Washington Post
DERA ISMAIL KHAN, PAKISTAN -- As Pakistan's army battles with guns and jets to wrest control of the restive South Waziristan region from the Taliban, it remains unclear whether the military will have another kind of ammunition it desperately needs: the support of people who have lived in the militants' grip for years.
Among refugees who were jostling for donated blankets in this dusty frontier town last week, few dared discuss the Taliban fighters controlling their villages. Several whispered that there was no graver offense than speaking against the Taliban, and seemed fearful that breaching that rule would haunt them once the offensive -- which several referred to as an artificial "drama" cooked up to satisfy the U.S. -- was over.
"The operation is a joke just to please the foreign masters," said Saidalam Mehsud, 59, a burly driver. "Whenever the dollars are floating into Pakistan, such operations are carried out."
In the past week, refugees said, their doubts about the offensive intensified because they had seen little evidence of the ground operation Pakistan's military says has killed nearly 200 insurgents. While many said shells and bombs had been raining on the hilly terrain all week, some hitting civilian houses, none said they had seen government soldiers.
Instead, masked and armed militants were roaming with apparent ease and digging trenches, the refugees said. Security analysts say soldiers are moving cautiously, partly to avoid civilian casualties, and the military says it has captured key militant hideouts.
The offensive is a pivotal test for Pakistan. The United States is giving unprecedented aid to Pakistan, but is also pressuring the government here to clamp down on militant Islamist groups that attack both Pakistani targets and U.S. forces in Afghanistan. Pakistani officials say South Waziristan is the refuge for one group of Pakistani Taliban, led by Hakimullah Mehsud, that has orchestrated a string of recent attacks on high-profile targets across the country.
Hundreds of thousands of civilians have traversed craggy terrain to flee the nearly two-week-old offensive. Researchers and people familiar with the long neglected, semi-autonomous tribal area say many of South Waziristan's fiercely independent Pashtun residents desperately want the Taliban to go. But the Taliban of South Waziristan are a deeply entrenched and organized group that has had years to force locals into submission.
"They will only rise against the Taliban when they are convinced the government means business," said Saifullah Mehsud, director of the FATA Research Center in Islamabad, which studies Pakistan's tribal areas. "But they have never been convinced."
For half a dozen years, a stew of Pakistani and foreign fighters has exerted near complete control in the region. Bearded fighters travel ridges in convoys, while local commanders police villages and the rank-and-file paste up posters pronouncing the latest religious edicts.
The militancy has shattered the economy, and at least half of South Waziristan's 500,000 people had moved from the area by July, according to the International Crisis Group. Those who remain live in forced compliance, with many families offering at least one son to the Taliban to avoid drawing suspicion, researchers said. Other poor young men eagerly sign up, lured by the promise of guns, travel in SUVs and martyrdom. Amid the lines of refugees in Dera Ismail Khan, some delicately described Taliban rule as merely strict.
"The Taliban are bad for criminals and outlaws," farm worker Saidullah Khan, 37, said on a recent evening. "The Taliban cause no problems for me or other common people."
Others bold enough to speak to a journalist said the situation in South Waziristan was dire. During the Taliban's reign, roads have deteriorated and most schools have shut, residents said. Even worse, some residents said, the hard-line version of Islam favored by the Taliban has destroyed a rich Pashtun culture. Traditional drumming is banned, stifling the vibrant weddings and elaborate funerals that were once common.
But the most profound effect, they said, is the quiet, daily task of projecting loyalty to the Taliban.
"There is constant fear in our minds," said Ali Mohammed, a 35-year-old out-of-work teacher, who said he had recently come across a corpse in a field near his militant-riddled town, Makeen, from which he drew a lesson: "If they take you as an opponent or a spy, then they will punish you -- very brutally."
One businessman who fled last week to Peshawar, who did not want his name published out of fear for his life, said he had carefully carved out a narrow space to avoid Taliban wrath. He is one of the few male residents without a beard, but he dutifully attends the funerals of suicide bombers. And when he runs into fighters, he praises Baitullah Mehsud, the former Taliban chief who was killed by a U.S. drone strike in August, as a martyr and the "only big tree under which we were sheltered."
Privately, though, the businessman said he had decided the insurgents were mostly thugs, not religious purists. Worried his two adolescent sons might think otherwise, he regularly exhorts them to reject the Taliban allure.
"I am telling them, 'If you are in favor of jihad, okay, but think about it -- have these mullahs preaching to you also gone for jihad?'" the 35-year-old, boom-voiced man said in an interview in Peshawar. "This I cannot say publicly, or I would be killed."
Khadim Hussain, who researches Pakistan's tribal belt at an Islamabad-based think tank, said that a recent survey he directed in the region revealed widespread dislike for the Taliban's extremist ideology. About 550 informal interviews with residents showed most favor targeted attacks on insurgents, he said.
Even if the military offensive succeeds, some South Waziristan natives said they feared it would simply usher in a new set of outlaw rulers. The military acknowledges that it has struck deals with two other militant factions, both Mehsud rivals who focus their attacks in Afghanistan. Displacing the Taliban might empower those groups, some analysts said.
"We are silent in this whole drama. But that does not mean we are Taliban," said Mohammed, the out-of-work teacher who spoke openly only inside a car, away from a packed refugee registration point here.
If the military offensive flushed out the Taliban, some observers said, the people of South Waziristan would work to hold their ground. For now, they are crammed into rented homes outside the battle lines, waiting with hushed, almost muted hope.
"We are very weak," said Gulzada Khan, 68, a white-bearded elder in a soiled striped turban who fled to Dera Ismail Khan. "It is the worst time in my life. We were proud, respectful people. We never bowed down to anyone. Now I think we have lost that glory."
Tuesday, October 27, 2009
Pressure From U.S. Strains Ties With Pakistan
NewYorkTimes
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — The Obama administration is putting pressure on Pakistan to eliminate Taliban and Qaeda militants from the country’s tribal areas, but the push is straining the delicate relations between the allies, Pakistani and Western officials say.
The Pakistani military’s recent heavy offensive in South Waziristan has pleased the Americans, but it left large parts of Pakistan under siege, as militants once sequestered in the country’s tribal areas take their war to Pakistan’s cities. Many Pakistanis blame the United States for the country’s rising instability.
When Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton arrives in Pakistan this week, as she is scheduled to do, she will find a nuclear-armed state consumed by doubts about the value of the alliance with the United States and resentful of ever-rising American demands to do more, the officials said.
The United States is also struggling to address Pakistan’s concerns over the conditions imposed on a new American aid package of $7.5 billion over five years that the Pakistani military denounced as designed to interfere in the country’s internal affairs.
The Obama administration has endorsed the Pakistani Army’s recent offensive in South Waziristan, suggesting it showed overdue resolve. But it has also raised concerns about the Pakistani Army’s long-term objectives. How South Waziristan plays out may prove to be a bellwether for an alliance of increasingly divergent interests.
The special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, Richard C. Holbrooke, said Friday that the Obama administration would be trying to find out whether the army was simply “dispersing” the militants or “destroying” them, as the United States would like.
From the number of troops in South Waziristan, it was not clear that the army wanted to “finish the task,” said a Western military attaché, who spoke on the condition of anonymity according to diplomatic protocol.
The army would not take over South Waziristan as it had the Swat Valley, where the military is now an occupying force after conducting a campaign in the spring and summer that pushed the Taliban out, the officials said.
It remains to be seen how the campaign will play out in a region where the army has failed in the past, analysts said. The army has sent about 28,000 soldiers to South Waziristan to take on about 10,000 guerrillas, a relatively low ratio, according to military specialists.
In all, of the roughly 28,000 soldiers, there are probably about 11,000 army infantrymen, said Javed Hussain, a retired Pakistani Army brigadier. Instead of a ratio of one to one, he said, the ratio should be at least five to one.
The army appeared to have no plans to occupy South Waziristan, but rather to cut the militants “to size,” said Tariq Fatemi, who served briefly as Pakistan’s ambassador to the United States in 1999.
With the uncertainty of American plans in Afghanistan, and the strong sentiment in Pakistan that India was “up to no good” in the restive province of Baluchistan and the tribal areas, Mr. Fatemi said, the army would not abandon the militant groups that it has relied on to fight as proxies in Afghanistan and in Kashmir against India.
The goal in South Waziristan, Mr. Fatemi said, was to eliminate the leadership that had become “too big of their boots” with the attacks on Pakistan’s cities. The army would like to find more pliant replacements as leaders, he said.
The militants’ war against the cities in the past three weeks had produced a wave of fear that shored up support for the army to fight back in South Waziristan, many Pakistanis said.
But the terror has also amplified complaints that the unpopular civilian government of President Asif Ali Zardari, who is seen as slavishly pro-American, is unable to cope with the onslaught.
Mr. Zardari, whose relations with the Pakistani military appear increasingly strained, has not addressed the nation since the militants unfurled their attacks or since the army launched the offensive in South Waziristan.
Interior Minister Rehman Malik was pelted with stones last week when he visited the International Islamic University after two suicide bomb attacks on the campus killed six students, including women.
After the attack at the university, the government ordered all schools and universities closed in Punjab, the most populous province, a move that affected Pakistani families like never before.
“The impact is being felt in every home, before it was just the North-West Frontier Province,” said Jahangir Tareen, a member of Parliament and a member of the cabinet under President Pervez Musharraf.
When schools were ordered re-opened Monday, parents were still unhappy.
“The mood is as bleak as I remember,” said a well-to-do parent in Lahore who spoke on the condition of anonymity for fear of retaliation. “The government says the private schools must open, but security is up to the schools. Where is the government?”
The range and different style of attacks in the urban areas, particularly in Islamabad, the capital, and the nearby garrison city of Rawalpindi, surprised Pakistani security officials, said a Western diplomat who is in frequent contact with them.
The Pakistani security services knew that sleeper cells had been put in place in both cities in the past six months, but their strength was unknown, the diplomat said. “These were not your scared suicide bomber boys from the villages, these were well trained commandos,” the diplomat said.
The assassination of an army brigadier as he drove through Islamabad last week further unnerved people, demonstrating that the militants had a cadre of spotters or observers probably marshaled from the increasing number of students attending radical religious schools in the capital, the diplomat said.
Whatever President Obama decides about troop levels in Afghanistan, Pakistan sees the United States and NATO headed for the exits, an outcome that encourages Pakistan to hang onto the militants that it has used as proxies, the Western diplomat said.
The fact that the United States had so far failed to persuade India to restart talks with Pakistan and that it was doing little to curb what Pakistan sees as the undue influence of India in Afghanistan was unsettling for Pakistan, Mr. Fatemi, the former ambassador, said.
On top of everything else, that feeling was driving a surge of anti-American sentiment, even among the elite, some Pakistanis said, increasing the challenges ahead.
“There is a general perception in the educated class that Pakistan is paying a very heavy price for fighting alongside the United States,” said Ashfaq Khan, a prominent economist and dean of the business school at the National University of Science and Technology in Islamabad.
Health task force for Waziristan IDPs
PESHAWAR: The provincial health department is forming a task force to supervise and give advice regarding gaps in provision of health facilities to South Waziristan displaced people residing in Dera Ismail Khan and Tank districts.
‘The government has registered 19,548 families with 149,934 individuals from South Waziristan. All of them are residing with host communities because camps couldn’t be established in view of ethnic problems and general law and order situation,’ said officials.
Therefore, they added, health facilities in union councils where the displaced people were living with host communities were being strengthened.
The decision to form the six-member task force, comprising a gynaecologist, a public health expert and a surgeon and one member each from the WHO, Unicef and UNFPA, was taken at a meeting held recently at the WHO office in Islamabad.
The meeting, co-chaired by WHO’s country representative Dr Khalife Mahmud Bile and NWFP health director-general Dr Fazal Mahmood and attended by executive district officers (health) of Tank, D. I. Khan, Lakki Marwat and Bannu, discussed the health scenario of the displaced people. It decided that the task force would be visiting these districts and would identify gaps in health facilities to the provincial health department and the WHO.
At the meeting, the WHO official handed over 26 emergency health kits to the EDO of D. I. Khan, which can cater to 146,000 persons for two months and 16 kits for 96,000 persons to the EDO of Tank, apart from handing over three inter-agency emergency health kits for 30,000 people. Three cholera kits were also provided to D. I. Khan.
The world health agency also pledged to provide a state-of-the-art mobile clinical laboratory to enable health professionals to provide diagnostic services to displaced families.
Dr Mahmood told Dawn on Tuesday that the decision to form the task force was necessitated by the fact that UN officials could not visit the troubled spots because of security problems.
The WHO, he said, was also starting three-day training of doctors and health professionals of D. I. Khan and Tank districts on disease early warning system (DEWS) from Nov 3. ‘We are implementing DEWS in Tank and D. I. Khan to know about the trend of diseases and take timely measures in case of epidemics,’ he said.
A WHO official said the two districts had a weak referral system due to which the displaced people could face problems in case of serious medical conditions. For this purpose, he said, four ambulances, two each for D. I. Khan and Tank, would soon be given to the executive district officers by the WHO so that the seriously-ill IDPs could be transported to nearest health facilities.
He said the people displaced from Waziristan were being diverted from Lakki Marwat and Bannu districts to D. I. Khan and Tank and health facilities in the latter two districts were being strengthened.
Dr Mahmood said the EDOs concerned had been directed to hold IDPs health cluster meetings on weekly basis and inform the provincial health office.
