Whip me if you dare' says Lubna Hussein, Sudan's defiant trouser woman

www.telegraph.co.uk
As the morality police crowded around her table in a Khartoum restaurant, leering at her to see what she was wearing, Lubna Hussein had no idea she was about to become the best-known woman in Sudan.
She had arrived at the Kawkab Elsharq Hall on a Friday night to book a cousin's wedding party, and while she waited she watched an Egyptian singer and sipped a coke.
She left less than an hour later under arrest as a "trouser girl" - humiliated in front of hundreds of people, then beaten around the head in a police van before being hauled before a court to face a likely sentence of 40 lashes for the "sin" of not wearing traditional Islamic dress.
The officials who tried to humiliate her expected her to beg for mercy, as most of their victims do.
Instead she turned the tables on them – and in court on Tuesday Mrs Hussein will dare judges to have her flogged, as she makes a brave stand for women's rights in one of Africa's most conservative nations.
She has become an overnight heroine for thousands of women in Africa and the Middle East, who are flooding her inbox with supportive emails. To the men who feel threatened by her she is an enemy of public morals, to be denounced in the letters pages of newspapers and in mosques.
As she recounted her ordeal in Khartoum yesterday Mrs Hussein, a widow in her late thirties who works as a journalist and United Nations' press officer, managed cheerfully to crack jokes - despite the real prospect that in a couple of days she will be flogged with a camel-hair whip in a public courtyard where anyone who chooses may watch the spectacle.
Her interview with The Sunday Telegraph was her first with a Western newspaper.
"Flogging is a terrible thing – very painful and a humiliation for the victim," she said. "But I am not afraid of being flogged. I will not back down.
"I want to stand up for the rights of women, and now the eyes of the world are on this case I have a chance to draw attention to the plight of women in Sudan."
She could easily have escaped punishment by simply claiming immunity as a UN worker, as she is entitled to under Sudanese law. Instead, she is resigning from the UN – to the confusion of judges who last Wednesday adjourned the case because they did not know what to do with her.
"When I was in court I felt like a revolutionary standing before the judges," she said, her eyes blazing with pride. "I felt as if I was representing all the women of Sudan."
Like many other women in the capital, Mrs Hussein fell foul of Sudan's Public Order Police, hated groups of young puritans employed by the government to crack down on illegal drinkers of alcohol and women who, in their view, are insufficiently demure.
Despite their claims of moral superiority, they have a reputation for dishonesty and for demanding sexual favours from women they arrest.
Mrs Hussein was one of 14 women arrested at the Kawkab Elsharq Hall, a popular meeting place for the capital's intellectuals and journalists, who bring their families. Most of them were detained for wearing trousers. The police had difficulty seeing what Mrs Hussein was wearing under her loose, flowing Sudanese clothes. She was wearing green trousers, not the jeans that she said she sometimes wears, and wore a headscarf, as usual.
"They were very rude," she said. "A girl at a table near mine was told to stand up and told to take a few steps and then turn around, in a very humiliating way. She was let off when they 'discovered' she was not wearing trousers."
After her arrest, on the way to a police station, she tried to calm the younger girls.
"All the girls were forced to crouch on the floor of the pick-up with all the policemen sitting on the sides," she said. "They were all very terrified and crying hysterically, except me as I had been arrested before during university days by the security services.
"So I began to try to calm the girls, telling them this wasn't very serious. The response of the policeman was to snatch my mobile phone, and he hit me hard on the head with his open hand.
"On the way I felt so humiliated and downtrodden. In my mind was the thought that we were only treated like this because we were females."
Christian women visiting from the south of Sudan were among the 10 women who admitted their error and were summarily flogged with 10 lashes each. But Mrs Hussein declined to admit her guilt and insisted on her right to go before a judge.
While waiting for her first court appearance, she said she was surprised to find herself held in a single cramped detention cell with other prisoners of both sexes. "How Islamic is that?" she asked. "This should not happen under Sharia."
Mrs Hussein is a long-standing critic of Sudan's government, headed by President Omar al-Bashir, the first head of state to face an international arrest warrant for war crimes. Sudan has been accused of committing atrocities in the Darfur region.
Before her arrest she had written several articles criticising the regime, although she believes she was picked at random by the morality police.
The regime has often caused international revulsion for religious extremism. In 2007 British teacher Gillian Gibbons was briefly imprisoned for calling the classroom teddy bear Mohammed.
The government is dominated by Islamists, although only the northern part of the nation is Muslim. Young women are frequently harassed and arrested by the regime's morality police.
Mrs Hussein said: "The acts of this regime have no connection with the real Islam, which would not allow the hitting of women for the clothes they are wearing and in fact would punish anyone who slanders a woman.
"These laws were made by this current regime which uses it to humiliate the people and especially women. These tyrants are here to distort the real image of Islam."
She was released from custody after her first court appearance last week, since when she has appeared on Sudanese television and radio to argue her case - which has made headlines around the world.
She is not only in trouble with police and judges. A day after her court appearance she was threatened by a motorcyclist, who did not remove his helmet. He told her that she would end up like an Egyptian woman who was murdered in a notorious recent case.
Since then she has not slept at home, moving between the houses of relatives. She believes her mobile telephone has been listened to by the security services using scanners.
But she has pledged to keep up her fight. "I hope the situation of women improves in Sudan. Whatever happens I will continue to fight for women's rights."

Fires of hate in Gojra

EDITORIAL.DAWN.COM
Gojra is a mess. There was widespread communal violence in the town on Saturday and initial reports said masked men were on the rampage and a rally had been fired upon, leaving many injured. The administration was struggling to control the situation as local businesses were shut down. Trains were blocked and a number of arson attacks took place. This fresh wave of violence was related to the alleged desecration of the Holy Quran by three Christian men in a village on the outskirts of Gojra.

A day earlier, on Friday, a mob had set some 70 houses belonging to the Christian community in the village on fire. It was an administrative failure and even though ‘notice’ of the acts of arson ‘was taken’ by the chief minister, the prime minister, the president and the administration looked totally helpless in the face of the repeat of violence, this time in Gojra city on Saturday.

A federal minister and a provincial minister dispatched to the area on Friday could do little to defuse the situation. On Saturday, Dost Muhammad Khosa, Punjab minister for local government, tried desperately to pacify the enraged crowd. Few were prepared to listen to Mr Khosa’s pleas and the police were left with no option but to resort to tear-gas shelling in an effort to restore order. The injured included policemen and at least one senior administration official.

This is a typical blasphemy case in its various details. What is unfortunately changing is the scale and intensity of the reaction as well as its frequency. Only a few weeks ago, rows upon rows of houses belonging to Christians were set on fire in Kasur.

Compensation was promised to the affected but while the government might have felt satisfied over the ‘final settlement’ of the issue, observers were shocked by the ferocity and freedom with which the act of violence was carried out. Gojra reconfirms the fear that the state is finding it harder with the passage of time to protect citizens under attack by vengeful, organised and well-armed groups. It is one of the grimmest examples of the tattered nature of our social fabric. It will take contributions from everyone to sort this out.

A major problem is that the very people who are central to establishing peace between communities and sects are the biggest political beneficiaries of violence perpetrated in the name of faith. Missing from our line of defence against intolerance is the local cleric and the leader of the religious party who is prone to resorting to blackmail to get what he wants. He must move before he is also consumed by the raging fires. Meanwhile, the state can at least be unbiased.

Karzai Campaigns in Remote Afghan Valley

New York Times

DAR-E-KAYAN, Afghanistan — President Hamid Karzai flew into this remote valley in Afghanistan’s central highlands Saturday to seek the vote from the Ismaili community, on his second campaign rally outside the capital ahead of the election this month.

The rally, more of a tribal gathering for the Ismailis, a sect of minority Shiite Muslims, was indicative of how Mr. Karzai has maintained political support during his nearly eight years in power, and how he is running his campaign for re-election. In the age-old tradition of Afghan politics, Mr. Karzai has sought out the support of influential tribal and religious leaders, as well as the wartime faction leaders who have merged as power brokers more recently, who can command the support of their followers and communities.

Several thousand Ismaili men, women and children gathered from four northern provinces on Friday to meet their spiritual leader, Sayed Mansoor Nadiri, in the Kayan Valley before Mr. Karzai’s appearance. Many came over the mountain passes on foot and stayed overnight sleeping under trees, in gardens and in nearby villages to receive Mr. Karzai on Saturday.

Mr. Nadiri declared that the Ismailis had decided to give their support to Mr. Karzai for the Aug. 20 presidential election, and the people agreed without demur.

“We have been ordered by our leader to vote for Hamid Karzai,” said Khaliq Dad, 40, who drove with his wife and four children on dozens of miles of rugged dirt roads to attend the rally. “His choice is our choice,” he said of Mr. Nadiri.

Once broadly popular among the people of Afghanistan, Mr. Karzai’s approval ratings have dived over the last three years. Now he is widely criticized for corruption in his administration, for his continued alliances with warlords and power brokers, and for the strengthening Taliban insurgency.

Yet the Ismailis, an impoverished, remote community that suffered intensely under Taliban rule, will almost certainly follow their spiritual leaders’ direction.

