groups that came to Pakistan in droves throughout the 1980s and 1990s. He will be missed by all who have any enthusiasm for heritage and culture. (Dawn)
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A story of an employee reinstated by the PPP government

A story of an employee reinstated by the PPP government - by Tahir Sarwar Mir



Also please read:

http://letusbuildpakistan.blogspot.com/2009/01/7700-sacked-govt-employees-to-be.html
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Swat 26 Jan 2009 update: Yet Another school destroyed by the Taliban

Another school destroyed, woman killed in Swat shelling
Updated at: 0945 PST, Monday, January 26, 2009 (The News)



SWAT: Militants in Swat blown up another school with explosives in Swat whereas a woman was killed and eight others injured when a shell hit a house in Charbagh area.

According to sources, operation against militants continued in Swat overnight. Meanwhile, firing with interval of time continued in Mingora on Sunday night, however, no loss of life was reported.

Militants blew away government boys high school in Odigaram area. So far, 185 schools have been destroyed in Swat, official tally said.

.....

We know that the Pakistan Army / ISI is an accomplice. Where is the international community?
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Taliban/Sipah-e-Sahaba attack Dera Ismail Khan once again....

5 killed in DI Khan blast
Updated at: 1120 PST, Monday, January 26, 2009 (The News)

DERA ISMAIL KHAN: Five people have been killed and several injured in Dera Ismail Khan blast on Monday.

According to reports, the blast occurred outside town hall at circular road. A car and a motorbike were parked at the spot of the blast. It is however unclear whether the bomb was planted in a car or motorbike.

Police and high officials of administration have reached the scene of the blast whereas security forces have cordoned off the area. The injured have been shifted to hospital where six reported in a critical condition.

President Asif Zardari, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani and Adviser to the Prime on Interior Affairs Rehman Malik have denounced the attack.

Terrorist organization Sipah-e-Sahaba (alias Laskar-e-Jhangavi)has previously conducted a number of suicide attacks/bomb blasts targeting the Shia population of Dera Ismail Khan. These two organizations are part of the greater Pakistan Tehreek-e-Taliban.



http://www.bbc.co.uk/urdu/pakistan/story/2009/01/090126_dikhan_blast_rh.shtml
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SOS from Quetta: Systematic killing of Hazaras / Shias by the Taliban/Sipah-e-Sahaba Terrorists...............

Shia leader shot dead in Quetta
Updated at: 1140 PST, Monday, January 26, 2009

QUETTA: A leader of Hazara Democratic Party (HDP) has been shot dead in Quetta on Monday.

According to reports, unknown persons opened fire on HDP leader Hussain Ali Yousfi at Jinnah Road. The body was shifted to hospital.

Terrorists belonging to Sipah-e-Shaba (Taliban) have attacked and killed a number of Shias in Quetta in the past few weeks.

BBC Urdu dot com report:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/urdu/pakistan/story/2009/01/090126_quetta_killing_nj.shtml

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Shi'a leader's murder sparks violence in Pakistan's Quetta
Jan 26, 2009 (BBC Monitoring via COMTEX) --

As you know, we have been reporting on the killing of the chairman of the Hazara Democratic Party [Shi'a party]. Unknown armed men have killed the Hazara Democratic Party Chairman Hussain Ali Yousufzai.

Police say that armed men sitting in a vehicle fired indiscriminately at the chairman outside his shop on Jinnah Road in Quetta. Hussain Ali Yousufi died on the spot and his body was taken to Civil Hospital in Quetta.

A large number of persons and workers of the Hazara Democratic Party gathered at the hospital. Following this incident shopkeepers, in a state of shock, closed down their shops.

The Lashkar-i-Jhangvi [Sunni militant group] has claimed responsibility for this killing and the Baluchistan Chief Minister Nawab Aslam Raisani has condemned the killing of Yousufi.

The Hazara Democratic Party has announced a 40-day mourning period after Yousufi's killing.

Tension gripped Quetta City and people came out on the roads earlier protesting the killing. Incidents of arson and violence have also been reported in different parts of the city.

Now for more on this let us cross over live to Quetta where our correspondent Syed Ali Shah has been following the story for us the entire morning:

[Begin live relay via telephone, anchor Razeshta Sethna] Thanks for joining us. What is the latest you have from Quetta? Earlier, when I was speaking to you, you told me about incidents of violence and arson in the city.

[Shah] Indeed incidents of arson and violence have been reported from different parts of the city. The situation is still tense. However, all of the injured people, we have reports about five people have been injured in these acts of arson and violence in different parts of the city. All of the injured have been shifted to Civil Hospital Quetta for medical treatment.

However, crowds of people, they can still be seen on Mannan Chowk, Meezan Chowk, Jinnah Road, Liaquat Bazaar, Sattar Road, on different roads of Quetta City. So the situation is indeed very tense. The protesters, they burnt a private bank, two vehicles, they also smashed the glasses of a bank, shops and they have also set on fire vehicles and motorcycles, in order to protest over the killing of Chairman Hazara Democratic Party Hussain Ali Yousufi. So the crowd of people, they are chanting slogans against the killing of Hussain Ali Yousufi, the chairman Hazara Democratic Party. The workers of Hazara Democratic Party, they took out a protest rally which passed through different roads of Quetta City. The protesters were demanding the arrest of killers.

In the meantime, the workers of Pakhtunkhwa Milli Awami Party also took out a protest rally which also passed through different roads of the city. The leaders of Pakhtunkhwa Milli Awami Party they were appealing their workers to be peaceful and calm and not to cause any harm to public and private properties.

[Sethna] Now Ali Shah we also have reports that the Lashkar-e Jhangvi has claimed responsibility for the killing of the Hazara Democratic Party chairman, do you have any more information on that?

[Shah] Indeed, the spokesman for the banned Lashkar-e Jhangvi, he telephoned newsmen in Quetta Press Club he claimed the responsibility for killing the chairman of Hazara Democratic Party Hussain Ali Yousufi. Actually in sectarian-related terrorist incidents since January 1st around nine people have been killed in Quetta City and other towns of Baluchistan.

[Sethna] Thanks very much for that update from Quetta. [end of live relay]

Syed Ali Shah reporting on the killing of the Hazara Democratic Party Chairman Hussain Ali Yousufi.

Source: Dawn News TV, Karachi, in English 0900gmt 26 Jan 09

BBC Mon Alert SA1 SADel dg


BBC Monitoring. Copyright BBC.

http://individual.com/story.php?story=95318770

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On 14 January, DSP among 4 policemen shot dead in Quetta

Unidentified assailants killed four policemen including a DSP in a shootout in Quetta on Wednesday. Motorcyclists ambushed a police team on Sariab Road at around 11am, police officials told Daily Times. Three of the murdered policemen belonged to Hazara community and were Shia. Banned Lashkar-e-Jhangvi claimed responsibility for the killings, which appear to be part of a recent series of target killing of Shias in the provincial capital that has claimed six lives in a month. Ensuing protests by members of the Shia and Hazara communities paralysed businesses in the provincial capital.


On 9 January 2009:
Shia leader, guard killed in Sibi

QUETTA: Unidentified men killed a central leader of the Fiqah Jafferia along with his guard in Sibi district on Saturday. The assailants opened fire on Saqlain Haider and his guard, Ghulam Ali. They were taken to a hospital in Sibi where they succumbed to their injuries. People staged a sit-in condemning the ‘target killing’ of the Shia leader. They chanted slogans and demanded the culprits should be arrested immediately. No one has claimed responsibility for the killings.

On 5 January 2009:

2 Shias killed in Quetta

QUETTA: Unidentified assailants killed two Shias in the city on Monday despite tight security arrangements due to Muharram.

Police sources said motorcyclists attacked two Hazaragi-speaking members of the Shia community on Kirani Road. Those killed were identified as Muhammad Essa and Muhammad Khan. The assault appeared to be a case of sectarian violence.

The assailants managed to escape. The bodies were handed over to the families after necessary legal and medical formalities were carried out by police and medical staff of the Civil Hospital. No group claimed responsibility for the killings.

Police and other law enforcement agencies have enforced tight security in Quetta to prevent sectarian violence during Muharam. Quetta has been at the centre of sectarian violence for many years. Most recently, on November 21, 2008, two Shias, including leading religious scholar Agha Hassan Zakari, were killed.

AFP reported the men, a rickshaw driver and his friend, were shot multiple times after being stopped on the busy road.

....


Thousands protest killing of policemen
Web posted at: 1/15/2009 0:22:33

Source ::: AFP

Supporters of Jamaat-e-Islami protest against the Israeli offensive on Gaza, in Karachi yesterday. Thousands of schoolchildren took part in the protest.

QUETTA: Thousands of people protested in Pakistan’s southwestern city of Quetta yesterday after four police officers were shot dead in what an official said was a sectarian attack against Shias.

The police were killed when gunmen riding a motorbike sprayed their vehicle with bullets on a main road on the outskirts of Quetta, the capital of restive gas-rich Baluchistan province, which borders Afghanistan and Iran.

The province, which has been in the grips of an insurgency for more than four years, has also been the scene of sectarian attacks between Sunni and Shia extremists. More than 4,000 people carried the bodies of three of the officers, all Shiites, through the streets to the home of a top military official, to demand justice, a photographer at the scene witnessed.

Protesters called for a military probe into the killings before dispersing peacefully.

“Shias have been targeted in the province for quite some time and the latest attack was directed against Shiite officers,” said provincial minister Jan Ali Changezi, who participated in the protest.

The killing was later claimed by Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LJ), a banned Sunni Muslim extremist group with links to Al Qaeda. “We claim the responsibility for today’s attack,” Ali Haider, identifying himself as a spokesman for the group, said in telephone calls to local media.

Earlier, senior police official Humayun Jogezai said the officers had been shot dead in their vehicle as they were travelling to a training academy.

A high-ranking police official also sustained serious injuries.

LJ is regarded as Pakistan’s fiercest Sunni extremist outfit and is accused of killing hundreds of Shias since its emergence in the early 1990s. Former president Pervez Musharraf banned the group in August 2001. Shias account for about 20 percent of Pakistan’s 160 million-strong, Sunni-majority population. The groups usually coexist peacefully but outbreaks of sectarian violence have claimed more than 4,000 lives since the late 1980s.

Baluchistan has also been wracked by insurgency since 2004, with rebels demanding political autonomy and a greater share of profits from the region’s natural resources. Taliban militants have also been blamed for attacks in the province.

http://www.thepeninsulaqatar.com/Display_news.asp?section=World_News&subsection=Pakistan+%26+Sub-Continent&month=January2009&file=World_News2009011502233.xml


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Baloch protest against ‘Talibanisation’

The Balochistan National Party (BNP) Information Secretary and former senator Mr Sanaullah Baloch told Daily Times on Sunday that “supporters” of the Taliban had “captured land worth Rs2 billion in the eastern and western parts of Quetta” to “undermine the Baloch nationalist movement”. He accused the government of failure to establish its writ in the city where “Taliban and their supporters were consolidating their grip”. He complained of the emergence of “no-go” areas where these elements had dug themselves in. He came close to explaining the state of divided politics in the province when he said that “the Taliban supporters” enjoyed the support of the government and its intelligence agencies who wish “to pit the religious elements against the Baloch nationalists”. He wondered why the state had not carried out military operations against these elements while it was still attacking Dera Bugti and Sui areas. Dealing with the problem of Afghan refugees, he called them “a burden on the economy of Balochistan and the biggest cause of lawlessness and terrorism in the country’s largest province”.

Mr Baloch has indirectly put his finger on the way a new political map is militating against the old deeds of omission and commission of the Pakistani state. The PPP in power in the centre is a liberal-secular party, supported by another secular party, the MQM, in Sindh. The party in power in the NWFP is ANP, which is traditionally secular-nationalist like the Baloch. It is flouting the pro-Taliban mood in the establishment and asking the army to be more effective against Taliban encroachments. In Balochistan, however, the ethnic-political picture is more complex.

As in the NWFP and the Tribal Areas, the Afghan jihad and its refugees have destabilised the ethnic balance in Balochistan. When Mr Baloch refers to “supporters” of the Taliban he is pointing to the dominant Pashtun party, the JUIF, which also queered the pitch in the NWFP for the ANP when it succeeded it in power in Peshawar. What five years of power in the NWFP by the “supporters” of the Taliban did to the ground realities there is now happening to Balochistan, a fact pointed out by scholars who have studied closely the dubious Musharraf policy of giving safe haven to the absconding Afghan Taliban leaders in Quetta.

