Friday, February 22, 2019
This Long List Of Pakistan's Terror Groups Is Just Tip Of The Iceberg
Even through JeM, responsible for the Pulwama terror attack, and LeT, responsible for the 26/11 Mumbai terror attack, were banned by Pakistan, heads of both the terrorist groups -- Masood Azhar and Hafiz Saeed respectively -- roam freely in Pakistan.
Pakistan is the epicentre of terrorism with a long list of outlawed terror organisations, including the latest to be banned Hafiz Saeed's Jamaat-ud-Dawa or JuD, and the country abets and aids almost half of the proscribed groups in India, according to official documents. Pakistan's National Counter Terrorism Authority or NCTA has so far declared 69 terrorist organisations as 'banned'. However, it has turned a blind eye to many other major terror groups such as the Hizb-ul-Mujahideen, the Harkat-ul-Mujahideen and the Al Badr operating in Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK), the documents state.
On Thursday, Pakistan banned the 2008 Mumbai terror attack mastermind Hafiz Saeed-led Jamaat-ud-Dawa and its front Falah-e-Insaniat Foundation (FIF), amid intense global pressure to rein in the terror groups following the Pulwama terror attack that killed over 40 paramilitary soldiers in Jammu and Kashmir.According to the NCTA, a sizeable number of the organisations, declared as outlawed terror outfits by Pakistan, are based in Balochistan, Pakistan-occupied Kashmir's Gilgit-Baltistan region and the Federally Administered Tribal Areas or FATA.Documents at India's Home Ministry state that almost half of India's total 41 banned terrorist groups are either based in Pakistan, areas under its illegal occupation or sponsored by it.
Such groups include the Jaish-e-Mohammed, Lashkar-e-Taiba, Hizb-ul-Mujahideen, Harkat-ul-Mujahideen, Al Badr, Dukhtaran-e-Millat, Babbar Khalsa International, Khalistan Commando Force and International Sikh Youth Federation.
The NCTA started declaring organisations as proscribed in 2001, by banning Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ). The LeJ is based in Pakistan with limited operations in Afghanistan.The Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (Afghanistan), Balochistan Republican Army, Balochistan Liberation Front, Lashkar-e-Balochistan, Balochistan Liberation United Front, Tanzeem Naujawana-e-Ahle Sunnat, Gilgit, Anjuman-e-Imamia Gilgit Baltistan and Muslim Students Organization (MSO) Gilgit are among the banned organisations, as per NCTA documents.
The few others are the Abdullah Azam Brigade (Lebanon, Syria and Arabian Peninsula), East Turkemenistan Islamic Movement (Turkey, Afghanistan), Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (Uzbekistan) and Islamic Jihad Union (Uzbekistan, Afghanistan, Germany).
Two groups - the Ghulaman-e-Sahaba and the Maymar Trust - have been under the scanner of the Pakistan government while another, Al-Akhtar Trust, has been declared a proscribed organisation under a UN Security Council resolution.The Hafiz Saeed-led JuD is believed to be the front organisation for the Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT) which also is responsible for carrying out the Mumbai attack that killed 166 people. It was declared as a foreign terrorist organisation by the US in June 2014.
Tell the IMF, China, and Saudi Arabia to suspend financial aid to Pakistan
I ask this in light of the ongoing fallout from the terrorist attack on an Indian security patrol in India's far-north Jammu and Kashmir province. That attack last week took 40 lives and has understandably enraged the Indian people. But it's a familiar story. The Pakistani-based and Pakistani-government-supported Jaish-e-Mohammed group is responsible for the attack. In predictable fashion, Prime Minister Imran Khan has responded to the attack with arrogant disdain for Indian concerns. That takes me back to the financial aid question.
If we mean to confront terrorists, we should stop investing in them!
The key here, then, is for the U.S. to pressure Pakistan's primary benefactors to suspend their aid support in lieu of serious Pakistani counterterrorism action. This should start with the International Monetary Fund, which is currently in advance stage negotiations with Pakistan over a new bailout. Considering U.S. influence in the IMF, it shouldn't be too hard to put new funds on ice. But the U.S. should also pressure China, which provides pathetic cover for Pakistani terrorist collusion, to restrain its support for Islamabad.
