Kidnappings of Afghan and Iranian diplomats as terrorist strategy - By Rahimullah Yusufzai , also Daily Times editorial

Kidnappings in NWFP - By Rahimullah Yusufzai

Saturday, November 15, 2008

Our fourth-floor office in a tall building gave us a vantage position to watch the fireworks in the nearby Qayyum Stadium, named after the NWFP's late chief minister and Zulfikar Ali Bhutto's controversial interior minister Khan Abdul Qayyum Khan. It was a perfect setting. The sun had set and the approaching night and the cloudy weather made the sky dazzle with the exploding pyrotechnics. The 10,000 or so spectators inside the sprawling sports complex and many more outside were enjoying the spectacle because Peshawar, disfigured by frequent bomb explosions and prone to violence, was experiencing such a spectacular display of fireworks after a long time.

However, the joy was short-lived. In the midst of the noisy fireworks, there was a deafening detonation that drowned every other sound. A colleague commented that this one was different and of the other kind. We knew what he meant. Soon afterwards, a cloud of dust and smoke arose from near the main gate of the Qayyum Stadium. Those managing the fireworks continued to do their job as they hadn't realised that a bomb explosion had taken place. Soon afterwards, it became clear that a suicide bomber had struck. The show was over as people ran for cover and relatives and friends began a frantic search for their near and dear ones who had gone to the stadium to attend the closing ceremony of the 3rd Inter-Provincial Games. The organisers and team officials from Pakistan's four provinces had to ensure that the 1,200 sportsmen and sportswomen taking part in the games were evacuated unharmed.

It was obvious that those behind the suicide bombing that killed four people wanted to send a message that they would not tolerate any activity that gave the impression of normalcy returning to the troubled North-West Frontier Province. The grand sports event in Peshawar was meant to show that people in the province and the adjoining tribal areas wanted to enjoy such an activity. The games' organisers, led by the indefatigable provincial sports and culture minister Syed Aqil Shah, and the ANP-PPP coalition government aimed at using sports to heal the wounds and promote peace. This was unacceptable to the militants, who apparently weren't keen to harm the players or they would have attacked the cyclists who took part in the Mardan-to-Peshawar cycle race. The suicide bombing took place after the prize-giving ceremony presided over by Governor , Owais Ahmad Ghani, and at the time of the concluding fireworks. The bomber could have struck earlier if he wanted to kill the players, who included scores of female athletes, none of whom ran and played in shorts, when no VVIP was visiting the venue and security was relatively lax.

The ANP leaders, facing the brunt of terrorist attacks following the collapse of the ANP-led NWFP government's peace accord with the Maulana Fazlullah-headed Taliban in Swat, could have been a target of the suicide bomber as is being claimed but they could be targeted anywhere and not just at such a sports event. By attacking the games that brought together players and officials from all over the country, the masterminds of the suicide bombing clearly wanted to widen the gulf between the NWFP and rest of Pakistan, destabilise the government and show to the world that the militants weren't out of business despite sustained military operations against them, and could still strike anywhere and anytime.

The militants are obviously spoilsports as the suicide bombing reinforced the impression that no normal sports or cultural activity can take place in the NWFP nowadays. Though Syed Aqil Shah has announced that the NWFP would play host to the next national games in Peshawar in November 2009, one doesn't know what to expect in a year's time due to the spiralling violence in the province. The Peshawar bombing at a major sports event would also provide another reason to foreign teams, cricket, hockey or other sports, not to visit Pakistan. Peshawar had already been struck off from the list of places where foreign teams could stay and play in Pakistan. It is tragic that Peshawar and the Frontier, a land made famous for its friendly people and hospitality, is now referred to as a place where outsiders are unwelcome and at risk.

Such an impression has been reinforced due to the recent spate of kidnappings of a number of foreigners and the murder of Stephen D Vance, the 52-year old American contractor for USAID tasked to bring aid to the tribal areas. Mr Vance's killing will certainly raise questions about the advisability of posting Americans in Peshawar and in the rest of NWFP. In case, the Americans associated with the US-funded $750-million development project for the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) aren't able to stay in Peshawar or visit the sites of the schemes, questions would be asked about the project's monitoring to ensure that American money is properly spent.

The kidnappings are a source of serious concern. In fact, Pakistanis, both resourceful and not-so-resourceful, are also being kidnapped in ever greater numbers for ransom and the government is helpless in preventing kidnappings or recovering the victims. Often the families of kidnapped persons are advised to cut deals with the kidnappers and pay them ransom as the police in the districts or the political administration in case of the tribal areas are seldom in a position to offer help.