The JUIF is a religious party but it is quite clearly an ethnic party capturing the Pashtun vote to the detriment of the secular Pakhtunkhwa Milli Awami Party (PKMAP), the same way it had edged out the secular ANP in the NWFP. The JUIF contrasts sharply with Jama’at-e-Islami which remains a religious party appealing to the Pashtun and non-Pashtun alike. The other factor going against the secular Baloch parties is the JUIF’s deft political footwork in Islamabad, sitting inside the federal coalition with the PPP while strongly supporting the Taliban and opposing the military operations Mr Baloch wants against the Taliban in Balochistan.

Unfortunately, however, the separatism of Baloch nationalism plays into the hands of the Pashtun-dominated JUIF which shies away from any rhetoric of insurgency and separation embraced by sections of the Baloch. Quite meaningfully, the Islamisation or “Talibanisation” it favours for Balochistan and the rest of Pakistan is equally radical in its endgame and cannot be opposed openly and vigorously because it gibes with the religious constitution of Pakistan that welcomes the sharia as the faith of the state. The Taliban terrorism is against the government agencies and the Shia. In contrast, Baloch terrorism, while targeting state functionaries, also kills certain non-Baloch and Punjabi elements and destroys the economic lifeline of Pakistan, the province’s natural gas installations and pipelines.

The ethnic balance has been dangerously upset in Balochistan by the jihad waged by the state for over 20 years. This jihad has transformed Pashtun society all over Pakistan and sidelined the nationalists, but it has damaged the cause of the Baloch more effectively. It is true that state functionaries have become indoctrinated by jihadi culture over time just as they have learnt to “prejudge” the Baloch after long years of treating them as “rebels”. Ironically, in the long run, it is the jihadi culture which will destroy the “modern state” and not Baloch nationalism.

In the days to come, Balochistan will acquire strategic importance as the transit terrain for Iranian gas. One hopes that before the pipeline from Iran is finalised the province will get the kind of autonomy it wants. There is no doubt that gas from Iran will be a crucial asset which the state of Pakistan will go to any length to protect. The Pashtun will not oppose it; but the Baloch might. That means that once again the state will have to choose between the Baloch and the Pashtun and, regrettably, might even rely on the unwise and dangerous policy of pitting the “Taliban” against the Baloch. The JUIF is sure to be more supple politically than the proud and inflexible Baloch. Clearly, there is a lesson to be learnt by the Baloch nationalists.

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2009\01\06\story_6-1-2009_pg3_1

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For a detailed account of the sufferings of the Hazara community, visit:

http://hazaranewspakistan.wordpress.com/

....


Please consider signing this petition.

SOS from Pakistan - Save Pakistani Shias Petition

http://www.petitiononline.com/ShiaSOS/petition.html
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Security of Nawaz Sharif and Shahbaz Sharif

(Daily Waqt)


Ghost OF TK Says:

Security for Sharif Brothers: 20 Inspectors, 35 Sub-Inspectors, 66 ASI’s, 85 head constables and 850 Constables

That is over 1000 Police out of 30,000 police for the whole of Lahore city (population 10 million)
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What is Bhuttoism?

Ma Says:

Bhutto haters cannot comprehend what does or doesn’t Bhutto mean to PPP.

and they only think Bhuttos mean a race or a clan. but the fact is contrary to it.

the fact is in the eyes of PPP Voters ZARDARI and his Sister Firyal TALPUR are Bhuttos while Mumtaz, Ghanwa, Fatmah, and Zulfiqar Junior are NOT Bhuttos.

so being Bhutto is not being of a Bhutto clan but it is something of character, sacrifice, commitment and standings.

but Bhutto haters, right wingers, products of the ISI and General Zia will never understand as their hearts and minds are locked by the Mullahs and jihadis.

MalangBaba Says:

@democrat,
“zerdari is elected president of pakistan,we all should respect him,second he is entitled to govern his own way,if u dont like his policies,its fine,vote him out in next eletions but dont try to derail democray,……..”

They are as democratic as Zia. their justice is justice of Zia. They can worship even Shaitan as far as he promise to kill Bhuttos.

Their democracy is selective
Their justice is selective

They never respected democratic mandate in the past they will never accept it in future.

A year ago they were asking for head of Shaheed BB

Now they r repeatedly calling for killing of President zardari and Balawal. But they don’t know that Bhuttos like Egyptian phoenix are reborn from their own ashes. Tum Kitnay Bhutto Maaro gay?

Read the following articles on Bhuttoism:

Bhuttoism - By Dr. Farid A. Malik

Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto versus Nawaz Sharif: A comparison - By Dr. Safdar Mehmood

Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto and Mohtarma Benazir Bhutto did not compromise on national interests. They have become immortal. writes Dr. A.Q. Khan

Bhutto family and Pakistan - by Asadullah Ghalib

.....

Some Comments:

MalangBaba says:

Today even Zia’s children and his political heirs and partners in crime (NS, Qazi etc) are affraid to link themselves with his name. This is the legacy of a dictator.

...

I think Arian community of Lahore is fedup with Nawaz Sharif and his arrogance. They are being pushed to PPP. I think it is a good start to widen PPP’s vote bank in Lahore.

....

Hameed Gul’s reference make no sense. He is a sworn enemy of PPP. He is person who created IJI and supplied money to Sharifs anf Qazis to run a joint election campaign against PPP. Being head of ISI this guy presided the first meeting of IJI. He even awarded tickets to IJI candidates and manipulated the election results in Punjab to give IJI lead in Punjab assembly just few days after it lost in Punjab in National elections. He is bigger criminal than any other general in Pakistan.

Can he be believed. How was not in a position to become a shoe polisher of Bhutto in Ayub days.

Ziaists are very good in lies like their dictator peer.

...

I am neither too old not too young. fortunately I saw Shaheed Bhutto’s time as a young student and saw the cruel face of Ziaists. My family was not a Bhutto fan but I became a big fan of Bhutto after I witnessed the shameless atrocvities committed by Zia and his partners in crime in particular Jamaat Islami.

I do remember a lot. But unfortunately most of anti-Bhutto members of this forum don’t even remember that pl of Pakistan rejected the boycott call of elections just 11 months ago. I don’t expectr U to remember what Nawaz Sharif used to say about Justice Iftikhar till March 8, 2007 and what Imran Khan used to say about Mush till he dumped him in 2002.

...
Read more...

SOS message from Swat, Pakistan to Mr. Richard Holbrooke

Urgent appeal to Mr. Richard Holbrooke. If you want to understand, expose and address the unholy nexus between the Taliban and the Pakistan Army (ISI), focus your attention on what is happening in Swat.

It is an SOS message from the majority of the innocent peace loving women, men, children and school going girls from Swat and the rest of Pakistan to the international community. Please save us from the cruel, unholy nexus of the Taliban and the evil-jihadi minded elements in Pakistan Army and the ISI.

For a complete account of what is happening in Swat, read the articles provided at the following link:

http://letusbuildpakistan.blogspot.com/search/label/Swat

The following is a most comprehensive recent report by The New York Times.

......


Radio Spreads Taliban’s Terror in Pakistani Region


By RICHARD A. OPPEL Jr. and PIR ZUBAIR SHAH
Published: January 24, 2009












Pakistani Taliban punished a man accused of impersonating one of them to extort money in Matta, in the volatile Swat Valley.















Swat Map

















Hundreds gathered Jan. 11 in Swat to watch drug dealers punished. The Taliban also have made it a crime to shave a beard.


PESHAWAR, Pakistan — Every night around 8 o’clock, the terrified residents of Swat, a lush and picturesque valley a hundred miles from three of Pakistan’s most important cities, crowd around their radios. They know that failure to listen and learn might lead to a lashing — or a beheading.

Using a portable radio transmitter, a local Taliban leader, Shah Doran, on most nights outlines newly proscribed “un-Islamic” activities in Swat, like selling DVDs, watching cable television, singing and dancing, criticizing the Taliban, shaving beards and allowing girls to attend school. He also reveals names of people the Taliban have recently killed for violating their decrees — and those they plan to kill.

“They control everything through the radio,” said one Swat resident, who declined to give his name for fear the Taliban might kill him. “Everyone waits for the broadcast.”

International attention remains fixed on the Taliban’s hold on Pakistan’s semiautonomous tribal areas, from where they launch attacks on American forces in Afghanistan. But for Pakistan, the loss of the Swat Valley could prove just as devastating.

Unlike the fringe tribal areas, Swat, a Delaware-size chunk of territory with 1.3 million residents and a rich cultural history, is part of Pakistan proper, within reach of Peshawar, Rawalpindi and Islamabad, the capital.

After more than a year of fighting, virtually all of it is now under Taliban control, marking the militants’ farthest advance eastward into Pakistan’s so-called settled areas, residents and government officials from the region say.

With the increasing consolidation of their power, the Taliban have taken a sizable bite out of the nation. And they are enforcing a strict interpretation of Islam with cruelty, bringing public beheadings, assassinations, social and cultural repression and persecution of women to what was once an independent, relatively secular region, dotted with ski resorts and fruit orchards and known for its dancing girls.

Last year, 70 police officers were beheaded, shot or otherwise slain in Swat, and 150 wounded, said Malik Naveed Khan, the police inspector general for the North-West Frontier Province.

The police have become so afraid that many officers have put advertisements in newspapers renouncing their jobs so the Taliban will not kill them.

One who stayed on the job was Farooq Khan, a midlevel officer in Mingora, the valley’s largest city, where decapitated bodies of policemen and other victims routinely surface. Last month, he was shopping there when two men on a motorcycle sprayed him with gunfire, killing him in broad daylight.

“He always said, ‘I have to stay here and defend our home,’ ” recalled his brother, Wajid Ali Khan, a Swat native and the province’s minister for environment, as he passed around a cellphone with Farooq’s picture.

In the view of analysts, the growing nightmare in Swat is a capsule of the country’s problems: an ineffectual and unresponsive civilian government, coupled with military and security forces that, in the view of furious residents, have willingly allowed the militants to spread terror deep into Pakistan.

The crisis has become a critical test for the government of the civilian president, Asif Ali Zardari, and for a security apparatus whose loyalties, many Pakistanis say, remain in question.

Seeking to deflect blame, Mr. Zardari’s government recently criticized “earlier halfhearted attempts at rooting out extremists from the area” and vowed to fight militants “who are ruthlessly murdering and maiming our citizens.”

But as pressure grows, he has also said in recent days that the government would be willing to talk with militants who accept its authority. Such negotiations would carry serious risks: security officials say a brief peace deal in Swat last spring was a spectacular failure that allowed militants to tighten their hold and take revenge on people who had supported the military.

Without more forceful and concerted action by the government, some warn, the Taliban threat in Pakistan is bound to spread.

“The crux of the problem is the government appears divided about what to do,” said Mahmood Shah, a retired Pakistani Army brigadier who until 2006 was in charge of security in the western tribal areas. “This disconnect among the political leadership has emboldened the militants.”

From 2,000 to 4,000 Taliban fighters now roam the Swat Valley, according to interviews with a half-dozen senior Pakistani government, military and political officials involved in the fight. By contrast, the Pakistani military has four brigades with 12,000 to 15,000 men in Swat, officials say.











The Taliban are thought to be responsible for the killing of a popular Swat Valley dancing girl, Shabana, whose body, above, was found Jan. 2 in Mingora. The Taliban have made gains in the strategic region, in part by meting out harsh punishments.
But the soldiers largely stay inside their camps, unwilling to patrol or exert any large presence that might provoke — or discourage — the militants, Swat residents and political leaders say. The military also has not raided a small village that locals say is widely known as the Taliban’s headquarters in Swat.


Nor have troops destroyed mobile radio transmitters mounted on motorcycles or pickup trucks that Shah Doran and the leader of the Taliban in Swat, Maulana Fazlullah, have expertly used to terrify residents.

Being named in one of the nightly broadcasts often leaves just two options: fleeing Swat, or turning up headless and dumped in a village square.

When the army does act, its near-total lack of preparedness to fight a counterinsurgency reveals itself. Its usual tactic is to lob artillery shells into a general area, and the results have seemed to hurt civilians more than the militants, residents say.