The WHO had also pledged essential drugs for the displaced people, he said.
‘The government has registered 19,548 families with 149,934 individuals from South Waziristan. All of them are residing with host communities because camps couldn’t be established in view of ethnic problems and general law and order situation,’ said officials.
Therefore, they added, health facilities in union councils where the displaced people were living with host communities were being strengthened.
The decision to form the six-member task force, comprising a gynaecologist, a public health expert and a surgeon and one member each from the WHO, Unicef and UNFPA, was taken at a meeting held recently at the WHO office in Islamabad.
The meeting, co-chaired by WHO’s country representative Dr Khalife Mahmud Bile and NWFP health director-general Dr Fazal Mahmood and attended by executive district officers (health) of Tank, D. I. Khan, Lakki Marwat and Bannu, discussed the health scenario of the displaced people. It decided that the task force would be visiting these districts and would identify gaps in health facilities to the provincial health department and the WHO.
At the meeting, the WHO official handed over 26 emergency health kits to the EDO of D. I. Khan, which can cater to 146,000 persons for two months and 16 kits for 96,000 persons to the EDO of Tank, apart from handing over three inter-agency emergency health kits for 30,000 people. Three cholera kits were also provided to D. I. Khan.
The world health agency also pledged to provide a state-of-the-art mobile clinical laboratory to enable health professionals to provide diagnostic services to displaced families.
Dr Mahmood told Dawn on Tuesday that the decision to form the task force was necessitated by the fact that UN officials could not visit the troubled spots because of security problems.
The WHO, he said, was also starting three-day training of doctors and health professionals of D. I. Khan and Tank districts on disease early warning system (DEWS) from Nov 3. ‘We are implementing DEWS in Tank and D. I. Khan to know about the trend of diseases and take timely measures in case of epidemics,’ he said.
A WHO official said the two districts had a weak referral system due to which the displaced people could face problems in case of serious medical conditions. For this purpose, he said, four ambulances, two each for D. I. Khan and Tank, would soon be given to the executive district officers by the WHO so that the seriously-ill IDPs could be transported to nearest health facilities.
He said the people displaced from Waziristan were being diverted from Lakki Marwat and Bannu districts to D. I. Khan and Tank and health facilities in the latter two districts were being strengthened.
Dr Mahmood said the EDOs concerned had been directed to hold IDPs health cluster meetings on weekly basis and inform the provincial health office.
The WHO had also pledged essential drugs for the displaced people, he said.
Health task force for Waziristan IDPs
PESHAWAR: The provincial health department is forming a task force to supervise and give advice regarding gaps in provision of health facilities to South Waziristan displaced people residing in Dera Ismail Khan and Tank districts.
‘The government has registered 19,548 families with 149,934 individuals from South Waziristan. All of them are residing with host communities because camps couldn’t be established in view of ethnic problems and general law and order situation,’ said officials.
Therefore, they added, health facilities in union councils where the displaced people were living with host communities were being strengthened.
The decision to form the six-member task force, comprising a gynaecologist, a public health expert and a surgeon and one member each from the WHO, Unicef and UNFPA, was taken at a meeting held recently at the WHO office in Islamabad.
The meeting, co-chaired by WHO’s country representative Dr Khalife Mahmud Bile and NWFP health director-general Dr Fazal Mahmood and attended by executive district officers (health) of Tank, D. I. Khan, Lakki Marwat and Bannu, discussed the health scenario of the displaced people. It decided that the task force would be visiting these districts and would identify gaps in health facilities to the provincial health department and the WHO.
At the meeting, the WHO official handed over 26 emergency health kits to the EDO of D. I. Khan, which can cater to 146,000 persons for two months and 16 kits for 96,000 persons to the EDO of Tank, apart from handing over three inter-agency emergency health kits for 30,000 people. Three cholera kits were also provided to D. I. Khan.
The world health agency also pledged to provide a state-of-the-art mobile clinical laboratory to enable health professionals to provide diagnostic services to displaced families.
Dr Mahmood told Dawn on Tuesday that the decision to form the task force was necessitated by the fact that UN officials could not visit the troubled spots because of security problems.
The WHO, he said, was also starting three-day training of doctors and health professionals of D. I. Khan and Tank districts on disease early warning system (DEWS) from Nov 3. ‘We are implementing DEWS in Tank and D. I. Khan to know about the trend of diseases and take timely measures in case of epidemics,’ he said.
A WHO official said the two districts had a weak referral system due to which the displaced people could face problems in case of serious medical conditions. For this purpose, he said, four ambulances, two each for D. I. Khan and Tank, would soon be given to the executive district officers by the WHO so that the seriously-ill IDPs could be transported to nearest health facilities.
He said the people displaced from Waziristan were being diverted from Lakki Marwat and Bannu districts to D. I. Khan and Tank and health facilities in the latter two districts were being strengthened.
Dr Mahmood said the EDOs concerned had been directed to hold IDPs health cluster meetings on weekly basis and inform the provincial health office.
The WHO had also pledged essential drugs for the displaced people, he said.
‘The government has registered 19,548 families with 149,934 individuals from South Waziristan. All of them are residing with host communities because camps couldn’t be established in view of ethnic problems and general law and order situation,’ said officials.
Therefore, they added, health facilities in union councils where the displaced people were living with host communities were being strengthened.
The decision to form the six-member task force, comprising a gynaecologist, a public health expert and a surgeon and one member each from the WHO, Unicef and UNFPA, was taken at a meeting held recently at the WHO office in Islamabad.
The meeting, co-chaired by WHO’s country representative Dr Khalife Mahmud Bile and NWFP health director-general Dr Fazal Mahmood and attended by executive district officers (health) of Tank, D. I. Khan, Lakki Marwat and Bannu, discussed the health scenario of the displaced people. It decided that the task force would be visiting these districts and would identify gaps in health facilities to the provincial health department and the WHO.
At the meeting, the WHO official handed over 26 emergency health kits to the EDO of D. I. Khan, which can cater to 146,000 persons for two months and 16 kits for 96,000 persons to the EDO of Tank, apart from handing over three inter-agency emergency health kits for 30,000 people. Three cholera kits were also provided to D. I. Khan.
The world health agency also pledged to provide a state-of-the-art mobile clinical laboratory to enable health professionals to provide diagnostic services to displaced families.
Dr Mahmood told Dawn on Tuesday that the decision to form the task force was necessitated by the fact that UN officials could not visit the troubled spots because of security problems.
The WHO, he said, was also starting three-day training of doctors and health professionals of D. I. Khan and Tank districts on disease early warning system (DEWS) from Nov 3. ‘We are implementing DEWS in Tank and D. I. Khan to know about the trend of diseases and take timely measures in case of epidemics,’ he said.
A WHO official said the two districts had a weak referral system due to which the displaced people could face problems in case of serious medical conditions. For this purpose, he said, four ambulances, two each for D. I. Khan and Tank, would soon be given to the executive district officers by the WHO so that the seriously-ill IDPs could be transported to nearest health facilities.
He said the people displaced from Waziristan were being diverted from Lakki Marwat and Bannu districts to D. I. Khan and Tank and health facilities in the latter two districts were being strengthened.
Dr Mahmood said the EDOs concerned had been directed to hold IDPs health cluster meetings on weekly basis and inform the provincial health office.
The WHO had also pledged essential drugs for the displaced people, he said.
US turning a new page in ties, says Hillary
Dawn.com
WASHINGTON: A lot of military equipment is ‘fungible’ and mobile and can be used in different places, US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton told Dawn when asked if it’s fair to demand that a Pakistani military unit using a certain weapon on the Afghan border leave that weapon behind when it’s transferred to another place.
In a wide-ranging interview, Secretary Clinton said that since the beginning of the Waziristan operation, the US had been trying to accelerate its assistance for the Pakistani military.
‘We both have bureaucracies. We know how it is sometimes that things get delayed or they’re slower than we want, but we’re really trying to accelerate everything we can to help the Pakistani military.’
She agreed with the suggestion that the operation in South Waziristan was crucial for Pakistan’s stability and survival.
‘We believe that what the Pakistani military has done is in the best interest of Pakistan. It also is a conflict that we believe Pakistan has to win for Pakistan’s future.’
Asked if failure in Waziristan could also jeopardise Pakistan, the secretary said: ‘Well, it is a risk, but I have a lot of confidence in the Pakistani military. I think that this is a very well thought out and well executed military campaign. We saw the success in Swat, and I think we’re seeing the results of this effort in Waziristan.’
Asked if the US was sharing intelligence it gathered through its unmanned aircraft with the Pakistani military to help it trace the militants hiding in Waziristan, she said: ‘I don’t discuss intelligence, but we are doing all that we can to be helpful to the Pakistani military.’
In the interview, Secretary also addressed some of the issues that irritate people both in the United States and Pakistan but focussed mainly on what she believes was the real substance: a desire to build a long-term partnership between the two nations.
Asked if the uproar over the Kerry-Lugar bill had done a major damage to US relations with the Pakistani military, she said: ‘I hope not. And I will be discussing that directly, as have other representatives of our government, both our administration and Congress, because that was certainly not the intention.’
She pointed out that the US was providing a great deal of support to the Pakistani military in their ‘courageous fight’ against the violent extremists.
‘So we certainly want to have a positive relationship and there’s been a lot of outreach between the leaders of our military and the leaders of the Pakistani military and there seems to be a good base for cooperation between our militaries,’ she said.
‘So we do very much value the partnership and support that we are giving to the Pakistan military, and I hope that that will be the real story that comes out.’
The secretary, who arrives in Islamabad soon with a message of hope and friendship from President Barack Obama, acknowledged that some of the distrust between the two countries was rooted in the recent past.
‘I hope on this trip I will be able to start that ball rolling, so to speak, so that maybe some in your country will say, no, I really didn’t have a good opinion before,’ she said.
‘I thought it was all about are you going to be with us or against us on the war on terrorism, but this is a new day. That’s why we’re turning a new page. And I hope part of what I can convey on my trip is exactly that message.’
She had a personal message too. ‘I love the food, I wear shalwar-kamees. Give me a seekh kabob and daal I’ll be a happy person.’
The secretary also likes the Pakistani music. ‘Some of the music that’s coming out of Pakistan now, some of the cultural facts that I like, some of the dancing that is traditional which I have seen in my prior visits,’ she said.
‘I enjoy, looking at some of the work that I’ve done in the past. I remember when Chelsea and I were there. My daughter had been studying Islamic history in her school here in Washington.’
Indian border
Asked to comment on the US demand that a Pakistani army unit deployed along the Afghan border should leave behind all US-supplied weapons when it is transferred to the Indian border, Secretary Clinton said: ‘Well, that’s really a question that is hard to answer because a lot of military equipment is fungible. I mean, it’s mobile. It can be used in different places. But what we see as the direct threat to Pakistan right now comes from the violent extremism.’
She tackled the Indian factor in this equation rather tactfully. ‘Obviously, we are hopeful that there will be a resumption of dialogue between Pakistan and India, because I think the threat that Pakistan faces is a threat that could destabilise the entire region,’ she said.
‘And what we want to do is to help Pakistan really finally eliminate that threat. And what we hope is that on the ongoing challenges between India and Pakistan that that can be handled politically and it would never come to any kind of military action.’
Secretary Clinton had to rush to the White House to attend a Situation Room meeting on Afghanistan and Pakistan right when she was going to settle before the camera for the interview and resumed the interview when she returned.
She said President Obama was sending a strong message of support for Pakistan with her.
The message was: ‘Let’s get back to a really strong basis where we can work with one another, we will listen more closely to one another and consult and have this strategic partnership really build more into the future and create benefits for both of our people.’
Kerry-Lugar dispute
Speaking about the Kerry-Lugar bill, Secretary Clinton said the US had made it ‘very clear’ that in Kerry-Lugar it’s not putting conditions on the Pakistani government; it’s putting conditions on its own institutions for evaluating the aid, like it does with the vast majority of its aid programmes.
‘But the Pakistanis have their own ability to make decisions that they believe are obviously in the Pakistani interest. We respect territorial and sovereign capacity of Pakistan. Their sovereignty has to be respected. So we want to be a partner, not to in any way dictate but to assist. And that’s what we’re attempting to do.’
Similarly, she said, there were no conditions on Pakistan in the recently passed amendment to the US defence expenditure bill.
‘I think if one looks carefully at those provisions, they’re mostly about what our Defence Department is expected to do. They’re not really any kind of condition or restriction on the Pakistani military.
‘But I do think it’s fair to point out that when the United States taxpayers provide money to any military, which we do in many places around the world, it is supposed to be for certain missions. I mean, there are many areas where a nation’s military would be proceeding on its own because something was very much in their own self-interest which we do not partner on, but where we partner there is a back and forth about what we can do to be helpful.’
Security on high alert in Peshawar
PESHAWAR: Security is on high alert in Peshawar as the local government has erected additional pickets on all the entrances and exits of the city, in milieu of country’s deteriorating peace situation.Cars are being checked with the help of detective dogs.
Additional security personnel have been deployed at Peshawar’s GT Road, Kohat Road, Chaarsadda, Rang Road, Khyber Road, Saddar and Hayatabad areas.The extra police personnel have been posted at the pickets to entirely search the vehicles before allowing them to enter Peshawar.Strict checking is being carried out on all the roads leading to Cantonment limits and cars are searched with bomb-sniffing dogs to ensure safety.The Police have called upon the citizens to fully cooperate with law enforcement agencies.
