M WAQAR.....
"A man's ethical behavior should be based effectually on sympathy, education, and social ties; no religious basis is necessary.Man would indeed be in a poor way if he had to be restrained by fear of punishment and hope of reward after death."
--Albert Einstein !!!
NEWS,ARTICLES,EDITORIALS,MUSIC... Ze chi pe mayeen yum da agha pukhtunistan de.....(Liberal,Progressive,Secular World.)''Secularism is not against religion; it is the message of humanity.''
تل ده وی پثتونستآن
NEW YORK:President Barack Obama's plan for Afghanistan includes proposals to shift more American efforts toward problems in neighbouring Pakistan and to seek some kind of political reconciliation with the vast majority of insurgents in the region, according to The New York Times on Friday.
Citing administration officials, the newspaper said the plan reflects in part a conclusion within the administration that most of the insurgent foot soldiers in Afghanistan and Pakistan are "reconcilable" and can be pried away from the hard-core organisations of the Taliban and al Qaeda.
At least 70 per cent of the insurgents, and possibly more, can be encouraged to lay down their arms with the proper incentives, they said. A strategic review nearing completion is being carried out by a team of high-ranking administration officials whose recommendations will be subject to Obama's approval. After seven years of a United States-led war effort in Afghanistan, officials involved in the review claim that the military to date has succeeded primarily in driving the most hard-core Taliban and other extremist militants out of Afghanistan and into western Pakistan.
To put more pressure on those Pakistani sanctuaries, the dispatch cited United States and Pakistani officials as saying they expected the plan to recommend at least a continuation of what amounts to a covert war carried out by the Central Intelligence Agency inside Pakistan, using drone aircraft for missile strikes on insurgent hide-outs. The plan will also call for an increase in military and financial aid to Pakistan, though there was still a debate on just how much additional aid should be provided, the dispatch said. One senior Obama official was cited as saying the military aid to Pakistan would be aimed at trying to get its army to focus more on counterinsurgency and less on its long-running feud with India.
Courtesy their shenanigans and confrontationist politics, President Asif Zardari and Mian Nawaz Sharif have turned Pakistan into a Zimbabwe, where an autocratic ruler Robert Mugabe and his opponent, an equally intransigent Morgan Tsvangirai, locked in a severe power struggle, had hurtled down their famine-stricken and economic-woebegone nation in a deep pit. And so have these Pakistani Mugabe and Tsvangirai their terrorism-plagued, poverty-ridden and disease-afflicted people. And just as neither Mugabe nor Tsvangirai was ready to budge, so is neither Zardari nor Nawaz. And just as African leaders, fearing Zimbabwean turmoil's spillover to neighbouring countries, had stepped in to intervene and disengage the two Zimbabwean power fighters, the Americans and British have moved in to separate these two Pakistani combatants, no lesser to save their own so-called war on terror from being affected by their fighting. This foreign intervention may have massaged enormously these two fighters' bloating egos; but the least amused are the people of Pakistan at being treated like a colony and slaves. They are ashamed that for leaders they have such egotistical persons as these two, who have sacrificed their people's self-respect and dignity at the altar of their blinding selfishness, giving it a pious cloak with puerile pretences and deceitful posturing. Divided they are irreconcilably over the sacked judges' issue, each feigning to be acting by principles, which neither is actually. And while Zardari is unloading truckloads of his chosen judges on the superior judiciary, as indeed did Benazir in her second government, of which the country's then top judge came to know from the media as did we the hoi polloi, Nawaz is pretentiously clamouring he wants sacked judges back for judiciary's independence. An independent judiciary he blares is indispensable for democracy and the people's wellbeing. Alas, this realisation has come to him too late, if at all. Where was this belief of his when during his second power stint he set his party goons on the Supreme Court, making its judges to run for their lives, some say the top judge bare-footed? And where was his conviction when he toyed madly with his craving to arrest the then top judge and imprison him even if for a day? Musharraf was very cruel to the judiciary. Yet even he didn't attack the Supreme Court, not even a lower court. Contemptibly, he did send packing a whole lot of judges he was uncomfortable with, for which he deservedly had to pay a heavy price. But, mercifully, he spared them this atrocity of physical assault. But how can a judiciary become independent and delivering if you have non-PCO judges in higher judiciary, as he wants, even if they are very good, but leave the lower judiciary rotting as it is in incompetence, corruption and sleaze? And where does the judiciary perform the feats of improving the people's economic conditions, creating jobs and providing employments, laying out public healthcare facilities, and catering to the people's basic necessities, for which he says he wants an independent judiciary? Where do the judges frame education, health, social welfare, agricultural and industrial policies? Do they do it in America, Britain, India or any other state? Aren't these the executive branch's functions, not judiciary's, even in a banana republic? And yet he talks this bunk with a straight face, as if he is a great sage, throwing around his pearls of wisdom. But why is that silent majority keeping silent, quietly lapping up the deceit and deceptions of Nawaz and Zardari? Why doesn't it call their fraud? Doesn't it occur to it that these two billionaires have mountains of slush moolah in foreign banks, huge businesses, properties and homes abroad to live on luxuriantly for generation, if, God forbid, some calamity befalls this land? This silent majority has only this homeland to live in and thrive on. So it must speak up. If it thinks the self-styled civil society will speak up on its behalf, it is mistaken. It would not; it is actively on the side of one or the other of these two power fighters. Not expect this it should even from the media which is as elitist as are these two in thinking, outlook and views. It, too, is voicing their causes, not ours, the hoi polloi's. This silent majority has to make its own voice and make it heard. And that it must, as the rot has now gone too far. Sit silently it now should not; nor should it let itself be taken for granted any more. Saved from: http://www.thefrontierpost.com/News.aspx?ncat=ed&nid=266&ad=14-03-200 Dated: Friday,March 14, 2009, Rabi-ul-Awwal 15, 1430 A.H.
Sources say that PM Gilani has not yet accepted Sherry Rehman’s resignation from the Federal Cabinet. ISLAMABAD: Sherry Rehman has resigned from her position as the Federal Information Minister; apparently as result of differences with the rest of her camp, arising from the handling of sections of the news media, sources claim.
Sources say that Federal Information Minister Sherry Rehman has tendered her resignation from the federal cabinet of the PPP led government but sources added that the Prime Minister, Yousuf Raza Gilani, has not yet accepted her resignation.
It is important to remember here that the information minster, after the November 2007 clampdown on media, had vowed in many of her TV interviews that she would resign from any ministry if the media was ever mishandled by a Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) led government.
The minster was reminded of her promises today after an apparent clampdown on sections of the media, significantly the GEO news channel. The minster would certainly have kept her promise if her resignation goes through.
ISLAMABAD: Federal Minister for Information and Broadcasting, Sherry Rehman has reportedly resigned.According to sources, Sherry resigned due to differences over the media policy of the government. The news came at a time when a high level meeting was underway at the Aiwan-e-Sadr with President Asif Ali Zardari in chair. Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani, Interior Advisor Rehman Malik and Sherry Rehman were present in the meeting. It is pertinent to note that Sherry has been saying she will resign as Information Minister if any ban is imposed on country’s media.