In some parts of Pakistan, civilian militias have risen to fight the Taliban. But in Swat, the Taliban’s gains amid a large army presence has convinced many that the military must be conspiring with the Taliban.

“It’s very mysterious how they get so much weapons and support,” while nearby districts are comparatively calm, said Muzaffar ul-Mulk Khan, a member of Parliament from Swat, who said his home near Mingora was recently destroyed by the Taliban.

“We are bewildered by the military. They patrol only in Mingora. In the rest of Swat they sit in their bases. And the militants can kill at will anywhere in Mingora,” he said.

“Nothing is being done by the government," Mr. Khan added.

Accusations that the military lacks the will to fight in Swat are “very unfair and unjustified,” said Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas, the chief military spokesman, who said 180 army soldiers and officers had been killed in Swat in the past 14 months.

“They do reach out, and they do patrol,” he said.

Military officials also say they are trying to step up activity in Swat. This weekend, soldiers were deployed to protect a handful of educational buildings in Mingora, amid a wave of school bombings.

General Abbas said the military did not have the means to block Taliban radio transmissions across such a wide area, but he disputed the view that Mingora had fallen to the militants.

“Just because they come out at night and throw down four or five bodies in the square does not mean that militants control anything,” he said.

Few officials would dispute that one of the Pakistani military’s biggest mistakes in Swat was its failure to protect Pir Samiullah, a local leader whose 500 followers fought the Taliban in the village of Mandal Dag. After the Taliban killed him in a firefight last month, the militants demanded that his followers reveal his gravesite — and then started beheading people until they got the information, one Mandal Dag villager said.

“They dug him up and hung his body in the square,” the villager said, and then they took the body to a secret location. The desecration was intended to show what would happen to anyone who defied the Taliban’s rule, but it also made painfully clear to Swat residents that the Pakistani government could not be trusted to defend those who rose up against the militants.

“He should have been given more protection,” said one Pakistani security official, who spoke on condition of anonymity because of the delicacy of the subject. “He should have been made a symbol of resistance.”

Gruesome displays like the defilement of Pir Samiullah’s remains are an effective tactic for the Taliban, who have shown cruel efficiency in following through on their threats.

Recently, Shah Doran broadcast word that the Taliban intended to kill a police officer who he said had killed three people.

“We have sent people, and tomorrow you will have good news,” he said on his nightly broadcast, according to a resident of Matta, a Taliban stronghold. The next day the decapitated body of the policeman was found in a nearby village.

Even in Mingora, a town grown hardened to violence, residents were shocked early this month to find the bullet-ridden body of one of the city’s most famous dancing girls splayed on the main square.

Known as Shabana, the woman was visited at night by a group of men who claimed to want to hire her for a party. They shot her to death and dragged her body more than a quarter-mile to the central square, leaving it as a warning for anyone who would flout Taliban decrees.

The leader of the militants in Swat, Maulana Fazlullah, gained prominence from making radio broadcasts and running an Islamic school, becoming popular among otherwise isolated homemakers and inspiring them to sell their jewelry to finance his operation. He also drew support from his marriage to the daughter of Sufi Mohammed, a powerful religious leader in Swat until 2001 who later disowned his son-in-law.

Even though Swat does not border Afghanistan or any of Pakistan’s seven lawless federal tribal areas, Maulana Fazlullah eventually allied with Taliban militants who dominate regions along the Afghan frontier.

His fighters now roam the valley with sniper rifles, Kalashnikovs, rocket-propelled grenade launchers, mortar tubes and, according to some officials, night-vision goggles and flak vests.

His latest tactic is a ban on girls’ attending school in Swat, which will be tested in February when private schools are scheduled to reopen after winter recess. The Taliban have already destroyed 169 girls’ schools in Swat, government officials say, and they expect most private schools to stay closed rather than risk retaliation.

“The local population is totally fed up, and if they had the chance they would lynch each and every Talib,” said Mr. Naveed Khan, the police official. “But the Taliban are so cruel and violent, no one will oppose them. If this is not stopped, it will spill into other areas of Pakistan.”

http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/25/world/asia/25swat.html?_r=1&th&emc=th

.....

Some Comments:

OMG, can't anyone stop this cruel regime? How could the Taliban get hold of money and guns? Why do people let other people do stupid things in the name of religion? Why is UN so impotent? This is so depressing.

— claudia, denver

What do they call that armed, unmanned drone - THe Predator? Hmm.

— Cedarglen, Oregon

Well... the birds come home to roost. ISI's support of the Taliban now reverberates internally within Pakistan? It seems that no historical lessons can be learned, indeed. Zardari should consider inviting the Israelis to assist Pakistan in rooting out the evil in their midst.

— ML, Kabul, AFG

Obama needs to get a grip on Pakistan early in his administration rather than later. A comprehensive plan of dealing with and containing any fall out of Pakistan's Talibanization should be formulated. Despite years of NATO presence in the region it is clear that the Pakistani government or the Pakistani intelligence and military are NOT part of the solution. American aid to these agencies only emboldens them and in turn the Taliban. Unless severe economic and diplomatic pressure is exerted on Pakistan to reign in terrorists like the Taliban on its soil, there is not going be any change.

— Ian, NYC

If there was ever a chance for us--the U.S-- to show leadership in the region, it is now.

We must do something that gives hope to the embattled people of Swat. I have seen the valley in happier times and I know its people want to live a normal life. I despair and cringe when I think of little school children--especially girls--who will never know the pleasure of reading, writing, or thinking for themselves. We have to convince the government of Pakistan it is time to take action against destruction being wrought by the Taliban. We have to help them in every way.

We can't just let remote controlled drones do our work. It is time for us to act on the ground. But I am not sure that will happen. We seek expedient answers in a place where expediency won't work. I hope President Obama will act to bring peace to a place that once welcomed people from America with broad smiles and not with the hatred they do now.

— S.B., Anchorage, Alaska

If the Taliban cancer, like the breast cancer, is not nipped at the bud stage, it will spread and most certainly metastasize and destroy the newly democratic Pakistan. Part of the blame for this belongs to the USA also because, while proclaiming loudly that it loves democracy, it has consistently and unwaveringly supported its former dictator, the corrupt President Musharraf for ten years (1999 to August 18, 2008). Musharraf turned a blind eye towards the Taliban and allowed it to spread, and some of his generals even supported the Taliban. It is quite reasonable to expect similar results, next in Egypt, whose dictator Mubarak American presidents have supported for decades, and then in Jordan, whose King American presidents adore. This policy is not only short sighted, it is hypocritical too.

United States should encourage Prime Minister Zardari to immediately send a huge army to fumigate the entire Swat area and eradicate the Taliban infestation(or swat them as one would a fly?). It should be very easy to spot the infested towns: just look for areas where every man has beard and then look for and cull Taliban's ruthless leaders. The time to act is now. Prime Minister Zardari should waste no more time.

Poverty, discontent, and lack of good educational opportunity are the breeding grounds of the Taliban. In northern India, even in areas dominated by Muslims, Taliban hasn't taken root because the people have access to schools and they have at least some hope for a better life in the future.

— Yesh Prabhu, Plainsboro, NJ

As far as I know, triangulating the source of radio transmissions should be fairly easy. Are the Pakistani military complicit, or just afraid to do anything? Reading your article I think the Swat residents would welcome foreign help in removing the Taliban, if the Pakistani government would be courageous enough to invite them. People in Pakistan should realize that the Taliban are as much a foreign power as western nations are. The Taliban are not about religion, but only about gaining power to abuse people. The Taliban are perverting Islam to meet their own (secular) interests.

— Math Fuzzy, Europe

Pakistani Terrorism + Pakistani Taliban + ISI + Nuclear Weapons = Goodbye America.

— Amit, NYC

ISI brought out this jinnee from the bottle.World and Pakistan government should ask ISI to go to Swat and face this terrible music.Pretty faces of women activists appearing on Paki TV to " defend" their rights, have a lot to defend,before Taliban reaches their cosy homes in Lahor,Islamabad and Karachi.Pak armed forces keep warning India about giving befitting reply in case of a conflict.They too should feel ashamed that they are unable to rein in these mercenaries.Taliban is an American gift to this part of the world.Mr.Barak Obama has his role cut out, if he wants US policies to succeed in Afghanistan-Pakistan.Are Russians having the last laugh?

— Jitendra Desai, Surat - Gujarat- India

Everytime I read of these activities I become enraged. Enraged not by the ignorance of those dealing out such practices but enraged at the lack of anger coming from the rest of the world, the UN, other great countries that would view these activities as anti-human, barbarism. Yet, there is no outrage, there is no condemnation what there is, is silent tolerance of a regime of hatred murder, power mongering, fear producing and terrorism based on a belief that I can only describe as insane. Yet the world watches and does NOTHING !!!!!

— Eddie Z, New York

Swat is charming tourist attraction. It was a very peaceful place having nice and and courteous people. Crimes are committed in the name of religion. In this area writ of the Government must be maintained at any cost. Obviously some thing is wrong somewhere.

— snashraf, Karachi

Islamic radicalism like Saudi-supported wahaabism and the taliban movement could be strongly denounced by Islamic thinkers and theologians (imams and others). That would be the first step before military action and effective supression. As long as many of the 1.5 billion muslims in the world believe these guys are rightful western military action will be as effective as trying to mop up a raising tide.

However, no such condemnation is being heard, aside from one or another isolated, usually european-muslim religious authorities. Saudi Arabia, the birth place of Islam and protector of its most holy places is stunningly silent.

The US and most of Europe have the saudis as allies (all that oil...) so it is hard to see any end to the disgusting, insane radicalism. I pity the moderate Pakistanis, a talented and intelligent people that have to submit to such barbaric medieval savagery.

— Pete, Sao Paulo

Taliban got to be crushed and there is no other option. Pakistani army and security establihment has failed in making any real progress, despite tall claims that army operation has been undertaken to control the situation. What is pakistani army for? Why is it so ineffective?Why cant it control a group of few thousand hardliners and mercenaries who have terrorised the whole region. People are being misled and great efforts are being made in pakistani media to portray all this as the price of supporting the American war on terror. The civilian government, led by nationalist party, in the Frontier province has been made totally ineffective as elected representatives fear for their lives. Who is supporting and financing taliban? Why is no one talking about Saudi connection as huge amount of private saudi money is coming to support the arab millitants operating in the region. The new amerian administration got to act quickly against taliban and all whats happening in the tribal/swat region of pakistan.It has got to support Pakistani civilian government and send a clear message to Pakistani establishment that it has got to deliver by crushing taliban and not to play with fire any more.

— BUK, Karachi, Pakistan
Read more...

As University of the Punjab opens up, violence stirs in the shape of Islami Jamiat Talaba.... Where are Imran Khan lovers?

As Pakistan university opens up, violence stirs
Assaults, threats follow efforts to limit Islamists

By Kim Barker | Tribune correspondent
January 25, 2009

Militant youth rise up in Pakistan





Members of Islami Jamiat Talaba protest in November in Lahore against U.S. missile strikes in Pakistan's tribal areas. (Arif Ali/Getty-AFP / November 26, 2008)

LAHORE, Pakistan— The Islamists lost their grip on Pakistan's largest college campus for the first time in decades last year. Then the violence started.

Their decline had been obvious. Shops at the University of the Punjab began selling Coca-Cola, which had been banned by the Islamist students because it was an American product. Cable television, seen as immoral by the fundamentalist group, was installed inside college dormitories. Girls and boys sat together, after years of forced segregation.

For the university administration and many students, the push back against the youth wing of fundamentalist party Jamaat-e-Islami was essential for the future of the school and the country's fight against extremism. But the resulting clashes here last month show how serious the fight over Islam is in this volatile nation.

In many ways, the battle at Punjab's university is a microcosm of the larger battle in the country, especially with the government facing pressure to rein in Islamist militant groups after one of them was implicated by India and its Western allies in the deadly terrorist attacks in Mumbai in November.

For years, the militant groups have been supported directly or indirectly by the country's powerful intelligence agencies and army command, and it's unclear how much the civilian government can do—or has the will to do.

"We are sitting here in a campus which is going to define the future of Pakistan," said Muhammad Naeem Khan, the registrar of the school of 30,000 students, in a recent interview. "Here is where we will win the war on terror. Here is where we will win the war for democracy."