Additional security personnel have been deployed at Peshawar’s GT Road, Kohat Road, Chaarsadda, Rang Road, Khyber Road, Saddar and Hayatabad areas.The extra police personnel have been posted at the pickets to entirely search the vehicles before allowing them to enter Peshawar.Strict checking is being carried out on all the roads leading to Cantonment limits and cars are searched with bomb-sniffing dogs to ensure safety.The Police have called upon the citizens to fully cooperate with law enforcement agencies.
Obama: "I may be skinny but I'm tough"
President Barack Obama had a message for his political friends and foes on Monday -- "just because I'm skinny doesn't mean I'm not tough."
Obama was in Miami raising $1.5 million for Democratic congressional candidates for the 2010 elections, in which Democrats are seeking to hold onto their strong majorities in the House of Representatives and the Senate.
After weeks in which he has been angrily criticized by some on the right, to the point of creating a poster image of him with a Hitler mustache, Obama told a fund-raising event that some of his supporters have been expressing concern to him.
"I've tried to explain ... just because I'm skinny doesn't mean I'm not tough. I don't rattle. I'm not going to shrink back, because now is the time for us to continue to push and follow through on those things that we know have to be done but have not been done in decades," he said.
And he had tough words for those Republican critics who he says are not helping solve some of the problems that festered when they were in control of the White House and Congress.
"Lately I feel like somebody made a big mess and I've got my mop and I'm mopping the floor and the folks who made the mess are there (saying) 'you're not mopping fast enough. You're not mopping the right way. It's a socialist mop.'"
The president also used speeches at two Miami political events to contest the notion circulated by some political commentators and Republican critics that he has little show in the way of accomplishments during his nine months in office.
He reeled off a string of legislative achievements, starting with the $787 billion economic stimulus he credited with helping stop the bleeding in the U.S. economy. Republicans, on the other hand, contend the spending has done little to restrain the 9.8 percent U.S. jobless rate.
Among other items Obama listed: Lifting the Bush ban on using federal funds for stem cell research, signing legislation to ensure women gain equal pay as men for the same work, banning housing fraud, toughening credit card regulations and bringing the country close to a massive healthcare overhaul.
Abroad, Obama said he had put the United States on a path to getting U.S. troops out of Iraq and is working on a new strategy for Afghanistan.
"Here's my main message to you. We're just getting started," he said.
Monday, October 26, 2009
Obama tells troops he will not rush Afghan decision
JACKSONVILLE, Florida (Reuters) - President Barack Obama, accused by some of dithering over a new strategy for Afghanistan, vowed on Monday not to be rushed into a decision over whether to send more U.S. troops to the war zone.
Obama spoke to U.S. Navy personnel in Jacksonville on the same day 14 Americans were killed in helicopter crashes in Afghanistan and shortly after he met top advisers for a sixth time about a new Afghan strategy that the White House said was still weeks away.
Obama is debating whether to follow the advice of his military commander in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, who wants to send at least 40,000 more U.S. forces there.
Just last week, the White House rejected former Vice President Dick Cheney's charge that Obama was "dithering" over the strategy review and needed to send more troops.
"I will never rush the solemn decision of sending you into harm's way," Obama said to applause from the sailors at the event and their families. "I won't risk your lives unless it is absolutely necessary. And if it is necessary, we will back you up to the hilt."
"Because you deserve the strategy, the clear mission, the defined goals as well as the equipment and support you need to get the job done," Obama said, vowing not to have a situation where troops in the field are not supported by people at home.
Opinion polls show flagging public support for the war effort and members of Obama's own Democratic Party are divided over whether to send more troops.
The United States now has 65,000 troops in Afghanistan, which is expected to reach 68,000 later this year. Other countries, mainly NATO allies, have some 39,000 troops there.
Obama expressed condolences to the families of the latest 14 Americans killed in Afghanistan.
Three special agents from the Drug Enforcement Administration were among those who died in the helicopter crash in western Afghanistan, said U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, who hailed their work in fighting the drugs trade there.
On the Air Force One flight from Washington, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said Obama met with Vice President Joe Biden and other senior advisers at the White House for the latest session on Afghanistan.
DECISION IN "COMING WEEKS"
Gibbs said Obama's decision on a new strategy will take place "in the coming weeks."
ABC News cited unnamed sources as saying Obama's decision likely will come between Afghanistan's run-off election on November 7 and his departure for Japan on November 11.
The Pentagon carried out internal assessments of the two main proposals for troop levels -- sending roughly 40,000 more troops or a far smaller number, an option McChrystal and other defense officials see as having a higher risk of failure.
The reviews were overseen by Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, one military official said.
Senator John Kerry, who heads the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, gave conditional support for additional troops.
He told the Council on Foreign Relations he would support more troops only if there were enough "reliable" Afghan forces to partner with as well as local leaders who could deliver basic services to the people.
"What we need, above all, what our troops deserve -- and what we haven't had -- is a comprehensive strategy, military and civilian combined," Kerry said.
Obama is also looking at a "civilian surge" of boosting staff in areas stabilized by the military and seeking to improve the capacity of the Afghan government.
Kerry, who was in Afghanistan last week to put pressure on President Hamid Karzai to accept a run-off election, was scathing of the U.S. civilian effort so far.
"Our civilian presence there is disgraceful compared to what it ought to be relative to the challenge," Kerry said.
But Deputy Secretary of State Jacob Lew sought to squash criticism, telling reporters earlier that the State Department was on track to get nearly 1,000 people in place by year-end.
There are now just over 600 U.S. civilians in Afghanistan, including specialists from the treasury and agriculture departments and the U.S. Agency for International Development, said Lew.
The Bush administration struggled to find enough civilians for its mission in Iraq during the height of the conflict there but Lew said this was not a problem in Afghanistan.
"We have many more people applying than there are positions," said Lew.
Obama spoke to U.S. Navy personnel in Jacksonville on the same day 14 Americans were killed in helicopter crashes in Afghanistan and shortly after he met top advisers for a sixth time about a new Afghan strategy that the White House said was still weeks away.
Obama is debating whether to follow the advice of his military commander in Afghanistan, General Stanley McChrystal, who wants to send at least 40,000 more U.S. forces there.
Just last week, the White House rejected former Vice President Dick Cheney's charge that Obama was "dithering" over the strategy review and needed to send more troops.
"I will never rush the solemn decision of sending you into harm's way," Obama said to applause from the sailors at the event and their families. "I won't risk your lives unless it is absolutely necessary. And if it is necessary, we will back you up to the hilt."
"Because you deserve the strategy, the clear mission, the defined goals as well as the equipment and support you need to get the job done," Obama said, vowing not to have a situation where troops in the field are not supported by people at home.
Opinion polls show flagging public support for the war effort and members of Obama's own Democratic Party are divided over whether to send more troops.
The United States now has 65,000 troops in Afghanistan, which is expected to reach 68,000 later this year. Other countries, mainly NATO allies, have some 39,000 troops there.
Obama expressed condolences to the families of the latest 14 Americans killed in Afghanistan.
Three special agents from the Drug Enforcement Administration were among those who died in the helicopter crash in western Afghanistan, said U.S. Attorney General Eric Holder, who hailed their work in fighting the drugs trade there.
On the Air Force One flight from Washington, White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said Obama met with Vice President Joe Biden and other senior advisers at the White House for the latest session on Afghanistan.
DECISION IN "COMING WEEKS"
Gibbs said Obama's decision on a new strategy will take place "in the coming weeks."
ABC News cited unnamed sources as saying Obama's decision likely will come between Afghanistan's run-off election on November 7 and his departure for Japan on November 11.
The Pentagon carried out internal assessments of the two main proposals for troop levels -- sending roughly 40,000 more troops or a far smaller number, an option McChrystal and other defense officials see as having a higher risk of failure.
The reviews were overseen by Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, one military official said.
Senator John Kerry, who heads the Senate Foreign Relations Committee, gave conditional support for additional troops.
He told the Council on Foreign Relations he would support more troops only if there were enough "reliable" Afghan forces to partner with as well as local leaders who could deliver basic services to the people.
"What we need, above all, what our troops deserve -- and what we haven't had -- is a comprehensive strategy, military and civilian combined," Kerry said.
Obama is also looking at a "civilian surge" of boosting staff in areas stabilized by the military and seeking to improve the capacity of the Afghan government.
Kerry, who was in Afghanistan last week to put pressure on President Hamid Karzai to accept a run-off election, was scathing of the U.S. civilian effort so far.
"Our civilian presence there is disgraceful compared to what it ought to be relative to the challenge," Kerry said.
But Deputy Secretary of State Jacob Lew sought to squash criticism, telling reporters earlier that the State Department was on track to get nearly 1,000 people in place by year-end.
There are now just over 600 U.S. civilians in Afghanistan, including specialists from the treasury and agriculture departments and the U.S. Agency for International Development, said Lew.
The Bush administration struggled to find enough civilians for its mission in Iraq during the height of the conflict there but Lew said this was not a problem in Afghanistan.
"We have many more people applying than there are positions," said Lew.
Iranian troops arrested inside Pakistan
Tehran is facing a diplomatic showdown with Islamabad after a contingent of its border guard was captured during a clandestine mission inside Pakistani territory.
The exposure of what appeared to be a secret Iranian operation will further heighten tensions between the two countries. Relations have already been damaged after Iran claimed that a suicide bombing on its side of the border nine days ago was carried out by a militant group believed to have bases inside Pakistan.
The cover of Monday's mission was blown when Pakistani troops opened fire on two vehicles that had driven into the country from Iran. They later arrested 11 Iranian soldiers, including three officers believed to be from Iran's elite Revolutionary Guard. Iran immediately sought to downplay the incident, claiming that the soldiers were border guards who had accidentally crossed into Pakistan while pursuing smugglers.
But there will be suspicion that the true reason for the operation is connected to an attack on the Iranian border town of Pishin on Oct 18 that killed 42 people, that Iran has linked to Britain, the United States and Pakistani intelligence.
The Iranian regime was particularly incensed that the casualties included 11 members of the Revolutionary Guard, five of whom were senior commanders including a general.
"It's a serious matter," a Pakistani security official was quoted as saying. "We are investigating why they crossed into our territory."
The bombings in Pishin were claimed by the Jundullah, a Sunni Muslim group that has carried out dozens of attacks in the region as part of its campaign to highlight what it claims is the marginalisation of Iran's Baluchi minority.
Iran was quick to suggest that Jundullah is received funding from Britain and the United States and logistical support from Pakistan's Intelligence Service.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's supreme leader, gave those allegations his backing on Monday when he claimed that "foreign agents" were behind terrorist attacks in Iraq, Pakistan and parts of his country in an attempt to create discord between Shia and Sunni Muslims.
"Perpetrators of terrorist and bloody moves are directly or indirectly linked to foreign agents," Iran's Press TV quoted him as saying.
It is unclear how Pakistan will react to the cross-border incident. Already facing accusations that it has provided sanctuary to militants from Afghanistan and India, the government of Asif Zardari, the Pakistani president, is keen not to alienate another neighbour.
Mr Zardari met Iran's interior minister in Islamabad at the weekend to discuss the bombing in Pishin and vowed to co-operate in capturing those involved in the attack.
Even so, he is likely to take a dim view of any unilateral Iranian action on Pakistani soil.
The exposure of what appeared to be a secret Iranian operation will further heighten tensions between the two countries. Relations have already been damaged after Iran claimed that a suicide bombing on its side of the border nine days ago was carried out by a militant group believed to have bases inside Pakistan.
The cover of Monday's mission was blown when Pakistani troops opened fire on two vehicles that had driven into the country from Iran. They later arrested 11 Iranian soldiers, including three officers believed to be from Iran's elite Revolutionary Guard. Iran immediately sought to downplay the incident, claiming that the soldiers were border guards who had accidentally crossed into Pakistan while pursuing smugglers.
But there will be suspicion that the true reason for the operation is connected to an attack on the Iranian border town of Pishin on Oct 18 that killed 42 people, that Iran has linked to Britain, the United States and Pakistani intelligence.
The Iranian regime was particularly incensed that the casualties included 11 members of the Revolutionary Guard, five of whom were senior commanders including a general.
"It's a serious matter," a Pakistani security official was quoted as saying. "We are investigating why they crossed into our territory."
The bombings in Pishin were claimed by the Jundullah, a Sunni Muslim group that has carried out dozens of attacks in the region as part of its campaign to highlight what it claims is the marginalisation of Iran's Baluchi minority.
Iran was quick to suggest that Jundullah is received funding from Britain and the United States and logistical support from Pakistan's Intelligence Service.
Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, Iran's supreme leader, gave those allegations his backing on Monday when he claimed that "foreign agents" were behind terrorist attacks in Iraq, Pakistan and parts of his country in an attempt to create discord between Shia and Sunni Muslims.
"Perpetrators of terrorist and bloody moves are directly or indirectly linked to foreign agents," Iran's Press TV quoted him as saying.
It is unclear how Pakistan will react to the cross-border incident. Already facing accusations that it has provided sanctuary to militants from Afghanistan and India, the government of Asif Zardari, the Pakistani president, is keen not to alienate another neighbour.
Mr Zardari met Iran's interior minister in Islamabad at the weekend to discuss the bombing in Pishin and vowed to co-operate in capturing those involved in the attack.