ANKARA, Turkey — President Barack Obama may be invited to address Turkey's Parliament in a rare honor reserved for the country's closest allies, an official said Friday. Obama is scheduled to visit Turkey on April 5 during his first visit as president to a Muslim nation.Parliament Speaker Koksal Toptan told reporters that lawmakers want Obama to give a speech to legislators and to the Turkish people from the rostrum of Parliament.The invasion of Iraq has strained the long friendship between the U.S. and Turkey _ close NATO allies _ and Obama's visit would mark an improvement in ties with Turkey, which is critical to aiding the U.S. pullout from Iraq and turning around the war in Afghanistan.However, Obama could jeopardize relations unless he breaks a campaign promise to describe the killings of Armenians by Ottoman Turks as genocide." Such a declaration would infuriate Turkey, which could respond by withholding cooperation and complicate U.S. military operations in the region. Historians estimate that up to 1.5 million Armenians were killed by Ottoman Turks around World War I, an event widely viewed by scholars as the first genocide of the 20th century.But Turkey denies that the deaths constituted genocide, contending the toll has been inflated, and the casualties were victims of civil war and unrest.
A Canadian nurse kidnapped in Sudan, along with an Italian doctor and a French field worker, has been released, Medecins sans frontieres said in a statement Friday. The organization said that Sudanese authorities were returning the freed nurse — Laura Archer, originally from Prince Edward Island and more recently living in Montreal — but it was unclear how long it would take to finalize the release. "We have not yet seen our colleagues, nor have we had a chance to speak with them since we heard that they were being released," said the statement. The organization said they had contacted the families of the latest development. Sudanese authorities had already identified where the group were being held, blaming "bandits" for their kidnapping on Wednesday. The kidnapping came a week after Sudan expelled the 13 foreign aid agencies after the International Criminal Court ordered President Omar al-Bashir's arrest for alleged war crimes and crimes against humanity in Darfur.Archer's parents had earlier released a statement saying that they were "confident of Archer's safe and timely release."Medecins Sans Frontieres is an international humanitarian aid organization that provides emergency medical assistance to populations in danger in about 70 countries.MSF also works in remote health-care centres, slum areas and provides training of local personnel.
US reassures China on investment The White House has sought to assure China that its $1 trillion (£0.7tn) in investments in the United States is safe despite the economic downturn. "There is no safer investment in the world than in the United States," said White House spokesman Robert Gibbs.
Wen used the news conference to further detail China's $585bn stimulus plan [AFP] Wen Jiabao, China's prime minister, has voiced concern over the outlook of US government bonds, calling on Washington to ease worries about US assets. Speaking at his annual news conference on Friday, Wen expressed concern that massive US deficit spending and near-zero interest rates could erode the value of China's bond holdings.China is the biggest holder of US government debt and has invested an estimated 70 per cent of its $2 trillion stockpile of foreign exchange reserves, the world's largest, in dollar assets."We have lent a massive amount of capital to the United States, and of course we are concerned about the security of our assets," Wen said."To speak truthfully, I do indeed have some worries ... I would like, through you, to once again request America to maintain their creditworthiness, keep their promise and guarantee the safety of Chinese assets." Investment concerns Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, during her visit to Beijing in February, urged China to keep investing in US assets, and said any big switch by Beijing out of US treasury bonds would drive prices lower, inflicting the very losses Wen fears. In depth. China's job crisis Philip Bowring, a Hong Kong-based commentator on Asia, said that China could have avoided investing so heavily in US treasuries if they had adopted a different approach to growth."China did have a choice of whether they continued their export-driven growth - focused, often very heavily, on the United States - or being more domestically focused, which would have meant they would have grown almost as fast, but wouldn't have accumulated a large amount of US treasuries," "Naturally they feel a little bit nervous about [holding US treasuries] because it's not that they're illiquid, but the conditions under which China can actually sell them are rather limited and the yield on these treasuries is low and tending to decline." 'Enough ammunition' Despite his concerns over US treasuries, Wen expressed confidence the economic recovery plan of Barack Obama, the US president. Wen, who took questions for over two hours, also used the news conference to further detail China's own four trillion yuan ($585bn) stimulus package. He had disappointed investors in his annual report to parliament a week earlier by failing to announce an increase in the size of the package, which aims to boost domestic demand and so take up the slack left by a sharp drop in exports. China has reported a record decline in exports in February and record-low industrial production growth in the first two months of the year. Wen reiterated his warning, made to the National People's Congress (NPC), China's rubber-stamp parliament, last week, that 2009 would be a challenging year for China. But he said that the government had "prepared enough 'ammunition' and we can launch new economic stimulus policies at any time". Slowing growth Wen said the central government share of the already-announced $586bn stimulus plan would be used in "projects for public welfare, technological innovation, environmental protection and infrastructure projects".With the bulk of that money already allocated in the government budget, he said he was convinced that recovery was within sight.The stimulus plan also gives a strong boost to social welfare spending, which the government hopes will boost domestic consumption by encouraging Chinese, who typically save about 20 per cent of their income, to spend more. Earlier, the almost 3,000 NPC delegates formally endorsed Wen's plan to shore up the world's third-largest economy and maintain growth levels the government says are needed to create jobs and maintain stability.
Political turmoil: next 24 hrs will be very crucial
ISLAMABAD ( 2009-03-13 18:12:29 ) :President Asif Ali Zardari separately met Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani and Chief of Army Staff General Ashfaq Pervez Kayani at President House, here on Friday and discussed key issues related to current political situation in the country.
According to reports, later in the day Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani will meet former Chief Minister of Punjab Shahbaz Sharif for negotiations regarding the current turmoil in the country.
The reports further said that Gilani has been reportedly given 24 hours to convince Zardari into agreeing to the new political and constitutional arrangement, as further delay will not produce any political results for the political forces currently on the warpath.
The ball is now firmly in the court of president Zardari, who has to take a decision swiftly on endorsing the agreement brokered by powerful international actors.
If Zardari does not accept the new deal then:
* Army, foreign powers will be left with no option but to implement minus-one formula.
*President’s office will be completely marginalised, Zardari will be removed.
*Gilani will take over as power will be restored to PM office.
* PML-N will join the cabinet.
* Deposed SC chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry will be reappointed.
Terms of the deal are:
* PM Gilani has been asked to convince Zardari to accept the new political and constitutional arrangement.
* The deal also states the removal of Punjab Governor Salman Taseer, who is an obstacle to good relations between the PPP and the PML-N.
* Implementation of the new Constitutional package through the parliament.
*The deal also demands the restoration of Supreme Court Justice Iftikhar Chaudhary.
Political turmoil: next 24 hrs will be very crucial MONITORING DESK
ISLAMABAD ( 2009-03-13 18:12:29 ) :President Asif Ali Zardari separately met Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani and Chief of Army Staff General Ashfaq Pervez Kayani at President House, here on Friday and discussed key issues related to current political situation in the country.
According to reports, later in the day Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani will meet former Chief Minister of Punjab Shahbaz Sharif for negotiations regarding the current turmoil in the country.
The reports further said that Gilani has been reportedly given 24 hours to convince Zardari into agreeing to the new political and constitutional arrangement, as further delay will not produce any political results for the political forces currently on the warpath.
The ball is now firmly in the court of president Zardari, who has to take a decision swiftly on endorsing the agreement brokered by powerful international actors.
If Zardari does not accept the new deal then:
* Army, foreign powers will be left with no option but to implement minus-one formula.
*President’s office will be completely marginalised, Zardari will be removed.
*Gilani will take over as power will be restored to PM office.
* PML-N will join the cabinet.
* Deposed SC chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry will be reappointed.
Terms of the deal are:
* PM Gilani has been asked to convince Zardari to accept the new political and constitutional arrangement.
* The deal also states the removal of Punjab Governor Salman Taseer, who is an obstacle to good relations between the PPP and the PML-N.
* Implementation of the new Constitutional package through the parliament.
*The deal also demands the restoration of Supreme Court Justice Iftikhar Chaudhary.