The rise of the Islamist youth group, called Islami Jamiat Talaba, over the last 30 years illustrates how forces once supported by the Pakistani establishment can be difficult to stop.

In 1984, President Mohammad Zia-ul-Haq, a right-wing military ruler known for spreading Islamic fervor, banned student political groups. In University of the Punjab, the only major group left was IJT, which defined itself as a religious party.

Zia's government, busy helping the U.S. fight the Soviet occupation in Afghanistan, allowed IJT to spread. Afghan jihad leaders such as Gulbuddin Hekmatyar — now listed as a terrorist by the U.S. — spoke at University of the Punjab. Some students left to fight in Afghanistan.

Although the ban on student groups was briefly lifted in the 1990s, President Pervez Musharraf, the military ruler who seized power in 1999, reinstated it. In the years that followed, IJT played a similar role to that of its parent group, Jamaat-e-Islami, supporting Musharraf even while pretending not to, analysts say.

But Jamaat-e-Islami, the country's oldest religious political party, also had links to militants. In 1989, it helped form a militant group to fight in Indian-controlled Kashmir at the prodding of Pakistan's most powerful spy agency, analysts say. In 2003, Khalid Shaikh Mohammed, the alleged mastermind of the Sept. 11 attacks in the U.S., was arrested in the house of a Jamaat-e-Islami member.

Here in Lahore, leaders of the Islamic youth group say they are not violent. They say that they have no problem with Coke and no problem with male and female students talking to each other.

"We have an ideology, and everybody [at the university] is with us," said Qaisar Sharif, 27, who is in charge of the group on campus. "The ideology is of Islam, and to help the students be together, without any division."

Over the decades, with no organized opposition, the Islamist group became so entrenched in the university that former members became teachers and now run the teacher's association on campus. They forced the university to hire supporters as drivers, gardeners and guards. Member students took over university offices and used them to preach, teachers and administrators said.

University administrators did little against the group — at times because they were afraid.

The group even made money from the university, setting up a book fair and banning American sodas in favor of Pakistani-made Shandy cola, which paid the group a commission, university administrators said. The group's leaders denied this.

"This university for a long time has been the goose that laid golden eggs for these people," said Mujahid Kamran, named university vice chancellor a year ago.

In his new job, Kamran wanted the Islamist group to obey the rules. So he paved the way for Coca-Cola's return. He closed the school rather than allow the book fair — and then he held a university-sponsored book fair. He cleared out university offices that the group had taken over.

The new civilian government, elected last February, again lifted the ban on student unions. A loose group of liberal students, the United Students Federation, started recruiting and eventually took control of Dorms 15 and 16.

But there were ominous signs. In September, a suitcase of rusted Kalashnikovs, grenades and bullets was unearthed near the Islamist youth group's headquarters, Kamran said. The next day, another gun was found.

A leader of the liberal student group was then beaten up in the middle of the night. And in the early hours of Dec. 3, after hours of protests by both student groups and a fist fight, Islamist youths broke into Dorm 16 and shot two liberal students, wounding both, police said.

Mazhar Qayyum, 24, a law student, was in the hospital for more than two weeks after being shot in the left thigh and hit over the head with a metal rod. He has left the university and is now recovering at home. "I am very much fearful about my life," Qayyum said. "Not only my life, but my family, my friends."

Although police initially held one Islamist youth group member in the shooting, no one has been charged. The liberal youth group's leaders say they have been threatened to withdraw their cases against the Islamists.

The leaders also blame the university for encouraging them to recruit and rally against the Islamists but doing nothing to protect them.

Some moderate teachers, weary of a long fight against the Islamist group, worried that the recent changes were only cosmetic.

"It's like dispersing little mosquitoes when you put a mosquito coil in the room," said Shaista Sirajuddin, head of the English department. "When the coil is gone, they come right back. ... It's not a question of could they come back. They will come back."

kbarker@tribune.com

http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/nationworld/chi-pakistan_univ_barker_bdjan25,0,3025548.story?track=rss

....

Commentary

Care to read something else? Read the following op-ed by Imran Khan's personal friend, admirer and flatterer journalist Haroon-ur-Rashid.

In this column written in 2007, Haroon-ur-Rashid (wrongly once again) predicted that the days of the (Ghair) Islami Jamiat at the Punjab University were over, and that the Insaf Students (student wing of Imran Khan's Tehreek-i-Insaf) will take over soon; only if the wishes were horses.... Wazir-i-Azam Imran Khan... lol



....

Some Comments:

Marcvs_Tacitvs_Cicero Says:
January 25th, 2009 at 10:13 am

The Islamists lost their grip on Pakistan’s largest college campus for the first time in decades last year. Then the violence started.

Their decline had been obvious. Shops at the University of the Punjab began selling Coca-Cola, which had been banned by the Islamist students because it was an American product. Cable television, seen as immoral by the fundamentalist group, was installed inside college dormitories. Girls and boys sat together, after years of forced segregation.

For the university administration and many students, the push back against the youth wing of fundamentalist party Jamaat-e-Islami was essential for the future of the school and the country’s fight against extremism. But the resulting clashes here last month show how serious the fight over Islam is in this volatile nation.

In many ways, the battle at Punjab’s university is a microcosm of the larger battle in the country, especially with the government facing pressure to rein in Islamist militant groups after one of them was implicated by India and its Western allies in the deadly terrorist attacks in Mumbai in November.


nota Says:
January 25th, 2009 at 11:02 am


@Marcvs_Tacitvs_Cicero

Isn’t it reducing the issue of “Islamist vs moderates” to “Shandy Cola vs Coca-Cola” sort of a thing? Isn’t the divide much bigger??


Marcvs_Tacitvs_Cicero Says:
January 25th, 2009 at 11:58 am
comment-top

@nota

I couldn’t care less for the article’s absurd extrapolation of the Punjab University situation to wider Pakistani society’s ills (microcosm of social divide etc).

What bothers me is the fact that the cockroaches are back. And f0cking IK did not cash it in. He had a golden chance. The whole nation was with him. He could have visited the University again and again. He could have buried IJT in PU forever. He could have exposed Qazi for he is: A condom for GHQ and the establishment. Lahore could have been the launching pad for the Youth movement. Imagine what Bhutto could have been able to get out of a situation like this.

This further confirms me in my opinion. As sincere as IK is, as dedicated IK is, he is no political leader. He is still with the Munafiq Qazi and his JI/IJT. I will donate to his cancer hospital always, but my vote would never be for PTI.


nota Says:
January 25th, 2009 at 12:24 pm


@Marcus

“He(Imran Khan) could have visited the University again and again. He could have buried IJT in PU forever. He could have exposed Qazi for he is: A condom for GHQ and the establishment.”

It is something to be really bothers me as well. That is one big question mark that surrounds IK. It is still hard for me to believe he didn’t go back there AND he stuck with Qazi after the incident…

(One other problem I had with the article was describing IJT as “Islamists”. Might as well give that label to MQM as well….)
Read more...

The Saudi-isation of Pakistan - By Pervez Hoodbhoy

The Saudi-isation of Pakistan

A stern, unyielding version of Islam is replacing the kinder, gentler Islam of the Sufis in Pakistan.

By Pervez Hoodbhoy


The common belief in Pakistan is that Islamic radicalism is a problem only in FATA, and that madrassas are the only institutions serving as jihad factories. This is a serious misconception. Extremism is breeding at a ferocious rate in public and private schools within Pakistan’s towns and cities. Left unchallenged, this education will produce a generation incapable of co-existing with anyone except strictly their own kind. The mindset it creates may eventually lead to Pakistan’s demise as a nation state.

For 20 years or more, a few of us have been desperately sending out SOS messages, warning of terrible times to come. In fact, I am surprised at how rapidly these dire predictions have come true.

A full-scale war is being fought in FATA, Swat and other “wild” areas of Pakistan, resulting in thousands of deaths. It is only a matter of time before this fighting shifts to Peshawar and Islamabad (which has already been a witness to the Lal Masjid episode) and engulfs Lahore and Karachi as well. The suicide bomber and the masked abductor have crippled Pakistan’s urban life and shattered its national economy.

Soldiers, policemen, factory and hospital workers, mourners at funerals and ordinary people praying in mosques have all been reduced to globs of flesh and fragments of bones. But, perhaps paradoxically, in spite of the fact that the dead bodies and shattered lives are almost all Muslim ones, few Pakistanis speak out against these atrocities. Nor do they approve of the army operation against the cruel perpetrators of these acts because they believe that they are Islamic warriors fighting for Islam and against American occupation. Political leaders like Nawaz Sharif and Imran Khan have no words of solace for those who have suffered at the hands of Islamic extremists. Their tears are reserved exclusively for the victims of Predator drones, even if they are those who committed grave crimes against their own people. Terrorism, by definition, is an act only the Americans can commit.

What explains Pakistan’s collective masochism? To understand this, one needs to study the drastic social and cultural transformations that have rendered this country so completely different from what it was in earlier times.

For three decades, deep tectonic forces have been silently tearing Pakistan away from the Indian subcontinent and driving it towards the Arabian peninsula. This continental drift is not physical but cultural, driven by a belief that Pakistan must exchange its South Asian identity for an Arab-Muslim one. Grain by grain, the desert sands of Saudi Arabia are replacing the rich soil that had nurtured a magnificent Muslim culture in India for a thousand years. This culture produced Mughul architecture, the Taj Mahal, the poetry of Asadullah Khan Ghalib, and much more. Now a stern, unyielding version of Islam (Wahhabism) is replacing the kinder, gentler Islam of the Sufis and saints who had walked on this land for hundreds of years.

This change is by design. Twenty-five years ago, the Pakistani state used Islam as an instrument of state policy. Prayers in government departments were deemed compulsory, floggings were carried out publicly, punishments were meted out to those who did not fast in Ramadan, selection for academic posts in universities required that the candidate demonstrate a knowledge of Islamic teachings and jihad was declared essential for every Muslim. Today, government intervention is no longer needed because of a spontaneous groundswell of Islamic zeal. The notion of an Islamic state – still in an amorphous and diffused form – is more popular now than ever before as people look desperately for miracles to rescue a failing state.

Villages have changed drastically; this transformation has been driven, in part, by Pakistani workers returning from Arab countries. Many village mosques are now giant madrassas that propagate hard-line Salafi and Deobandi beliefs through oversized loudspeakers. They are bitterly opposed to Barelvis, Shias and other sects, who they do not regard as Muslims. The Punjabis, who were far more liberal towards women than the Pukhtuns, are now beginning to take a line resembling that of the Taliban. Hanafi law has begun to prevail over tradition and civil law, as is evident from the recent decisions of the Lahore High Court.

In Pakistan’s lower-middle and middle classes lurks a grim and humourless Saudi-inspired revivalist movement that frowns on any and every expression of joy and pleasure. Lacking any positive connection to culture and knowledge, it seeks to eliminate “corruption” by regulating cultural life and seizing control of the education system.

“Classical music is on its last legs in Pakistan; the sarangi and vichitraveena are completely dead,” laments Mohammad Shehzad, a music aficionado. Indeed, teaching music in public universities is violently opposed by students of the Islami Jamaat-e-Talaba at Punjab University. So the university has been forced to hold its music classes elsewhere. Religious fundamentalists consider music haram or un-Islamic. Kathak dancing, once popular with the Muslim elite of India, has few teachers left. Pakistan produces no feature films of any consequence. Nevertheless, the Pakistani elite, disconnected from the rest of the population, live their lives in comfort through their vicarious proximity to the West. Alcoholism is a chronic problem of the super rich of Lahore – a curious irony for this deeply religious country.

Islamisation of the state and the polity was supposed to have been in the interest of the ruling class – a classic strategy for preserving it from the wrath of the working class. But the amazing success of the state is turning out to be its own undoing. Today, it is under attack from religious militants, and rival Islamic groups battle each other with heavy weapons. Ironically, the same army – whose men were recruited under the banner of jihad, and which saw itself as the fighting arm of Islam – today stands accused of betrayal and is almost daily targeted by Islamist suicide bombers.

Pakistan’s self-inflicted suffering comes from an education system that, like Saudi Arabia’s system, provides an ideological foundation for violence and future jihadists. It demands that Islam be understood as a complete code of life, and creates in the mind of a school-going child a sense of siege and embattlement by stressing that Islam is under threat everywhere.