Even so, he is likely to take a dim view of any unilateral Iranian action on Pakistani soil.
Afghan Rivals Rule Out Power-Sharing Deal
KABUL, Afghanistan — President Hamid Karzai and his top rival for the office said over the weekend that they had ruled out a power-sharing deal before the runoff election.
Mr. Karzai’s announcement on Saturday appeared to reflect his confidence that he would win the Nov. 7 runoff handily and that there was no need to form a coalition with his rival, Abdullah Abdullah.
“We don’t want any coalition government before the election,” said Waheed Omar, spokesman for the Karzai campaign office. “We cannot make the vote of the people of Afghanistan and its Constitution take a back seat to political deal-making.”
Mr. Abdullah, speaking on CNN on Sunday, said he had “absolutely no interest” in a deal. “The people of Afghanistan should see the outcome of the runoff and get to work and see their government of choice in place,” he said.
While neither candidate has completely ruled out the possibility of a unity government after the runoff, a coalition would have political costs for both. For Mr. Karzai, who already has brought representatives from a number of constituencies into his fold, it would mean giving up political jobs to a rival instead of to his loyalists. For Mr. Abdullah, who has run on a government reform platform, it would mean being seen as part of the Karzai government and would potentially tarnish him in his supporters’ eyes.
However, the Americans and other Western members of the coalition fighting in Afghanistan have suggested that a unity government including the two top vote-getters in the first round would have more legitimacy than one led alone by Mr. Karzai, whose total vote count was reduced by nearly a million because of widespread fraud.
A coalition government would give the Americans and the Europeans some political cover for their continuing troop presence because they would be backing a government that had the support of a vast majority of Afghans.
If Mr. Karzai wins the second round, as expected, the international community will be likely to continue to back his government, which many Afghans say they believe has done too little to improve their lives and has failed to root out endemic corruption.
Mr. Abdullah has said he would not join a coalition with Mr. Karzai in large part because of their deep political differences.
“The difference in the character and the agenda of the two men makes it impossible,” said Mr. Abdullah’s deputy campaign manager, Salih Muhammed Registani. “We want change, we want the system to be changed.”
Mr. Abdullah’s most immediate concern is pushing the government to take steps to avoid a repeat of the fraud that marred the Aug. 20 election. He wants the head of the Independent Election Commission to be fired along with two other top commission officials who he says he believes were complicit in the fraud.
“So many people were involved in the fraud,” said Ahmad Wali Massoud, one of Mr. Abdullah’s advisers. “We have to get rid of people on the commission, otherwise we will be witnessing massive fraud again.”
Mr. Massoud said that changing about 200 local election officials, which the United Nations has said will be done, would have little impact.
Despite widespread perceptions of insecurity, students held a rally on Sunday at Kabul University calling for American troops to leave. The demonstration was held to protest an episode in Wardak Province in which international troops were said to have burned a Koran after their vehicle hit a bomb.
NATO-led forces strongly denied the charge and sent out a news release quoting the office of the governor of Wardak saying that the episode had been investigated and that American troops were not responsible.
Mr. Karzai’s announcement on Saturday appeared to reflect his confidence that he would win the Nov. 7 runoff handily and that there was no need to form a coalition with his rival, Abdullah Abdullah.
“We don’t want any coalition government before the election,” said Waheed Omar, spokesman for the Karzai campaign office. “We cannot make the vote of the people of Afghanistan and its Constitution take a back seat to political deal-making.”
Mr. Abdullah, speaking on CNN on Sunday, said he had “absolutely no interest” in a deal. “The people of Afghanistan should see the outcome of the runoff and get to work and see their government of choice in place,” he said.
While neither candidate has completely ruled out the possibility of a unity government after the runoff, a coalition would have political costs for both. For Mr. Karzai, who already has brought representatives from a number of constituencies into his fold, it would mean giving up political jobs to a rival instead of to his loyalists. For Mr. Abdullah, who has run on a government reform platform, it would mean being seen as part of the Karzai government and would potentially tarnish him in his supporters’ eyes.
However, the Americans and other Western members of the coalition fighting in Afghanistan have suggested that a unity government including the two top vote-getters in the first round would have more legitimacy than one led alone by Mr. Karzai, whose total vote count was reduced by nearly a million because of widespread fraud.
A coalition government would give the Americans and the Europeans some political cover for their continuing troop presence because they would be backing a government that had the support of a vast majority of Afghans.
If Mr. Karzai wins the second round, as expected, the international community will be likely to continue to back his government, which many Afghans say they believe has done too little to improve their lives and has failed to root out endemic corruption.
Mr. Abdullah has said he would not join a coalition with Mr. Karzai in large part because of their deep political differences.
“The difference in the character and the agenda of the two men makes it impossible,” said Mr. Abdullah’s deputy campaign manager, Salih Muhammed Registani. “We want change, we want the system to be changed.”
Mr. Abdullah’s most immediate concern is pushing the government to take steps to avoid a repeat of the fraud that marred the Aug. 20 election. He wants the head of the Independent Election Commission to be fired along with two other top commission officials who he says he believes were complicit in the fraud.
“So many people were involved in the fraud,” said Ahmad Wali Massoud, one of Mr. Abdullah’s advisers. “We have to get rid of people on the commission, otherwise we will be witnessing massive fraud again.”
Mr. Massoud said that changing about 200 local election officials, which the United Nations has said will be done, would have little impact.
Despite widespread perceptions of insecurity, students held a rally on Sunday at Kabul University calling for American troops to leave. The demonstration was held to protest an episode in Wardak Province in which international troops were said to have burned a Koran after their vehicle hit a bomb.
NATO-led forces strongly denied the charge and sent out a news release quoting the office of the governor of Wardak saying that the episode had been investigated and that American troops were not responsible.
Erdogan pledges unwavering support against terrorism
ISLAMABAD: Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan declared here on Monday that his country would continue to stand by Pakistan in the war on terror and strengthen relations between the two countries.
Mr Erdogan, who was addressing a joint session of the two houses of parliament, was warmly applauded when he said that Turkey and Pakistan were two strong states of the region and were contributing to regional and global peace efforts.
With their solidarity and historical ties of brotherhood, he said, no regional problem could become an obstacle to their peace and stability.
The Turkish premier’s address to parliament was considered by political observers here as significant because it was made in the wake of serious threats of terrorist attacks.
Strict security measures were taken for the occasion and the entire Constitution Avenue along which the Presidency, Prime Minister’s House, Parliament House, Supreme Court, PM’s secretariat, auditor general’s offices and the Federal Shariat Court are located was sealed and closed to traffic.
In his brief remarks welcoming Mr Erdogan, Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani said: ‘Pakistan takes great pride in its special, deep-rooted relations with Turkey.’
Earlier, National Assembly Speaker Dr Fehmida Mirza who presided over the session recounted numerous similarities and values shared by the two countries with special reference to the commonality of culture and literature dominated by Maulana Roomi and Allama Iqbal.
The session was attended also by the wife of the Turkish premier and members of his entourage.
Mr Erdogan, who was earlier decorated with the highest civil award, Nishan-i-Pakistan, expressed confidence that Pakistan would surmount the challenge of terrorism which was a common enemy of the entire humanity.
President Asif Ali Zardari conferred the award at the Presidency in recognition of Prime Minister Erdogan’s ‘visionary leadership and outstanding contributions in strengthening Pakistan-Turkey relations.’
While Leader of the Opposition in National Assembly Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan attended the session, PML-Q’s Chaudhry Pervaiz Elahi and Faisal Saleh Hayat were conspicuous by their absence.
The Turkish prime minister also mentioned the anguish that his country and its people felt on the devastating earthquake that had shaken the northern parts of Pakistan and Kashmir in 2005 and recalled his visit to AJK immediately after the quake and his second visit to the region on Monday.
Referring to the hardship faced by Pakistan because of the war on terror, he said: ‘You are not alone in your campaign against terrorism and extremism as we too have suffered heavily from terror, given many martyrs.
‘My government and the Turkish people stand by their Pakistani brothers as has always been the case; and are ready to help address all needs to the best of their abilities.’
Later, Prime Minister Gilani reiterated the resolve of the government and the people of Pakistan in the fight against terrorism and militancy and vowed to spare no sacrifice to defeat enemies’ designs.
‘The people of Pakistan value their dignity and honour. They are resolute and will spare no sacrifice to defeat the designs of the enemies of Pakistan.
Mr Erdogan expressed the hope that Pakistan would overcome its problems through national reconciliation and solidarity.
He said Pakistan had always occupied a special place in the hearts and minds of the Turkish government and people.
He said Turkey had been a part of the Friends of Democratic Pakistan group from the very beginning and had always underlined the need of redressing the issues confronting Pakistan because it was the key country for regional and global stability.
Mr Erdogan called upon all members of the FoDP to fulfil pledges made at the donors’ conference in Tokyo on April 25.
He said cooperation between Pakistan and Turkey was not limited to bilateral ties, but covered a much broader ground.
He described the Turkey- Pakistan-Afghanistan tripartite arrangement initiated by Ankara as a ‘robust process’ and recalled that its three meetings had helped to allay misunderstandings.
He said a parliamentary dimension was being given to the process of strengthening partnership in all areas and members of the foreign relations committees’ of parliaments of the three countries had met in Ankara a few months ago.
Prime Minister Gilani said: ‘Our brave armed forces are rendering exemplary services in the ongoing law-enforcement operation against terrorists and militants. The whole nation stands united behind them,’ he said.
He said the success of the military operation in Malakand was achieved as a result of sacrifices by the valiant armed forces and complete consensus and political will displayed by all political forces.
‘It is imperative that Nato and Isaf forces in Afghanistan remain vigilant and effectively curb cross-border infiltration and supply of arms to terrorists and militants,’ he said.
He said Pakistan would maintain a credible minimum nuclear deterrence and continue to advocate strategic restraint in South Asia and the importance of maintaining strategic stability in the nuclearised region.
He said Pakistan would continue to cooperate with the international community to promote the goals of non-proliferation, but would never compromise on its vital strategic interests, its sovereignty and integrity.
About relations with India, the prime minister said Pakistan’s policy was one of peaceful coexistence with all its neighbours.
‘We are committed to a serious, sustained and constructive across-the-board engagement with India for the settlement of all disputes, including Jammu and Kashmir.
‘We view the composite dialogue as a win-win process that advances the cause of peace in this region. It is our sincere hope that India will once again view this process as having immense potential for the mutual benefit of both the countries,’ he added.
Pakistanis too scared to leave home, many want to flee country
ISLAMABAD: Peshawar-based Mustafa Kamal has had enough: he has just got his12-year-old son freed from a band of criminals in the lawless tribal area of Khyber agency by paying a ransom. He has left a lucrative job with Pakistan's telecommunication department and now has the immigartion papers for Canada ready for his entire family.
``I'm lucky to have found my son alive. But I won't take any more risk. Life has become extremely dangerous — it's not worth living here. Enough'senough,'' says Kamal.
For a country badly bloodied by a wave of suicide attacks (at least eight this month alone), the next tragedy appears to be collapse of governance. The Pakistani state is pitted against a wide array of militant groups across the country in a situation teetering on the brink of a civil war. And the chasm between the government and the people seems to be growing by the day.
The popular perception is that Pakistan is fighting the US war against terror. Many people in the lawless North West Frontier Province say Pakistan has been sold to the US piece by piece. Under coercion, they argue, Pakistan has started a war that has consumed its economy, national security, and has torn apart its social fabric.
``Our national integrity is at risk. I wish not to see the end of Pakistan in my lifetime. It is not yet too late for Pakistan to return from the precipice of national suicide. Pakistan must take a u-turn and preempt the civil war. Pakistan must say an emphatic no to the US,'' says Rabnawaz Khan, a former Pakistani diplomat, stressing that an internally torn Pakistan does not weaken but strengthens militants.
The civil unrest has spilled into many parts, giving rise to fear psychosis among citizens. So much so that when twin blasts rocked Islamabad's Islamic University on October 20, many did not believe that it was militants' handiwork. Instead, they blamed ``indistinct forces out to discredit Islam or weaken Pakistan''.
That attack led the authorities to take an unprecedented step of closing down all schools, colleges and other training institutions in the country. ``The law and order situation has only worsened since the military operations against the Taliban started. How can we believe that things will normalize by carrying out a big operation in Waziristan? I think the repercussions are going to be more blasts and suicide attacks,'' said Palwasha Zia, a third year student of Home Economics in Peshawar.
``People are very scared. Every time I go to market, I worry about blasts. We are being targeted and our life has become very difficult. We are hoping the situation will get better. What else can we do?'' says Shaheen Akhtar, a deputy provost of Peshawar University.
October has been the cruelest month. Militants have struck UN offices, police buildings, army headquarters in Rawalpindi and ambushed security forces. The government response has been on expected lines: it swiftly sent troops to battle the entrenched militants in trouble-torn South Waziristan and beefed up security in all major cities. Reportedly, there were at least 72 check posts at entry and exit points around sensitive installations in Islamabad before these attacks. Now, the check points have been increased up to 300 in the federal capital.
Has it helped? Margalla Road, the most expensive and posh area of Islamabad, has almost been turned into a fortress, with concrete barricades, security pickets and barbed wires installed in most of the places. The residents say driving inside the capital has become extremely difficult as they are checked several times a day during routine work. ``Establishing security pickets in residential areas and check points have not resolved the issue of law and order; rather the situation has further deteriorated,'' said a traffic police official in Islamabad's Blue area, wishing not to be named.