“We, the Ismaili community, through our council and our political allies have chosen Hamid Karzai as our candidate and consider him better than the other candidates,” Mr. Nadiri said at a news briefing for journalists in Kayan. He praised Mr. Karzai as having brought democracy to Afghanistan and making his cabinet reflect many ethnicities. In tribal fashion, Mr. Nadiri hosted the gathering, feeding several thousand of his people for two days as they gathered to see Mr. Karzai.

Abdul Nazar, 50, a poor resident of the Kayan Valley, was one of several hundred men who enthusiastically pressed forward to greet their leader. He complained about the lack of water and food in his village and criticized Mr. Karzai’s government as having neglected the valley, but nevertheless he said he would vote again for Mr. Karzai.

“We received no help from the government, but we will support Karzai as our leader,” he said.

Mr. Karzai flew in with a fleet of three helicopters, and was greeted by villagers who had been waiting for hours in the intense sun. Hundreds of Afghan soldiers with the National Army, presidential bodyguards, police and intelligence officers were deployed the day before in the valley to guarantee security.

Mr. Karzai thanked the people and Mr. Nadiri for their support and spoke of his achievements in government, like the increased number of students in universities and increased money in Afghanistan’s treasury.

“We have made a long trip, a long trip with much happiness. But our happiness has been mixed with sorrows as we do not have overall security in the country,” he told the crowd. “Still terrorism exists, and still it is killing our people.”

He emphasized his three-point development plan for Afghanistan, an internationally financed program that has also become his campaign mantra.

“If I win I will have three specific programs: first to enhance peace, second to keep good relations and friendship with the world, the U.S. and Islamic world, and third to continue development, including education and building roads,” he said.

He also promised to focus on agriculture and water. “With agriculture we can stand on our own feet and feed not only ourselves but other countries. And with water we can make dams and produce electricity,” he said. “We are going forward with strong steps.”

3 U.S. Soldiers Killed in Blasts

Three American soldiers were killed in two blasts in southern Afghanistan on Saturday, an American military spokesman said.

Thousands of American and British troops are conducting anti-Taliban operations in the region ahead of this month’s presidential elections.

Separately, a French soldier was killed and two others were wounded during a clash with insurgents north of Kabul, the French military said in a statement.

Obama says many months before U.S. exits recession

WASHINGTON - President Barack Obama warned on Saturday it would take "many more months" for the United States to get out of recession even after GDP figures showed the economy shrank only modestly in the second quarter.

Obama, who has defended his young administration's economic policies in recent weeks in the face of worsening unemployment numbers, said jobless figures next week would still show that too many Americans were losing work.

"It will take many more months to fully dig ourselves out of a recession - a recession that we've now learned was even deeper than anyone thought," the president said in his weekly radio and Internet address.

"And when we receive our monthly job report next week, it is likely to show that we are continuing to lose far too many jobs in this country. As far as I'm concerned, we will not have a recovery as long as we keep losing jobs," he said.

Afghan poll workers ambushed; U.S. soldiers killed

KABUL (Reuters) - A convoy of campaign workers for Afghan President Hamid Karzai was ambushed five times on Saturday, officials said, as Taliban insurgents step up efforts to disrupt the presidential election.

The U.S. military also said three U.S. troops were killed in the south, while a French soldier died and two were wounded in fighting in Kapisa province in the east, French officials said.

The Taliban this week vowed to disrupt the Aug 20. presidential election and called on Afghans to boycott it.

Violence had already reached its highest level since the Taliban were toppled in 2001 and then escalated after the launch of military offensives in southern Helmand province.

Civilians and security forces have been killed at record rates in recent weeks, with attacks by insurgents now also focusing on election candidates and officials.

Fazel Ahmad, a campaign worker for Karzai, said the convoy was attacked by Taliban insurgents five times as it drove back to Kabul from Ghazni in the southeast. One security guard was killed, he said.

Juma Gul, a candidate for Ghazni provincial elections, and another security guard were wounded, Ahmad said.

Karzai was not in the convoy and was campaigning in northern Baghlan province at the time of the attack.

"We were ambushed by insurgents five times in Ghazni but fortunately we have few casualties," Ahmad told Reuters.

"They were well-planned attacks but we managed to escape."

Ghazni chief Khial Baz Sherzai said the campaign workers had not told police they would be in the area but police later responded, killing five Taliban and wounding six.

OFFICES BOMBED

It was the fourth ambush of a candidate or campaign official in little more than a week, although no national candidates have been seriously wounded.

Among those attacked were Karzai's vice-presidential running mate Mohammad Qasim Fahim.

Several campaign offices have also been bombed, with most of the attacks blamed on the Taliban.

Former foreign minister Abdullah Abdullah, one of few serious challengers to Karzai among a field of 36 contenders, said he was concerned by the number of election-related attacks.

"It is the government's duty to provide proper security for the election campaign but, unfortunately, they have absolutely failed to do so," Abdullah told reporters in his Kabul office.

International and Afghan analysts and observers have said continued, widespread violence could lead to either poor voter turn-out or widespread fraud in the voting.

Karzai remains a clear front-runner ahead of Abdullah and former finance minister Ashraf Ghani. Poor security or a vote fractured across the wide field appear Karzai's biggest concerns.

Campaigning in Kayan, Karzai said he would redouble his efforts toward achieving peace if he is re-elected.

"After succeeding through your votes, the start of my first day of work will be to intensify the efforts for peace in this land," Karzai told thousands of supporters in a mountain valley.

On Monday, Karzai's government said it had struck a ceasefire deal with the Taliban for the election in a remote province in the northwest, the first of its kind.

Senior Taliban leaders however later said there was no ceasefire with the government anywhere in Afghanistan. Three days later the Taliban issued a statement vowing to disrupt the poll and called on Afghans to boycott the vote.

Little information was available about the latest three U.S. military casualties other than they were killed when their patrol was hit by two roadside bombs.

A total of 41 U.S. troops were killed in Afghanistan in July, well above the previous monthly high of 26 in September 2008.

Britain has also suffered its worst battlefield losses in almost a generation, with 22 killed in July.

The heavy losses came after thousands of U.S. Marines and British troops launched operations last month to clear the Taliban from areas of Helmand.

The Helmand operations are the first under U.S. President Barack Obama's new regional strategy to defeat the Taliban and stabilize Afghanistan. The poll is seen as a test of that policy, and of Kabul's ability to hold a credible and legitimate ballot.

7 Christians burnt alive in Gojra riots

www.dailytimes.com.pk

LAHORE: The government deployed the Rangers to the town of Gojra on Saturday after at least seven Christians, including three women, were burnt alive and dozens injured following the second incident of violence against Christians in Punjab in one month.

The latest riots, which started almost a week ago following allegations that a copy of the holy Quran was defiled, escalated on Saturday as locals shouting slogans against Christians took to the streets in Christian Town, a Christian-only locality. Following the escalation, Interior Minister Rehman Malik, on directions of President Asif Ali Zardari, ordered the Punjab Rangers to reach Gojra and help the civil administration maintain law and order. Eyewitnesses said a protesting mob turned violent when armed men from Jhang reached the spot and started attacking Christian houses. Locals claimed the attackers were members of a banned organisation, adding they carried sophisticated weaponry. Emboldened by the attackers, the mob started throwing acid and petrol bombs on the houses, forcing the people to come out. A local resident said dozens were feared dead, adding the exact number could not be confirmed as several bodies were buried under debris.

Claiming the banned Sipah-e-Sahaba group was involved in the rioting, Federal Minorities Minister Shahbaz Bhatti told the Associated Press he had directed police to ensure protection for the Christian community but they had ignored his instructions.

Punjab Law Minister Rana Sanaullah said authorities had investigated the allegation of a Holy Quran being defiled “and our initial reports say that there has not been any incident of desecration”. He said the situation had calmed down on Friday, but extremists had entered the city on Saturday and pushed people toward armed clashes. Faisalabad Commissioner Tahir Hussain told local TV channels that representatives of the two communities would meet on Saturday in an effort to calm the situation.

Peshawar, 40 suspects nabbed

PESHAWAR: Peshawar police on Saturday claimed to have apprehended at least 40 suspected persons during search operation in far and flung areas of the provincial capital and have kicked off investigation with them, Geo news reported.

Masood Khan, the spokesman CCPO Peshawar, told Geo news the search operation in the outskirts of Peshawar is still underway while in mean time, police had to face no kind of confrontation whatsoever.

He said forty arrested accused persons have been shifted to unidentified place and are being inquired about the terror activities.

15 persons have been set free after being found not guilty, spokesman added.

In Pakistan , 9 Christian killed, 100 homes looted , 50 homes burnt by Muslim protestors in Gojra

It was an other day of mourning for Christians when Muslim mob attacked at Christian Town and gunned down 9 Christian women, children and men and burnt down 50 homes in Gojra.
The first was identified as Inyat Masih among dead and fleeing Christian of Gojra are hiding to save life to identify other dead Christians.

The march of Muslims started from Railway Station Gojra at 12:00 noon today was attended by thousands of local and from near by villages marched towards Christian Town. The Christian Town Gojra is residence of two thousand Christian families who settled here over fifty years.

When Muslim marchers approached Christian Town, some two hundred Muslims hiding their faces with traditional Islamic scarf opened fire on Christian houses.

The Christian fled from home but who trapped were executed by face covered Muslims with automatic firearms. The Muslim attacker looted 100 homes and set on fire more than fifty Christian houses.