Then, there's Saudi Arabia. With Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman having benefited greatly from the Trump administration's diplomatic support during the fallout over the murder of Jamal Khashoggi, it's time for Trump to call in a favor and demand a tougher Saudi approach to Pakistan. It's a relevant concern in that the crown prince was in Islamabad this week.
Yet, we must also pay heed to the scale of Pakistan's impudence here. Islamabad is notoriously unreliable in spending financial aid on that which it has pledged to spend it — namely, on economic investment and structural reform, and in areas such as education and health services. Instead, aid invariably percolates its way into the Pakistani political-army patronage network, fostering embedded corruption. Pakistan's army is also extremely adept at hiding various expenditures outside of the defense budget. In the end, thanks to Pakistan's ISI intelligence service, foreign aid supports terrorists such as the JeM and other groups. This is intolerable.
President Trump deserves credit for leading on this issue before now. He must now take the next step and tighten the screws. Pakistan can no longer expect access to foreign aid while simultaneously attacking an important American partner.
#FATF condemns #Pulwama terror attack but doesn’t officially black list #Pakistan
Pakistan has failed to demonstrate a proper understanding on funding of terrorist groups such as Jaish-e-Mohammad and Lashkar-e-Taiba, said the global terror finance watchdog.
Expressing grave concern, international terror financing watchdog FATF Friday condemned the Pulwama terror attack and said Pakistan has failed to demonstrate a proper understanding on funding of terrorist groups such as Jaish-e-Mohammad and Lashkar-e-Taiba.
In a statement, the Paris-headquartered Financial Action Task Force (FATF) said Pakistan should continue to work on implementing its action plan to address its strategic deficiencies, including by adequately demonstrating its proper understanding of the terror financing risks posed by the terrorist groups and conducting supervision on a risk-sensitive basis.
“The FATF notes with grave concern and condemns the violent terrorist attack last week that killed at least 40 Indian security forces in Pulwama in the State of Jammu and Kashmir,” it said after the week-long FATF plenary held in Paris.
“Pakistan has revised its TF (terror financing) risk assessment. However, it does not demonstrate a proper understanding of the TF risks posed by Da’esh (ISIS), AL-Qaida, JuD (Jamat-ud-Dawa), FIF (Falah-e-Insaniat Foundation), LeT (Lashkar-e-Taiba), JeM (Jaish-e-Mohammad), HQN (Haqqani Network) and persons affiliated with the Taliban,” the statement said.
Forty CRPF personnel were killed and five injured on February 14 in one of the deadliest terror strikes in Jammu and Kashmir when a suicide bomber blew up an explosive-laden vehicle near their bus in Pulwama district in Jammu and Kashmir.
The bus was part of a convoy of 78 vehicles carrying Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) personnel from Jammu to Srinagar.
The Jaish-e-Mohammad claimed responsibility for the attack.
Pakistan Has No More Excuses for Supporting Terrorism
A murderous attack in Kashmir rocks relationships throughout Asia.
On the afternoon of Thursday, Feb. 14, a massive explosion rocked a Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) convoy in Pulwama in the Indian state of Jammu and Kashmir. At least 40 personnel belonging to the CRPF—a 300,000-strong paramilitary force under the Ministry of Home Affairs involved in law-and-order and counterterrorism duties—were killed as a suicide bomber drove an SUV reportedly loaded with about 600 pounds of explosives into their bus. Jaish-e-Mohammed, a terrorist organization based in Pakistan, has claimed responsibility for the attack, and the group’s role has been confirmed by Indian officials. The assault comes weeks before India’s general elections, which are expected to be held in March and April.
The next morning, India’s Cabinet Committee on Security—consisting of the prime minister and four senior ministers—held an emergency meeting and, as a first step, announced the revocation of “most favored nation” trading status for Pakistan. India had granted this status to Pakistan in 1996, although Pakistan had never reciprocated. But this is just one of the retaliatory measures likely to be taken after the worst act of Islamist terrorism in India since the Mumbai attacks in 2008.