Of particular concern are the recent kidnappings of Iranian and Afghan diplomats and Chinese engineers. While the government and its scores of intelligence agencies and law-enforcement departments were still struggling to locate Afghanistan's ambassador-designate Abdul Khaliq Farahi, who was kidnapped from Peshawar's expensive Hayatabad locality on Sept 22, another kidnapping took place, and this time it was an Iranian diplomat. Heshmatollah Attarzadeh, commercial attaché at Iran's consulate in Peshawar, was also kidnapped from Hayatabad. His Pakistani police guard, Sajjad Hussain Shah, was shot dead by the kidnappers. The ruthlessness of the kidnappers could be gauged from the fact that Farahi's driver, who was an Afghan national, was killed and so was Mr Vance's Pakistani driver. Two other important Afghans have also been kidnapped and are untraceable. One is Ziaul Haq Ahadi, the younger brother of Afghanistan's finance minister Anwarul Haq Ahadi, who was snatched from Hayatabad, and a former media adviser to the Afghan government, Akhtar Jan Kohistani, who was kidnapped in Chitral and reportedly taken to his native Nuristan province in Afghanistan.

As if this wasn't enough, two Chinese engineers were kidnapped in the NWFP's Upper Dir district and spirited away to the Taliban-held area in Swat's Matta tehsil. One of them, Long Xiaowei, subsequently escaped but Zhang Guo is still in the custody of the kidnappers after getting injured in his escape bid. One can visualise how miserable he would be feeling all alone in the clutches of the Swati Taliban. The Polish engineer was kidnapped from Attock in Punjab but if one were to believe the claim made by the Taliban from Darra Adamkhel, he has been brought to the tribal areas and is now probably with the Baitullah Mahsud-led Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). A deal will have to be cut with Baitullah Mahsud and his TTP now to secure his release and that of the Chinese engineer and others, and this would entail releasing most wanted militants and paying ransom.

Every kidnapping of a foreigner risks affecting Pakistan's relations with the country to which the kidnapped person belongs. The Afghan government is already suspicious of Pakistan and the non-recovery of ambassador Farahi is clearly sending the wrong signals to Kabul and poisoning the uneasy ties between the two countries. The Iranian government too is anxious about the safety of its 57-year old kidnapped diplomat and has made a strong demand for his early recovery. The Chinese don't say anything in public concerning Pakistan, even if they are repeatedly being harmed in a country that is supposed to be China's old and sincere friend. And then there are the Americans, who no doubt aren't liked by most Pakistanis but are surely giving money to develop the under-developed tribal areas of Pakistan. Any American, or someone from another country living and working in Pakistan, is a guest and must be treated as such. Killing and kidnapping them is wrong and unacceptable. The Pakistani government is understandably weak, as shown by its failure to stop their killing and kidnapping or secure the safe recovery of those kidnapped. In such a situation, our people must show by their actions that they don't agree with those who bring the country to disrepute by indulging in killings and kidnapping of diplomats and other foreigners who wish us well. (The News)

The writer is resident editor of The News in Peshawar. Email: rahimyusufzai @yahoo.com

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Kidnappings as terrorist strategy

Bearded gunmen ambushed the car of the Iranian commercial attaché, Mr Hashmatullah Attaarzadeh, in Peshawar on Thursday and took him away after killing his police guard. This was the second attack on foreigners in the city in two days. On Wednesday, similar gunmen killed a US aid worker and his Pakistani driver in the University Town. On September 22, the Afghan ambassador-designate, Mr Farahi, was kidnapped and his driver was killed. Earlier even than this, a Pakistani ambassador returning to his post in Kabul by road was kidnapped and, despite denials, was locked up in the prison of the Taliban warlord Baitullah Mehsud.

Iran has condemned the kidnapping, calling it a “terrorist” act, and has asked the Pakistan authorities to do all they can do to find and free him. When the Chinese engineers were kidnapped from the province, the Chinese also said something akin to that. Iran, however, is an old victim and it doesn’t help to know that Tehran also nurses grievances with regard to sectarian killings in Pakistan and the killing of its diplomats and security personnel in Pakistan in the 1990s. Unfortunately, an Iranian-Baloch terrorist outfit called Jundallah is active on the Pakistani side and its Iranian leader Abdul Malik Reiki is known to kidnap Iranians and then escape to safe havens in our Balochistan.

The latest kidnapping in Hayatabad carries all the trademarks of the Taliban and their patron Al Qaeda. Sources say the kidnappings are happening now because of the pressure on the Taliban from the military operations in Bajaur. The connection is no doubt there but kidnapping as strategy has been in place since much before the Bajaur operation began. Kidnappings are done to achieve two ends: to get one’s own men released from Pakistan’s custody, and to replenish depleting terrorist funds through ransom money. All warlords resort to it. Even the Khyber warlord Mangal Bagh relied on it. Baitullah Mehsud has been ambushing security forces in South Waziristan to pick up Pakistani troops as spoils of war with which to earn money and get his men released.