Just two days after the attack on Islamic university that killed seven people, suspected militants shot dead a senior Pakistani army officer of brigadier rank and a soldier in Islamabad on Wednesday, suggesting militants are shifting tactics in the face of a sweeping army drive in their South Waziristan stronghold.
``First, it was Peshawar. Then Islamabad and Karachi, and now Lahore and Rawalpindi. When you live in a place which is under threat of continuous attacks, you'll have to think twice before you step out of your house. The scare among people is visible — there are fewer people out on streets,'' says Mujeeb-ur Rehman, a news anchor in Islamabad-based TV station.
The frequent terror attacks have greatly damaged the business climate. Nasir Dawood, who ran a boutique shop in Rawalpindi's Raja Bazaar till last week has finally shut shop. ``My business was badly damaged in the last one year. Scared customers don't come for shopping. To avoid any further losses, I had no option,'' Nasir said.
Habibullah Zahid, another businessman who owns four restaurants in Peshawar, has shifted his family to Islamabad to escape the constant threats of militants. ``Though my business was affected, I left Peshawar due to threats to my life. A group of militants or criminals in the Khyber tribal area has made it a habit to make threatening calls, demanding money in millions. I could no more give in to their demands,'' says Zahid.
``I'm lucky to have found my son alive. But I won't take any more risk. Life has become extremely dangerous — it's not worth living here. Enough'senough,'' says Kamal.
For a country badly bloodied by a wave of suicide attacks (at least eight this month alone), the next tragedy appears to be collapse of governance. The Pakistani state is pitted against a wide array of militant groups across the country in a situation teetering on the brink of a civil war. And the chasm between the government and the people seems to be growing by the day.
The popular perception is that Pakistan is fighting the US war against terror. Many people in the lawless North West Frontier Province say Pakistan has been sold to the US piece by piece. Under coercion, they argue, Pakistan has started a war that has consumed its economy, national security, and has torn apart its social fabric.
``Our national integrity is at risk. I wish not to see the end of Pakistan in my lifetime. It is not yet too late for Pakistan to return from the precipice of national suicide. Pakistan must take a u-turn and preempt the civil war. Pakistan must say an emphatic no to the US,'' says Rabnawaz Khan, a former Pakistani diplomat, stressing that an internally torn Pakistan does not weaken but strengthens militants.
The civil unrest has spilled into many parts, giving rise to fear psychosis among citizens. So much so that when twin blasts rocked Islamabad's Islamic University on October 20, many did not believe that it was militants' handiwork. Instead, they blamed ``indistinct forces out to discredit Islam or weaken Pakistan''.
That attack led the authorities to take an unprecedented step of closing down all schools, colleges and other training institutions in the country. ``The law and order situation has only worsened since the military operations against the Taliban started. How can we believe that things will normalize by carrying out a big operation in Waziristan? I think the repercussions are going to be more blasts and suicide attacks,'' said Palwasha Zia, a third year student of Home Economics in Peshawar.
``People are very scared. Every time I go to market, I worry about blasts. We are being targeted and our life has become very difficult. We are hoping the situation will get better. What else can we do?'' says Shaheen Akhtar, a deputy provost of Peshawar University.
October has been the cruelest month. Militants have struck UN offices, police buildings, army headquarters in Rawalpindi and ambushed security forces. The government response has been on expected lines: it swiftly sent troops to battle the entrenched militants in trouble-torn South Waziristan and beefed up security in all major cities. Reportedly, there were at least 72 check posts at entry and exit points around sensitive installations in Islamabad before these attacks. Now, the check points have been increased up to 300 in the federal capital.
Has it helped? Margalla Road, the most expensive and posh area of Islamabad, has almost been turned into a fortress, with concrete barricades, security pickets and barbed wires installed in most of the places. The residents say driving inside the capital has become extremely difficult as they are checked several times a day during routine work. ``Establishing security pickets in residential areas and check points have not resolved the issue of law and order; rather the situation has further deteriorated,'' said a traffic police official in Islamabad's Blue area, wishing not to be named.
Just two days after the attack on Islamic university that killed seven people, suspected militants shot dead a senior Pakistani army officer of brigadier rank and a soldier in Islamabad on Wednesday, suggesting militants are shifting tactics in the face of a sweeping army drive in their South Waziristan stronghold.
``First, it was Peshawar. Then Islamabad and Karachi, and now Lahore and Rawalpindi. When you live in a place which is under threat of continuous attacks, you'll have to think twice before you step out of your house. The scare among people is visible — there are fewer people out on streets,'' says Mujeeb-ur Rehman, a news anchor in Islamabad-based TV station.
The frequent terror attacks have greatly damaged the business climate. Nasir Dawood, who ran a boutique shop in Rawalpindi's Raja Bazaar till last week has finally shut shop. ``My business was badly damaged in the last one year. Scared customers don't come for shopping. To avoid any further losses, I had no option,'' Nasir said.
Habibullah Zahid, another businessman who owns four restaurants in Peshawar, has shifted his family to Islamabad to escape the constant threats of militants. ``Though my business was affected, I left Peshawar due to threats to my life. A group of militants or criminals in the Khyber tribal area has made it a habit to make threatening calls, demanding money in millions. I could no more give in to their demands,'' says Zahid.
U.S. tested 2 Afghan scenarios in war game
Washington Post
The Pentagon's top military officer oversaw a secret war game this month to evaluate the two primary military options that have been put forward by the Pentagon and are being weighed by the Obama administration as part of a broad-based review of the faltering Afghanistan war, senior military officials said.
The exercise, led by Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, examined the likely outcome of inserting 44,000 more troops into the country to conduct a full-scale counterinsurgency effort aimed at building a stable Afghan government that can control most of the country. It also examined adding 10,000 to 15,000 more soldiers and Marines as part of an approach that the military has dubbed "counterterrorism plus."
Both options were drawn from a detailed analysis prepared by Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the senior commander in Afghanistan, and were forwarded to President Obama in recent weeks by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates.
The Pentagon war game did not formally endorse either course; rather, it tried to gauge how Taliban fighters, the Afghan and Pakistani governments and NATO allies might react to either of the scenarios. Mullen, a key player in the game, has discussed its conclusions with senior White House officials involved in the discussions over the new strategy.
One of the exercise's key assumptions is that an increase of 10,000 to 15,000 troops would not in the near future give U.S. commanders the forces they need to take back havens from the Taliban commanders in southern and western Afghanistan, where shadow insurgent governors collect taxes and run court systems based on Islamic sharia law.
"We were running out the options and trying to understand the implications from many different perspectives, including the enemy and the Afghan people," said a senior military official, who was granted anonymity to discuss the classified game.
The Obama administration initiated a major review of its war strategy in late September after questions emerged about the legitimacy of the Aug. 20 Afghan elections, which were marred by allegations of widespread fraud, and a troubling update on the progress of the war by McChrystal. He warned that unless the United States moved quickly to wrest momentum from the Taliban, defeating the insurgency in Afghanistan might no longer be possible.
What was intended to be two or three weeks of intensive White House meetings has stretched on for almost a month. Obama and his national security advisers have sorted through the military and civilian aspects of the war, building toward a decision that many on the outside have urged be made sooner rather than later.
Last week, the president concluded the five planned review sessions, roughly 15 hours in all, with top advisers in the Situation Room.
McChrystal's analysis suggests that 44,000 troops would be needed to drive Taliban forces from populated areas and to hold them until Afghan troops and government officials can take the place of U.S. and NATO forces. The extra troops would allow U.S. commanders to essentially triple the size of the American forces in the southern part of the country, where the Taliban movement originated and where the insurgents have their strongest base of support.
McChrystal would also use the additional troops to bolster the effort in eastern Afghanistan, which has long been a focus of the U.S. military, and push additional troops into western Afghanistan, where the military has maintained a tiny presence and where the Taliban has made inroads, U.S. officials said. A surge of 44,000 soldiers and Marines would also allow McChrystal to designate a brigade of about 5,000 soldiers to train and advise the Afghan army and police forces, accelerating their growth.
The increase of 10,000 to 15,000 soldiers would give McChrystal one U.S. advisory brigade of about 5,000 troops to speed the development of Afghan forces and a large number of support forces to include engineers, route-clearance teams and helicopters. McChrystal's analysis also suggested the option of increasing the number of troops by 80,000, but that isn't drawing serious consideration.
In television interviews Sunday, lawmakers outlined broad partisan differences over how many troops are needed in Afghanistan. Republicans have voiced strong support for granting McChrystal's request for more troops, and urged that it be done quickly.
"I'm afraid that with every passing day, we risk the future success of the mission," Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) said on "Fox News Sunday."
Sen. James Webb (D-Va.) disagreed, calling the decision-making process "very proper and smart." The administration's lengthy deliberations are "what we need, because we're going to end up living with the results for a good period of time," Webb said on CNN's "State of the Union."
The administration's internal deliberations have emphasized that unless the Afghan government dramatically improves its performance, the Taliban will continue to find support. Administration officials said Obama's decision will consider a much broader range of options than the number of troops. At nearly every meeting in the White House Situation Room, McChrystal has been joined on the video screens at the end of the table by Karl W. Eikenberry, the U.S. ambassador to Kabul, and Anne W. Patterson, his counterpart in Pakistan.
One question being debated is whether more U.S. troops would improve the performance of the Afghan government by providing an important check on corruption and the drug trade, or would they stunt the growth of the Afghan government as U.S. troops and civilians take on more tasks that Afghans might better perform themselves. Another factor is cost. The Pentagon has budgeted about $65 billion to maintain a force of about 68,000 troops, meaning that each additional 1,000 U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan would cost about $1 billion a year.
Administration officials say Obama might settle on a plan but delay announcing it until after a runoff in the Afghan national elections, scheduled for Nov. 7. The president is to begin a 10-day trip to Asia on Nov. 11.
Early this month, McChrystal was told to delay a planned Washington trip until Obama had finished gathering facts on the way ahead. "When you see McChrystal in town," along with Eikenberry and Patterson, a senior administration official said, "you'll know that [Obama] is close to a decision."
The Pentagon's top military officer oversaw a secret war game this month to evaluate the two primary military options that have been put forward by the Pentagon and are being weighed by the Obama administration as part of a broad-based review of the faltering Afghanistan war, senior military officials said.
The exercise, led by Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, examined the likely outcome of inserting 44,000 more troops into the country to conduct a full-scale counterinsurgency effort aimed at building a stable Afghan government that can control most of the country. It also examined adding 10,000 to 15,000 more soldiers and Marines as part of an approach that the military has dubbed "counterterrorism plus."
Both options were drawn from a detailed analysis prepared by Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, the senior commander in Afghanistan, and were forwarded to President Obama in recent weeks by Defense Secretary Robert M. Gates.
The Pentagon war game did not formally endorse either course; rather, it tried to gauge how Taliban fighters, the Afghan and Pakistani governments and NATO allies might react to either of the scenarios. Mullen, a key player in the game, has discussed its conclusions with senior White House officials involved in the discussions over the new strategy.
One of the exercise's key assumptions is that an increase of 10,000 to 15,000 troops would not in the near future give U.S. commanders the forces they need to take back havens from the Taliban commanders in southern and western Afghanistan, where shadow insurgent governors collect taxes and run court systems based on Islamic sharia law.
"We were running out the options and trying to understand the implications from many different perspectives, including the enemy and the Afghan people," said a senior military official, who was granted anonymity to discuss the classified game.
The Obama administration initiated a major review of its war strategy in late September after questions emerged about the legitimacy of the Aug. 20 Afghan elections, which were marred by allegations of widespread fraud, and a troubling update on the progress of the war by McChrystal. He warned that unless the United States moved quickly to wrest momentum from the Taliban, defeating the insurgency in Afghanistan might no longer be possible.
What was intended to be two or three weeks of intensive White House meetings has stretched on for almost a month. Obama and his national security advisers have sorted through the military and civilian aspects of the war, building toward a decision that many on the outside have urged be made sooner rather than later.
Last week, the president concluded the five planned review sessions, roughly 15 hours in all, with top advisers in the Situation Room.
McChrystal's analysis suggests that 44,000 troops would be needed to drive Taliban forces from populated areas and to hold them until Afghan troops and government officials can take the place of U.S. and NATO forces. The extra troops would allow U.S. commanders to essentially triple the size of the American forces in the southern part of the country, where the Taliban movement originated and where the insurgents have their strongest base of support.
McChrystal would also use the additional troops to bolster the effort in eastern Afghanistan, which has long been a focus of the U.S. military, and push additional troops into western Afghanistan, where the military has maintained a tiny presence and where the Taliban has made inroads, U.S. officials said. A surge of 44,000 soldiers and Marines would also allow McChrystal to designate a brigade of about 5,000 soldiers to train and advise the Afghan army and police forces, accelerating their growth.
The increase of 10,000 to 15,000 soldiers would give McChrystal one U.S. advisory brigade of about 5,000 troops to speed the development of Afghan forces and a large number of support forces to include engineers, route-clearance teams and helicopters. McChrystal's analysis also suggested the option of increasing the number of troops by 80,000, but that isn't drawing serious consideration.
In television interviews Sunday, lawmakers outlined broad partisan differences over how many troops are needed in Afghanistan. Republicans have voiced strong support for granting McChrystal's request for more troops, and urged that it be done quickly.