ISLAMABAD: The transmission of Geo News has been blocked in some parts of Islamabad, Rawalpindi, Lahore, Quetta, Multan, Rawlakot and Muzaffarabad.
The concerned officials have directed the cable operators to place Geo News channel at the tail end, making it difficult for the viewers to watch the channel.
General Secretary Pakistan Muslim League-Q Mushahid Hussain said Geo News is being punished for airing the
BY: William Dalrymple 's Last Mughal won the Duff Cooper Prize and the Crossword Indian Book of the Year prize.
williamdalrymple.com Rahman Baba, "the Nightingale of Peshawar," was an 18th-century poet and mystic, a sort of North West Frontier version of Julian of Norwich.
He withdrew from the world and promised his followers that if they also loosened their ties with the world, they could purge their souls of worries and move towards direct experience of God. Rituals and fasting were for the pious, said the saint. What was important was to understand that divinity can best be reached through the gateway of the human heart - that we all have paradise within us, if we know where to look.
For centuries, Rahman Baba's shrine at the foot of the Khyber Pass has been a place where musicians and poets have gathered, and his Sufi verses in the Pukhtun language made him the national poet of the Pathans. As a young journalist covering the Soviet-mujahideen conflict I used to visit the shrine to watch Afghan refugee musicians sing their songs to their saint by the light of the moon.
Then, about 10 years ago, a Saudi-funded Wahhabi madrasa was built at the end of the track leading to the shrine. Soon its students took it on themselves to halt what they saw as unIslamic practices. On my last visit, I talked about the situation with the shrine keeper, Tila Mohammed. He described how young Islamists now came and complained that his shrine was a centre of idolatry and superstition: "My family have been singing here for generations," said Tila. "But now these Arab madrasa students come here and create trouble.
"They tell us that what we do is wrong. They ask people who are singing to stop. Sometimes arguments break out - even fist fights. This used to be a place where people came to get peace of mind. Now when they come here they just encounter more problems, so gradually have stopped coming."
"Before the Afghan war, there was nothing like this. But then the Saudis came, with their propaganda, to stop us visiting the saints, and to stop us preaching 'ishq [love]. Now this trouble happens more and more frequently."
Behind the violence lies a long theological conflict that has divided the Islamic world for centuries. Rahman Baba believed passionately in the importance of music, poetry and dancing as a path for reaching God, as a way of opening the gates of Paradise. But this use of poetry and music in ritual is one of the many aspects of Sufi practice that has attracted the wrath of modern Islamists. For although there is nothing in the Qur'an that bans music, Islamic tradition has always associated music with dancing girls and immorality, and there is a long tradition of clerical opposition.
At Attock, not far from the shrine of Rahman Baba, stands the Haqqania, one of the most radical madrasas in South Asia. Much of the Taliban leadership, including its leader, Mullah Omar, were trained here, so I asked the madrasa's director, Maulana Sami ul-Haq, about what I had heard at Rahman Baba's tomb. The matter was quite simple." Music is against Islam," he said. "Musical instruments lead men astray and are sinful. They are forbidden, and these musicians are wrongdoers."
Nor were Sami's strictures limited to the shrine's music: "We don't like tomb worship," he continued. "We do not pray to dead men, even the saints. We believe there is no power but God. I invite people who come here to return to the true path of the Qur'an. Do not pray to a corpse: Rahman Baba is dead. Go to the mosque, not to a grave."
This sort of madrasa-driven change in attitudes is being reproduced across Pakistan. There are now 27 times as many madrasas in the country as there were in 1947: from 245 at independence, the number has shot up to 6870 in 2001. Across Pakistan, the religious tenor has been correspondingly radicalised: the tolerant, Sufi-minded Barelvi form of Islam is now out of fashion in northern Pakistan, especially in the NWFP, overtaken by the rise of the more hardline and politicised Wahhabism.
Later, I returned to the shrine and found Tila Mahommed tending the grave. Making sure no one was listening, he whispered: "We pray that right will overpower wrong, that good will overcome evil. But our way is pacifist," he said." As Baba put it,
I am a lover, and I deal in love. Sow flowers, So your surroundings become a garden Don't sow thorns; for they will prick your feet. We are all one body, Whoever tortures another, wounds himself.
I thought of this conversation, when I heard that the shrine of Rahman Baba had finally been blown up on Thursday, a few hours after the Sri Lankan cricketers were ambushed in Lahore. The rise of Islamic radicalism is often presented in starkly political terms, but what happened in Peshawar this week is a reminder that, at the heart of the current conflict, lie two very different understandings of Islam. Wahhabi fundamentalism has advanced so quickly in Pakistan partly because the Saudis have financed the building of so many madrasas, which have filled the vacuum left by the collapse of state education. These have taught an entire generation to abhor the gentle, syncretic Sufi Islam that has dominated south Asia for centuries, and to embrace instead an imported form of Saudi Wahhabism.
Sufism is an entirely indigenous Islamic resistance movement to fundamentalism, with its deep roots in South Asian soil. The Pakistani government could finance schools that taught Pakistanis to respect their own religious traditions, rather than buying fleets of American F-16 fighters and handing over education to the Saudis. Instead, every day, it increasingly resembles a tragic clone of Taliban Afghanistan.
KABUL, Afghanistan -- A top Taliban commander has told CNN his insurgents are poised and ready to attack Kabul and could strike virtually anywhere in the city.It would be tempting to put this down to Taliban propaganda except one of Kabul's top cops is saying the same thing."We are working on a security strategy for the city and if we don't get it right, they [the Taliban] can attack at any minute, at any hour, any time," says Commander Mohammed Daud Amin, in charge of securing the Kabul district that includes the Presidential Palace and many government ministries.Proof of the menacing threat came just last month when eight Taliban fighters, bristling with weapons and suicide vests, burst into three government buildings in the center of Kabul.Police and security forces managed to kill all the insurgents before they could detonate their vests, but 20 people were killed and dozens were wounded.The attack took many by surprise and it underlined the credibility of Taliban threats. It was also seen as one of the most direct attacks on the government of President Hamid Karzai and gave new authority to claims that the Taliban are isolating the capital, one of the last bastions of security in Afghanistan, compromising many routes in and out of the city."Staff... staff," Amin points to pictures of dead Justice Ministry staff from his evidence book of the crime scene of last month's attack. With every page, the carnage is laid bare. There are several pictures of government employees shot dead as they worked, blood splattering the ministry walls and floors.As Amin continues to flip through the book, he reveals pictures of dead militants and many of those images defy description. In one picture, the militant is missing an arm, which Amin says was torn off as he detonated a hand grenade. In other pictures there are few body parts that can be discerned, save for the militant's head."Police went looking for the insurgents and they went after them inside. We are convinced the insurgents wanted to hold ministry employees hostage." says Amin.Many in Kabul applauded the courage and tactics of individual officers in their handling of the ministry attack. Amin says he and his men managed to prevent a deadly and prolonged hostage situation One of his men is 22-year-old Ahmed Zahir. We found him patrolling the streets of Kabul just outside the Presidential Palace walls. He describes what happened to him that day as dozens of people started pouring out of the Justice Ministry and running towards his police post in a panic.Zahir says he ran into the ministry building and was caught in a firefight, eventually killing one insurgent. While his courage seems commendable, his disillusionment over how his superiors responded to his efforts is less so, and his reactions are disturbing. "The government didn't thank me and they did not help me afterwards," says Zahir, with evident bitterness. By help, he means money. Police in Kabul earn less than $200 a month, considerably less than it costs to live in the capital, even for those not supporting a family. With low wages comes low morale and an invitation to corruption -- Afghanistan's police are regularly accused of being on the take.And yet their jobs couldn't be more crucial in trying to keep together the country's fragile security.Take Kabul, a city clogged with somewhere between four and five million people -- no one knows for sure -- and traffic to match that human crush. It's not hard to see how eight Taliban fighters seemed to so easily slip into the city last month. "They used government cars with tinted glass and we have no authority to stop them" says Abdulla Mahbob, a police officer at one of Kabul's key checkpoints.Still, coalition forces have no choice by to keep rooting for Kabul's cops. By the end of the year, NATO will hand over much of the responsibility for securing the capital to the city's police force. And that will be a crucial test to see if this city and this country can stand on its own, even with the Taliban standing at the gate.