On the previous page, the reader can view the government-approved curriculum. This is the basic road map for transmitting values and knowledge to the young. By an act of parliament passed in 1976, all government and private schools (except for O-level schools) are required to follow this curriculum. It was prepared by the curriculum wing of the federal ministry of education, government of Pakistan. It sounds like a blueprint for a religious fascist state.

Alongside are scanned pictures from an illustrated primer for the Urdu alphabet. The masthead states that it has been prepared by Iqra Publishers, Rawalpindi, along “Islamic lines.” Although not an officially approved textbook, it is being used currently by some regular schools, as well as madrassas associated with the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam (JUI), an Islamic political party that had allied itself with General Musharraf. These picture scans have been taken from a child’s book, hence the scribbles.

The world of the Pakistani schoolchild remained largely unchanged, even after September 11, 2001, the event that led to Pakistan’s timely desertion of the Taliban and the slackening of the Kashmir jihad. Indeed, for all his hypocritical talk of “enlightened moderation,” General Musharraf’s educational curriculum was far from enlightening. It was a slightly toned down version of the curriculum that existed under Nawaz Sharif which, in turn, was identical to that under Benazir Bhutto who had inherited it from General Zia-ul-Haq. Fearful of taking on the powerful religious forces, every incumbent government has refused to take a position on the curriculum and thus quietly allowed young minds to be moulded by fanatics. What may happen a generation later has always been a secondary issue for a government challenged on so many fronts.

The promotion of militarism in Pakistan’s so-called “secular” public schools, colleges and universities had a profound effect upon young minds. Militant jihad became part of the culture on college and university campuses. Armed groups flourished, they invited students for jihad in Kashmir and Afghanistan, set up offices throughout the country, collected funds at Friday prayers and declared a war which knew no borders. Pre-9/11, my university was ablaze with posters inviting students to participate in the Kashmir jihad. Post-2001, this ceased to be done openly.

Still, the primary vehicle for Saudi-ising Pakistan’s education has been the madrassa. In earlier times, these had turned out the occasional Islamic scholar, using a curriculum that essentially dates back to the 11th century, with only minor subsequent revisions. But their principal function had been to produce imams and muezzins for mosques, and those who eked out an existence as ‘maulvi sahibs’ teaching children to read the Quran.

The Afghan jihad changed everything. During the war against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, madrassas provided the US-Saudi-Pakistani alliance the cannon fodder they needed to fight a holy war. The Americans and Saudis, helped by a more-than-willing General Zia, funded new madrassas across the length and breadth of Pakistan. A detailed picture of the current situation is not available. But according to the national education census, which the ministry of education released in 2006, Punjab has 5,459 madrassas followed by the NWFP with 2,843; Sindh has 1,935; the Federally Administrated Northern Areas (FANA), 1,193; Balochistan, 769; Azad Jammu and Kashmir (AJK), 586; the Federally Administrated Tribal Areas (FATA), 135; and the Islamabad capital territory, 77. The ministry estimates that 1.5 million students are acquiring religious education in the 13,000 madrassas.

These figures appear to be way off the mark. Commonly quoted figures range between 18,000 and 22,000 madrassas. The number of students could be correspondingly larger. The free boarding and lodging plus provision of books to the students, is a key part of their appeal. Additionally, parents across the country desire that their children be “disciplined” and given a thorough Islamic education. The madrassas serve this purpose, too, exceedingly well.

Madrassas have deeply impacted the urban environment. Until a few years ago, Islamabad was a quiet, orderly, modern city different from the rest of Pakistan. Also, it had largely been the abode of Pakistan’s elite and foreign diplomats. But the rapid transformation of its demography brought with it hundreds of mosques with multi-barrelled audio-cannons mounted on minarets, as well as scores of madrassas illegally constructed in what used to be public parks and green areas. Now, tens of thousands of their students, sporting little prayer caps, dutifully chant the Quran all day. In the evenings they swarm the city, making women minus the hijab increasingly nervous.

Total segregation of the sexes is a central goal of the Islamists, the consequences of which have been catastrophic. For example, on April 9, 2006, 21 women and eight children were crushed to death and scores injured in a stampede inside a three-storey madrassa in Karachi, where a large number of women were attending a weekly congregation. Male rescuers, who arrived in ambulances, were prevented from moving the injured women to hospitals.

One cannot dismiss this incident as being just one of a kind. In fact, soon after the October 2005 earthquake, as I walked through the destroyed city of Balakot, a student of the Frontier Medical College described to me how he and his male colleagues were stopped by religious elders from digging out injured girl students from under the rubble of their school building. This action was similar to that of Saudi Arabia’s ubiquitous religious ‘mutaween’ (police) who, in March 2002, had stopped school girls from leaving a blazing building because they were not wearing their abayas – a long robe worn in Saudi Arabia. In a rare departure from the norm, Saudi newspapers had blamed and criticised the mutaween for letting 15 girls burn to death.

The Saudi-isation of a once-vibrant Pakistani culture continues at a relentless pace. The drive to segregate is now also being found among educated women. Vigorous proselytisers carrying this message, such as Mrs Farhat Hashmi, have been catapulted to the heights of fame and fortune. Their success is evident. Two decades back, the fully veiled student was a rarity on Pakistani university and college campuses. The abaya was an unknown word in Urdu. Today, some shops across the country specialise in abayas. At colleges and universities across Pakistan, the female student is seeking the anonymity of the burqa. And in some parts of the country she seems to outnumber her sisters who still “dare” to show their faces.

I have observed the veil profoundly affect habits and attitudes. Many of my veiled female students have largely become silent note-takers, are increasingly timid and seem less inclined to ask questions or take part in discussions. They lack the confidence of a young university student.

While social conservatism does not necessarily lead to violent extremism, it does shorten the distance. The socially conservative are more easily convinced that Muslims are being demonised by the rest of the world. The real problem, they say, is the plight of the Palestinians, the decadent and discriminatory West, the Jews, the Christians, the Hindus, the Kashmir issue, the Bush doctrine – the list runs on. They vehemently deny that those committing terrorist acts are Muslims, and if presented with incontrovertible evidence, say it is a mere reaction to oppression.

The immediate future does not appear hopeful: increasing numbers of mullahs are creating cults around themselves and seizing control of the minds of worshippers. In the tribal areas, a string of new Islamist leaders have suddenly emerged: Baitullah Mehsud, Maulana Fazlullah and Mangal Bagh. Poverty, deprivation, lack of justice and extreme differences of wealth provide the perfect environment for these demagogues to recruit people to their cause. Their gruesome acts of terror are still being perceived by large numbers of Pakistanis merely as a war against imperialist America. This could not be further from the truth.

In the long term, we will have to see how the larger political battle works out between those Pakistanis who want an Islamic theocratic state and those who want a modern Islamic republic. It may yet be possible to roll back those Islamist laws and institutions that have corroded Pakistani society for over 30 years and to defeat its hate-driven holy warriors. There is no chance of instant success; perhaps things may have to get worse before they get better. But, in the long term, I am convinced that the forces of irrationality will cancel themselves out because they act at random whereas reason pulls only in one direction. History leads us to believe that reason will triumph over unreason, and the evolution of the humans into a higher and better species will continue. Using ways that we cannot currently anticipate, they will somehow overcome their primal impulses of territoriality, tribalism, religiosity and nationalism. But, for now, this must be just a matter of faith.

The author teaches physics at Quaid-e-Azam University, Islamabad.

http://www.newsline.com.pk/NewsJan2009/cover2jan2009.htm

Article suggested by: Mr. Ali Raza

Also read:

The Mumbai attacks, Who could be behind terrorism? The role of Dr. Zakir Naik in supporting Islamic terrorism and spreading communal hatred

How we lost Swat — Nasir Abbas Mirza

The beginning of the Talibanization of Lahore? Hall road traders burn CDs after being threatened by terrorists of Sipah-e-Sahaba/Taliban

Farhat Hashmi: The other side - The subtle rooting of extremism (Saudi version of Islam) in Muslim women...Facts, Fatwas and Videos...

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Swat: The Taliban hit list: Taliban commander summons dignitaries in its ‘court’

The taliban hit-list

1 – Ex-federal minister Afzal Khan (ANP)
2 – NWFP Minister Ayub Ashari (ANP)
3 – Tahir Ashari, brother of Ayub Ashari
4 – MPA Dr Haidar Ali (ANP)
5 – MPA Shamsher Ali (ANP)
6 – NWFP Minister Wajid Ali (ANP)
7 – MNA Muzaffarul Mulk (ANP)
8 – MPA Sher Shah Khan (ANP)
9 – MPA Waqar Khan (ANP)
10 – MPA Jafar Shah (ANP)
11 – Amir Muqam (PML-Q)
12 – Swat Nazim Jamal Nasir
13 – Shujaat Khan, Swat nazim’s father
14 – Sher Shah Khan (PPP-Sherpao)
15 – Ex-MPA Irfanullah (MMA)
16 – Khurshid Khan (ANP)
17 – Shaor UC Nazim Muhammad Sher
18 – Bakht Jamal from Gwalerai
19 – Zafar Ali from Shakardarra
20 – Gul Jan Bacha from Kooza Bandai
21 – Sher Afzal Khan, a local leader
22 – Faridullah Khan, a local influential
23 – Khan Muhammad
24 – Adalat Khan
25 – Haroonur Rashid from Kooza Bandai
26 – Jamshed Khan, son of Haroon
27 – Nisar Khan of Ring Mohalla
28 – Khan Nawar (ANP)
29 – Colonel (r) Munir, a local influential
30 – Khurshid, a local elder
31 – Afsarul Mulk, a local influential
32 – Malak Ahmad Khan from Kabal
33 – Taimoor Khan, a local influential
34 – Saifullah Khan from Manja
35 – Ahmad Khan from Manja
36 – Ilyas, also from Manja
37 – Said Badshah from Manja
38 – Wahid Zaman
39 – Sor Sharifai from Kabal
40 – Bashbanr Nazim Jamshed
41 – Abdul Qahar from Khwazakhela
42 – Khuda Bakhsh from Kabal
43 – Bacha Rehman from Kabal

Source: http://dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2009\01\26\story_26-1-2009_pg1_2

....


Pak Taliban commander summons dignitaries in its ‘court’
25 Jan 2009, PTI

ISLAMABAD: Pakistani Taliban commander Maulana Fazullah has directed over 50 dignitaries, including provincial and federal lawmakers,(most of them belonging to PPP, PPP-Sherpao, ANP, PML-Q and some from JUI-F; interestingly none from Jamaat Islami, PML-N and Tehreek-e-Insaf; read the BBC article linked below) of the troubled Swat valley to appear in his "court" with their families within a week.

A list of the 50 dignitaries, including the local mayor, elders of Swat and members of the North West Frontier Province assembly and National Assembly, was circulated in the valley on Sunday, TV channels reported.

Fazlullah, a radical cleric who heads Taliban fighters in the Swat valley located 160 km from Islamabad, directed the dignitaries and elders to present themselves in his "court" with their families within a week.

Their absence from his court would lead to operations being conducted against them, Fazlullah warned.

Some of the persons summoned by Fazlullah have already left Swat due to security reasons.

Most parts of Swat, once a popular tourist resort, are now controlled by the Taliban, who have banned girls' education in the area and directed men to wear skull caps and stop shaving their beards.

A former mujahideen was recently gunned down by the Taliban for not hiking up his salwar over his ankles.

The Taliban have bombed and torched nearly 200 girls' schools in Swat and targeted shops selling CDs and DVDs.

Local militants man check posts in most towns and villages in the valley and Shariah or Islamic courts set up by the Taliban dispense their own brand of justice.

Taliban commanders also regularly announce edicts during their nightly broadcasts from illegal FM stations.

Hundreds of people have been killed in Swat since the army launched an offensive against the Taliban in October 2007. Despite several claims from the military that it had cleared the valley of militants, the Taliban are in control of most major towns and villages in Swat.(The Times of India)

...

Article on BBC Urdu dot com

http://www.bbc.co.uk/urdu/pakistan/story/2009/01/090125_swat_taleban_list_nj.shtml


For a complete (hit) list of the persons summoned by the Taliban shariat court, you may wish to consult Rabia's blog: Grand Trunk Road. It may be useful to check if your name is or is not in 'the list'. .....



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What’s the endgame to political confrontation in Pakistan?