"I'm afraid that with every passing day, we risk the future success of the mission," Sen. Jon Kyl (R-Ariz.) said on "Fox News Sunday."
Sen. James Webb (D-Va.) disagreed, calling the decision-making process "very proper and smart." The administration's lengthy deliberations are "what we need, because we're going to end up living with the results for a good period of time," Webb said on CNN's "State of the Union."
The administration's internal deliberations have emphasized that unless the Afghan government dramatically improves its performance, the Taliban will continue to find support. Administration officials said Obama's decision will consider a much broader range of options than the number of troops. At nearly every meeting in the White House Situation Room, McChrystal has been joined on the video screens at the end of the table by Karl W. Eikenberry, the U.S. ambassador to Kabul, and Anne W. Patterson, his counterpart in Pakistan.
One question being debated is whether more U.S. troops would improve the performance of the Afghan government by providing an important check on corruption and the drug trade, or would they stunt the growth of the Afghan government as U.S. troops and civilians take on more tasks that Afghans might better perform themselves. Another factor is cost. The Pentagon has budgeted about $65 billion to maintain a force of about 68,000 troops, meaning that each additional 1,000 U.S. soldiers in Afghanistan would cost about $1 billion a year.
Administration officials say Obama might settle on a plan but delay announcing it until after a runoff in the Afghan national elections, scheduled for Nov. 7. The president is to begin a 10-day trip to Asia on Nov. 11.
Early this month, McChrystal was told to delay a planned Washington trip until Obama had finished gathering facts on the way ahead. "When you see McChrystal in town," along with Eikenberry and Patterson, a senior administration official said, "you'll know that [Obama] is close to a decision."
UN food agency says 200mln more people hungry
CANBERRA: Most of the developing world is paying more for food despite drops in commodity market prices during the global economic slowdown, with 200 million people joining the ranks of the hungry in the past two years, the UN World Food Program said Monday.
The agency’s executive director Josette Sheeran blamed climate change, escalating fuel costs and falling incomes. She said the number of ‘urgently hungry’ had now reached its highest ever — 1.02 billion.
‘One out of six people in humanity will wake up not sure that they can even fill a cup of food,’ Sheeran told reporters. ‘We have to make no mistake that hunger is on the march.’
She said while prices had tumbled on global commodities markets due to the financial crisis, the prices of most food staples in the developing world have soared.
‘The food crisis is not over. We have an anomaly happening where on global, big markets, the prices are down, but for 80 per cent of commodities in the developing world, prices are higher today than they were a year ago, and the prices a year ago were double what they were the year before that,’ she said.
‘What it means is for about 80 per cent of the developing world, people can afford one third as much food today as they could two or three years ago,’ she said.
Sheeran signed Monday a 140 million Australian dollar four-year aid agreement with the Australian government. The agreement includes AU$40 million to provide school meals in Southeast Asia, Africa and possibly South America and will add to the WFP’s overall budget for global food aid.
Sheeran, who flew to Canberra from Manila on Sunday, said the Philippines could lose up to 1.1 million tons (one million metric tons) of rice because of the recent typhoons.
Africa and India were also losing crops due to drought and floods.
She said the two back-to-back typhoons in late September and early October that killed nearly 1,000 people in the Philippines, coupled with the Indonesia earthquake that killed more than 1,000 on western Sumatra and the recent tsunami that killed 183, mostly in Samoa, were examples of natural disasters becoming more frequent and ferocious in recent decades.
She said there had been a fourfold increase in the number of natural disasters in the past 20 years.
‘All we know is that the world is facing increasingly frequent and ferocious natural disasters and the most vulnerable people and nations are getting hit hard and we better prepare now,’ she said.
The agency’s executive director Josette Sheeran blamed climate change, escalating fuel costs and falling incomes. She said the number of ‘urgently hungry’ had now reached its highest ever — 1.02 billion.
‘One out of six people in humanity will wake up not sure that they can even fill a cup of food,’ Sheeran told reporters. ‘We have to make no mistake that hunger is on the march.’
She said while prices had tumbled on global commodities markets due to the financial crisis, the prices of most food staples in the developing world have soared.
‘The food crisis is not over. We have an anomaly happening where on global, big markets, the prices are down, but for 80 per cent of commodities in the developing world, prices are higher today than they were a year ago, and the prices a year ago were double what they were the year before that,’ she said.
‘What it means is for about 80 per cent of the developing world, people can afford one third as much food today as they could two or three years ago,’ she said.
Sheeran signed Monday a 140 million Australian dollar four-year aid agreement with the Australian government. The agreement includes AU$40 million to provide school meals in Southeast Asia, Africa and possibly South America and will add to the WFP’s overall budget for global food aid.
Sheeran, who flew to Canberra from Manila on Sunday, said the Philippines could lose up to 1.1 million tons (one million metric tons) of rice because of the recent typhoons.
Africa and India were also losing crops due to drought and floods.
She said the two back-to-back typhoons in late September and early October that killed nearly 1,000 people in the Philippines, coupled with the Indonesia earthquake that killed more than 1,000 on western Sumatra and the recent tsunami that killed 183, mostly in Samoa, were examples of natural disasters becoming more frequent and ferocious in recent decades.
She said there had been a fourfold increase in the number of natural disasters in the past 20 years.
‘All we know is that the world is facing increasingly frequent and ferocious natural disasters and the most vulnerable people and nations are getting hit hard and we better prepare now,’ she said.
'Good morning, Afghanistan': War radio
www.independent.co.uk
The hi-tech equipment, red "On Air" light and the DJs' patter are no different from those at any radio station. But step out of the studio and you are greeted by sandstorms, attack helicopters and armoured vehicles bearing machine guns. At a time when most of us were slumbering happily, at 6.30am Helmand time today, the words "Good Morning, Afghanistan" boomed forth from the first British Forces radio station in the country.
More than 9,000 troops fighting in the southern province's war zone were greeted with the upbeat sounds of The Boo Radleys' Wake Up Boo! – a track selected by British soldiers around the world to be the first broadcast from the new British Forces Broadcasting Service (BFBS) station at Camp Bastion.
"There may be a touch of irony in this choice: 'Wake up it's a beautiful morning,'" conceded Nicky Ness, the controller of BFBS. DJ Dusty Miller, who mimicked Robin Williams's greeting this morning, added: "Mindful of the very particular brand of humour among our listeners, we were worried what they might foist on us – but we were braced to play whatever they asked for. The first song played on the ground in any operational theatre tends to get a bit of an iconic status."
The hi-tech equipment, red "On Air" light and the DJs' patter are no different from those at any radio station. But step out of the studio and you are greeted by sandstorms, attack helicopters and armoured vehicles bearing machine guns. At a time when most of us were slumbering happily, at 6.30am Helmand time today, the words "Good Morning, Afghanistan" boomed forth from the first British Forces radio station in the country.
More than 9,000 troops fighting in the southern province's war zone were greeted with the upbeat sounds of The Boo Radleys' Wake Up Boo! – a track selected by British soldiers around the world to be the first broadcast from the new British Forces Broadcasting Service (BFBS) station at Camp Bastion.
"There may be a touch of irony in this choice: 'Wake up it's a beautiful morning,'" conceded Nicky Ness, the controller of BFBS. DJ Dusty Miller, who mimicked Robin Williams's greeting this morning, added: "Mindful of the very particular brand of humour among our listeners, we were worried what they might foist on us – but we were braced to play whatever they asked for. The first song played on the ground in any operational theatre tends to get a bit of an iconic status."
Pakistan villagers take up guns, sticks against Taliban
latimes.com
Members of the 40-day-old tribal militia in this Swat Valley village come in all shapes, from all walks of life.
Some struggle to fasten bandoleers around pot bellies; some haven't finished high school. They are doctors and teachers, wealthy landowners and dirt-poor wheat farmers.
Some make their way with Kalashnikov rifles slung over their shoulders, others with only a wooden stick in hand.
What unites them is the memory of the Taliban's brutality, a time when the militant organization took over Kanju and the rest of the Swat Valley. Taliban militants beheaded perceived enemies, flogged women and bombed school buildings.
With most of Swat back in the hands of the government after a military operation that drove the Taliban into hiding, thousands of Pakistanis in towns like Kanju have been banding together to form lashkars, or tribal militias, to help keep trouble from coming back.
Subhan Ali commands 4,000 men who form a lashkar that regularly combs Kanju's dilapidated buildings and surrounding countryside for fleeing Taliban fighters and their sympathizers.
"Most of us don't have weapons," said Ali, 35. "At the start of all this, the Taliban took away a lot of our guns. Then the army came and took more of our guns. Many just have batons, but even that they will use."
Lashkars, for centuries a tool for resolving tribal disputes, are supplying a modern-day grass-roots layer of security to manpower-strapped military and police forces. The militias have formed in regions skirting South Waziristan, where Pakistani troops have launched an all-out offensive to crush the Taliban. In Bannu, just outside South Waziristan, tribesmen formed a lashkar after Taliban militants kidnapped students and teachers while they were being bused home from a local college this summer.
Joining a lashkar, though, can mean becoming an immediate target for the Taliban. In an ambush on the Bannu lashkar last month, militants killed seven militia members, including its chief. In the Swat village of Ser Tiligram, a lashkar leader was injured when militants lured him out of his house and then sprayed him with gunfire.
Despite the risks, villagers in Swat and in the tribal areas know police presence remains spotty.
"When the military finished its operation in Swat, it didn't set up any [police] check posts here," said Mohammed Ibrar, brother of the leader shot in Ser Tiligram. "That's why we formed a lashkar."
Though Pakistani military officials welcome the involvement of lashkars, they are also aware of the potential for them to devolve into warlord-led militias with expanded agendas, including settling scores with rivals or staking out fiefdoms.
"That's our concern, and that's why we don't support them in terms of arms or ammunition," said Pakistani army Col. Akhtar Abbas. "And they're restricted to the towns that they come from."
Pashtun society in this part of South Asia has relied on lashkars to resolve disputes between tribes for hundreds of years.
With the rise of the Taliban in Pakistan's tribal areas along the Afghan border and in Swat, lashkars reemerged to combat the tide of militancy.
Before the Swat offensive, lashkars struggled to achieve any measurable success against the Taliban. Outgunned and outmanned, they were hit hard by Taliban suicide bombings, kidnappings and assassinations of tribal elders leading the militias.
In many cases, lashkars were the only line of defense between villagers and invading militants.
In the Swat village of Durshkhela 15 miles north of the valley's largest city, Mingora, a tribal militia of about 40 men stayed to defend the village after local police abandoned it a year ago.
Taliban militants wielding automatic rifles and rocket launchers carried out dozens of raids, but they were turned back each time, said Abdul Ghaffar Khan, 63, a retired army colonel and commander of the Durshkhela lashkar.
"Almost every week they attacked," said Khan, sitting in a patio walled in with sandbags. "All the time, we were waiting for the bullets to come. But if we hadn't stayed, everything here would have been destroyed. Not just my village, but the whole area."
With the military offensive in Swat now over, Khan has a militia of 1,000 men who team up with soldiers to search for militants in the forested hillsides surrounding Durshkhela. In a recent 10-day span, the lashkar arrested 30 people and killed one suspected militant, Khan said.
Lashkar leaders say militias are sprouting up across northwestern Pakistan largely because locals doubt that the military will ensure their long-term security.
Offensives have been waged before in the northwest, but the military has a poor track record for keeping the Taliban from resurfacing once the fighting is over.
"We have no choice but to initiate these lashkars," said Jamal Nasir Khan, the Swat district's chief administrator and the head of a lashkar in his home village of Shangwatai. "We can't wait for the government to wake up from their slumber and rescue us. The army has given us space, but they won't stay here for the rest of our lives."
Members of Pakistan's lashkars say they know the terrain better than Pakistani soldiers, and their knowledge of their villages gives them a better chance of ferreting out Taliban militants and their sympathizers.
The Kanju lashkar captured 250 militants during its first 40 days of operation, Ali said. In one of its latest arrests, 20 lashkar members led six militants hiding in cornfields to believe they were sympathizers willing to give them haven.
"When they came to us, we told them to surrender or we would kill them," Ali said. "They had no option."
In the Ser Tiligram region, the militia's job is tougher, Ibrar said, because Taliban militants are present in larger numbers.
After the militia formed, several men went to houses that Taliban militants had occupied, gathered up the fighters' belongings and threw them into a river.
Later, on Sept. 23, Taliban militants went to the village mosque and kidnapped its imam, a lashkar member, and the lashkar commander's 17-year-old son, Ibrar said.
The militants took the teenager to his father's house, where the militants lured the man into the courtyard.
There, 30 militants on rooftops and on the ground opened fire. The father survived and the boy was unharmed, but another lashkar member and a mosque's imam were found shot to death at the village market.
"We don't have a lot of weapons right now, so we really can't put together operations against these militants," Ibrar said. "But when we get fully armed, we won't hesitate."
Members of the 40-day-old tribal militia in this Swat Valley village come in all shapes, from all walks of life.
Some struggle to fasten bandoleers around pot bellies; some haven't finished high school. They are doctors and teachers, wealthy landowners and dirt-poor wheat farmers.
Some make their way with Kalashnikov rifles slung over their shoulders, others with only a wooden stick in hand.
What unites them is the memory of the Taliban's brutality, a time when the militant organization took over Kanju and the rest of the Swat Valley. Taliban militants beheaded perceived enemies, flogged women and bombed school buildings.