PESHAWAR/ISLAMABAD ( 2009-03-11 17:08:53 ) :Senior NWFP Minister and ANP leader Bashir Ahmed Bilour Wednesday survived unhurt an attempt on his life when some unknown assailants opened fire on him, police and family sources said.
President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani condemned the assassination bid on the life of Bashir Bilour.
In a message from Tehran, President Zardari strongly condemned the terrorist attack on the ANP leader.
The President and Prime Minister said the government will bring the perpetrators of the reprehensible attack to justice.
They said such attacks will not weaken the resolve of the government to fight against terrorism and extremism, which is posing a threat to fabric of the society.
One person was injured in the firing incident that occurred in congested Namak Mandi bazaar, the sources said.
Family sources said the minister was in Namak Mandi for inauguration of a development project in his constituency when the assailants fired on him just as he was to enter his vehicle.
Security personnel pushed the minister into the vehicle and safely took him to his residence. The attackers managed to flee the scene.
LAHORE: In order to hinder lawyers’ long march and sit-in, police on early Wednesday have launched crackdown against lawyers and opposition leaders in several Punjab districts including Lahore, Geo News reported.
Meanwhile, police have been ordered for home confinement of Nawaz Sharif, Shahbaz Sharif, Qazi Hussain Ahmed and Imran Khan.
According to police sources, many activists belonging to PML-N and Jamat-e-Islami have been apprehended during raids on their homes while gigantic containers have been brought as barrier on the way of lawyers’ long march and sit-in.
Police carried out several raids on homes and offices of Jamat-e-Islami workers in Lahore and PML-N’s members Punjab assembly including Bilal Yasin, Waseem Ahmed and Secretary Nawaz Sharif Khwaja Imran Nazir and political Secretary Shahbaz Sharif Noshad Hameed but all succeeded to flee and have gone in hiding, sources said.
Police also raided in Vihari, Gujranwala, Shaikhupura, Faisalabad and Sialkot, sources added.
NATO countries must create a comprehensive approach to oust al Qaeda, the Taliban and other extremists from Afghanistan and Pakistan, U.S. Vice President Joe Biden said Tuesday after a meeting with NATO members.
"The imperative of a comprehensive approach with a strong civilian and diplomatic effort is necessary because we know there is no purely military solution to either Afghanistan or Pakistan," Biden told reporters at a news conference after the sessions at NATO headquarters in Brussels, Belgium.
The vice president was consulting with members of the North Atlantic Council, the main decision-making body within NATO, ahead of a NATO summit April 3-4 in Germany and France.
"I heard from our allies. I heard their concerns, and they listed their priorities," said Biden, who was accompanied at the news conference by NATO Secretary-General Jaap de Hoop Scheffer.
"We had a very good meeting. There was an incredible amount of consensus around the table," Biden added. "I came away with a much clearer sense of what our NATO friends would like us to consider."
The vice president told council members that the "deteriorating situation" in the Afghanistan-Pakistan region poses a security threat to the nations they represent.
"It was from that very same area that extremists planned virtually every major terrorist attack in Europe since 9/11, including the attacks on London and Madrid," Biden said.
The vice president said he also asked country representatives to submit further concerns and observations about Pakistan and Afghanistan to U.S. officials so they can be included in a report on the region requested by President Barack Obama.
The review will be given to him before the end of March, Biden said.
The vice president was asked about Obama's recent comments suggesting that the United States could be open to reaching out to some moderates in the Taliban, in a manner similar to successful efforts with Sunni militants in Iraq.
"Whatever is initiated will have to be ultimately initiated by the Afghan government and be such that it doesn't undermine the Afghan government," Biden said. "It's worth engaging to determine whether there are those that are willing to participate in a secure and stable Afghan state."
Biden said that according to Richard Holbrooke, the U.S. special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, that 5 percent of the Taliban are incorrigible, about 25 percent are unsure about the intensity of their commitment to the insurgency, and about 70 percent are involved because of the money they receive.
KANDAHAR, Afghanistan — Masto Khan and his family live in a tent made of canvas, mud and bits of foraged wood on a patch of land they don't own on the outskirts of Kandahar City. The emaciated goats grazing nearby are their only possessions.
"Right now, our lifestyle has completely failed," Khan says, glancing at the cluster of similar tents dotting the dirt field. "There are hundreds of families here. It used to be that they all owned livestock and could feed their families. Now, if you ask them, they don't have a single herd of sheep."
It wasn't always this way. Khan, 60, is a member of Afghanistan's Kuchi minority, a nomadic people who have roamed the central Asian plains for centuries. But a pair of droughts and 30 years of war have reduced a proud people to this hardscrabble and largely sedentary life.
In a country rife with poverty and political instability, the Kuchis may the poorest and least stable.
For years, they formed the spine of the Afghan economy. Their trading caravans bridged South Asia and the Middle East. According to the UN High Commission on Refugees, at one time they owned 30 per cent of the country's goats and sheep and most of the camels. They traded things such as dairy products, tea, sugar and wool with the sedentary people for food staples such as wheat and vegetables.
Many of them spent their summers in mountain pastures and their winters on the lowland plains.
"That life was so beautiful. We are starving for that life," says Kabul, a man who lives in a nearby camp.
But droughts — one in the early 1970s and another from 1998 to 2002 — killed as much as three quarters of the Kuchi's livestock. Landmines and bombings killed many others.
With few economic prospects, many Kuchis made their way to the cities.
Drought and war forced Khan Mohammed, 32, to Kandahar from nearby Helmand Province. What money he and his family have, comes from day labour in the city. A month ago, the owner of the land they live on told them they must leave.
"For God's sake, where will we go?" he asked the owner, who plans to sell the land.
The owner hasn't relented, but Kuchis have long dealt with such problems, Mohammed says.
"We'll find another place, another way."
Kuchis currently make up about 70 per cent of Afghanistan's 200,000 internally displaced people. Many live in camps like the ones outside Kandahar, others in UN camps in the city.
Because they are largely nomadic, Kuchis historically abstained from the country's politics, but under Afghanistan's constitution, they were given 10 seats in parliament. But despite supporting President Hamid Karzai in the 2004 presidential elections, Haji Wakil Abdullah, one of the Kuchi MPs, says they have seen little benefit.
Their best-known leader, Haji Niam Kuchi, even spent more than a year in U.S. custody, including a stint in Guantanamo Bay.
Recently, Abdullah and the other Kuchi leaders met with Karzai, who is currently trying to shore up support for the upcoming presidential election. He promised them parcels of land, but although Abdullah plans to support Karzai, he has little faith the president will follow through.
"So far, nothing has been done for the Kuchi people," says Abdullah, who sports a neatly trimmed died black beard and a striking mustard yellow turban.