Culpability for the attacks is unambiguous. For decades, Islamist terrorists belonging to groups like Jaish-e-Mohammed and Lashkar-e-Taiba have benefited from recruitment, financing, training, and other forms of support provided by Pakistan’s security establishment. Groups targeting India and Afghanistan continue to operate with relative impunity inside Pakistan, which has only cracked down on militancy against the Pakistani state. In Jammu and Kashmir, cross-border infiltration has been facilitated by Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence directorate—its primary external intelligence agency, run by the military—and the Pakistan Army, which provides cover in the form of artillery and gun fire across the Line of Control separating Indian- and Pakistani-held territory.
Despite the highs and lows in India-Pakistan relations over the past two decades, there is no evidence that Pakistan has made serious attempts at dismantling this terrorist infrastructure. Although the frequency ebbs and flows, cross-border infiltrations continue on a regular basis: Most of these terrorists are quickly stopped or neutralized by Indian security forces, and those attacks that have been successful—including the one at Uri in 2016—have generally benefited from negligence or a good deal of luck. Given that Jaish-e-Mohammed claimed responsibility for Pulwama, and the group operates openly on its soil, Pakistan cannot rely, as it has in the past, on ambiguity and plausible deniability to deflect responsibility for this attack.
Indian security forces inspect the remains of a vehicle following a deadly attack on a Central Reserve Police Force convoy near Awantipur in the Pulwama district of Kashmir on Feb. 14. (STR/AFP/Getty Images)
Pulwama marks an extension of recent trends concerning terrorism in India. Despite several high-profile incidents in recent years, the frequency and severity of terrorism in the country have witnessed a steady decline since 2002 and are well below the highs of the 1990s. More than 1,000 civilians were killed in terrorist attacks each year in India between 2005 and 2008. That has dropped to about 200 annually since 2015. In Jammu and Kashmir alone, civilian and security fatalities from terrorism declined—largely as a result of international pressure and improved security—from an estimated 1,700 in 2001 to 285 in 2007 and 33 in 2012. The numbers have subsequently climbed back up to 181 last year, in part as a consequence of agitations in the Kashmir Valley after July 2016 and Pakistan’s decision to try to take advantage of the situation.
The nature of terrorism in India has seen fundamental shifts over this period. Between 2000 and 2008, as violence in Jammu and Kashmir steadily declined, Islamist terrorist attacks began to occur with alarming frequency in major Indian cities. The fatalities mounted, with between 20 and 200 killed in attacks in Mumbai in 2003; New Delhi in 2005; Varanasi and Mumbai in 2006; Hyderabad in 2007; and Jaipur, Ahmedabad, New Delhi, and Mumbai in 2008. Another spate of smaller attacks occurred between 2010 and 2013 in Pune, Mumbai, New Delhi, and Hyderabad.
But since that time, the targets have shifted to primarily military and security facilities and away from major civilian and population centers. This, presumably, was intended by Pakistan to minimize international attention and censure and project such acts of terrorism as part of an unconventional military campaign. Thus, an Indian Air Force base was the target at Pathankot in January 2016, and an Indian Army post was attacked at Uri later that year. India responded to the latter incident with a series of coordinated retributive attacks across the Line of Control, which became known in India as “surgical strikes.” With an assault on the CRPF convoy, the trend continues.
Pakistani Prime Minister Imran Khan rose to power with support from the country’s powerful army. Like his predecessor, Nawaz Sharif, he has attempted to internationalize the Kashmir issue, in part to cater to various domestic constituencies. If there was any expectation that Imran’s elevation might offer India the opportunity to turn a new leaf on the relationship, that will now diminish, no matter what the outcome of the forthcoming Indian general election.
But the attack also has implications for Afghanistan, where India is already nervous about a probable U.S. military drawdown. Jaish-e-Mohammed has old connections to the Taliban and al Qaeda. In 1999, Masood Azhar, the leader of Jaish-e-Mohammed, was released from Indian custody as part of a hostage exchange in Taliban-controlled Kandahar, following the hijacking of an Indian Airlines aircraft with 173 passengers and 15 crew on board. From Taliban-controlled territory, he was whisked back to Pakistan, where he returned to the business of terrorism. His organization was soon involved in the December 2001 attack on the Indian Parliament, which resulted in a massive Indian military mobilization the following year against Pakistan.