These Militants used a particular type of chemical which is hard to extinguish to burn Christian homes This chemical was used first in the village of “Shanti Nagar” which was set on fire in February 1997. Later this chemical was used in “Sangla Hill Town” and recently used to burn 60 homes of village Korian on night of July 30, 2009.

Sunny Gill based in Karachi told PCP that he called his relatives in Gojra on their Cell Phone after watching news of attack on a local TV channel and they were crying and telling “they have burnt whole colony and they have no shelter to stay in Gojra now” They are very far from Karachi and do not have money to reach to him in Karachi. There are hundreds of Christians stranded and in hiding in Gojra and near by villages.

According to information of PCP, received by calls and e-Mails by relatives of Christians of Gojra, 4 women, one child and 4 men are dead due to gun shots and many have burn injuries.

According to news agencies, four women and one child were burnt alive by Muslims and burnt dead were received by federal Minority Ministry.

Nazir S Bhatti, President of Pakistan Christian Congress PCC have condemned statement issued by a minister in Punjab government that “ Muslim marcher were peaceful and some one shot fire on rally to ignite anger among them”

Dr. Nazir S Bhatti expressed concern on media reports which reported attackers to be Sunni Muslims because Christians had always cordial relation with Sunni Sect of Muslims in Pakistan. Such reporting can flare up riots which Christians are not bear to afford because Christian do not guns to protect them.

“PCC demands Punjab government to adopt strict security measure to main law and order to ensure safety of life and property of Christians.

Schools reopen in Swat, Lower Dir

MINGORA/TIMERGARA: Schools reopened in Swat and Lower Districts on Saturday after nearly three months of being closed owing to fighting between the military and militants.

However, attendance on the first day was low because of the closure of roads and shortage of transport.

Classes in several schools of Mingora were held in tents because their buildings had been damaged in the operation.

Residents said that Mingora was the only town in Swat where schools were reopened. Majority of the schools were being used as IDP camps, they added.

A large number of schools in upper and lower parts of Swat have either been blown up or set on fire by the Taliban. The rest are being used by security forces.

Private Schools Management Association president Ziauddin Yousafzai has announced waiver of fees for the past three months.

Schools in Lower Dir, except the Maidan tehsil, also reopened on Saturday. Some of the schools in the district remained closed because of the presence of IDPs there.

An elderly member of a displaced family living in a government girls’ school in Talash told Dawn that he was worried about the future of his children.

‘We had a good time living in the school. We can neither go back to our home nor has the government made any alternative arrangement for us. Where will we go now?’ he wondered.

AFP adds: NWFP Education Minister Qazi Asad said that all schools in Malakand division were open.

He said that about 356 schools had been damaged during the Taliban insurgency and the authorities were working on an emergency plan to rebuild or hire private buildings.

‘Tents have been provided to hold classes temporarily,’ he said.

Fazal Aziz, the principal a government school in Mingora, said: ‘There is no electricity, water and other facilities and it is hard to keep students in tents for a long time in hot weather.’

Military’s Focus Is Afghanistan

NEW YORK TIMES
TALLIL AIR BASE, Iraq — In this desert brush land where the occupiers and occupied are moving into an uneasy new partnership, American and Iraqi commanders sat side by side earlier this week and described their biggest problems to Robert M. Gates, the visiting defense secretary.

For Staff Maj. Gen. Habib al-Hussani, the commander of the 10th Iraqi Army Division, the trouble was not enough equipment for patrols on the border with Iran. For Col. Peter A. Newell, the commander of the first American advisory brigade to Iraqi troops, it was something else.

“The hardest thing to do sometimes,” he told Mr. Gates, “is step back and not be in charge.”

Colonel Newell was talking about the major tactical shift here since June 30, when most United States combat forces withdrew to large bases outside the cities and left the Iraqis to lead. But he was also reflecting a change in the military’s mentality about Iraq: The six-year-old war is no longer the center of the action.

The battle — and much of the military’s focus — has moved on to Afghanistan, even as a string of bombings at Baghdad mosques on Friday showed there is always the prospect of renewed violence.

“You could talk to some commanders, and say, O.K., would you rather be doing stability operations in Iraq or fighting in Afghanistan?” Gen. Ray Odierno, the top American commander in Iraq, told reporters in Baghdad this week. “They might tell you they’d rather be fighting in Afghanistan.”

The shift is evident in the numbers. If the current drawdown schedule holds, there will be 50,000 or fewer United States troops in Iraq next year but about 68,000 in Afghanistan. The next big debate facing the Pentagon and the White House is whether to send even more troops than planned to Afghanistan; a civilian advisory panel has already advised Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the top United States commander in Afghanistan, that he should request additional forces.

The Pentagon already anticipates spending less next year in Iraq than in Afghanistan, $61 billion compared with $65 billion, the first time that will have happened since before 2003. So far this year, fewer United States service members have been killed in Iraq than in Afghanistan — 108 compared with 128, according to icasualties.org, which tracks military deaths.

But the change transcends statistics. From training to equipment to career path to the debate in the Pentagon about strategy and force structure, the emphasis has shifted from a conflict that dominated national security well before 2003 to one that will help define President Obama’s foreign policy. “There’s just an intellectual shift toward Afghanistan,” Gen. David H. Petraeus, the top American commander for Iraq and Afghanistan, said in a recent conversation in Washington.

Maj. Gen. Michael L. Oates, a veteran of three tours in Iraq and the commander of Fort Drum, N.Y., and the 10th Mountain Division, said: “If you ask a young soldier or Marine or airman in Iraq for the first time, ‘Are you doing what you thought you’d be doing,’ generally they’ll say, ‘Well, maybe not, I thought there’d be more combat. And some of them will say to you, ‘Can I go to Afghanistan?’ ”

There are still some 130,000 American troops in Iraq, more than twice as many as in Afghanistan, but the shift in focus is clear.

At the Pentagon, the top equipment priority this year is buying more than 5,000 all-terrain armored vehicles designed for the rugged landscape of Afghanistan.

At the Tampa, Fla., headquarters of the United States Central Command, which oversees both wars, there are 90 intelligence analysts assigned to Iraq and 130 to Afghanistan.

At Camp Lejeune, N.C., the Marines are offering a new yearlong crash course in Pashto, Dari and Urdu, languages spoken in Afghanistan.

And although there are still hundreds of people at the Pentagon who work on Iraq, nowhere is there anything like the tight corps of 400 top officers and soldiers — many of them veterans of Iraq — that General McChrystal has hand-picked specifically for Afghanistan.

To top Pentagon officials, the change is a logical outgrowth of the relative stability in Iraq and the American transition there into an advisory role.

“The solution in Iraq is not military anymore,” Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, recently told a group of reporters. “Clearly, we have to have security, but the solution in Iraq is political.”

To be sure, the shift in focus does mean that everyone in the military is angling for Kabul, the Afghan capital. Ambitious young officers want to prove themselves in the offensives this summer in Afghanistan, but others do not mind the relatively less dangerous environment of Iraq, a striking change from the carnage of three years ago.

“I prefer here,” Pfc. Joseph Schneider, 20, of Las Vegas, said this week at Tallil, his base for joint patrols with Iraqi counterparts around the generally quiet southern city of Nasiriya. Private Schneider said his brother was in Afghanistan and “is seeing a lot more action than I am.”

Military experts warn that the shift in focus may be premature, given the long list of problems that remain in Iraq, particularly the intensifying tensions between Baghdad and Kurdish leaders that United States military officials consider the No. 1 threat to the country’s fragile unity.

General Odierno, who can now see patches of parks and crowded markets when his helicopter flies above the sand-colored landscape of Baghdad, said that the withdrawal from the cities — and the continuing transfer of logistics experts and equipment to Afghanistan — had gone relatively well.

“So far the reductions we’re making here have been fine,” he said. But he added, “If something starts to go wrong, there’s got to be some very difficult decisions made.”

To John A. Nagl, the president of the Center for a New American Security, a military research institution in Washington, the shift from Iraq to the more critical Afghanistan makes a certain brutal sense. “If you’ve got a car crash with somebody with a broken arm and somebody with a sucking chest wound,” he said, “you’re going to work on the guy with the chest wound first.”