There is no reliable information on how many Kuchi's are in the country. Their greatest concentration is in the Registan Desert in the southernmost part of the country, where their camel trains still snake across the burnt red sand. Abdullah wants a census of the Kuchis done so they can get more representation and resources.
Their list of needs is long: basic health services, land and livestock, but Abdullah believes their number one priority is education. It's this lack of education he blames for the Kuchi's ties to the Taliban in some parts of the county.
In Wardak Province, southwest of Kabul, Kuchis have engaged in armed clashes with ethnic Hazara's over grazing land. The Hazara's are another historically oppressed group, Shia Muslims who are thought to have descended from Mongols who ruled the area in the 13th century.
The Hazaras say the Kuchis are targeting them with the help of the Taliban — fellow Pashtuns and Sunni Muslims — who want to stoke ethnic and sectarian tensions.
For their part, the Kuchis allege the Hazaras are propped up by Iran and are driving them from grazing land they have always used for centuries.
Abdullah believes the Kuchis have a role to play in the future of the country, if the government would only help them.
"The Kuchis are able to deal with every other tribe," he says. "The Kuchis can even play a role in bringing the Taliban onside."
The families living in camps outside Kandahar don't know who their political leaders are. In the short term, they want one of two things: livestock or land. If they get livestock, they will resume a partially nomadic lifestyle, if they get land, they will farm it.
Until then, it's hard for Khan Mohammed not to look backward.
"We used to have everything. Our hearts were full, our stomachs were full and our children were healthy."
The North has put its army on full alert in the face of the annual spring military joint exercises.It has also cut off its border and telephone links with the South in protest at military exercises by American and South Korean troops which began on Monday.Plans for a launch were first picked up by satellite imagery, with foreign intelligence agencies saying it was a test of a long-range Taepodong-2 missile with the capacity to hit parts of the United States. The United States said it would shoot down the missile if it headed towards its territory. Japan has suggested it might try to intercept any launch, even if the payload is a communications satellite as claimed by Pyongyang. "If the enemies recklessly opt for intercepting our satellite, our revolutionary armed forces will launch without hesitation a just retaliatory strike operation," the general staff of the North Korean army said in a statement on state media. It singled out the United States, Japan and South Korea as targets. "Shooting our satellite for peaceful purposes will precisely mean a war," it said. The North has put its army on full alert in the face of the annual spring military joint exercises begun today by the South Koreans and Americans. It shut the border point which allows South Koreans to visit a special industrial zone in the city of Kaesong which is funded and run by South Korean companies. The South said 726 people had been turned back. "It is nonsensical to maintain a normal communications channel at a time when the South Korean puppets are getting frantic with the above-said war exercises, levelling guns at fellow countrymen in league with foreign forces," the North said. Last week it also said it could not guarantee the safety of civilian aircraft which approached North Korean airspace during the exercises, causing airlines to adjust their routes. This threat in particular is beyond the standard fare of North Korean rhetoric. It comes after six months of political uncertainty in relations between North Korea and the West, which had been improving slightly in the wake of a deal supposed to bring an end to its nuclear weapons programme. Most western analysts linked the uncertainty to the stroke believed to have been suffered by the North's leader, Kim Jong-il, last August. This weekend he emerged to cast his ballot in elections for the country's official parliament, in which he was a candidate. Turn-out was 99.98 per cent, with every candidate achieving 100 per cent of the vote, according to state media. Only one candidate's name appeared on each constituency ballot, and while it was theoretically possible to cross that candidate's name off, electors had to do so in a special booth, making clear they were dissenters. The main focus of interest during these elections was rumours that Kim's youngest son, Kim Jong-woon, would stand. There is as yet no clear sign of a succession to the leadership. If the rumours had been confirmed, Jong-woon would be the only one of the three sons to have been appointed to any official position, a clear sign that he was being marked out. But the full list of names published last night contained no mention of him, consigning at least for the time being yet another of many stories about the secretive Kim and his family to the dust.
Chinese President Hu Jintao stressed the necessity to promote development and stability in Tibet when joining a panel discussion with deputies of the National People's Congress (NPC) from the Tibet Autonomous Region on Monday.
"We must reinforce the solid Great Wall for combating separatism and safeguarding national unity, so as to promote a long-term stability in the region," said Hu.
The Chinese president said Tibet authorities must implement the central government's policies on Tibet, focus on development and stability, attain an economic great-leap-forward, safeguard "national security" and "social stability" and keep improving people's living standard.
"Tibet should stick to the development road with Chinese and Tibetan features so as to strengthen the material foundation of the building of socialistic new Tibet, improve people's life and let people of all ethnics share the fruit of development," he said.
TEHRAN - Iran said on Monday the United States was failing in Afghanistan and should recognize a new approach is needed, four days after Washington said it would invite Tehran to a conference to discuss its neighbor.
Foreign Minister Manouchehr Mottaki did not say whether Iran would accept the U.S. invitation to this month's planned meeting on Afghanistan, a swift overture toward Tehran by the new administration of U.S. President Barack Obama.
Iran's government spokesman said on Saturday the Islamic Republic would consider such a request and that it was ready to help Afghanistan as it battles a growing Taliban insurgency.
An Iranian analyst said he believed Iran would attend as it "wants to be recognized as a key player in Afghanistan."
Iran and the United States have not had diplomatic ties for three decades and are now embroiled in a dispute over Tehran's nuclear program, which the West suspects is aimed at making bombs. Iran says it is for peaceful power purposes.
But the two foes share an interest in ensuring a stable Afghanistan, analysts say.
Mottaki said the United States came to Afghanistan aiming to root out extremism, restore security and fight the drugs trade.
"All indicators in regard to these three areas show that the conditions have deteriorated sharply," he told state television.
Mottaki said this indicated U.S. policies in Afghanistan were "incorrect." U.S. officials should "suggest that they want to apply a new orientation," he added.
The commander of U.S. and NATO forces in Afghanistan, General David McKiernan, told the British Broadcasting Corporation on Monday that despite successes in some areas of Afghanistan NATO was not winning in parts of the south.
"There are other areas -- large areas in the southern part of Afghanistan especially, but in parts of the east -- where we are not winning," he said in an interview.
Iran has often called for U.S. forces to leave the region, saying they are making the situation worse.
Obama, in a major shift in U.S. policy, has said the United States wants to engage Iran. The Afghanistan invitation would be the start of a diplomatic approach to the Islamic state.
IRAN ROLE
While Iran and the United States sat at the same table to discuss Afghanistan after the September 11, 2001, attacks on the United States, the Bush administration made sure the new pro-Western Afghan government kept Tehran at arm's length.
Analysts have predicted the Obama team was likely to begin a dialogue with Iran on issues such as Afghanistan, where the United States is trying to turn around a war it risks losing and where it plans to send an additional 17,000 troops.
"Iran does have substantial influence in Afghanistan," said the Iranian analyst, who declined to be named.
Afghanistan's foreign minister made clear he wanted Iran to attend the conference, possibly on March 31, which would also bring in neighbors including Pakistan as well as other players.
"We warmly welcome any precious role that Iran wants to play to strengthen peace in Afghanistan," Afghan Foreign Minister Rangeen Dadfar Spanta told reporters during a visit to Tehran.
Mohammad Hassan Khani, an assistant professor of international relations at Tehran's Imam Sadiq University, said it was in the interests of both Islamic nations and the West that Tehran and Washington tried to resolve their disputes.
"Efforts that include goodwill, engagement and negotiation certainly should be more successful than continued hostility," he wrote in the Washington Post. "The United States has made a start by including Iran in discussions regarding Afghanistan."