General (Retd) Hamid Nawaz, who specialises in national security, says Peshawar is besieged from all sides by the terrorists but has a very defective system of security. The NWFP government uses police as its security force in the provincial headquarters, which is very inadequate, given the lack of quality training of the police. According to him, in many instances when a police posse is sent to confront the terrorists many policemen duck out of the operation and escape. He would like a joint security set-up mixing army and the police in order to secure essential foreign and domestic personnel. The crux of the matter is that Peshawar is unprotected and has begun to look like Karachi where kidnappings are endemic.

Kidnappings as terrorist strategy first came to surface in Karachi when a Lashkar-e-Jhangvi suicide-bomber gang blew themselves up along with the local abductee when they were surrounded by the police. This has to be distinguished from the mercenary kidnappings, with the observation that terrorism-related organisations do it under orders from some kind of central authority that probably wants to delegate “financial powers” to its branchline affiliates. Therefore, at the bottom of it all, there is financial crisis inside Pakistan’s terrorism. There is also the possibility that some commanders do it on the side to enrich themselves.

Because of the expansion of terrorism, funds are needed by all the terrorist branches. The “one million pounds” demanded for the release of the prominent Karachi filmmaker and distributor, Satish Anand, points to a party which operates outside Pakistan too. The phone calls demanding ransom from Anand’s family have been traced to Quetta and Bannu. This is a clear signal that apart from kidnapping as a device to get terrorists released from state custody, there are budget constraints in the terrorist coffers. Has the drug money coming from the makers of heroin in Pakistan begun to taper off? Is the spate of kidnappings of “lucrative” persons anticipatory after America decided to eliminate the monopoly of the Afghan warlords over the production of poppy?

An easy prediction is that this is going to spread to Punjab too. Someone behind the curtain of terrorism needs a lot of money and this can be earned only through a strategy of kidnappings. Pakistan has to plug the security gaps in Peshawar also because of the tenuous political scene there after the JUIF’s frontal attack on the ANP, following its secret satisfaction that the Taliban and Al Qaeda are already after ANP’s blood; and that the media has generally abandoned the post-2008 elections political order and challenges it for non-delivery on the restoration of judges, removal of the 17th Amendment, and “submission to the hegemony of the United States”. (Daily Times)
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The kidnapping of Farahi

By Rahimullah Yusufzai

Kidnapping for ransom is a flourishing business in Pakistan and not a day goes when a number of people aren't kidnapped in different parts of the country. But the issue is highlighted when someone important is snatched or the kidnappers make political demands such as release of people detained by the government.

Due to the government's weak writ in certain areas, Pakistan once again is faced with a difficult situation following the kidnapping of Abdul Khaliq Farahi, Afghanistan's ambassador-designate, from Peshawar on September 22. This incident happened at a time when the government was still looking for a breakthrough in recovering the two Chinese telecommunication engineers Zhang Guo and Long Xiao Wei, who were kidnapped by suspected Taliban militants in Khal area of Upper Dir district in NWFP on August 29. The recovery of the young engineers, who were employees of a Chinese company which had been contracted by the mobile firm Telenor to set up towers and do other related work in the remote Upper Dir and Lower Dir districts, is no less important than that of ambassador Farahi in view of the friendly nature of Pakistan's relations with China.

Despite Beijing's enhanced role in world politics as a great economic power and its changing priorities, Pak-China friendship is still strong enough to withstand such incidents. Colourful terms as "higher than the Himalayas and deeper than the Arabian Sea" and "sweeter than honey" used to describe their time-tested friendship may have become repetitive and odd in view of the new dynamics of the international situation, still incidents of killing and kidnapping of Chinese workers in Pakistan in the past failed to damage China's close ties with Pakistan. But the engineers' kidnapping could have implications for Chinese investment in Pakistan. There are reportedly more than 7,000 Chinese nationals working on scores of projects, some located in the most remote and difficult places in Pakistan. Around 1,100 of them are working in NWFP mostly on hydel-generation projects. Up to 70 Chinese firms are actively executing about 120 projects in Pakistan and contributing to its progress.

It is now a familiar pattern that Chinese engineers and workers are pulled out from project sites due to security concerns and then redeployed after further tightening their security. Chinese nationals have faced terrorist attacks and threats in both NWFP and Balochistan and some have been killed and kidnapped. In fact, the Chinese workers in Pakistan are being targetted by both Pashtun Islamic militants and secular Baloch nationalists because they know that the Pakistani government could be brought under pressure and embarrassed by killing and kidnapping citizens belonging to Pakistan's most sincere friend, China.