Schools reopen in Pakistan's battle-scarred Swat

MINGORA, Pakistan — Scores of eager children headed back to school in northern Pakistan's battle-scarred Swat Valley on Saturday, many taking classes in buildings damaged during recent fighting between Taliban militants and security forces.
But attendance on the first day of the new academic year was low, with hundreds of students staying away. Many families have still not returned home to the valley's main town of Mingora, where the Taliban once held sway.
Reopening schools in Swat, a former tourist haven, is just one piece of the puzzle for authorities trying to rehabilitate the valley, but it may be the most symbolic and psychologically important step yet, as destroying schools — particularly those teaching girls — was a key part of the Taliban's reign in the valley.
In one girls' school in Mingora, in the Haji Baba neighborhood, only about 30 of the usual 700 students were back on Saturday. But those who were said they were glad to be able to learn again without fear of the Taliban.
"I'm happy. I like school. I like to study," 12-year-old Saima Abdul Wahab said as she stood in a tiny courtyard outside her dusty classroom, piles of new exercise books stacked against the walls waiting to be given out.
Saima said she, like many others, had been too afraid to study when the Taliban controlled the town.
"I was scared and stopped coming to school. The Taliban were slaughtering people. I was scared of being slaughtered," she said. But now, "I'm not afraid of them coming back. They're gone."
But while they no longer control Swat, militants still launch attacks. A bomb early Saturday destroyed part of a girls' school in the district of Bannu, neighboring Pakistan's lawless tribal region along the Afghan border, police said.
The bomb, planted in the high school, detonated shortly after midnight when the school was empty, and there were no casualties, said police official Khalid Khan. But police also discovered a bag containing nearly 90 pounds (about 40 kilograms) of undetonated explosives when they searched the school after the blast, he said.
At one point during their recent takeover, the Taliban had announced they were banning female education completely, in a move echoing their militant brethren in neighboring Afghanistan who forbade girls from going to school when they were in charge.
Nearly 200 schools in Swat and surrounding the area were destroyed, and hundreds more were damaged — most of them girls' institutions.
The havoc threatened to set back literacy and other educational achievements in the valley that — relative to other parts of the conservative northwest — had made strides in education over the past century, including when it was a princely state with its own ruler.
School has been out in Swat since May, leaving large gaps in children's education, teachers say.
"We will have extra classes, put in extra time, forego our vacations, but we will catch up," vowed Noor ul Akbar, who teaches Quran recitation at a nearby boys' school.
About 150 of the school's usual 1,500 boys lined up in the warm early morning sun for assembly that began with a prayer before starting lessons in their bomb-damaged building. The school was struck by an explosion in a shop across the street that had been run by a suspected Taliban militant.
Akbar said at one point, several Taliban had taken over a few rooms in the school. He said teachers had pleaded with them to leave, telling them their guns were scaring the children. The militants had replied that they would only target passing military convoys, he said.
Although Swat's main city is slowly coming back to life, it is nowhere near normal.
Basic amenities such as electricity, gas and running water have been restored, and hospitals are open, but government offices are barely functioning, the courts are shut, and curfews still hamper people's movement.
Stores have reopened in Mingora. But many traders are still cautiously waiting the situation and trying to assess their costs, Abdul Rahim Khan, president of the Swat Traders Association, said earlier this week.
"A lot of damage has been caused to business places and trading offices during the fighting and after that, so the government should quickly compensate their losses," he said.
Tourism, once a key economic engine for the picturesque valley, is still hobbled. A few hotels have reopened — largely to cater to visiting journalists and officials.
Bakhtiar Khan, an official of the tourism department, struck a hopeful note.
"We expect those who have been here before will definitely come back to see how this place changed or destroyed — we are expecting adventure tourists," he said.
The Taliban's top leadership remains at large, and violence persists. On Tuesday, the decapitated body of a police constable was found in Swat's town of Sangota, not far from Mingora. It was a clear sign that the militants have not given up the fight, even though the army says it has killed at least 1,800 suspected insurgents.
Residents say while they have not seen any Taliban in Mingora, relatives in other parts of the valley report militants are still active at night. Many Taliban are believed to have melted into the rural parts of the mountainous valley, and access to the northern half is still restricted.

Musharraf faces exile in UK after court says emergency rule illegal

www.guardian.co.uk
Pakistan's former military ruler Pervez Musharraf faces an extended exile, possibly in Britain, following a court ruling that has paved the way for a possible – although unlikely – treason prosecution.

Celebrating lawyers danced on the steps of the supreme court after a 14-judge bench ruled that Musharraf acted illegally when he suspended the constitution and imposed a six-week period of emergency rule on 3 November 2007.

At the time, the rule was seen as a gambit by Musharraf to strengthen his grip on power. After a long struggle, he was forced from office a year ago.

The court ruling was delivered by chief justice Iftikhar Chaudhry, whose attempted removal by Musharraf in March 2007 sparked a protest movement that eventually led to the general's downfall.

The court did not say whether Musharraf should be tried for treason but the trenchant ruling left him legally exposed to a prosecution. However, analysts said that was unlikely, at least for now, because any move would have to be initiated by the government, which is keen to avoid confrontation with the powerful military.

Hailing the ruling, government officials and lawyers preferred to stress how the decision would deter future military coups. Farhatullah Babar, a spokesman for President Asif Ali Zardari, described it as a "triumph of the democratic principles, a stinging negation of dictatorship".

Aitzaz Ahsan, leader of the lawyers' movement that helped oust Musharraf, said the ruling would "lock the door to future adventurism".

Neither Musharraf, who seized power in a 1999 coup, nor his lawyers attended the court hearing. The retired general left Pakistan for Britain two months ago, reportedly at the urging of the army chief, General Ashfaq Kayani, who wanted to remove all political distractions as the army fought the Taliban along the Afghan border.

Since then Musharraf has given media interviews and reportedly bought an expensive apartment in London, the funding of which has been the subject of much speculation in Pakistan.

Talat Masood, a retired general and former Musharraf confidante, said it was unlikely he would return to Pakistan soon. "He will stay away and the army will advise him to stay away," he said. "I hear he's on a luxury cruise. I think that might be extended for some time."

Analyst Cyril Almeida said a treason trial was more a political matter than a legal one. "My gut feeling is that Musharraf isn't a guy to live in exile permanently. He will return at some point but right now the political heat is too much. His presence in the country is seen as being too destabilising." The ramifications of the historic ruling were unclear, exposing the complicated legal tangle that clouds Pakistan's constitution following decades of alternating military and democratic rule.

According to the ruling, all judges who swore allegiance to Musharraf will now be sacked. Also, some 37 laws passed during the emergency period will be subject to review by parliament.

"It is open to the courts to condone all or any of them," said Saeed-uz-Zaman, a former chief justice, speaking on Dawn television.

The decision which came at the end of a tense five-hour deliberation, was a symbolic victory for Chaudhry, who was reinstated as chief justice last March thanks to the vigorous protest movement.

The army is believed to have played a role behind the scenes, with Kayani urging Zardari to reinstate Chaudhry for the sake of political stability.

The world went silent . . . being blown up was too quick to be frightening'

www.timesonline.co.uk
Spurts of dust kicked up in the field to the left of the US Marines and the clatter of gunfire grew louder. The Marines began to run, their bodies taking on the hunched and wary posture of troops under fire. Shouting into radios, officers were struggling to catch up with the ambush that was beginning to envelop them.

More regular, disciplined shots sounded close by. A pall of ugly brown smoke hung in the clear dawn air several hundred metres away, marking the spot where a bomb explosion had initiated the Taleban ambush. It was 6.45am.

I was in the middle of the first squad of Marines. We pounded headlong towards a mud compound ahead. As we got to about 10ft of the corner of the building, the world went suddenly and inexplicably silent and everything turned white.

Being blown up was too quick to be frightening. Instead, the sensation was one of odd detachment.

The bomb — it was, we later discovered by looking at the debris, two devices strapped together — was buried at the base of the wall on the corner of the compound. As they went off the blast wave completely stopped my hearing, lifted me into the air and spun me through 180 degrees.

Time slowed. I landed staggering, half off my feet, and blinded by a pall of dust; much of it seemed to be in my mouth. Blast-proof protective glasses had saved my eyes from damage and after a period of time that I couldn’t measure but which must have been a few seconds, sound began to return, distorted by a shrill ringing.

Someone was shouting “casualty”. Someone else was yelling with what sounded like pain. As the dust began to thin I realised I was now facing the way I had come. I looked down and found all my limbs still attached — a heavy bulletproof plate covered my chest and Kevlar my abdomen and neck. To my right someone was on the ground. I wondered if he was dead.

When Fox Company of 2nd Battalion, 8th Marine had set out from their base an hour earlier they had already been briefed that a fight was a near certainty. They were on the second day of a three-day operation named Kapcha Kafak — Cobra’s Squeeze — designed to strengthen the Afghan Government’s hold in what, in theory, was newly taken territory south of the town of Garmsir. But in truth they knew that the area they were going to had had a minimal Nato presence and all previous forays had met fierce resistance. While their brief was to support Afghan National Army (ANA) units searching compounds and to engage with local people, the strength of the force they took with them was clearly in expectation of a fight. Forty Afghan soldiers and 70 Marines were supported by two attack helicopters and a pilotless drone.

As the events of the day would show, however, firepower can become meaningless when the enemy makes skilful preparation of the ground and has no scruples about cloaking itself with the lives of the local population.

For the first hour all was quiet. Cockerels crowed and the long, loose lines of soldiers passed a group of boys being taught to recite the Koran in a garden of roses. They watched the Marines’ passage without expression.

By 6.45am the Marines were occupying three positions around their goal, named “Objective Victor”, ready for the ANA to begin their search. It was then that the ambush began.

The thump of the first bomb detonating and sound of enemy small-arms fire was quickly followed by a call for casualty evacuation. Two men were badly injured: one, a Marine with shrapnel injuries to his face and hands, would survive; the other, an Afghan interpreter, would later die.

As they began to run towards the firing the Marine’s commander was already sensing a trap. “Watch right, we could be being baited for another IED [improvised explosive device],” shouted Captain Junwei Sun, 31, Fox Company’s commander.

He was right. The second explosion, the one that would catch the squad I was moving with, had been buried in anticipation of the way the force would move. As Sergeant Tom Williams led his men forward, his instinct was to seek the cover of the corner of the building. When the second detonation occurred it enveloped the whole of 1st Squad of 2nd Platoon — they call themselves the Helter Skelter Squad — and sent a plume of smoke rolling skyward.