US companies are queuing up as the president moves to ease restrictions on travel and trade, raising hopes of warmer relations and an end to the embargo Rory Carroll, Latin America correspondent
President Barack Obama is poised to offer an olive branch to Cuba in an effort to repair the US's tattered reputation in Latin America.
The White House has moved to ease some travel and trade restrictions as a cautious first step towards better ties with Havana, raising hopes of an eventual lifting of the four-decade-old economic embargo. Several Bush-era controls are expected to be relaxed in the run-up to next month's Summit of the Americas in Trinidad and Tobago to gild the president's regional debut and signal a new era of "Yankee" cooperation.
The administration has moved to ease draconian travel controls and lift limits on cash remittances that Cuban-Americans can send to the island, a lifeline for hundreds of thousands of families.
"The effect on ordinary Cubans will be fairly significant. It will improve things and be very welcome," said a western diplomat in Havana. The changes would reverse hardline Bush policies but not fundamentally alter relations between the superpower and the island, he added. "It just takes us back to the 1990s."
The provisions are contained in a $410bn (£290bn) spending bill due to be voted on this week. The legislation would allow Americans with immediate family in Cuba to visit annually, instead of once every three years, and broaden the definition of immediate family. It would also drop a requirement that Havana pay cash in advance for US food imports.
"There is a strong likelihood that Obama will announce policy changes prior to the summit," said Daniel Erikson, director of Caribbean programmes at the Inter-American Dialogue and author of The Cuba Wars. "Loosening travel restrictions would be the easy thing to do and defuse tensions at the summit."
Latin America, once considered Washington's "backyard", has become newly assertive and ended the Castro government's pariah status. The presidents of Brazil, Chile, Dominican Republic, Ecuador and Guatemala have recently visited Havana to deepen economic and political ties. Brazil's president, Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva, is expected to tell Obama on a White House visit this week that the region views the US embargo as anachronistic and vindictive. Easing it would help mend Washington's strained relations with the "pink tide" of leftist governments.
Obama's proposed Cuba measures would only partly thaw a policy frozen since John F Kennedy tried to isolate the communist state across the Florida Straits. "It would signal new pragmatism, but you would still have the embargo, which is the centrepiece of US policy," said Erikson.
Wayne Smith at the Centre for International Policy, Washington DC, said: "I think that the Obama administration will go ahead and lift restrictions on travel of Cuban Americans and remittance to their families. He may also lift restrictions on academic travel.
"There are some things that could be done very easily - for example it's about time we took Cuba off the terrorist list. It's the beginning of the end of the policies we have had towards Cuba for 50 years. It's achieved nothing, it's an embarrassment."
Wayne Smith, a former head of the US Interest Section in Havana, famously said Cuba had the same effect on American administrations as the full moon had on werewolves.
Cuban exiles in Florida, a crucial voting bloc in a swing state, sustained a hardline US policy towards Havana even as the cold war ended and the US traded with other undemocratic nations with much worse human rights records.
To Washington's chagrin, the economic stranglehold did not topple Fidel Castro. When Soviet Union subsidies evaporated, the "maximum leader" implemented savage austerity, opened the island to tourism and found a new sponsor in Venezuela's petrol-rich president, Hugo Chávez.
When Fidel fell ill in 2006, power transferred seamlessly to his brother Raúl. He cemented his authority last week with a cabinet reshuffle that replaced "Fidelistas" with "Raúlistas" from the military.
Recognising Castro continuity, and aghast at European and Asian competitors getting a free hand, US corporate interests are impatient to do business with Cuba. Oil companies want to drill offshore, farmers to export more rice, vegetables and meat, construction firms to build infrastructure projects.
Young Cuban exiles in Florida, less radical than their parents, have advocated ending the policy of isolation. As a senator, Obama opposed the embargo, but as a presidential candidate he supported it - and simultaneously promised engagement with Havana.
A handful of hardline anti-Castro Republican and Democrat members of Congress have threatened to derail the $410bn spending bill unless the Cuba provisions are removed, but most analysts think the legislation will survive.
Compared to intractable challenges in Afghanistan, Pakistan and the Middle East, the opportunity for quick progress on Cuba has been called the "low-hanging fruit" of US foreign policy.
That Obama has moved so cautiously has frustrated many reformers. But after decades of freeze, even a slight thaw is welcome, and there is speculation that more will follow.
Old enemies
President Kennedy imposed an economic and trade embargo on Cuba on 7 February 1962 after Fidel Castro's government expropriated US property on the island. Known by Cubans as el bloqueo, the blockade, elements have been toughened and relaxed under succeeding US presidents. Exceptions have been made for food and medicine exports. George Bush added restrictions on travel and remittances.
The sanctions regime
• No Cuban products or raw materials may enter the US
• US companies and foreign subsidiaries banned from trade with Cuba
• Cuba must pay cash up front when importing US food
• Ships which dock in Cuba may not dock in the US for six months
• US citizens banned from spending money or receiving gifts in Cuba without special permission, in effect a travel ban
• Americans with family on the island limited to one visit every three years.
PESHAWAR: A women peace jirga on Sunday demanded of the government not to compromise with extremists and militants at the cost of fundamental rights of women in the NWFP. ‘When negotiating and implementing peace agreements, adopt gender perspective, ensure protection of rights of women and girls. There should be no negotiations with militants and terrorists unless they commit to putting down arms, and under no condition threaten and violate women’s rights ensured in constitution and international covenant,’ said a declaration after the jirga. The event ‘role of women in peace and security’ was jointly organised by civil society organisations, women activists and parliamentarians of the ruling Awami National Party in connection with the International Women’s Day. Speakers on the occasion asked the government to ensure women’s perspective in negotiations and implementation of peace deals. They pointed out that insurgency and counter-insurgency strategies were threatening women’s rights and participation, mobility and access to socio-economic and political development.Musarrat Hilali, vice-chairperson Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, NWFP chapter, urged the provincial government that it should guarantee women’s rights to education, work, freedom of movement and other fundamental rights when it signed peace deals with militants.‘Islam gives women their due rights. When it comes to women’s rights then you should follow Islam not the Pakhtun mindset,’ she said while criticising the male-dominated society where, according to her, men suppressed women in the name of religion and culture.Afrasiab Khattak, ANP provincial president, said the government would not reconcile with those who oppose girls’ education. He assured that schools would open for girls in Swat. Khattak said that they held talks with militants and wanted to implement Nizam-i-Adal in Swat.‘The fire that has spread in our home could engulf the entire country. So we appeal to the rest of the country to help us bring peace here,’ Khattak said. He assured to amend those laws which violated women’s rights. ‘We will fight evil, destructive and violent forces which curb women’s rights.’Women had come from different civil society groups and political parties to attend the event. They spoke in Urdu, Pashto, Hindko, Siraiki and other languages. In a unified voice, they demanded peace so that women could play their role in social and economic development in the region.MPA Noor Sahar said that girls should not be deprived of education as they had a rebuilding role in society. Shabina Ayaz, resident director Aurat Foundation, highlighted the situation of women in the Frontier. Referring to the peace accord with the militants in Swat, she hoped that women of the province should not be forced to pay a price for the peace deals. ‘The government should always keep women’s rights in mind when signing such deals with the extremists,’ she said.The women jirga called upon the government to facilitate women’s participation in decision-making process. It demanded end to crimes against humanity including sexual violence against women. It sought an independent humanitarian commission to analyse the extent of devastation as a result of insurgency and military operations and recommend adequate compensation. Health and education facilities for women were also demanded.Slogans like ‘we flower-like children want peace’ and ‘war is not solution, don’t fight’ were also heard on the occasion. Women narrated their ordeal after the waves of extremism, militancy and military operations in the NWFP. The jirga ended with a peace rally. Women raised slogans for peace and were holding placards while marching from the Nishtar Hall to the Provincial Assembly building.Meanwhile, Women reiterated their demand for ending violence against women during a gathering.