With most of Swat back in the hands of the government after a military operation that drove the Taliban into hiding, thousands of Pakistanis in towns like Kanju have been banding together to form lashkars, or tribal militias, to help keep trouble from coming back.
Subhan Ali commands 4,000 men who form a lashkar that regularly combs Kanju's dilapidated buildings and surrounding countryside for fleeing Taliban fighters and their sympathizers.
"Most of us don't have weapons," said Ali, 35. "At the start of all this, the Taliban took away a lot of our guns. Then the army came and took more of our guns. Many just have batons, but even that they will use."
Lashkars, for centuries a tool for resolving tribal disputes, are supplying a modern-day grass-roots layer of security to manpower-strapped military and police forces. The militias have formed in regions skirting South Waziristan, where Pakistani troops have launched an all-out offensive to crush the Taliban. In Bannu, just outside South Waziristan, tribesmen formed a lashkar after Taliban militants kidnapped students and teachers while they were being bused home from a local college this summer.
Joining a lashkar, though, can mean becoming an immediate target for the Taliban. In an ambush on the Bannu lashkar last month, militants killed seven militia members, including its chief. In the Swat village of Ser Tiligram, a lashkar leader was injured when militants lured him out of his house and then sprayed him with gunfire.
Despite the risks, villagers in Swat and in the tribal areas know police presence remains spotty.
"When the military finished its operation in Swat, it didn't set up any [police] check posts here," said Mohammed Ibrar, brother of the leader shot in Ser Tiligram. "That's why we formed a lashkar."
Though Pakistani military officials welcome the involvement of lashkars, they are also aware of the potential for them to devolve into warlord-led militias with expanded agendas, including settling scores with rivals or staking out fiefdoms.
"That's our concern, and that's why we don't support them in terms of arms or ammunition," said Pakistani army Col. Akhtar Abbas. "And they're restricted to the towns that they come from."
Pashtun society in this part of South Asia has relied on lashkars to resolve disputes between tribes for hundreds of years.
With the rise of the Taliban in Pakistan's tribal areas along the Afghan border and in Swat, lashkars reemerged to combat the tide of militancy.
Before the Swat offensive, lashkars struggled to achieve any measurable success against the Taliban. Outgunned and outmanned, they were hit hard by Taliban suicide bombings, kidnappings and assassinations of tribal elders leading the militias.
In many cases, lashkars were the only line of defense between villagers and invading militants.
In the Swat village of Durshkhela 15 miles north of the valley's largest city, Mingora, a tribal militia of about 40 men stayed to defend the village after local police abandoned it a year ago.
Taliban militants wielding automatic rifles and rocket launchers carried out dozens of raids, but they were turned back each time, said Abdul Ghaffar Khan, 63, a retired army colonel and commander of the Durshkhela lashkar.
"Almost every week they attacked," said Khan, sitting in a patio walled in with sandbags. "All the time, we were waiting for the bullets to come. But if we hadn't stayed, everything here would have been destroyed. Not just my village, but the whole area."
With the military offensive in Swat now over, Khan has a militia of 1,000 men who team up with soldiers to search for militants in the forested hillsides surrounding Durshkhela. In a recent 10-day span, the lashkar arrested 30 people and killed one suspected militant, Khan said.
Lashkar leaders say militias are sprouting up across northwestern Pakistan largely because locals doubt that the military will ensure their long-term security.
Offensives have been waged before in the northwest, but the military has a poor track record for keeping the Taliban from resurfacing once the fighting is over.
"We have no choice but to initiate these lashkars," said Jamal Nasir Khan, the Swat district's chief administrator and the head of a lashkar in his home village of Shangwatai. "We can't wait for the government to wake up from their slumber and rescue us. The army has given us space, but they won't stay here for the rest of our lives."
Members of Pakistan's lashkars say they know the terrain better than Pakistani soldiers, and their knowledge of their villages gives them a better chance of ferreting out Taliban militants and their sympathizers.
The Kanju lashkar captured 250 militants during its first 40 days of operation, Ali said. In one of its latest arrests, 20 lashkar members led six militants hiding in cornfields to believe they were sympathizers willing to give them haven.
"When they came to us, we told them to surrender or we would kill them," Ali said. "They had no option."
In the Ser Tiligram region, the militia's job is tougher, Ibrar said, because Taliban militants are present in larger numbers.
After the militia formed, several men went to houses that Taliban militants had occupied, gathered up the fighters' belongings and threw them into a river.
Later, on Sept. 23, Taliban militants went to the village mosque and kidnapped its imam, a lashkar member, and the lashkar commander's 17-year-old son, Ibrar said.
The militants took the teenager to his father's house, where the militants lured the man into the courtyard.
There, 30 militants on rooftops and on the ground opened fire. The father survived and the boy was unharmed, but another lashkar member and a mosque's imam were found shot to death at the village market.
"We don't have a lot of weapons right now, so we really can't put together operations against these militants," Ibrar said. "But when we get fully armed, we won't hesitate."
Clinton visiting Pakistan as friend: Holbrooke
WASHINGTON: Special US Envoy for Pakistan and Afghanistan Richard Holbrooke has said US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton is coming to Pakistan as a friend, not with conditions but with support for the democratically-elected government and the people of Pakistan.
Talking to this correspondent after attending a function of the Pakistan-American Foundation at the residence of Pakistan’s Ambassador-at-Large to the US Riffat Mehmud, Holbrooke said the whole world would be watching Secretary Clinton, as this trip to Pakistan was perhaps one of the most important trips she had made since she assumed the office as secretary.
Holbrooke said Secretary Clinton will be bringing a message of friendship and support to Pakistan, which was under tremendous pressure at this time. “She will be discussing and focusing the real needs of the Pakistani people,” he added. Holbrooke said: “Secretary Clinton, during her stay in Pakistan, will meet the people from all walks of life. “She will also meet with the leadership inside the government and outside the government. She will discuss the refugees and IDP issues as well.
Talking to this correspondent after attending a function of the Pakistan-American Foundation at the residence of Pakistan’s Ambassador-at-Large to the US Riffat Mehmud, Holbrooke said the whole world would be watching Secretary Clinton, as this trip to Pakistan was perhaps one of the most important trips she had made since she assumed the office as secretary.
Holbrooke said Secretary Clinton will be bringing a message of friendship and support to Pakistan, which was under tremendous pressure at this time. “She will be discussing and focusing the real needs of the Pakistani people,” he added. Holbrooke said: “Secretary Clinton, during her stay in Pakistan, will meet the people from all walks of life. “She will also meet with the leadership inside the government and outside the government. She will discuss the refugees and IDP issues as well.
Sunday, October 25, 2009
Waziristan Operation vital for anti-terror war: Kayani
WANA: Chief of the Army Staff General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani visited South Waziristan Agency (SWA), Geo News reported Sunday. The COAS inspected the operation in the SWA and met jawans and officers engaged in the operation and lauded them for their high morale.
The tribal veterans also called on the Army Chief and assured him of their complete cooperation in the Pak Army operation against the terrorism.Speaking on this occasion, he stressed the success in Waziristan Operation is indispensable to win the war against terrorism, adding the operation would be completed on time.
The tribal veterans also called on the Army Chief and assured him of their complete cooperation in the Pak Army operation against the terrorism.Speaking on this occasion, he stressed the success in Waziristan Operation is indispensable to win the war against terrorism, adding the operation would be completed on time.
Pukhtunkhwa's Education sector hit hard
PESHAWAR: The militancy and military operations in parts of the Frontier province and adjacent tribal areas have badly affected the already neglected education sector the most. An evidence of this was the NWFP government’s decision to keep all the educational institutions closed for another week.
After a pause of about seven days, educational activities in almost the entire country are being resumed today, but students across NWFP and the tribal areas would not attend their classes as per the directives of the provincial government.
The NWFP government at first was reluctant to close down the schools despite announcements by other provinces to pause educational activities for some days due to the wave of terrorist activities across the country. However, the suicide blasts at International Islamic University, Islamabad followed by defusing of two bombs at a girls’ school in a suburban locality of the provincial metropolis forced the government to close all the public and private sector schools.
And now when the Inter-Services Public Relations, federal government and other provinces have announced reopening of the school, the Frontier government has decided to extend the unusual vacation for another week for security threats.
Education has certainly been affected the most by the specific law and order situation in the province and tribal areas for the last more than one year. With the surge of militant activities in Swat and elsewhere in the province, schools, particularly the girls’ schools have become the targets of the militants who continue with torching and blowing up sprees.
Around 200 educational institutions have been blown up in Swat alone. Similarly scores of schools were damaged in the twin districts of Dir, Bajaur Agency, elsewhere in the province and tribal areas.
Then came the military operation due to which the students and their teachers along with their families had to shift to the safer districts in search of peace, depriving them of studies for about four long months. The government offered some relaxation to the students by awarding them one-step promotion, but this cannot compensate for the loss of their precious time and studies.
The higher secondary education students had to miss their examinations. Though the board declared all of the intermediate students of Malakand division qualified and awarded them marks equivalent to the marks they had obtained in their previous class, many students were not happy with it, as they thought that they failed to acquire seats in the professional — medical and engineering — institutions for not appearing in the examinations.
Not only the students of the militancy and military-operation-affected areas, but those of the non-affected district also suffered loss of time, as their schools and colleges were used to house the internally displaced people for several months and they had not been able to attend their studies.
The most interesting is the sufferings of the students of the remote Chitral district where there exists no law and order problem. But with the announcement of the government about closure of education institutions, educational activities came to a halt in Chitral as well.
The two-week closure of schools would affect the cold regions of the province the most, as the management of educational institutions are planning for long winter vacations there and the teachers and students want to cover the specified portion of their courses before the winter vacations.
In Peshawar and other central districts, where the studies of the students are being affected due to the closure of their institutions, many of them will have to face a delay in examinations and admissions.
The Board of Intermediate & Secondary Education Peshawar has postponed its practical tests of the ongoing secondary school certificate examinations. Khyber Law College University of Peshawar has delayed its exam. The University of Engineering and Technology Peshawar has also suspended its B Tech examinations. The University of Peshawar cancelled its tests for admissions to the MA/MSc. New dates for the examinations have not been fixed yet.
After a pause of about seven days, educational activities in almost the entire country are being resumed today, but students across NWFP and the tribal areas would not attend their classes as per the directives of the provincial government.
The NWFP government at first was reluctant to close down the schools despite announcements by other provinces to pause educational activities for some days due to the wave of terrorist activities across the country. However, the suicide blasts at International Islamic University, Islamabad followed by defusing of two bombs at a girls’ school in a suburban locality of the provincial metropolis forced the government to close all the public and private sector schools.
And now when the Inter-Services Public Relations, federal government and other provinces have announced reopening of the school, the Frontier government has decided to extend the unusual vacation for another week for security threats.
Education has certainly been affected the most by the specific law and order situation in the province and tribal areas for the last more than one year. With the surge of militant activities in Swat and elsewhere in the province, schools, particularly the girls’ schools have become the targets of the militants who continue with torching and blowing up sprees.
Around 200 educational institutions have been blown up in Swat alone. Similarly scores of schools were damaged in the twin districts of Dir, Bajaur Agency, elsewhere in the province and tribal areas.
Then came the military operation due to which the students and their teachers along with their families had to shift to the safer districts in search of peace, depriving them of studies for about four long months. The government offered some relaxation to the students by awarding them one-step promotion, but this cannot compensate for the loss of their precious time and studies.
The higher secondary education students had to miss their examinations. Though the board declared all of the intermediate students of Malakand division qualified and awarded them marks equivalent to the marks they had obtained in their previous class, many students were not happy with it, as they thought that they failed to acquire seats in the professional — medical and engineering — institutions for not appearing in the examinations.
Not only the students of the militancy and military-operation-affected areas, but those of the non-affected district also suffered loss of time, as their schools and colleges were used to house the internally displaced people for several months and they had not been able to attend their studies.
The most interesting is the sufferings of the students of the remote Chitral district where there exists no law and order problem. But with the announcement of the government about closure of education institutions, educational activities came to a halt in Chitral as well.
The two-week closure of schools would affect the cold regions of the province the most, as the management of educational institutions are planning for long winter vacations there and the teachers and students want to cover the specified portion of their courses before the winter vacations.
In Peshawar and other central districts, where the studies of the students are being affected due to the closure of their institutions, many of them will have to face a delay in examinations and admissions.
The Board of Intermediate & Secondary Education Peshawar has postponed its practical tests of the ongoing secondary school certificate examinations. Khyber Law College University of Peshawar has delayed its exam. The University of Engineering and Technology Peshawar has also suspended its B Tech examinations. The University of Peshawar cancelled its tests for admissions to the MA/MSc. New dates for the examinations have not been fixed yet.
Peshawar turns into battlefield
PESHAWAR: Like the cops in the southern districts of NWFP and Malakand Division, the police force in Peshawar is now literally at war with the militants.
It is a warlike situation as schools, colleges and universities have been closed to avoid any act of sabotage. The educational institutions in the province would remain closed for another week until November 2 now because of terror threat.
Restaurants and hotels have also been shut because of threats. A few people visit parks, bazaars and recreational spots these days, fearing bomb blasts and suicide attacks.Peshawar neither witnessed such a situation in its history nor was it ever expected by the present generation. Scare and fear prevail at the public places and offices while terrorism and risk to the lives and properties of commoners is ever-present.