The men behind were horrified. With a direct radio link to the helicopters above Captain Brian Hill, 32, the unit’s forward-air controller, called to the Huey helicopter circling above: “Did you see that explosion?” he asked. “I think I’ve got multiple friendlies badly injured in there. Can you be ready to put down for an immediate casualty extraction?”

Behind us the platoon commander, Lieutenant Sam Oliver, 23, lay on the ground, flattened by the blast. “I heard someone yell for a medic,” he said later. “I was thinking, ‘not like this, please God, not like this’ . . .”

As the smoke cleared, 1st Squad was still there and men were clambering to their feet. A piece of shrapnel was embedded in one man’s helmet. As the fact that we were still alive began to sink in we stood and laughed, clapping one another on the back, shaking a little. The battle was still unfolding around us but the world seemed a greener and more beautiful place.

There was a reason for this survival. The Taleban bombers had made several mistakes in the way they had made and buried their devices, the result being to channel their force upward rather than outward. They had also incorrectly wired what was to have been a third bomb. Discovered and destroyed by US combat engineers some minutes later, it was 30lb of fertiliser-based explosive that sat directly under the commanders of Fox Company. Had all three blown correctly it is likely that a dozen or more soldiers would have died or been badly injured.

But despite Fox Company’s escape, the advantage now lay squarely with the Taleban. Somewhere close by we were being watched by the insurgents with what was clearly a spider’s web of bombs stretched around us.

Among some of the Marines there was something like panic. “Get away from the roads, the whole place is f***ing rigged!” screamed one young officer as men moved out into the exposed fields rather than take cover.

The unit’s bomb disposal engineers began to sweep methodically with metal detectors, standing exposed as they did so. They quickly began to find naked, hair-thin copper wires in the soil, trailing towards the treeline and a compound 100 metres away.

The Americans prepared to advance on the compound with ANA soldiers. “If we take contact, peel right — I’m going to light it up,” Lieutenant Oliver said as they prepared to advance. But at the same moment they were forced to halt the attack. A group of women and children were moving into the middle of the unfolding battle and making for the same compound.

There were other signs that the Taleban were using the cloak of civilian innocence as cover. A man suddenly stood up in the treeline; as American soldiers fixed him in their sights he ostentatiously slung a shovel over his shoulder. A minute earlier there had been yet another blast from a bomb buried near the corner of the wall the Marines had begun to move along. It missed its target. “Of course he’s carrying a f***ing shovel,” one soldier spat as the man strolled nonchalantly away. Prevented by the rules of the battlefield from shooting him, the soldiers began to push through the lines of compounds ahead.

As the Afghan Army began to question one middle-aged man, those searching his house found pictures of the man and several others all carrying machineguns and rocket launchers and wearing the bulky white turbans associated with the Taleban. The picture had been taken in the front room of the compound.

The Afghans and the Marines were incensed. “Get your f***ing AK and I’ll put a cap between your eyes,” snarled one furious American soldier. “Do you want to go to jail?” he asked, eyeballing the man from a range of a few inches. “As you wish,” replied the man with a shrug.

“Who planted these bombs?” another American demanded. “I have no idea,” he replied — to derision.

A Marine “accidentally” put his foot through the glass of the empty picture frame on the floor and stormed off. But what proof did the pictures represent? There was no telling their date, and from 1996-2001 the Taleban were the Government. As for the weapons, they are found in every Afghan home. There was little the Americans could do but upload the man’s fingerprints and iris scan on to a biometric data machine and tell him he was being monitored. From the other rooms came the sounds of Afghan soldiers kicking down doors and breaking things. At another compound people told the Afghan soldiers that groups of Taleban fighters patrolled the area every day on motorbikes.

By now the temperature was around 52C (125F) and the Marines were fighting the elements. As they moved forward again the engineers found a fourth bomb, buried in a wall. It was defused. Intelligence reports suggested that the Taleban were massing fighters for an attack. Many of the soldiers were relieved that, at last, they might be able to shoot back.

But if the Taleban were still around they remained hidden, wary of the Cobra helicopters overhead. Instead, the Americans were advancing on to the fifth and largest bomb of the day.

Again, luck and keen eyes would come to their aid. As they traversed a field Private Joseph Helmick, 25, spotted something odd — two stakes buried in the ground. They were a marker for a watching bomb triggerman. The unit halted and as Fox Company’s explosives experts moved forward with their minesweepers, they found a command wire and two separate 40lb cylinders of explosive. These were detonated, scattering earth over a 100m area.

As they pulled up the wire they discovered it appeared to lead to the village mosque. As had been the case all day, none of the locals appeared to know why.

Shangla becomes new Taliban base

PESHAWAR: Taliban militants fleeing Swat and Buner are increasingly seeking refuge in the Shangla district and making their presence felt by attacking government installations and pro-military politicians and elders.

“I am hearing reports that there are now 1,500 militants in parts of Shangla’s Puran Tehsil bordering Buner. They pose a threat to all of us,” said Fazlullah, the young Member of the Provincial Assembly (MPA) from Shangla and a relation of former federal minister and PML-Q NWFP President Amir Muqam.

On Wednesday night, Fazlullah’s cousin Haji Khalil Khan, the PML-Q President for Shangla who had been mobilising the people against the Taliban, was killed when a large group of militants attacked his house in Chogha Makhozai village. “The NWFP Chief Minister, Ameer Haider Hoti, who visited Shangla on Thursday to offer his condolences on Haji Khalil’s death also asked me about the militants’ strength in the area. I told him that I haven’t seen the Taliban myself but am aware of their growing presence in parts of Puran Tehsil,” recalled Fazlullah.

Fazlullah’s father Pir Mohammad Khan was killed in a suicide bombing at Amir Muqam’s house in Peshawar’s Hayatabad locality in early 2008. Shangla’s headquarters, Alpurai, was overrun by the Taliban militants, who had mostly come from Swat in 2007. The entire civil and police administration had fled the town. A military operation had to be launched to evict the militants from Shangla at the time, but as has been the case elsewhere, the Taliban gradually returned to parts of the district, particularly to Puran area which is adjacent to Buner. Due to the recent military action in Buner, militants from there have moved to Shangla.

Many militants from Swat, particularly its Charbagh and Khwazakhela Tehsils, have also sought refuge in Shangla.

After gaining strength in Shangla, the militants were reported to have set up roadside checkpoints at certain places, including Shaheed Sar, Hindwano Kandao and Sar Qalla on the Puran-Buner Road. They were patrolling the area and had already blown up a telephone exchange in Puran and fired at a security forces convoy in Martung.

Fazlullah said reports of militants’ attack on his house and that of Amir Muqam weren’t true. “Firing took place near Amir Muqam’s house in the village but it wasn’t attacked,” he clarified the reports appearing in the press.

According to Fazlullah, his family was a target of the militants due to its support for the military operation in Shangla and the rest of Malakand Division. “We are peaceful people. We are against militancy and terrorism. But if a known political family like us isn’t safe, then how could the common people feel confident while living in Shangla,” he argued.

He said security forces should take action against the militants in Shangla but care must be taken to avoid civilian casualties and the use of artillery guns to shell long distance targets be avoided. “We don’t want our poor people to suffer,” he stressed.

On Thursday, the two Taliban militants who were killed in the attack on Haji Khalil’s house were identified. Haji Khalil and his men had fought the militants and killed two of them.

Both were local and hailed from Dheray village in Puran Tehsil. One was Khurshid Ali and the other was identified as Adil. The police arrested Khurshid’s father, named Subedar, along with his brother. Adil’s family members weren’t arrested as they had already disowned and disinherited him for refusing to quit the Taliban.

Taliban arrival in Shangla in growing numbers is a pattern that would be repeated elsewhere in the NWFP in future. They would retreat from areas that are under military attack and move to places where the civil administration and police are weak and the Army has little or no presence. The militants’ strategy is to wage a guerrilla war, create fear among the people and destabilise the area.

Bajaur, Mohmand IDPs to return home soon

PESHAWAR: As the internally displaced persons (IDPs) from Malakand continue returning to their areas in Mingora and Buner district, the government is going to firm up plan for the departure of IDPs from Bajaur and Mohmand agencies in the days ahead.

Chairman of the army's Services Support Group Lt Gen Nadeem Ahmad said Matta tehsil of Swat would be cleared of militants and IDPs would start returning to their homes in the coming few days.

Addressing a news conference, he said Kabal and Kanju tehsils of Swat would also be declared safe and people would start returning there soon, however, he did not specify the time period. He said 162,000 families had returned to their areas in Buner and Swat so far under the government's voluntary repatriation programme. Of those, 65,000 families had gone back before July 13, while nearly 100,000 returned to their areas after the said date.

Dispelling the impression about forced return of IDPs, Nadeem said the process was purely voluntary as 81 per cent people returned to their areas through public transport while only 19 per cent used the officially provided transport facility.

About the total number of IDPs, he said 755,000 families were registered by different government and international agencies, however, after completion of scrutiny 329,000 families found genuine.

Expressing satisfaction over the situation in Buner and Swat, Nadeem said markets were opened, hospitals and other government offices were operational and life was smoothly returning to routine.

What has been most encouraging is the cooperation of the returning population with the security forces, said the official, adding that people were providing information about the troublemakers. He ruled out presence of Taliban in large numbers in some areas near Malam Jabba or Manglawar or Chagharzai tehsil and some villages of Buner as reported in a section of Press.