Gains by Islamic extremists and anti-American sentiment among its people make it a tough test for Obama. Doyle McManus L.A. TIMES Late last month, the chief of Pakistan's army, Gen. Ashfaq Kayani, made an unpublicized visit to the White House to meet President Obama's new national security advisor, retired Marine Gen. James L. Jones Jr.The meeting did not go well. Speaking as one general to another, Jones pressed Kayani for a more aggressive war against Islamic militants in western Pakistan, beginning with the Swat Valley, where jihadists seized power this year. To Jones' frustration, Kayani responded only with vague assurances that he was working on the problem.The Obama administration is only halfway through its 60-day review of U.S. policy on Afghanistan and Pakistan, but top officials already have come to an important conclusion: Pakistan, not Afghanistan, is now the central front of the war against Islamic extremism. And nuclear-armed Pakistan is in trouble. Islamist extremism is on the rise, and the government and army appear incapable of reversing the tide.Both Osama bin Laden and Mullah Mohammed Omar, leader of Afghanistan's Taliban, run their operations out of Pakistan. And the country's homegrown Islamic militants, allied with Al Qaeda, are extending their rule across more and more territory as the pro-American civilian government seems paralyzed. Meanwhile, the army is trying to placate both the Americans and the Islamists. So what will the Obama administration do? Send more aid, for starters. The administration plans to ask Congress for an additional $1.5 billion each year for at least five years -- to bolster a government it mistrusts. And if aid alone can't do the trick, there are always those Hellfire missiles. The Obama administration has continued, and even escalated, a Bush administration campaign of covert airstrikes by unmanned aircraft against suspected Al Qaeda leaders in Pakistan. The architects of the CIA-run airstrike campaign are ebullient about its success. "Al Qaeda is on the ropes," the Bush administration's last terrorism czar, Juan Carlos Zarate, declared last week, coming perilously close to a "Mission Accomplished" moment.But others disagree. "Al Qaeda is winning," countered Bruce Hoffman, dean of U.S. terrorism scholars. "They're successfully subverting [Pakistan] and consolidating a sanctuary for themselves."The airstrikes have unquestionably disrupted the terrorist organization and made it less capable of carrying out plots like the 9/11 attacks on New York and the Pentagon. But on the ground, where the missiles have killed civilians as well as terrorists, the strikes have created anger against the United States. And there's evidence that the border strikes are driving militants deeper into Pakistan.That's why Pakistan's future is so important to the United States: It's becoming the haven for terrorists that American troops invaded Afghanistan to destroy.In 2001, when Bin Laden and Omar slipped across the border into Pakistan, they found shelter among sympathetic Pashtun tribesmen in the mountains. Back then, Pakistan's pro-Taliban Islamists were fragmented, feuding and relatively weak. But in the years that followed, the "Pakistani Taliban" has grown, formed new alliances, battled the Pakistani government's security forces -- and cemented its sway over the western tribal areas that have never truly been under government control.Now branches of the Taliban are asserting power in regions outside the tribal areas, most recently in the Swat Valley, only 100 miles northwest of the capital, Islamabad. There, a Taliban faction seized power, forced the army to negotiate a cease-fire and imposed a stricter form of Islamic law.The U.S. probably can't expect much help from Pakistan's civilian president, Asif Ali Zardari. The widower of Benazir Bhutto, who was once known as "Mr. 10%" for his reputed commissions on government contracts, is scrambling to rescue his slumping popularity among the Pakistani electorate. Last week, he insisted that the new leaders in Swat were merely "traditional local clerics." And the Obama administration wasn't impressed with Kayani's assurance last month that he's working on a strategy to reassert government authority in Swat. "Frankenstein's monster has taken over the lab and is threatening to move into the kitchen and dining room," a U.S. official told me last week. But the Pakistanis "have not yet decided to kill the monster."U.S. officials hope that spreading violence will sway Pakistani public opinion. Much of the country's elite -- including Zardari, a thoroughly secular figure who knows he's on the Taliban's hit list just as his wife was -- is horrified by the rise of the jihadists. But ordinary Pakistanis are divided, and a U.S.-administered poll last year found 63% opposed to cooperating with the United States. (The good news: That was down from 71%.)The Bush administration sent more than $10 billion in military aid to Pakistan in the wake of 9/11, but most of it went to strengthen the Pakistani army's conventional forces aimed at its traditional enemy, India, rather than to counterinsurgency forces on the western frontier. Kayani and his colleagues have renewed their requests for more, including helicopters and drone aircraft. Hard bargaining lies ahead.But the administration's main thrust will be a major increase in economic aid to build roads, bridges and schools in a desperately poor country, in hopes that such things will help the civilian government win the people's support against the Taliban.In a year when Obama is already asking for a tax increase, another bank bailout and healthcare reform, it will be tough to sell Congress on sending billions more in aid to a country with shaky civilian leaders, balky military leaders and a population largely opposed to cooperating with the United States. But the alternatives look worse.
KARACHI: Mohammad Shahid scrapes together a living in a city slum by painting birds, flowers, animals and celebrity portraits onto minibuses – and vows never to return to the horrors of Swat valley.After pro-Taliban vigilantes beat and threatened him at gunpoint, he swapped the green pastures and sweeping mountains of his birthplace for the concrete jungle of Pakistan’s smoggy metropolis.It was heart-breaking to leave the idyll of his youth, he said, but there was no choice.‘I had to come here because there was no other chance for me or my family to survive,’ said 45-year-old Shahid. The memories of the terrifying campaign waged by hardliners to enforce sharia law are still fresh for Shahid, and no fledgling truce between the government and those who chased him out will persuade him to return.‘I’m a painter, an artist. I can’t do anything else to earn a living. The Taliban won’t allow people like us to do our work, which saw my family suffer.’‘What would I do if I return in these conditions? They will remain in control of the region and no one will have freedom to work at will.’The one-time ski resort became a battlefield. Rotar blades from helicopter gunships sliced through the once-clear skies. Warplanes roared overhead.Anything deemed ‘un-Islamic’ was banned. Opponents were beheaded, more than 120 girls’ schools were bombed, entertainment was outlawed.Shahid said he used to make a good living painting landscapes, birds, Pakistani and Indian film stars, pavement caricatures and portraits, which were popular with tourists who flocked to the once-friendly and tolerant valley.But then the fanatics came, the tourists left and life changed for those who made a living from the arts.Suspected Taliban militants kidnapped and murdered a dancer, Shabana, who ignored warnings to quit her profession. Her bullet-riddled body was dumped on the main roundabout of Green Chowk in the main town of Mingora last December.One after another, artists, dancers and singers renounced their profession or fled to more liberal cities such as Karachi, Lahore or Islamabad.Those who flee are haunted by beheadings and bombingsOne day, Shahid said, gun-toting vigilantes walked into his studio.‘They beat and insulted me for doing something that they said was forbidden by religion,’ Shahid said.‘From now on, don’t paint creatures’,’ Shahid quoted one of them as saying, ‘otherwise you’ll suffer an unprecedented punishment’.’Shahid rang his brother, a construction worker in Karachi.‘He asked me to leave immediately. I took my wife and four children, caught a bus from Mingora and came here.’He rented a place in Karachi’s western Baldia Colony slum, found a job painting trucks and buses, and put his children in school. Shahid said the humidity and pollution of Karachi frequently make his children ill, but he insists he will never again put himself at the mercy of the ‘unpredictable’ militants in Swat.‘One’s life will still be in danger no matter what guarantee they give,’Shahid said. ‘I don’t want to disturb my daughter’s studies. She’s in school here. The militants could reverse their pledge any moment.’Even in Peshawar, artists have come under threat from the extremists.Nishtar Hall, the only theatre in Peshawar, has been closed for six years.Militants kidnapped Alam Zeb Mujahid, a famous Pashto comedian, from the upscale Hayatabad neighbourhood in January, held him for five days and let him go only after he renounced all drama and film work.Haroon Bacha, a renowned Pashto singer Swabi for the United States when militants demanded he stop singing.‘I started getting threats from the Taliban about a year ago. I was told to stop singing. There were letters, there were phone calls and there were text messages,’ he wrote to AFP in an email message from Washington.‘They used to come to my home very frequently, telling me to stop music or I would be killed.’CD and music shops, Internet cafes and barbers who shave beards – all have been targeted and many shut down. Some of those brave enough to stay open have hired private security. And for many of those who have left, the bombings and beheadings stay with them. ‘My little children still scream when they see planes flying. Children run for shelter in Swat when they see planes or helicopters,’ says Hashim Khan, a 37-year-old labourer who lives near Karachi airport.‘They saw planes bombing in Swat. It still haunts their dreams. I saw bodies lying near Green Chowk, the roundabout where Shabana was dumped.‘The area once symbolised our city’s beauty but now it has become ‘khooni’ (bloody) Chowk,’ he said.