What’s the endgame to confrontation?

President Asif Ali Zardari and Punjab Chief Minister Shehbaz Sharif met in Islamabad on Friday but could not reach any agreement to end the growing confrontation between the PMLN and the PPP. This was on the cards because Mr Nawaz Sharif had declined to meet Mr Zardari, which meant that Mr Shehbaz Sharif had to allow the talks to make predictable shipwreck on his insistence that Mr Zardari must remove the 17th Amendment and reinstate Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry.

In terms of realpolitik, the PML wants the PPP to go away so that mid-term elections can be held at a time when the Sharifs are riding high on opinion surveys in the country. The big thing is the powerful lawyers’ movement which is willing to go to the extremes that professionals are normally not expected to go. The movement has announced a most aggressive Long March for the 9th of March, the day President Musharraf fired the chief justice in 2007. But March is the month when a part of the Senate is up for elections through collegial voting, giving the PPP the numbers it needs to consolidate its rule further.

If the PMLN is relying on the lawyers to pull its chestnuts out of the fire, has it planned the Long March in such a way that it forces a crisis big enough to force the PPP to bow out of political power? The PMLN is not letting on but others like Mr Imran Khan of Tehreek-e-Insaf Pakistan are threatening to make the Long March dangerous enough. There are also some like the highly organised Jama’at-e Islami that are willing to be more aggressive during their show of strength on the Constitution Avenue in Islamabad on March 9. But will it be enough of a storm to cause political change in parliament?

Is the opposition banking on the army once again to intervene after the opposition has created a law and order problem? The only time a political party enjoying a majority in parliament can be sent packing is when the army wants such a change. Not even Article 58-2(b) is effective unless that happens. The PMLN cannot join forces with the breakaway PMLQ to deprive the PPP of more Senate seats; the PPP has just got the MQM to join the government at the centre. One is bent on winning through inflexibility; the other is endlessly adaptive. Unfortunately, all the parties prefer to gamble without thinking of the endgame as they go on ignoring the constitutional requirement of giving a ruling party its five years in the driving seat. (Daily Times)
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Curbs on women in militancy-hit areas spreading to Quetta

Curbs on women in militancy (or Talibani Shariat) hit areas spreading to Quetta



By Malik Siraj Akbar

QUETTA: An increasing number of restaurants in Quetta have stopped serving women apparently after being pressured by religious elements, and the practice is being seen as a spill-over of the Swat problem to the rest of Pakistan.

Swat has been making headlines in the media recently due to the brazen destruction of girls’ schools by the Taliban. Residents of Quetta told Daily Times the religious right believes that a man and a woman socialise only for ‘immoral activities’ and shops and restaurants that women visit become a target of their moral policing. Since the pressure from the religious right is immense, the restaurant owners do not talk to the media about the reasons for closing their businesses for women.

Certain popular restaurants have now begun to display boards saying, “For gentlemen only. Women not allowed.” As the self-proclaimed champions of Islam believe eating outside along with one’s family is un-Islamic, they have been pressuring the owners of these restaurants to permanently shut down the sections of the restaurants which were formerly exclusively for women and families.

Located on the city’s most crowded Jinnah Road, Baig Snack Bar has been one of the most popular eating places in Quetta. Keeping in view its popularity among women and children, the bar had dedicated a separate room to women and families. But the restaurant has recently succumbed to pressure from the conservative religious elements after allegations that it was being used as a ‘dating spot’ for young boys and girls.

The section reserved for women and family has now been converted into a ‘gents only’ eating room and several boards have been displayed announcing that women are not allowed entry into the restaurant.

“This is sheer discrimination. No restaurant has the right to treat women like animals. Is this what Islam teaches about women?” asked a girl student of the Bolan Medical College. She said she and her college friends visited the restaurant frequently.

Zafar Baloch, a student of the Mass Communication Department at the University of Balochistan, says most restaurants in Quetta do not welcome women. “The handful of remaining popular restaurants are also being forced to stop serving women,” he said.

Senior journalist Shahzad Shah Mir told Daily Times that Taliban and their supporters had been penetrating into Quetta and its suburbs. They enjoy overwhelming support of some sections of the population, including many ministers of the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl that is a part of the provincial coalition government.

“Recently, video and CD shops and Internet cafes have been attacked by extremists with bombs, and threats have been given to those deemed to promote obscenity and shamelessness in the society,” said Shahzad. According to him, if these activities are not checked at once, Quetta could become the next Swat. “What message do we want to give to the world? It’s restaurants today, and tomorrow it will be girls’ schools and colleges,” he said. (Daily Times).
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Qazi and Imran's principled stand on the Islami Jamiat-e-Tulaba ...

I have yet to read a statement by Qazi Hussain Ahmed and Imran Khan on the following news item/editorial:

Acts of anarchy
Sunday, January 25, 2009
A student, linked to the Islami Jamiat-e-Tulaba (IJT), who had been expelled from the Punjab University some time ago, was recently discovered taking his exams. When challenged by the invigilator, a woman, he responded with a volley of threats. The student is currently said to be evading arrest by the police.

The incident points to the kind of indiscipline that has overtaken our campuses. While in recent months an effort has been made to limit the influence of the IJT, it has had only a limited success. The group is obviously unwilling to relinquish a hold that has not been challenged for years. Students affiliated with it have used violence as a means to force their writ on all others on the campus. The fact that they now face a challenge from new student groups that have come up after the lifting of the ban on unions means that they are determined to try and dig in their heels further. Other students have already protested the latest act of indiscipline involving the IJT. Many dislike the group but have not dared say anything against it. We must hope the university authorities will continue efforts to ensure that the IJT too is made to follow rules. Only this will ensure an improved environment on the campus. The IJT has contributed, by promoting nepotism and unfair play in admissions and examinations, to a decline in academic standards at the university. There must now be an all-out attempt to restore the standing of the PU as a premier institute of higher learning and to convert it into a place from where violence and harassment can be banished. At present, teachers and students both maintain that problems linked to the IJT continue. We must hope that these can quickly be brought to an end. (The News, Editorial)
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An anlaysis of Geo TV's "investigation" on Swat

An excellent analysis by Rabia at Grand Trunk Road

Geo investigates on Swat

Has anyone seen this hour-long edition of Geo Investigates on the topic of Swat? There were an enormous number of issues with this show. First of all, he interviewed a bunch of people, who wanted Shariah. Then they spent a really long time talking about the speedy justice offered by the Taliban in the most propagandistic of ways — they showed the 3 day trial process that occurs, then the Taliban lightly lashing someone, and then patting him on the back as he got up. There was a long discussion about why the people of Swat have not had access to speedy justice since the 70s. Of course there is truth in this, but it is also standard Taliban propaganda that this journalist was basically doing for free. Not only that but he also got local bureaucrats to basically agree with him....Read on: http://www.grandtrunkroad.com/2009/01/20/geo-investigates-on-swat/
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Sectarian conflict looms over Pakistan, says study

Source: WatanDost

Sectarian conflict looms over Pakistan, says study

By Khalid Hasan

Daily Times, May 14, 2007

WASHINGTON: Sectarian violence marked by the Shia-Sunni conflict threatens to engulf Pakistan as the current century gets underway, predicts a new study released here last week.

The study, the first of its kind, was completed by Khaled Ahmed, contributing editor at Daily Times, who conducted his research during the last nine months as a visiting scholar at the Woodrow Wilson Centre here. Entitled “Sectarian War: Pakistan’s Sunni-Shia Violence and its links to the Middle East”, Ahmed notes that tens of thousands of lives have been lost in Pakistan’s sectarian war in the last two decades of the 20th century. The mayhem continues into the 21st century. He recalls that a very tolerable level of Sunni-Shia tension was inherited by Pakistan from British Raj, and it was not until after 1980 that the two sects squared off violently. Like all internecine conflicts, the war of the sects has been characterised by extreme cruelty, he notes. It coincided with the onset of the Islamic Revolution of Imam Khomeini in Iran and the threat its “export” posed to Saudi Arabia and other Arab states across the Gulf.

Ahmed writes, “Pakistanis invariably blame Saudi Arabia and Iran for the violence since they funded and trained the partisans of this war. They are aware that Pakistan was subjected to someone else’s ‘relocated’ war. Much of the internal dynamic of this war remains hidden from public view. A kind of embarrassment over the phenomenon of Muslim-killing-Muslim has prevented Pakistanis from inquiring frankly into how the two hostile states were able to transplant their conflict in Pakistan. Sectarian violence has drawn its strength from the past too. The schismatic past was concealed behind two important layers of governance. First, the Raj was able to almost completely uproot the Sunni-Shia confrontation during its tenure from 1857 to 1947. A refusal to recognise the jurisprudence of takfir or apostatisation or and a competent encoding of the Muslim Family Law, separating the two sects, almost buried the conflict that had its seeds in the 7th century.”

According to Ahmed, the Pakistan Movement, which was spearheaded by the two sects together, carried the promise of a finally successful coexistence and possible Shia-Sunni integration. Early governance in Pakistan was in some ways an extension of the secular impartiality of the Raj. However, after independence, two developments took place that sowed the seeds of sectarianism which bear fruit later. Pakistan began to look for its identity in the stance its representative political party, the All-India Muslim League, had adopted during its competition with the secular and much larger All-India National Congress. Because of the early military conflict with India in 1947, Pakistan’s nationalism began to coalesce positively around Islam and negatively around India. Its textbooks sought their exemplary personalities in historical Muslim “utopias” and imagined “golden ages” that highlighted the particularism of Muslim identity instead of its “liminal” cross-fertilisation with Hinduism at the cultural level.

Pakistani textbooks went back to pre-Raj days and selected periods of Muslim rule where pluralism was at its lowest, and highlighted instead the separation of Hinduism from Islam.

Most of this selection turned out to be sectarian. While it set Muslims and Hindus apart, it also emphasised the conflict between Sunni and Shia communities. In the early period of Pakistan’s history, ignorance of the schism - or amnesia induced by the Raj interregnum - allowed this bias to go unnoticed.

Ahmed writes that during the Saudi-Iranian standoff in 1980, Pakistan was drawn to the Saudi side for a number of reasons. It had a large expatriate labour force stationed in the Arab Middle East, particularly in the Gulf where the Gulf Cooperation Council (GCC) was formed in 1980 to ward off the Iranian threat. Before 9/11, almost 80 percent of Pakistan’s “foreign remittances” were earned from this region. Saudi Arabia was also the most important ally – after the United States - in “frontline” Pakistan’s war against the Soviet Union in the 1980s. The Kingdom funded the jihad, bought Pakistan its first instalment of the 40 F-16 warplanes from the United States, gave Pakistan the seed-money for its Zakat Fund which now stands at almost Rs 20 billion annually to be distributed among the poor. However, in the 1980s, this fund went predominantly to seminaries. Saudi Arabia also allowed Pakistan to buy Saudi oil on “deferred payment” which meant free oil. The Islamisation of Pakistan under Ziaul Haq proceeded under Saudi tutelage.

Ahmed argues that it is not possible to examine the Saudi-Iranian conflict exclusively in a non-sectarian perspective. The schism was reflected in the Afghan jihad, but after the jihad ended, it was reflected in the ouster, from the first government-in-exile, of mujahideen belonging to the Shia militias. The Afghan mujahideen government was set up in Peshawar in 1989, but, under Saudi pressure, the Shia militias were not given representation in it. The rise of the Taliban in 1996, quickly recognised by Saudi Arabia and Pakistan, was in a way a reversal of Iran at Saudi hands in the final count. The Taliban were recruited from the Deobandi and Wahhabi outfits, which were historically anti-Shia. In 1986, the Deobandi seminaries of Pakistan and India had issued fatwas of apostatisation against the Shia population and thus upheld the manifesto of Sipah Sahaba, a party formed in 1985 in Pakistan on the basis of its demand that the Shia be declared non-Muslim by the state through an amendment to the constitution. The state had already set the precedence of apostatising Muslim communities and declaring them non-Muslims under the Second Amendment of 1974.