Ruling out return of the Taliban, he said Shah Dauran had been killed and Fazlullah critically injured. "They are no more effective and capable to run their activities in the area," said the military official.

The official said the next important steps would be reconstruction and rehabilitation. The whole process would need 2 to 2.5 billion US dollars, however, exact figures would be revealed after proper assessment, he added.

He said the process also depended on the response from donors and the Friends of Democratic Pakistan, who were going to meet on August 24 in Turkey. He said they were expecting generous assistance from the friends for the reconstruction process in Malakand. He said economy of Swat was based on agriculture, trade, mining and tourism. Agriculture and trade had already been revived while the mining and tourism sectors would need sometime for revitalisation.

About the return of IDPs from Bajaur and Mohmand, the official said he was going to hold a meeting with Fata and FC officials to draw modalities like security, transportation, food, etc for their return.

To a question about the displaced families from Waziristan, he said a total of 5,512 families were registered in DI Khan and Tank, however, only 3,371 were found genuine after scrutiny. He said the federal government had sanctioned Rs180 million to provide Rs5,000 to each family for food on a monthly basis.

China Military reshuffle not likely

Chinese experts yesterday refuted a report that the country's seven military command regions would be reshuffled into four “strategic zones,” saying the major reform remains at the discussion level because of impracticality and concerns of national stability.

The latest issue of The Mirror, a Hong Kong-based journal, reported that the Chinese military is preparing to reform the system of military regions, as the People's Liberation Army (PLA) marks its 82nd anniversary tomorrow.

According to an unnamed military source, the seven current military regions of Shenyang, Beijing, Lanzhou, Jinan, Nanjing, Guangzhou and Chengdu will be replaced with four strategic zones in the north, east, west and south, the report said.

Each strategic zone would be under the command of a military commission, formed by a joint command of different armed forces and several provincial secretaries in the zone, the source said, adding that the heads of the four military commissions would be assigned by the central authority in Beijing, responsible for the military actions and defense mobilization in the zones under their jurisdiction.

However, a military source who asked to remain anonymous told the Global Times that it was impossible for the Chinese military to carry out such a major reform this year, as maintaining stability is the top priority.

“The main tasks for the Chinese military so far are to maintain stability along the borders and prepare for the military parade on National Day in October,” he said. “Whether and how to carry out the military reform has been discussed among the academics for almost 30 years, but no answers have been reached yet.”

Li Daguang, a military expert at the University of National Defense, ruled out the possibility of any immediate adjustment in the allocation of military regions.

“Relevant discussions have been ongoing for several years. But none of the proposals are mature enough,” Li told the Global Times, citing the complexity of reforming the system.

“The existing system has been in accordance with the national defense situation of China, which pursues a national defense policy that is purely defensive in nature,” Li argued.

The 2.3 million-strong PLA, under the top command of the Central Military Commission, oversees seven military regions nationwide as administrative headquarters responsible for making plans for troop development, commanding joint operations of different armed forces and guaranteeing joint logistics in several provinces.
Chen Zhou, a researcher with the Chinese Academy of Military Sciences, noted that the division of China's military regions is based on administrative divisions, geographic locations, directions of strategic campaign and combat missions.

“The allocation of military regions usually changes with the troops' development and domestic and external environments,” Chen noted.

In private talks, military personnel were often heard talking about the urgency of a reform, as the current divide of seven military regions “appears to be redundant,” and “not up to the demand of modern military mobilization or deployment.”

The views were reflected in heated discussions among military aficionados on the Internet. A Web user wrote on a military forum that the army has been the main decision power in each military region, while the navy and air forces were always sidelined, which the user said isn't good for the military modernization of China.

Some Web users also doubted the efficiency of the division system, as the coordination among several regions is quite inconvenient.

However, military insiders told the Global Times that a major reform is hard to formulate, as the combination of some regions will mean the move of too many personnel and facilities, which might cause problems.

There have been several adjustments in the division of military regions since the foundation of the People's Republic of China.

Originally, six military regions were established in 1950. That number rose to 13 in the late 1950s and was reduced to 11 in 1968. Mao Zedong, the former leader of China, decided to exchange the positions of commanders in eight military regions in 1973. The current divide of seven regions dates back to 1985 when the country initiated a major demobilization of a million servicemen.

In another development, the official bilingual website of the Ministry of National Defense (MND) is expected to launch tomorrow, on the Chinese Army's 82nd birthday. The site is meant to be a channel for China to express and elaborate its military policy and release information of activities.

Admiral Timothy Keating, commander of the US forces in the Pacific region, praised the move Tuesday.

“This goes with our desire for more transparency and better understanding of Chinese military intentions,” Keating said.

On Tuesday, the military also offered 90 foreign journalists a visit to its Third Guard Division, a motorized infantry force that safeguards Beijing. The move was interpreted by Reuters as China's military cautiously trying out new openness.

Rear Admiral Yang Yi, a senior military expert at the University of National Defense, said the army is displaying increased confidence, transparency and openness by a series of military exchanges and diplomatic activities.

“It is conducive for China to convey its message of peaceful development and gradually dispel concerns about its military intentions from its Asian neighbors and Washington,” Yang said.

Pakistani boys recall ordeal at suicide training centre

ISLAMABAD: Four boys from Swat in Pakistan's restive northwest who were kidnapped by militants to be trained as suicide bombers have narrated harrowing tales of their ordeal in captivity, saying they were told to target their families if prevented from joining the jihad against security forces.

They said militants had taken them by force from their villages to training camps in different parts of the Matta sub-district where a large number of other boys were being trained as suicide bombers, Dawn reported on Friday in a dispatch from Swat's largest city of Mingora.

On Thursday, security forces presented them before a team of reporters in Mingora. Two of them, who were in a camp named Fazal Banda, said at least 250 boys, most of them in their teens, were being trained for terrorist acts and suicide bombings.

One of them said he was working in the field when armed men forced him into a car. "They blindfolded me and told me that I would get training for suicide bombing."

"The gunmen took me to the Fazal Banda camp where militants were training a large number of boys. They told us that security personnel were infidels and we should wage jihad against them. If our own families stopped us from joining jihad, we should target them as well."

Another boy said he was in his village when a group men sought his help to load luggage onto a vehicle. "When I went to help them, some masked men bundled me into the vehicle and drove away. They put a mask on my face and removed it at a training camp inChuparyal."

He said some 150 boys were being trained at the camp. Some of them had voluntarily joined the militants while some had been kidnapped, he added.

One of the boys said the Taliban had kidnapped him and told him he would be trained for the jihad. "They trained us and gave us little food. Three to four boys would get one chapati and some green tea. They warned us that anyone trying to escape would be slaughtered," he said.

The boys said they escaped from the training camps after four days and managed to return home.

"On our fourth morning at the camp, we got up along with other Taliban for prayers. We went out of the barracks for ablution and ran away," said two boys.

The Pakistani security forces had April 26 launched a major offensive against the Taliban in the Malakand division of the North West Frontier Province after they reneged on a controversial peace deal with the provincial government.

Under the deal, the militants were to lay down their arms in return for the imposition of Sharia laws in Swat and six other districts of the Malakand division. Instead, they moved south from their Swat headquarters and occupied Buner district that is just 100 km from Islamabad.

The operations had begun in Lower Dir, the home district of radical cleric Sufi Mohammad, who had brokered the peace deal and who is the father-in-law of Swat Taliban commander Maulana Fazlullah. The operations, which have now all but concluded, later spread to Buner and Swat.

Some three million civilians were displaced by the fighting. Large numbers of them have now begun to return home.

The military says over 1,500 Taliban were killed in the fighting.

Four leaders urge world community to fight against drug threat

TASS.COM
DUSHANBE, July 30 (Itar-Tass) - In their joint statement on Thursday, the Russian, Afghan, Pakistani and Tajik leaders urged the world community to take additional measures in fight against the drug threat from Afghanistan.

The document emphasized concern in connection with “the growth of an illegal drug trafficking as one of the main sources of financing the terrorist activity”. “The parties urge the international community to take additional measures in cooperation with the Afghan government for a resolute fight against the drug threat,” the statement said.

Russia, Afghanistan and Pakistan welcomed Tajikistan’s bid to take part in joint work whose main directions were fixed by the foreign ministers of these states at the end of June. “The parties welcome readiness expressed by the Republic of Tajikistan to take part in work on the main directions fixed in the statements of foreign ministers” of Afghanistan, Pakistan and Russia, it said.

The document said that at a meeting held in the atmosphere of friendship and mutual understanding the four leaders had discussed the main directions of four-way cooperation.

The four leaders acknowledged “particular importance of expanding and strengthening mutually advantageous economic cooperation” of their states and marked “a need to consistently implement agreements” reached at the previous meeting in Yekaterinburg.

They welcomed the statement of foreign ministers of their countries made in Trieste on June 26. They also marked the importance of commissioning the Sangtudin hydroelectric power station to solve energy problems of the region.

The presidents “put much emphasis on the development and strengthening of trade and economic relations between the four states and support activity at the national and international level aimed at contributing to the social and economic restoration and development of the region,” the document said.