Pakistan's army strips ex-spy chief of pension over book
Pakistan's army has stripped a former spy chief of his pension and other benefits over a book he co-authored with his former Indian counterpart.
Maj.Durrani co-authored "Spy Chronicles," a book that documents his exploits as head of Inter-Services Intelligence from 1990 to 1992, with A.S. Daulat, the former head of India's Research and Analysis Wing, and Indian journalist Aditya Sinha. Released last year, it suggests Pakistan cooperated with the U.S. in the 2011 raid that killed Osama bin Laden.
Ghafoor added that two military officers are also in custody facing espionage charges. He gave no further details.
https://www.foxnews.com/world/pakistans-army-strips-ex-spy-chief-of-pension-over-book
Text of Chairman PPP Bilawal Bhutto Zardari address at Oxford
Ladies & Gentlemen,
As Pakistan navigates the new millennium, there are key global changes that our domestic challenges are embedded in.
The first is the rise of the anti-globalist. You can see this as a citizen that sees himself free of universalist norms, or the rights-based global order that attempted to govern the world through an architecture of rights and institutions. Arguably this global order was hegemonic and extractive in its tilt towards the West. But it strove to define itself through rights-based regimes evolved at global forums. Countries took multilateralism seriously, as well as the potential shelter from exploitation that institutions such as the UN were at least theoretically premised on.
But as globalism produced its own dystopias, today you see the Post World-War II order slipping away. In Europe and America, and here in Britain, we see it as a surge of populism and ultra-nationalism, where exclusion has become the first order of self-protection.
Frankly, populism used to not be such an ugly word in what was once called the Third World. It was associated perhaps wrongly, with leadership that deals more in the symptoms of democracy than in its actual practice. No democrat, self professed or otherwise has not been guilty of some.
Yet the new millennium, with its restless search for identity, and recognition of group over universally defined rights, has changed the way we think, as well as talk about each other.
Let’s take the West. September 11 created an architecture of global counter-terror which has run away with our global bill of rights. Renditions, off-shore prisons, black sites, intel based arrests have become the order of the day. Rights we have allowed to slip away on our watch.
Anger has become the political currency for stagnating lifestyles and unmet expectations. In many parts of Europe, the urge to nationalism resonates with large populations. The surge towards more exclusion is inevitable, at least in the near future.
America has already spoken. Trump’s wall had closed the government for two weeks. 800,000 US government employees were not paid. But Democrats refused to fund it. So President Trump has taken the unprecedented step of declareing a national emergency to enable him to raid other funds for this purpose. An unthinkable and unprecedented attack on the US concept of separate of powers. So while nothing is all one colour, and while Germany’s Merkel sets norms on inclusion, we have to agree that elections in America and Europe are increasingly defined by the politics of exclusion, leaving out immigrants, and localism, moving away from international commitments.
My concern is South Asia, and of course Pakistan, which, like many centres of the world, is becoming a more illiberal place as we lurch into the next decade without a common regional plan. As Asia integrates with Europe, driven largely by the huge Belt and Road Initiative by China, we in South Asia are busy entrenching ourselves in the language and weapons of hate. With challenges such as climate change, cyber-security and terrorism obliterating borders, we are fighting 21st century battles with the last century’s tools. Despite compelling arguments for connectivity, Pakistan and India remain bitter enemies, defined by old wars and new fault lines of mistrust, instead of trade and job dividends.
I won’t even say the B-word, but Britain’s first (Br)exit from South Asia has left Pakistan with the baggage of a dispute at the heart of its external security problem. As Kashmir pivots to core flashpoint for local insurgencies against years of ruthless Indian state-terror, we have to ask ourselves what will happen to the dream of connectivity for South Asia? How long will one-fifth of humanity become hostage to the fires of extremism and now, rampaging Modi-led Hindutva populism.
My mother always used to say that if rights and laws, which are the instruments of a strong democracy, don’t provide enough protection, don’t try to fight insecurity with repression. Fight it with the tools of democracy: which are more rights, institutionalized frameworks for conflict-resolution, and enhancements in the rule of law, and inclusion as well as egalitarianism.
Take terrorism for instance. I’m afraid the way most Westerners tackle terrorism both at home or abroad is dangerously outdated. Violent extremism and the growth of exclusionary ideologies put great pressure on the modern state. Yet it is also clear that kinetic or single-state solutions will never halt the tide.