ANKARA, Turkey - For one of his first foreign visits, President Barack Obama will call on NATO ally Turkey, an overwhelmingly Muslim country viewed as critical to aiding the U.S. pullout from Iraq, turning around the Afghanistan war and blocking Iran's nuclear ambitions.The invasion of Iraq has strained the long friendship between the U.S. and Turkey, a Western-style democracy that straddles Europe and the Middle East and has an Islamic-oriented government. Obama's visit, expected at the end of a European trip in early April, would mark an improvement in ties."We share a commitment to democracy, a secular constitution, respect for religious freedom and belief and in free market and a sense of global responsibility," U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton said Saturday in announcing Obama's plans after meeting with Turkish leaders in the capital.The visit is "a reflection of the value we place on our friendship with Turkey," the chief American diplomat said on the last stop of her weeklong trip to five countries. The president asked her to make the announcement, she added.Turkey had advised against the U.S.-led invasion of Iraq in 2003 and refused to permit U.S. ground forces to launch elements of the attack from Turkish soil.In a more cordial atmosphere now, Washington and Ankara are consulting on ways Turkey can help facilitate the withdrawal of U.S. troops from Iraq. Turkey has said it is ready to serve as an exit route for the Americans. The U.S. air base at Incirlik, Turkey, has been used for transfer of U.S. troops and equipment to Iraq and Afghanistan."We have to discuss what will pass, what kind of equipment," Foreign Minister Ali Babacan said at a news conference with Clinton. "We are ready to cooperate."Neither Clinton nor the White House would confirm a date for Obama's visit. But it probably will follow his trip to Europe from March 31 to April 5 that includes a NATO summit and meetings with European Union leaders; Turkey is seeking EU membership. Obama's only trip since taking office Jan. 20 has been a day visit to Canada.The announcement drew an immediate question about whether Obama, who has pledged to work to repair America's reputation worldwide, had settled on Turkey as the site for a promised major speech in a Muslim capital. The answer was no — that will come during a later trip. Speculation has run high that Obama might give it in Indonesia, the world's most populous Islamic nation and his home for four years as a child."We've got a unique opportunity to reboot America's image around the world and also in the Muslim world in particular. So we need to take advantage of that," Obama said in a December newspaper interview, though he declined to say whether the speech would happen in his first year.Obama's ascension to the White House won cheers around the globe as a sign that America would be more embracing and open to change. In his Inauguration Day address, the new president said, "To the Muslim world, we seek a new way forward, based on mutual interest and mutual respect." Obama also gave his first formal television interview as president to the Saudi-owned Al-Arabiya network.Before Obama sees NATO leaders, his national security council plans to finish an Afghanistan policy review. The manner in which that policy is announced is expected to be packaged with direct outreach to the Muslim world.The U.S. has about 38,000 troops in Afghanistan and is the largest contributor to a joint NATO force. NATO also has about 30,000 non-U.S. troops there.The war effort in Afghanistan has deteriorated the past two years as the Taliban and extremist insurgency has gained strength and U.S. and allied casualties have increased. Obama has approved sending an additional 17,000 U.S. troops to Afghanistan this spring and summer, but he also has emphasized the need to have a broader, unified international approach to the war.The Turks think the U.S. should put more focus on expanding and improving the Afghan security forces and on pressing Afghan authorities to reconcile with elements of the Islamic insurgency, rather than on putting tens of thousands more U.S. troops.Incirlik could take on a greater role following Kyrgyzstan's recent order that the U.S. vacate on air base on its territory that is a transit point for 15,000 troops and 500 tons of cargo each month to and from Afghanistan.Obama answered "no" when asked in a New York Times interview Friday whether the war was being won and raised the possibility of reconciliation with elements of the Taliban.On Iran, which shares a border with Turkey, the Obama administration has raised the prospect of diplomatic engagement as part of a new direction in U.S. foreign policy. But a chief source of friction is Iran's nuclear policy. The U.S. and other countries believe the program is intended to produce weapons; the Iranians say it is designed for civilian energy production. Yet during her trip, Clinton accused Iran of seeking to "intimidate as far as they think their voice can reach."Turkey supports Iran's right to develop nuclear energy for peaceful use but wants Tehran to be transparent about its nuclear program and favors dialogue.In addition to her talks with Turkish leaders, Clinton appeared on a popular TV talk show that focuses on women's issues. Several women asked Clinton about Michelle Obama, whom the secretary of state praised as a good role model. None brought up Clinton's personal life, but one asked her about a comment she made during her swearing-in ceremony at the State Department on Feb. 2 in which she thanked her husband for "a lifetime of — all kinds of experiences." The woman asked how she coped with those experiences.Clinton replied that she relied on forgiveness, friends, family and faith."I don't know anybody whose life is smooth sailing. If you meet such a person I'd like to know him because I've lived a long time and I've yet to meet such a person," she said.
PESHAWAR: A bomb-laden car exploded Saturday in northwest Pakistan as police tried to pull a body from it, authorities said, killing seven police and a bystander as international fears grow over security and political stability in the nuclear-armed country.Al Qaeda, Taliban and linked militants have staged numerous attacks against security forces along Pakistan's northwest border with Afghanistan, but Saturday's appeared to be the first to use a body as a lure.It occurred in the Badaber area, where residents recently evicted militants with help from police, prompting threats of retaliation.Separately, a roadside bomb struck a military convoy in the northwest town of Darra Adam Khel, killing three passers-by and wounding four troops, government official Asif Khan said.On Saturday, officers were dispatched to Badaber, which lies on the outskirts of Peshawar, after an unknown caller told them a body was in a parked car, according to Police Chief Rahim Shah.'Police went there. They found the white car. They also saw a body inside, but when they were pulling it out, the car bomb went off,' he said, calling the set-up a 'new technique.'Footage from the scene showed a police van whose front was decimated.The attack occurred just outside the Khyber tribal region, a part of Pakistan's tribal belt where military forces have staged offensives to stem militant activity.
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