It also marked “a need of four-party economic cooperation, including as concerns work on ways and means to contribute to regional trade, to increase the flow of foreign investments and implement projects in the sphere of hydraulic power industry, laying of power transmission lines and development of transport infrastructure, as well as the importance of measures for setting up a favourable investment climate in their states, encouraging direct contacts between the business communities” of the four countries.

The presidents stressed “the expedience of an active involvement of Afghanistan in processes of economic cooperation in the region in the interests of restoring the economy and normalizing the situation in the country on the whole”.

Besides, they expressed “interest in participation in economic cooperation under the aegis of the Shanghai Cooperation Organization,” and urged “the World Bank and other international financial institutions to boost assistance in the implementation of regional economic projects, including studying the possibility of rendering such aid in the CASA-1000 project”.

Presidents Dmitry Medvedev of Russia, Asif Ali Zardari of Pakistan and Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan expressed gratitude to Tajik President Emomali Rakhmon for a warm welcome and emphasized the importance of their meeting.

Afghanistan's bravest woman speaks out

Five assassination attempts have failed to silence "the bravest woman in Afghanistan" as she vows to continue to defend Afghans from oppression - whether from the Taliban or occupying forces. Malalai Joya became Afghanistan's youngest Member of Parliament when she was elected aged just 27 to the 249-seat National Assembly in September 2005. She has been suspended since 2007 on charges of insulting the parliament.
Joya is in the UK to promote her new book, Raising My Voice, but also to deliver a message to Britain: "We do not accept foreign occupation - three times a British government have occupied my country faced with the opposition of my people."
"Foreign governments are wasting their money and their blood in Afghanistan by supporting Karzai. After this election, the result will be the same donkey, only with a new saddle."
During the Soviet invasion, Malalai was four years old when her family fled Afghanistan in 1982 to the refugee camps of Iran and then Pakistan.
She finished her education in Pakistan and began teaching literacy courses to other women at age 19.
Joya returned to Afghanistan in 1998 during the Taliban's reign. She established an orphanage and health clinic, was soon a vocal opponent of the Taliban and was named a director of the non-governmental group, Organisation of Promoting Afghan Women's Capabilities.

China delivers first warship to Pak Navy

China on Thursday delivered the first of four state-of-the-art frigates commissioned by nuclear-armed Pakistan from top ally Beijing, a naval spokesman said.
“The first F-22P Frigate constructed for the Pakistan navy at the Hudong Zhonghua Shipyard in Shanghai was delivered to Pakistan on Thursday,” said Lieutenant Commander Shakeel Ahmed.
In keeping with contracts signed between China and Pakistan in 2005, the frigates will be equipped with anti-submarine helicopters, surface-to-surface and surface-to-air missiles and other defence systems.
“The F-22P frigates will not only enhance the war fighting potential of the Pakistan navy but will also strengthen the indigenous ship-building capability of the country,” said Ahmed.
The announcement came two days after Pakistan hit out at India, branding its rival’s first nuclear-powered submarine “detrimental” to regional peace and vowing to take “appropriate steps” to maintain a “strategic balance”.
Relations between nuclear-armed rivals India and Pakistan have plummeted since gunmen killed 166 people in Mumbai last November, attacks that New Delhi blamed on banned Pakistani group Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT).
India on Sunday launched the first of five planned submarines by naming the 6,000-tonne INS Arihant (Destroyer of Enemies), powered by an 85-megawatt nuclear reactor that can reach 44 kilometres an hour (24 knots).
China is Pakistan’s strongest ally and Islamabad relies heavily on Beijing for its defence needs.
Many Chinese companies operate in Pakistan and China is involved in the construction of a deep-sea port at Gwadar on the Arabian Sea.

U.S. shifting drones' focus to Taliban

Kabul, Afghanistan — U.S. military leaders have concluded that their war effort in Afghanistan has been too focused on hunting Al Qaeda, and have begun to shift Predator drone aircraft to the fight against the Taliban and other militants in order to prevent the country from slipping deeper into anarchy.

The move, described by government and Defense Department officials, represents a major change in the military's use of one of its most precious intelligence assets. It also illustrates the hard choices that must be made because the drones are in short supply.

Senior government officials say that defeating Al Qaeda remains the overriding U.S. objective. However, they have determined that the best way to do that is by strengthening and stabilizing Afghanistan and neighboring Pakistan, rather than endlessly looking for important Al Qaeda figures.

But a shortage of drone aircraft could limit the effectiveness of the thousands of additional troops being sent as part of the Obama administration's new focus on Afghanistan, officials say. A preliminary review has concluded that the command in Afghanistan requires up to four times as many Predators as it currently has.

To try to meet the demand, the military has shifted about eight Predator drones assigned to special operations forces in Afghanistan to conventional forces. It is refocusing them on major insurgent strongholds rather than on scouring remote mountain ranges for suspected terrorists.

In addition, the U.S. military's Central Command is planning to send about a dozen more drones to Afghanistan, representing about a 25% increase. Among them are aircraft being reassigned from Iraq, despite resistance from the U.S. command there.

The sweeping redeployment means that insurgent groups that have carried out ambushes and roadside bombings will for the first time be tracked by dozens of drones capable of remaining over a target for hours undetected, identifying key individuals, and firing missiles within a matter of seconds.

A focus on hunting Al Qaeda reflected priorities set early in the aftermath of the Sept. 11 attacks. A move away from that strategy could invite protest from U.S. politicians and experts who believe that it could allow the organization to rebuild strength.

Osama bin Laden and the most senior Al Qaeda leadership planned the Sept. 11 attacks from Afghanistan, which was ruled by the Taliban until a U.S.-led invasion ousted it. The Al Qaeda leadership is believed to have reestablished itself across the border in Pakistan. U.S. military and intelligence services are also using drones to attack Al Qaeda figures and their Taliban allies there.

U.S. military officials believe mid-level Al Qaeda figures remain in Afghanistan, where special operations forces have been directed to hunt them down. The military also has long hoped it could learn clues to Bin Laden's whereabouts by spying on his former associates.

Despite the shift, the special operations forces retain a substantial amount of Predators. But officials say they are working to ensure that unconventional missions are more closely aligned with the new counterinsurgency strategy of the overall force.

But top military officials have concluded that they need to keep Afghanistan from sliding further into chaos in order to keep Al Qaeda from rebuilding there. Doing so will require a campaign to build confidence in the government and make the population feel more secure.

"We have been overly counter-terrorism-focused and not counter-insurgency-focused," said one U.S. official.

Senior government officials said Bin Laden remained a prime target but that they needed to focus on fighting the Taliban.

"We might still be too focused on Bin Laden," the official said. "We should probably reassess our priorities."

Although military officials emphasize that the drones will be used primarily as spy planes, the aircraft are armed. Predators carry two Hellfire missiles. Reaper drones, which are also being sent, are armed with Hellfires and precision-guided bombs.

Airborne attacks carry their own set of risks for the war effort. Afghan officials have repeatedly complained about civilian deaths resulting from airstrikes, and the Taliban seeks to make maximum use of such incidents' propaganda value.

A new directive from the top commander in Afghanistan is forcing the military to be more careful about airstrikes. But with up to 20 more drones dedicated to the task, the military may have more chances to attack key Taliban leaders.

Army Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the new U.S. commander in Afghanistan, made it clear in a recent interview that protecting the Afghan population, not hunting suspected terrorists, was his priority.

"I don't think there is enough focus on counter-insurgency. I am not in a position to criticize counter-terrorism," he said. "But at this point in the war, in Afghanistan, it is most important to focus on almost classic counter-insurgency."

Under McChrystal's order, the command has been doing an extensive review of how it uses its reconnaissance and surveillance aircraft. Rather than spread the drones throughout the country so that all regional commands get the use of the planes for a little while each day, McChrystal wants to use the predators in a more concentrated fashion.

Top commanders are ending the practice of blindly trolling for information with the Predators. McChrystal said the best way to use intelligence aircraft is to watch a single target for days, even weeks.

The preliminary review found that the command in Afghanistan could use as many as 40 to 45 combat air patrols of Predators -- as many as 180 individual drones. That total is more than the military has in its inventory.

The shift of assets from Iraq is sensitive. Military officials said that U.S. generals in Iraq resisted, arguing that intelligence assets will be needed even after the U.S. drawdown speeds up next year.

But the Obama administration's primary military effort is now clearly Afghanistan. And a senior Defense official said Central Command, which has operational control over both wars, made its moves to shift Predator drones in consultation with McChrystal and the commander in Iraq, Army Gen. Ray Odierno.

In addition to the drones, Army Gen. David H. Petraeus, the head of Central Command, has ordered combat engineer units, road-clearance teams, helicopters and other equipment to move from Iraq to Afghanistan.

The military also plans to increase the number of U2 flights.

The advanced camera on the U2 is useful in spotting locations where roadside bombs have been placed, but only if the planes fly over the same area every 24 hours.

In addition, all of the Air Force's unmanned Global Hawks are going to be shifted to Afghanistan, officials said.

US unsure of Swat offensive success, says Holbrooke

WASHINGTON: It is still unclear if Pakistan’s offensive in Swat has killed off the Taliban or simply scattered them, US special envoy to Pakistan and Afghanistan Richard Holbrooke said on Wednesday.

“We don’t know exactly to what extent the Pakistani army dispersed or destroyed the enemy,” the Reuters news agency quoted him as saying. “The test of this operation is, of course, when the refugees return. Can they go home? Are they safe? And we’re just going to have to wait and see,” he told a State Department press conference.