The modern terrorist finds inspiration in gradations of injustice amidst a search for identity. The mis-use of religion or loss of community in fragile states in the Middle East, Eurasia or
sub-Saharan Africa is only one part of the picture. In both scale and intensity, violent extremism has undeniably become the single largest challenge to many of our societies. In Pakistan the tug of war between moderation vs extremism has become a significant fault line. We now find ourselves in the trenches in the battle of ideas that violent extremism and terrorism have become.
sub-Saharan Africa is only one part of the picture. In both scale and intensity, violent extremism has undeniably become the single largest challenge to many of our societies. In Pakistan the tug of war between moderation vs extremism has become a significant fault line. We now find ourselves in the trenches in the battle of ideas that violent extremism and terrorism have become.
To our peril, this is a problem we often overlook in Pakistan.
At the same time this is not an existential or state identity crisis, in my view, neither is this a permanent condition. Pakistan votes in non-religious political parties by and large, which if empowered over time, can and must reverse the advances that the extremist idiom and militant muscle has made. None of these parties, I warn, must fall hostage to the temptations of authoritarianism or an illiberal democratic system.
Pakistan has no shortage of commitment on the effort against extremism, militancy or terrorism today. It is impossible to open all fronts at one time, especially given the conflict in Afghanistan constantly spilling over into Pakistan both twenty years ago, and once again today. So this is a capacity issue as much as a sequencing challenge, and we often feel we are fighting this long battle with one hand tied behind our backs. At the same time I agree that we must put our shoulder to the wheel of fighting exclusion on a much broader basis than we do today. Terrorism can no longer be fought as a military or kinetic battle alone. It cannot ignore extremism, intolerance, hate and the crisis at the heart of capitalism that we are all experiencing. No country can call itself democratic or progressive if it leaves millions behind without a promise of socially responsible state.
There was growing public recoil from extremism, especially after my mother’s assassination, and all the military and civilian lives lost to it. But for a transformative shift, we need commitment and momentum in the battle of mindsets that we fight.
Like my mother, what I strive for today is a tolerant Pakistan. I too dream of a fully democratic, peaceful, progressive and prosperous Pakistan. I believe that the only antidote to extremism is an inclusive, liberal democracy for the people, of the people, by the people.
I strongly feel that in these difficult times, like the world, Pakistan needs a genuine, progressive voice. My mission is just that: to introduce a progressive alternative to the populist and hate-driven politics many in the world have gotten used to.
Today, human rights violations, terrorism, inequality, climate change, disorient the world we knew. We are now in a time of change and technological disruption, arguably, like nothing we have ever seen before. The challenges we are facing have evolved with us.
Discontent and disorder often bring out the worst in mankind and the initial reaction when faced with adversity or shrinking resources is to look inward, but we must face these challenges instead of looking away from them.
The borderless nature of the challenges we face today will force us to unite. Let us not unite only when the crisis has caused incalculable loss. Let us use these trying times as a chance to reflect and re-evaluate our values. There is no other way out of it.
At the end of the day, it our values that define us, the ideals we cherish and hold dear. My mother, as many of you know, dreamt of an inclusive Pakistan. It is our responsibility, as leaders, to care for the disillusioned and disenfranchised. She believed that this is how we will redeem our nation. But Benazir Bhutto has not been silenced. Her message, her legacy and her crusade will live on for as long as there is hope for good in this world.
My continued commitment to the enfranchisement of the marginalised, empowerment of women and minorities, and all vulnerable communities is certainly worth the risk, because it is a defining contest, among so many in any plural, diverse society. It is also a core value of the PPP policy agenda. My mother embraced her death fighting for the politics of inclusion, which in our current context, includes taking on the full spectrum of extremists, militants and terrorists.
It is rooted in two fundamentals: One, there can be no prosperous, plural, progressive Pakistan at peace with itself and its neighbours if our policies don’t champion the protection and empowerment of vulnerable groups.
Second, this is the stated roadmap laid out by the founder of Pakistan, Mohammad Ali Jinnah at his most important policy address to the new constituent assembly of Pakistan.