According to the author, “The anti-Shia fatwas were ‘managed’ through a Deobandi scholar from India, Manzur Numani, who had earlier written a book against Imam Khomeini and Iran. Funded by the Saudi charity Rabita Alam Islami, he wrote to the Deobandi seminaries of India and Pakistan, asking them to give their juristic opinion on the Shia faith. In 1986, all of them sent to him fatwas declaring the Shia to be kafir. No attention was paid to the character of the Shia faith in Pakistan, a grave mistake made at the political level. The Shia of Pakistan had developed as a community tied to the teachings of Najaf. Their religious leaders followed the school of Najaf, which meant non-acceptance of the Iranian brand of faith founded on the concept of Velayat Faqih by Imam Khomeini, giving the Shia clergy the right to rule under the divine charisma of the ruling jurist. There was a strong implication in this of the sharing by the ruling jurist of the divinity of the innocent Twelve Imams. The Shia community of Pakistan was not politically aligned to its clergy; it was even less connected with the clerical hierarchy of Iran. The Shia of certain regions of Pakistan began going to Qum instead of Najaf only after the state under General Zia decided to collaborate with Saudi Arabia.

Ahmed points out that the laws promulgated in Pakistan against the apostatisation of the Shia do not contain any provision banning the issuance of fatwas as “private” edicts that violate the sovereignty of the state. The state is reluctant to bring the controversy of the apostatising fatwas into the courts of law because the courts themselves function under the sharia and will find it hard to disagree with the fatwas as edicts. The state rightly refuses to recognise the Shia as a separate community and has not given them a separate status in the census, meaning that the state does not “officially” discriminate on the basis of sect. It is generally agreed that Shia are 15 to 20 percent of the total population, with significant concentrations in Quetta in Balochistan, Kurram Agency in the Tribal Areas, and Gilgit in the Northern Areas. If the Northern Areas is given the status of a separate province, it will be a Shia-majority province. Pakistan is second only to Iran in respect of the number Shias living in it.

Ahmed notes that out of all the big cities, Karachi has witnessed some Shia response at the street level to the sectarian activities of the Deobandi seminaries, but by and large even in Karachi the Shia community has stayed away from violence, relying on the MQM and other non-religious parties for their political expression. In Lahore and Rawalpindi, where the biggest Shia seminaries are located - and have been targeted - the Shia have stayed away from their clergy and have not indulged in street violence. Shia “retaliation” has come from secret Shia militias run by organisations that remain officially banned. One can speculate that once the “external” causes of sectarian strife are removed or minimised sectarian violence will subside in Pakistan. Since 2004 the violence has become one-sided and Shia retaliation to Deobandi acts of terrorism has only been in extremis.

He writes, “But sectarian peace may not return so quickly to certain regions where the Shia-Sunni populations are in a state of equipoise and the Shia have the capacity to assert themselves. The Hazara community in Quetta in Balochistan is ghettoised to an extent that it will continue to attract Sunni violence, but sectarian trouble can be contained if the government is able to offer the Hazara Shias protection against the Taliban predominance in the city. The question of Parachinar in the Kurram Tribal Agency is however more complicated for two reasons: one, the historical nature of the friction between the tribes and, two, the linkages the Turi Shia tribe of Parachinar have developed downwards into the settled areas of the NWFP. The neighbouring tribal agency of Aurakzai and the cities of Bannu and Kohat in the NWFP have been “Talibanised” by Sunni extremists, and the Shias living there are being forced to fight back. At the time of writing in 2007 Parachinar had seen 50 deaths in the sectarian battles between tribes still ongoing in the month of March.”

According to Ahmed, the federally administered Northern Areas of Pakistan may take time to control the sectarian violence that has gripped the region since 1988. The demographic balance in Gilgit is such that Shia and Sunni vote banks have polarised there like Iraq, but that is more owing to the government’s refusal to allow the region to become devolved as a political entity. The army retains control of the administration of the Northern Areas because of the region’s strategic location next to Kashmir. During the Kargil operation in 1999, which was carried out from base camps in the Northern Areas, ground was provided once again for the sectarian violence that followed into the new millennium. The militias Pakistan used at Kargil were all Shia-killers. The status of the region - a change which is bound to lead to the diffusion of sectarian tension - will be difficult to “normalise” as long as the conflict with India over Kashmir is not resolved.
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The Shia Revival: How Conflicts within Islam Will Shape the Future

Vali Nasr, Joanne J. Myers

October 18, 2006
The Shia Revival

Introduction

JOANNE MYERS: Good morning. I'm Joanne Myers, Director of Public Affairs Programs, and on behalf of the Carnegie Council I'd like to welcome our members and guests and to thank you for joining us on this very special morning as we welcome Vali Nasr to participate in our series on Religion and Politics.

Every now and then, a scholar writes a book that is destined to challenge preconceived notions about an important subject. Today, our guest, Vali Nasr, is that scholar, and his book, The Shia Revival, is the one that will provide a much-needed critical framework for us to understand the most important struggle taking place within Islam today: the schism between the Shias and the Sunnis.

When U.S. troops invaded Iraq and removed Saddam Hussein from power, President Bush talked about the transformation that would follow, first in Iraq and then in the entire Middle East. While a power shift has occurred, certainly it is neither in ways the present Administration envisioned nor intended, for, as Professor Nasr argues, by replacing Iraq's Sunni-led dictatorship with an elected government dominated by the country's Shiite majority, the United States destroyed the Sunni barrier that had contained the restless Shia power to the east. As a result, we are seeing a union between the newly empowered Shia majority in Iraq and the ever-more-militant regime in Iran. Together and in their separate ways, they are challenging the millennium-old Sunni hegemony in the Muslim world in a conflict that will take years, if not decades, to resolve.

In The Shia Revival, Professor Nasr gives a penetrating and historical account of sectarian conflict in the Muslim world and argues that, although many in the West may see Iraq as the beginning of this violent struggle, this conflict actually dates back to 632 A.D. with the death of the prophet Muhammad and disagreements over who should be his successor. He writes that, "like the Protestant-Catholic conflict that marked the transition to modernity in the West, the Muslim world is undergoing a transformation between rival religious communities." While it's true that history and theology fuel the dispute, Professor Nasr tells us that the debate is less about doctrinal differences and more about the desire for political power and recognition.

He predicts that this struggle will play out with escalating confrontations between Sunnis and Shiites throughout the region and, eventually, it will spread even further across the Shia Crescent, from Iraq to Lebanon, Pakistan, and Saudi Arabia. In the end, the future of the region will be decided in the crucible of a Shia revival and the Sunni response to it.

Managing relations with the Muslim world and understanding the role Islam plays in politics is one of our country's biggest challenges. Whether we are talking about the war in Iraq, the global war on terror, elections in the Palestinian territories, the recent war in Lebanon, or the renewed radicalism in Iran, our understanding of Islam's complex interactions with politics is lacking.

Why, just yesterday, a New York Times Op-Ed piece entitled "Can You Tell a Sunni from a Shiite?" revealed just how uneducated so many of our top counter-terrorism officials actually are. My response: You should contact Vali Nasr.

Whether reading his articles in The New York Times, The Washington Post, or Time magazine, or listening to him on CNN, BBC, "News Hour with Jim Lehrer," NPR, "60 Minutes," "NOW with Bill Moyers," or "Front Line," his comments are always incisive and poignant.

As one of the world's leading experts on the Islamic world and Muslim politics, his singular understanding of conflicts within Islam and their potential global effects has not gone unnoticed. He has been awarded grants from the MacArthur Foundation, the Harry Frank Guggenheim Foundation, and the Social Science Research Council. Currently, he is a professor and Associated Chair of Research at the Department of National Security Affairs at the Naval Postgraduate School, and Adjunct Senior Fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations.

Today, the Muslim world is at a crossroads between militancy, insurgency, democracy, and economic change. The next decade will decide the direction that the Muslim world will take and how that road will further global order or disorder.

Please join me in welcoming the one person who can take us through this uncharted new world and bring to us some much needed understanding, our guest today, Vali Nasr.

Remarks
VALI NASR: Thank you. Good morning, first of all. It is a great pleasure to be here. Thank you, Joanne, for that kind introduction.

Everywhere we look nowadays in the news, particularly regarding Iraq, it seems we come across the terms "Shia" and "Sunni" and "sectarian violence." It seems to be the one issue that initially we did not think about in the context of the Middle East. Yet it is, as has been continuously mentioned, the defining factor for the future of Iraq, and in many ways it might become more so for the rest of the region as well.

Now, the question for a lot of policymakers, the American public, and also for a lot of people in the Middle East is: What does it mean, what is the depth of it, and how might it actually change the way things are?

In particular, it is important because in many ways the Shia-Sunni conflict is happening in Iraq, it is the epicenter of it; but it is changing many other things in the Middle East, or is converging with other things in the Middle East. It is a new conflict. Yet I would like to call it a new old conflict , because its roots go back through history. But it is a new conflict that is in many ways converging and interacting with other issues in the region.

For instance, this summer, when the Israel-Lebanon border heated up and a war broke out, it was a war that the world knew was an Arab-Israeli conflict. It had to do with the Palestinian cause. But, unbeknownst to most people, it very quickly became a Shia-Sunni conflict, when the Arab governments and a number of radical Sunni clerics on websites associated with Al Qaeda came out swinging against Hezbollah, arguing that this is a Shia power grab, and is illegitimate. One of the leading pro-Al Qaeda Sunni clerics called Hezbollah, which means the party of God, the party of Satan, and said that Hezbollah could not legitimately wage a jihad against Israel because it's a heretical organization.

The United States very quickly discovered that there was a Shia axis between Hezbollah and Iran that was now essentially deciding the direction of the Arab-Israeli conflict. So this was not just about Iraq, but it was the convergence of the newest conflict in the Middle East, which is the sectarian conflict in Iraq, with the oldest conflict in the Middle East, which is the Arab-Israeli conflict, in ways that were difficult for policymakers necessarily to comprehend or to respond to.

So the question is: What is occurring? I refer to this as "the Shia revival," because I think Iraq set in motion a major change that goes beyond the boundaries of Iraq itself. I believe that it is a consequence of two overlapping events. One is the rivalry that is coming out of Iraq between the Shias and Sunnis, which, as it becomes deeper and more violent, its reverberations are going to become louder in the region. The second is that it coincides with the rise of Iran as a major power in the region. Now, these two are interrelated, they have a lot to do with each other, and yet in many ways they are also separate. But the convergence of them means that it is a completely new Middle East in many ways—not that old conflicts have gone away, but that the rules of the game have changed, the power brokers have changed, the issues have changed, and the boundary lines within the region are changing.

Now, when Iraq happened, something symbolic happened in the Middle East, in the heartland of the Muslim world. Most people did not notice, but about half the population of the Middle East are Shias. Shias are about 10-to-15 percent of the entire Muslim world. We don't have accurate statistics because in much of the Middle East it is not convenient to have them, for ruling regimes in particular. But the estimates are that they are about 10-to-15 percent of the Muslim world, which puts them somewhere between 165-to-190 million people.

The overwhelming majority of that population lives between Pakistan and Lebanon. Iran always had been a Shia country, the largest one, with about 60 million population. Pakistan is the second-largest Shia country in the world, with about 30 million population. And, potentially, there are as many Shias in India as there are in Iraq.

But in the Arab world there are significant population centers. Iraq is a Shia-majority country. In Lebanon, the Shias are the single largest community; looking at anybody's estimate, they are from 35 percent to 45 percent of the population. Bahrain is a Shia-majority country; about 75 percent of its population are Shia. And then you have minorities of various sizes in Kuwait, in Saudi Arabia, and elsewhere.

But, regardless of where these Shias lived in the Arab world, whether they were majorities or minorities, their political and economic situation was the same, and that was that they did not have a share of power that was commensurate to their numbers.

Iraq in some ways changed this, and it changed it in a very significant country, a country that is traditionally one of the three most important Arab countries. Its seat of power, Baghdad, was the seat of the caliphate which is most associated with the suppression of Shiism. That is exactly why there are so many Shia shrines in Iraq all around Baghdad. That's where the Shia leaders died at the hands of the caliphs and were buried.

Now, this important Arab country has become Shia, as a consequence of American intervention. It is the very first Shia Arab country. In many ways, as a result of the fight against the United States from the beginning, the insurgency was as much anti-Shia as it was anti-American. They are the two sides of the same coin, because from the very beginning the perception was that one of the big sins of the United States was to facilitate transfer of power from one sect to the other.