He said that Karl Eikenberry, the US ambassador in Kabul, and his military counterpart, General Stanley McChrystal, have consulted “fairly regularly” with Pakistani officials. They want to keep in touch with Pakistan’s government and army so “this time around, as the [NATO] offensive picks up steam, the Pakistanis are ready for it, so the Pakistanis know where the military operations are happening - and they can prepare for any spillover effects,” he added. Likewise, the US officials wanted to be fully apprised of Pakistani army offensives, he said.

Holbrooke said Afghanistan needed to expand the size and capabilities of its own security forces. Meanwhile, after a meeting with Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi in Phuket, Thailand, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton praised Pakistan’s efforts in the war against the Taliban. agencies

BEER DIPLOMACY AT WHITE HOUSE

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WASHINGTON - With mugs of beer and a few minutes of conversation, President Barack Obama tried to pull himself and the nation beyond an uproar over race, sitting on his big back lawn with the black professor and the white policeman whose dispute had ignited a week of fierce debate.

Under the canopy of a magnolia tree Thursday evening, a shirt-sleeved Obama joined the other players in a story that had knocked the White House off message: Harvard professor Henry Louis Gates Jr. and Cambridge, Mass., police Sgt. James Crowley. Vice President Joe Biden was also with them on a Rose Garden patio.

The men were seen chatting with each other, each with a mug of beer. The media were stationed far away, out of earshot.

Swatis seek return of elected representatives

MINGORA: A large number of internally displaced persons (IDPs) who returned to their areas now want their elected representatives back in their home constituencies to share electorate’s sufferings.

No MPA, MNA or any district or tehsil nazim has yet returned and this could be detrimental to the success of the military operation “Rah-e-Raast”. People interviewed by The News in various parts of Mingora said army was not supposed to remain in Swat forever but gradually it had to hand over the area to police and civil administration and the pubic representatives must come to Swat to boost the morale of the locals.

They said it had officially been accepted that the Swat valley was not totally cleared of miscreants and there were some pockets of militants. “The beheading of a police official in Sanghota, located some three kilometre from Mingora, on Tuesday triggered fear among locals who had come back to Swat hoping that their hometown has been purged of militants,” an owner of a CNG station said, wishing anonymity.

Muhammad Qasim Khan, 28, a resident of Kanju, said such incidents might continue in Swat, but he hastened to add that the elected representatives should be here to share the miseries of the electorate.

Rasool Khan said, “Army has done its job and now it is the duty of the public representatives, Khans and influential persons to come back to their homes and play their role in sustaining the process of peace. You know the Army men are not locals...they cannot identify the Taliban who have camouflaged by mixing with the non-combatant civilians. Now it’s the responsibility of the MNAs, MPAs, district, tehsil and union council nazims and public figures to help Army flush out remaining militants by identifying them,” he said.

Nevertheless, Swat DPO Sajid Khan Mohmand said that scores of militants had already been rounded up on the tip-offs by locals. “Cooperation of the locals after the military operation is encouraging,” he acclaimed.

Some security personnel deputed on road leading to Khwazakhela from Mingora said that no doubt the Army inflicted colossal loss on the militants’ network but they could not be totally eliminated and they might re-launch attack on civilians as well as security personnel. “It’s very easy to fight an overt enemy but very difficult to fight mice (militants). They hit you and hole up in their hideouts,” said another soldier.

Inter Services Public Relations representative in Swat, Major Nasir, said there was no chance of re-grouping of militants. “We’ve broken their back. They do exist but not in an organised network. Presently, they’ve fled to Dardial (a remote area in Swat abutting Lower Dir) where they’ve regularly been monitored by Army as well as tribal lashkar. They’ve not the potential to re-unite their scattered force,” he asserts.

It would be a hard decision for the public representatives to come back to Swat in the near future because they have suffered not only heavy financial loss but also lost their relatives in the Taliban insurgency. The militants brutally killed two nephews and a brother of MPA Waqar Khan besides gunning down the brother of NWFP Minister for Forests Wajid Ali Khan.

Xinjiang refutes Kadeer's '10,000 missing' claim

GLOBAL TIMES

The claim by Rebiya Kadeer that more than 10,000 Uygurs disappeared in the wake of the July 5 riots, believed to have been arrested or killed, is groundless, a spokeswoman of the Xinjiang Uygur Autonomous Region told the Global Times yesterday in reaction to the World Uygur Congress (WUC) leader's speech during her visit to Japan.

Kadeer, accused by the Chinese government of being a separatist and masterminding the riots that left about 200 people dead and more than 1,600 injured, told a Tokyo press conference yesterday during the second day of her visit to Japan that nearly 10,000 people “disappeared in one night” following the riots in Urumqi, the capital of Xinjiang.

“If they are dead, where are their bodies? If they are detained, where are they?” she said.

Hou Hanmin, spokeswoman of the regional government, said the claim was so groundless that it was “not even worth a counter reaction.”

“If there were more than 10,000 missing, how many more of them would have taken part in the riot?” Hou asked.

According to an AP report shortly after the riot, “police showed up to disperse a crowd of between 1,000 and 3,000 demonstrators,” which is close to the estimates of reports by other media organizations, both Chinese and foreign.

Urumqi police yesterday announced that they had arrested 253 more suspects allegedly closely connected to the riots, following the initial arrests of 1,434 suspects by July 7, the Xinhua News Agency reported.

Police said most of the latest arrests were made from tip-offs provided by local residents, including one report in which a family of five burned to death after rioters locked the door of their store selling grain and edible oil and set it on fire.

“I felt uneasy for at least two nights. Once I closed my eyes, I would picture the scene of the raging fire shrouding the store,” a Uygur man who did not give his name told the police July 7. “I would never find peace if I didn't inform the police of it.”

Some of the suspects arrested earlier have been released after police found they did not commit serious crimes, Hou told the Global Times.
In response to a Global Times' inquiry as to how Kadeer set the number of disappeared at 10,000, Dilshat Rashit, spokesman for the US-based WUC, said the organization has been following the situation in Xinjiang via foreign reports.

“When Uygur women were interviewed by foreign media, they said more than 1,000 Uygurs were killed and nearly 10,000 were arrested,” he said. “As far as we know, the arrest of Uygurs is continuing, so there are definitely more than 10,000 arrested.”

Howevr, he didn't explain how those “Uygur women interviewed by foreign media” put the total number of those arrested.

He suggested that the United States, which “has always been concerned with China's religious and human rights issues,” take tougher measures against China, including economic sanctions.

Earlier in July, Mu-Card Deiss, a member of the WUC, circulated online a video clip of a “Uygur girl” being beaten to death.

“It was actually a piece edited from footage of a CNN video showing a girl killed in Iraq on April 7, 2007,” Xinhua pointed out.

Kadeer's remarks also backfired among Uygur residents in China. Rustan, manager of a Muslim restaurant at the Beijing Language and Culture University said, “When I was young, I just thought she was a very rich woman, and I admired her a lot. But I never expected that she would attack China with ridiculous remarks while staying overseas.”

He said he doesn't understand why Kadeer does all these “evil things” to China.

“We're all Chinese, and I don't want to follow what she's talking about,” he said.

Tuson Nizam, a Uygur from Kuqa County, Xinjiang, who now sells jade in Beijing, expressed his indignation at the riots, saying the Uygurs who participated in the riots are nothing but “lazy bones.”

“I treat all Han and Uygur people equally well, so they will treat me well in return,” he said.

The Foreign Ministry summoned Japan's ambassador in Beijing, expressing its “dissatisfaction” with Japan's treatment of Kadeer, believed to be a “criminal” by China.

Kadeer's visits to Australia and Japan have put those countries' ties with China to the test.

Yang Bojiang, a researcher at the Chinese Institute of Contemporary International Relations, said: “Kadeer's ‘separatist activities' would have an impact on the overall situation of China's relationship with the US, Japan and European countries.”

Liang Chen, An Baijie and Zhou Min countributed to this story

PM Gilani allocates Rs1.2bn for IDPs

ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani allocated Rs1.25 billion for internally displaced people on Wednesday and asked the agencies concerned to make a comprehensive plan for the next phase of rehabilitation and reconstruction.

He was presiding over a meeting of the Strategic Policy Committee on IDPs at the Prime Minister’s House.

He said that since 50 per cent of the displaced families had already returned to their homes, it was imperative that they were provided with full security, basic amenities and administrative support.

The prime minister also asked the ministry of finance to release Rs180 million for the cash-for-food programme for 6000 displaced families of Waziristan.

The prime minister said that arrangements should be made for early return of displaced people of Bajaur and Mohmand agencies where the situation had become normal.

Commending the hard work done by the provincial government and Special Support Group, the prime minister said he hoped that after the successful military operation, the process of safe return of the displaced people would be completed soon.

He said more than 80 per cent of the people were using their own transport to go back to their homes and the rest were using transport arranged by the government.

The prime minister said the successes achieved by the military operation had been welcomed not only by the local people, but also by the entire nation, political parties and the international community.

“We acknowledge the sacrifices made by the Pakistan Army in re-establishing the writ of the state in the conflict zone by eliminating extremist elements,” the prime minister said.

The meeting was informed that around Rs5 billion had been distributed among affected families and all essential services had been restored in Shangla, Dir, Swat and Buner.