Like any young and fragile democracy, Pakistan’s political stability has had its fair share of rough-and-tumble. PPP has always been the vanguard of progressive politics rooted by people’s mandate. From my grandfather who has fought for these ideals with his life, to my mother who battled dictatorship, extremism and patriarchy to become the Muslim worlds first female prime minister and sacrificed her life valiantly fighting these very forces, to my father who was the first President in Pakistan’s history to complete his term and saw the country’s first peaceful transition of power from one democratic government to the other.
2013 was a momentous year for Pakistan’s democratic history and PPP, true to its ideology, made it possible. More than its significance on a grander scale, it restored hope for a truly democratic government in every Pakistani who has lived through dictatorships and suppression and in every young Pakistani looking forward to flourish in a peaceful and stable country.
We have a long way to go and it is easy to dismiss Pakistan as a state stuck in a low-growth loop, but that is also to dismiss the agency and resolve of the Pakistani people.
We cannot rewrite the wrongs of the past but we must look forward, not backward if we are to triumph over the challenges that threaten our very existence today. How do we do that in this age of exclusion, when freedoms once taken for granted, stand at risk of being reversed?
A nation’s strength stems from the strength of its institutions and the stake its citizens have in its prosperity. While fighting a full-fledged war against the forces of terrorism and extremism, and coping with millions of dislocated persons, both from natural disasters as well as military operations within Pakistan and from Afghanistan, we have made significant strides in strengthening our federation. The most important move in that direction has been devolution of power to the provinces via a historic 18th Constitutional Amendment, which has been critical in allocating national resources more equitably than ever before.
Despite critical fiscal and resource deficits our government in 2008 invested in deepening fundamental freedoms for the media and judiciary. Today, the media, particularly, is in a transition that sets its ability to speak truth to power at risk the world over. Unfortunately in Imran Khans Pakistan freedom of speech and freedom of the press are under unprecedented attack. The peoples party however, have a clear commitment to restoring and enhancing those freedoms, but also to deepening democracy.
None of it is rocket science. Regulation must not be confused with censorship. Parliament too must be treated with the respect and centrality due weight in a functional democracy. The tax base must be widened to rid ourselves of the chronic debt economy, and the resource-pie must be distributed more equitably. The poor that are food insecure must have access to food, jobs and shelter as well as fundamental rights. Access to good schooling and public health must not be divided by class or other divides. Citizens that live outside urban centres, especially in tribal peripheries, must be heard, must be given more rights. But all of this will take time.
Pakistan is experiencing a demographic shift with 64% of its population under the age of 30. Therefore, political inclusion of the youth is on top of my party’s agenda. We believe that the inclusion of youth in political discourse is essential in maintaining democratic governance, especially when polls show that youth responses towards democratic systems mirror a sense of discontent with processes currently employed for civil representation at electoral forums. Despite the fact that Pakistan’s youth is this generation’s most important demographic it is unfortunately, also the most neglected. Three out of five Pakistanis is currently under the age of 30, full of vigor and energy, a majority of them with no real employment prospects or marketable skills. Providing vocational training and job placements has been and continues to be one of PPP’s priorities.
[Bangladesh and Iran have successfully managed their population growth and now boast higher literacy rates than Pakistan, despite their own struggling economies. This only means that policy intervention and consistency are what’s missing in Pakistan.]
We have a real yet solvable problem. Pakistan needs to create 4.5 million new jobs over the next five years and enroll the 22.84 million children who are out of school to properly utilize the youth bulge.
The good news is that despite a severely contested election in 2018 we still boast high rates of political participation.
Governance remains a challenge with capacity and resource deficits. So does the provision of jobs and skilled human capital in the absence of new opportunities that have not replaced losses in an economy hit by conflict.
Pakistan today is not just about bombs and bullets. Far from it. We are the fifth most populous country in the world, with the largest youth cohort anywhere. Today Pakistan’s best story is also about our young women, our musicians, artists and athletes. It is also about Pakistan’s resilience in the face of natural calamity, its creativity, but equally and importantly, about the scale and complexity of ethnic, linguistic and religious diversity we negotiate every day.
I believe we have the ability and capacity to navigate the complexity of the challenges posed by the 21st century. It will just take a younger cohort of leadership!
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