The kidnappers of the Chinese engineers are known and the place where they are being held isn't a great secret. The Swat chapter of Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) is holding the two and parts of the valley in its control would be the most likely place where the hapless Chinese engineers are kept. The TTP in Swat appears keen to use them as bargaining chips to secure release of their men presently in government custody and, if possible, obtain other concessions from the authorities. This issue could be resolved in a give-and-take manner and though the government would lose face and look weak in accepting the kidnappers' demands, it would not be the first time that such a deal is clinched. Weak state apparatus and inefficient governments would always land Pakistan in trouble and this is what you get when the armed forces, police and other institutions are unable to enforce the government's writ in parts of the country.

Much more complicated is the case of ambassador Farahi's kidnapping. Given the distrust that characterizes relations between Afghanistan and Pakistan, his kidnapping could put further strain on their uneasy ties and fuel suspicions in Kabul with regard to Islamabad's intentions. There is still no word from the kidnappers, whose identity would become known once their demands are made public. Pakistani Taliban are the usual suspects and they could get possession of Farahi even if he was kidnapped by some criminal gang. Tariq Azizuddin, Pakistan's ambassador to Afghanistan, ended up in the custody of TTP head Baitullah Mehsud in South Waziristan after being kidnapped from Khyber Agency. His freedom was secured after three months at a heavy cost. Despite government denials, it is obvious that Tariq Azizuddin was freed after payment of ransom and release of several Baitullah Mahsud's men. In Farahi's case, the Afghan Taliban too could become involved in the negotiations and bargaining to extract something for their cause because the ambassador is someone important in Afghanistan.

In such difficult circumstances, it was insensitive on the part of some unnamed Pakistani intelligence official to accuse Farahi of not informing any government agency and refusing to take along security guards with him because he was on his way to meet his girl friend in Peshawar's Hayatabad town. The news was published and has understandably caused anger among the Afghan diplomats in Pakistan. One is sure the Afghan government too would have taken notice of it and this matter isn't going to end anytime soon. At a time when Farahi's life is in danger, it was irresponsible to say things that could create further mistrust between the Afghan and Pakistan governments. Already, many Afghans who support the government of President Hamid Karzai suspect the hand of some Pakistani secret service in Farahi's kidnapping. The comment about Farahi having a girl friend was in poor taste and irresponsible to say the least because it could endanger his life at the hands of the kidnappers if they happen to be some intolerant Taliban. Such comments cannot be helpful in reassuring the Afghan government that Pakistan was doing everything within its means to recover ambassador Farahi.

All those who knew Farahi would vouchsafe that he is a good diplomat and a gentleman. Belonging to a wealthy and politically influential family, he conducted himself admirably while at work and in public functions. He had taken part in the Afghan jehad against the Soviet occupying forces. As a commander of Pir Sayed Ahmad Gaillani's National Islamic Front of Afghanistan and later of Prof Sayyaf's Ittehad-i-Islami, he fought for the liberation of his homeland. Subsequently, he transformed himself into a diplomat, serving as Afghanistan's consul general first in Quetta and then for about six years in Peshawar. Farahi had lived for so long in Pakistan as a refugee, mujahideen commander and diplomat that he had made countless friends. All those Pakistanis and many more Afghans are upset since his kidnapping on September 22 and are praying for his safe recovery.

Farahi, who belongs to Farah province in western Afghanistan, had been tipped for the last few years to become Afghanistan's ambassador in Pakistan. Somehow, it didn't happen. But when it did happen and he was named as his country's envoy in Islamabad, he was unable to present his credentials to the president of Pakistan as the new incumbent Asif Ali Zardari was yet to settle down in office. And now tragedy has struck and Farahi is in the hands of unknown kidnappers instead of celebrating and savouring his prized new job as the top Afghan diplomat in Pakistan.

It is obvious that Farahi was a marked man. He was representing the Afghan government in a place where its rival Taliban movement has large number of supporters. That he survived for six long years and was not killed or kidnapped shows that he wasn't careless about his security. Lapses do occur and it seems he had become over-confident after having escaped harm all these years. Adviser to the prime minister on interior affairs, Rehman Malik, has a point when he says that Farahi should have used the 10 security guards provided to him by the Pakistan government. However, there is no point arguing now as to who was at fault. The priority should be to save Farahi and make every possible effort for his recovery. And it is the responsibility of the Pakistan government to lead these efforts because any harm to a diplomat on its soil would bring a bad name to the country. Failure to do so would do irreparable harm to the already uneasy relations between Afghanistan and Pakistan.


The writer is resident editor of The News in Peshawar. Email: rahimyusufzai @yahoo.com
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