Now, what Iraq did was that it essentially opened hope in the rest of the region, particularly among the Arab populations, about what was possible. When the most senior Iraqi ayatollah, Ayatollah Sistani, came out with a very simple mantra, "one man, one vote," the writing on the wall was very clear: "One man, one vote" benefits the Shia, because where they are a majority, as in in Iraq, that transfers power to them. Where they are a minority, they get a lot more than they had before: they get a seat at the table; they get a share of the wealth.

In most of the region, there is no panarchism, there is no single political leadership, there is no single movement. There is no Ayatollah Khomeini in the Middle East—there is no single pope, if you will, for the Shias. What is fortuitous for the Shias is that because these Shia communities all have the same problems, the same aspirations, and they have the same attitude towards power, the reaction to what happened in Iraq was somewhat similar, and that is to expect more and demand more.

There is a sort of a confidence that began to seep into Shia politics. For instance, in a country in which their political situation is particular dire, namely Saudi Arabia, they began to demand of the king far more than what they had. They are about 10-to-15 percent of the population in Saudi Arabia. They sit on top of Saudi oil, a lot of the oil workers are Shias, but their situation is somewhat like those who live in the Niger Delta in Nigeria: they don't get any of the oil income.

They had been relatively dormant and now they have gotten many concessions from the Saudi government. When the first municipal elections took place in Saudi Arabia last year, Shia voters' participation exceeded those of Sunnis by a margin of two-to-one. In Shia areas about 45 percent of the people voted. In Sunni areas across Saudi Arabia, it was about 25 percent. So it was very clear that the Shias were responding to the opportunity that Iraq had presented—not that they favored the invasion, not that they necessarily favored U.S. intervention, but it had benefited them.

A consequence of that is also evident in Iraq, where the Shias have, by and large, not engaged in insurgency; they have not turned anti-American. They are fighting, but they are not fighting against the United States. For now, they are giving the United States the benefit of the doubt.

But the other side of the equation matters also. From the very beginning in Iraq, it was clear that the Sunnis in Iraq were going to draw the line in the sand. They were not willing to give up power. There is a line in Bob Woodward's book [State of Denial] where Ambassador Blackwell was encouraged by the UN emissary to Iraq, Lakhdar Brahimi, to talk to Sunni leaders. When he talked to them and he told them that the United States would guarantee that the Sunni population would have rights and privileges in accordance to its numbers, they told Blackwell: "You don't understand. We've ruled in Iraq. We want to rule again."

I have been told by many who have talked to American and British officials and to Sunni insurgents in Amarah, that the demand number one all along was Sunni restoration in Baghdad, and that Shia rule over Iraq is simply unacceptable. There is a sort of refusal to allow this transfer of power. So whereas from the very beginning for us this was about Iraqi people and freedom, Iraqi people and dictatorship, the question for the Iraqi people was "which Iraqi people?" and "who defines freedom?" So the Shiites' definition of Iraq is very different than it is for Sunnis.

It became increasingly clear that the Sunnis, both within Iraq and also outside Iraq, do not view Iraqi Shias as legitimate spokesmen for Arab identity and Arab nationalism. I think when Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak said that Shiites are "almost always"—which pretty much means "always"—more loyal to Iran than they are to their own countries, essentially what he was saying was that they are not members of the Arab nation; they cannot have a legitimate claim to its leadership, to defining culture, to defining national interest.

This Sunni reaction, in itself, has been defining Shia identity, because in many ways Shia identity in the Middle East works somewhat like Jewish identity did in Europe: it is the gentiles who define you. You might have a lot of diversity in between Shia groups—the diversity of language, tribe, economics, class; there are Iranians, there are Pakistanis, and even within Pakistan there are different ethnicities—but at the end of the day, it is the Sunni reaction, by and large, that defines Shia attitudes towards power. In major ways, the definition of Shia we have began with the insurgents' response to the Shias, with comments by Arab leaders, like those referring to a Shia Crescent or to Shia loyalty to Iran or to the Shias being a Trojan horse.

Even if we look at the statements on Al Qaeda-type websites, they are increasingly trying to posture as defenders of Arab nationalism against Iranian-backed Shias. They speak of the government in Iraq as an Iranian government. They refer to it as the Sassanid government or as the Safavid government, referring to these old, ancient Iranian civilizations.

Now, in addition to this, other things have also begun to change in Iraq, which has changed the tempo of things. When we began in Iraq, there was a great asset in the person of Ayatollah Sistani, who is the single person in the Shia world who you could say has spiritual authority across the Muslim world, all the way from India to Lebanon. For instance, it is unbeknownst to most people, including policymakers, that the majority of Lebanese Shia follow Ayatollah Sistani in religious matters. They may follow Hezbollah officially or follow Hezbollah in political matters, but the spiritual leader of most stature in Lebanon is Ayatollah Sistani.

Now, there are all kinds of indications that his power has been on the rise. For instance, there are estimates by the U.S. government that last year there was over $3 billion of contributions made to Ayatollah Sistani by Shiites, all the way from the United States and Europe to India. This is a clear mark of that confidence that the Shias feel, of a sense that this is their time, this is their moment, that they are willing to engage in this manner.

Within Iraq, the Sistani model was very simple at the beginning: it was "one man, one vote," and it was restraint vis-à-vis Sunni provocations. Sistani's argument was that the Shiites would inherit Iraq and would benefit across the Middle East if they stuck with the United States' program of political reform and were not provoked into violence and civil war—if they didn't bite into the apple. But he began to gradually lose authority, in my opinion, first, because the United States essentially changed its strategy late in 2005.

Most, if not all, policymakers in Washington did not realize that, from the very beginning, Iraq was at some level a sectarian war. It was just that the United States was really the Shia militia. The Sunnis were fighting with the insurgents. They wanted to dislodge the Shia government in Baghdad. The United States was doing the fighting.

But late in 2005, the United States decided that it needed to bring the Sunnis in, which is generally a good idea. But it did so without any kind of regional cooperation, and not understanding that the game in Iraq is zero-sum: you take two steps in the direction of one community, you begin to lose the other community. The Shiites were already very worried about the United States, because they believed that the United States had betrayed them once in 1991, when they rose up in rebellion against Saddam and were not supported by the United States. They were also worried because the Arab governments of Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Jordan were lobbying very aggressively on behalf of the insurgents and the Sunnis, and they feared that the United States was essentially dumping them. So they began to speak of a second betrayal in Iraq. You would hear arguments that either the United States cannot deal with the insurgency, or, in the worst-case scenario, will not deal with the insurgency, for whatever conspiracy theory reasons. But the sum of it was that they began to rely increasingly on their own militias.

When the Samarra bombing happened, if you remember, in February of 2006, when a major Shia shrine was destroyed, it was a massive psychological blow to the Shias. I think the United States did not quite understand the depth of it. What it meant to the Shias then was that there will be no reconciliation in Iraq. I think we are just now realizing reconciliation is dead, but for the Shias it was dead in February.

They understood that if another community is willing to go for your jugular, you are not going to be coexisting together. The question is that either you can defeat and dominate them, or you need to grab as much as you can and then separate, which is exactly what began in Baghdad. There were very few points, because, other than the city of Kirkuk, where the issue also involves the Kurds, the real issue is who gets Baghdad, because most of the Shia oil is way in the south and is not on any boundary, and there is now very little population mixture in cities other than Baghdad.

The Shias began, if you will, to move away from the Sistani model. In other words, many told Sistani, literally, that a strategy of turning the other cheek is construed as weakness, and that there has always been a perception, going back to the medieval period, that if you hit the Shia hard enough, they will cower in their holes. They told him that the Shia had to establish a balance of terror in Iraq, that it's the only way that they will be able to negotiate from a position of strength when the breakup comes.

As a consequence, things have now spiraled into greater and greater violence. The United States' policy has been confounded, because it has viewed sectarianism as separate from the insurgency, so it is trying to give priority to one over the other with the same set of resources. We are finding that either you have to let the sectarian war go on in Baghdad or you have to fight the insurgency, and we haven't been able to do both at the same time.

Now, all of this has also been happening at a time when the Middle East has encountered something completely new again, and that is the rise of a resurgent Iran. Iran's challenge in some ways is not an unfamiliar one. I think, at least in Iranians' own minds, this is somewhat like the greater importance of Brazil in Latin America, or China in East Asia, or India in South Asia.

I think, in fact, the Iranians very much see themselves as the India of the Middle East, as the major economic, and political technological weight in the region. In fact, I am always asked why isn't India a demonstration model for Pakistan and other South Asian countries? I always say there's one country that India is a demonstration for, and that is for Iran. Except the problem is that Iran is not looking at the India of 2003; it is looking at the India of the 1960s and 1970s, when it was still in the Nehruvian phase of industrialization and the like.

The only difference is that Iran is a country which is not transparent for the West, has had no relations with the United States for over three decades, and is still an enigma in terms of whether it wants to be a militant outsider, à la North Korea, or whether it wants to engage the world economy and participate in the global environment—which often it does in terms of its attempts to make economic deals with Europeans, with Asians, and the like. Worst of all, it is also building a nuclear technology, and again, it is not quite clear what purpose this is for. The Iranians claim it is for civilian purposes, and the world is worried that it will ultimately end up in a nuclear weapons arsenal.

Now, Iran in many ways benefited enormously from what happened after 2001, because in one war after another the two major land barriers to Iran, which in fact had been a major investment on the part of Saudi Arabia, Jordan, and the like, to support sort of a Sunni wall, an Arab and Taliban wall, around Iran, were pulled down by the United States. So the U.S. invasion initially greatly benefited Iran. Then, later on, obviously now, Iran finds the United States as an obstacle to consolidating those gains.

But this fall of the Taliban and fall of Iraq also presented Iran with other possibilities. One is that in the East, the Persian zones and small Shia zones of Central Asia and Afghanistan presented Iran with far more commercial and cultural penetration. The rise of the Shia in southern Iraq, the entire Shia revival we talked about, obviously benefits Iran. I mean Iranian leaders would say that maybe Arab Shias will be friendly to Iran. They won't. But one thing is clear: they are going to be a lot friendlier than the Baathists were, and a Shia government in Iraq will always be closer to Iran than a Sunni one. The glass is half-full for Iran, regardless of what happens.

But on the other side of it is that also Iraq and Afghanistan in peculiar ways have bogged down the United States to such an effect that it does not have really deterrence and containing capability against Iran. So it's not just the Shia revival; it is also what these wars have done to the United States.

But in some ways also it is important not to mistake the rise of Iran only with the muscular attitude of its government and the possibilities it has in the region. Things happened in Iran in the 1990s, during the decade of reform, which made this country essentially on the move. Iran is, first of all, the largest country in that part of the world, with a population of 70 million people. It has the world's second-largest oil and gas reserve. It is extremely strategic real estate connecting Europe, South Asia, Central Asia, and the Persian Gulf.

About 75 percent of its population are literate. In Tehran, the literacy is about 85.5 percent. In Iran's most backward province, Baluchestan, the literary rate is close to 60 percent. You can compare that to next-door Pakistan, where it hovers around 25-to-30 percent.

It has a fairly vibrant economy. Even though it is government-controlled, it has a fairly vibrant private sector, which is very well integrated into the economies of the Persian Gulf, in particular that of Dubai.

And culturally it has been on the move. You see that in Iran in a number of translations. For instance, most people don't know that Persian is now the third-largest language on the Internet, after English and Mandarin Chinese. There are some 85,000 Iranian web blogs. Every ayatollah worth his salt in Iran has his own website or his own blog. You can look at the Iranian cinema, for instance, in the past decade becoming global cinema.

In some ways, the Iranian claim to great power status was already happening in the 1990s in the region. Except the irony of it is that it's not a reformist, perestroika kind of a government that is consolidating this. Iran ended up with a populist, radical government that is turning this sort of cultural/economic rise in the direction of asserting Iran's demands for greater power and recognition in the region.

Now, this rise of Iran is ultimately intertwined with the Shia revival, mainly because also the rest of the region sees these two as connected together. We saw that most clearly in the Lebanon war and in the statements of the Arab governments. In other words, it is not the Iranians or Hezbollah or the Shias who speak the sectarian language about power; it is the other side that defines them in sectarian terms.

Already, I think, Lebanon has basically drawn this line, showing that there are two power groups in this region. There are the traditional power groups allied with the United States, who right now probably see that the only way of containing Iran and Hezbollah is to play the sectarian card, and emphasize Iraq. Whereas the Iranians and H