Every sphere of life, including business activities, industry sector, sports, etc, has severely suffered because of the worsening law and order and several threats. This has triggered psychological disorders among civilians and law-enforcers.
For the past several years, militants have been making all-out efforts to strike throughout the provincial capital, while the Frontier Police with lesser resources and meagre salaries are thwarting their bids to protect the public.
With bomb blasts and rocket attacks, militants have succeeded on a few occasions during the past few weeks but on the other hand the police force has done well by foiling their designs. The force has defused scores of planted bombs and has arrested several terrorists, including suspected suicide bombers, on their way to hit their targets.
This needs to be admitted that the provincial capital is going through a critical phase. For being surrounded by the troubled tribal areas from three sides, the city has been the easiest target for the terrorists.
The police are doing the maximum that a civilian force can do in this volatile situation. The police have erected a circle around the city, with blocking all the entry routes by deploying additional cops across Peshawar.
Even smaller routes leading to Landi Arbab, Landi Akhun Mohammad, Tor Baba, Phandu Road, Gulbahar, Kamboh and several other insignificant points have been covered by erecting wooden barriers and deploying two or three policemen to check the vehicles, entering the urban limits of the district. They perform duty till late at night.
“This is not an easy job. We are lacking the force to be positioned at these points; we had no option but to withdraw policemen from other places to be deployed on these points,” a police official told this scribe.
The negative side of the extraordinary security arrangements is that the barriers and manning every entry point have been bothering commuters. “We have stopped going to bazaars to avoid being checked at almost half a dozen barricades every time,” said Israr Bacha, a resident of Dora Road.
Bashir Khan of Kamboh appreciated the policemen for doing a great job while putting their lives at risk on these exposed and vulnerable makeshift posts, but complained that an ordinary commuter suffered a lot at these barricades in case of not having the original documents of the vehicle, national identity card or other documents.
While police have circled the city with additional deployment of cops alongside the Ring Road, even then terrorists have succeeded on some occasions to break into the urban limits. The five major bomb blasts in the city since September 26 and entry of several miscreants into the city limits speak volumes about the loopholes in the security system. The planting of landmines by some miscreants on Sunday near Canal Road, close to the Peshawar International Airport, is an example of that.
It is a warlike situation as schools, colleges and universities have been closed to avoid any act of sabotage. The educational institutions in the province would remain closed for another week until November 2 now because of terror threat.
Restaurants and hotels have also been shut because of threats. A few people visit parks, bazaars and recreational spots these days, fearing bomb blasts and suicide attacks.Peshawar neither witnessed such a situation in its history nor was it ever expected by the present generation. Scare and fear prevail at the public places and offices while terrorism and risk to the lives and properties of commoners is ever-present.
Every sphere of life, including business activities, industry sector, sports, etc, has severely suffered because of the worsening law and order and several threats. This has triggered psychological disorders among civilians and law-enforcers.
For the past several years, militants have been making all-out efforts to strike throughout the provincial capital, while the Frontier Police with lesser resources and meagre salaries are thwarting their bids to protect the public.
With bomb blasts and rocket attacks, militants have succeeded on a few occasions during the past few weeks but on the other hand the police force has done well by foiling their designs. The force has defused scores of planted bombs and has arrested several terrorists, including suspected suicide bombers, on their way to hit their targets.
This needs to be admitted that the provincial capital is going through a critical phase. For being surrounded by the troubled tribal areas from three sides, the city has been the easiest target for the terrorists.
The police are doing the maximum that a civilian force can do in this volatile situation. The police have erected a circle around the city, with blocking all the entry routes by deploying additional cops across Peshawar.
Even smaller routes leading to Landi Arbab, Landi Akhun Mohammad, Tor Baba, Phandu Road, Gulbahar, Kamboh and several other insignificant points have been covered by erecting wooden barriers and deploying two or three policemen to check the vehicles, entering the urban limits of the district. They perform duty till late at night.
“This is not an easy job. We are lacking the force to be positioned at these points; we had no option but to withdraw policemen from other places to be deployed on these points,” a police official told this scribe.
The negative side of the extraordinary security arrangements is that the barriers and manning every entry point have been bothering commuters. “We have stopped going to bazaars to avoid being checked at almost half a dozen barricades every time,” said Israr Bacha, a resident of Dora Road.
Bashir Khan of Kamboh appreciated the policemen for doing a great job while putting their lives at risk on these exposed and vulnerable makeshift posts, but complained that an ordinary commuter suffered a lot at these barricades in case of not having the original documents of the vehicle, national identity card or other documents.
While police have circled the city with additional deployment of cops alongside the Ring Road, even then terrorists have succeeded on some occasions to break into the urban limits. The five major bomb blasts in the city since September 26 and entry of several miscreants into the city limits speak volumes about the loopholes in the security system. The planting of landmines by some miscreants on Sunday near Canal Road, close to the Peshawar International Airport, is an example of that.
Karzai rules out sharing power
KABUL -- President Hamid Karzai's team shifted aggressively into campaign mode Saturday and ruled out any possibility of a power-sharing deal with challenger Abdullah Abdullah ahead of a runoff election in two weeks.
"In our view there is no alternative to a second round. This is the only constitutional way to establish a new government" and "put an end to the current crisis," said Karzai's campaign spokesman, Wahid Omar, at a news conference. "All our energy is now focused on preparations for the second round."
Abdullah, however, has renewed concerns about the credibility of the Independent Election Commission and wants its leadership replaced before the Nov. 7 vote, according to officials in his campaign. He does not want a repeat of the rampant electoral fraud found in the August first round -- much of it favoring Karzai. Abdullah fears nothing will change unless officials he considers loyal to Karzai are removed, the sources said.
"We want to go to the second round, but provided that there are some conditions, especially to remove some of these figures from the so-called Independent Election Commission," said Ahmad Wali Massoud, a close ally of Abdullah's. "So long as these people are not being removed from the commission, I don't think we are going to have a free and fair election, because they were the main ones responsible for the rigging and fraud."
Abdullah is seeking the removal of the commission's president, Azizullah Lodin, along with two members of the commission's secretariat. Lodin and other election-commission officials have denied they were partial toward Karzai and brushed aside Abdullah's concerns as the complaints of a sore loser.
At the news conference Saturday, Omar said Karzai's team had "no specific opinion" about Abdullah's demands, but that Karzai wants the second round to be "more transparent and responsive" than the first. To that end, he said, "we will support all measures . . . whatever it takes will be acceptable to us."
Omar said a variety of groups that endorsed Karzai the first time have renewed their commitment. He said there would be no large public campaign rallies, but that an aggressive media campaign would encourage people to vote. Karzai was considering a public debate with Abdullah, as proposed by the election commission, he said.
But the potential for a standoff over the election commission could further complicate a vote that will be difficult to execute even under the best circumstances. The Taliban issued a statement Saturday threatening more violence and warning Afghans not to vote in the runoff, which they called "a failed, American process," according to the Associated Press.
Snow and freezing weather could make voting impossible in some parts of the country. And many people say there is not enough time to replace and vet election officials to prevent fraud. Karzai initially received 54 percent of the vote, but nearly one-third of his votes were considered rigged and he finished with 49 percent.
"When you have a million-odd votes thrown out, you've got to ask yourself, what was the IEC doing and who is going to be held accountable?" said Saad Mohseni, an owner of a prominent media company in Afghanistan.
Election officials plan to reduce the number of polling places from about 6,300 to about 5,800 in an attempt to prevent fraud in volatile areas where votes were recorded at stations that never opened.
One senior Western diplomat, speaking on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media by name, said there was "way over a 50-50 chance" that the runoff would be held despite the potential problems.
The diplomat said many of Karzai's top aides think he is unable to make an advantageous deal because he is too weak politically and needs to first win the runoff to "enhance his stature." He also said the international community had been strongly united in its demand for Karzai to complete the legal election process and was not pushing him to make a pre-polling deal.
Diplomatic sources said Karzai hated the idea of a coalition government, in which he would have to share power with Abdullah. But Karzai left the door open to a "government of unity," formed after he presumably wins the runoff, in which he would still be president but with figures from Abdullah's camp and other factions playing major roles in the administration, the sources said.
"Karzai detests the idea of a solution like Kenya or Zimbabwe, with two drivers sharing the same car. What he does seem open to is a situation where he would still be top dog but there would significant changes below," said a United Nations official, speaking on the condition of anonymity. "There is a subtle but important difference between the two things."
Sources said that if Abdullah were seeking a deal, he would demand substantive and structural changes in the government, perhaps over time. One of Abdullah's main campaign platforms was to change the government from a presidential system to a more decentralized parliamentary system, with governors and mayors elected rather than appointed, and with elections based on political party tickets rather than individuals.
But diplomats and other observers here said the runoff was now probably both inevitable and necessary to restore legitimacy to the election process before any deals can be struck.
"A coalition government might seem like a quick solution, but it's not in the constitution and it would never work politically. It would be like having a cart with two horses pulling in opposite directions," said Ahmad Nader Nadery, president of the Foundation for Free and Fair Elections. "Instead of a functioning government, it would produce a stalemate."
"In our view there is no alternative to a second round. This is the only constitutional way to establish a new government" and "put an end to the current crisis," said Karzai's campaign spokesman, Wahid Omar, at a news conference. "All our energy is now focused on preparations for the second round."
Abdullah, however, has renewed concerns about the credibility of the Independent Election Commission and wants its leadership replaced before the Nov. 7 vote, according to officials in his campaign. He does not want a repeat of the rampant electoral fraud found in the August first round -- much of it favoring Karzai. Abdullah fears nothing will change unless officials he considers loyal to Karzai are removed, the sources said.
"We want to go to the second round, but provided that there are some conditions, especially to remove some of these figures from the so-called Independent Election Commission," said Ahmad Wali Massoud, a close ally of Abdullah's. "So long as these people are not being removed from the commission, I don't think we are going to have a free and fair election, because they were the main ones responsible for the rigging and fraud."
Abdullah is seeking the removal of the commission's president, Azizullah Lodin, along with two members of the commission's secretariat. Lodin and other election-commission officials have denied they were partial toward Karzai and brushed aside Abdullah's concerns as the complaints of a sore loser.
At the news conference Saturday, Omar said Karzai's team had "no specific opinion" about Abdullah's demands, but that Karzai wants the second round to be "more transparent and responsive" than the first. To that end, he said, "we will support all measures . . . whatever it takes will be acceptable to us."
Omar said a variety of groups that endorsed Karzai the first time have renewed their commitment. He said there would be no large public campaign rallies, but that an aggressive media campaign would encourage people to vote. Karzai was considering a public debate with Abdullah, as proposed by the election commission, he said.
But the potential for a standoff over the election commission could further complicate a vote that will be difficult to execute even under the best circumstances. The Taliban issued a statement Saturday threatening more violence and warning Afghans not to vote in the runoff, which they called "a failed, American process," according to the Associated Press.
Snow and freezing weather could make voting impossible in some parts of the country. And many people say there is not enough time to replace and vet election officials to prevent fraud. Karzai initially received 54 percent of the vote, but nearly one-third of his votes were considered rigged and he finished with 49 percent.
"When you have a million-odd votes thrown out, you've got to ask yourself, what was the IEC doing and who is going to be held accountable?" said Saad Mohseni, an owner of a prominent media company in Afghanistan.
Election officials plan to reduce the number of polling places from about 6,300 to about 5,800 in an attempt to prevent fraud in volatile areas where votes were recorded at stations that never opened.
One senior Western diplomat, speaking on the condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to speak to the media by name, said there was "way over a 50-50 chance" that the runoff would be held despite the potential problems.
The diplomat said many of Karzai's top aides think he is unable to make an advantageous deal because he is too weak politically and needs to first win the runoff to "enhance his stature." He also said the international community had been strongly united in its demand for Karzai to complete the legal election process and was not pushing him to make a pre-polling deal.
Diplomatic sources said Karzai hated the idea of a coalition government, in which he would have to share power with Abdullah. But Karzai left the door open to a "government of unity," formed after he presumably wins the runoff, in which he would still be president but with figures from Abdullah's camp and other factions playing major roles in the administration, the sources said.
"Karzai detests the idea of a solution like Kenya or Zimbabwe, with two drivers sharing the same car. What he does seem open to is a situation where he would still be top dog but there would significant changes below," said a United Nations official, speaking on the condition of anonymity. "There is a subtle but important difference between the two things."
Sources said that if Abdullah were seeking a deal, he would demand substantive and structural changes in the government, perhaps over time. One of Abdullah's main campaign platforms was to change the government from a presidential system to a more decentralized parliamentary system, with governors and mayors elected rather than appointed, and with elections based on political party tickets rather than individuals.
But diplomats and other observers here said the runoff was now probably both inevitable and necessary to restore legitimacy to the election process before any deals can be struck.
"A coalition government might seem like a quick solution, but it's not in the constitution and it would never work politically. It would be like having a cart with two horses pulling in opposite directions," said Ahmad Nader Nadery, president of the Foundation for Free and Fair Elections. "Instead of a functioning government, it would produce a stalemate."
Feet from suicide blast, student survives
Islamabad, Pakistan (CNN) -- His legs and arms are wrapped in bandages. His face, shrouded in a mask of cotton.
Waqar Khalid is one of the latest victims of a war that has now spread to Pakistan's schools. The 24-year-old university student lies in a hospital bed, beneath a small printed sign on the wall that lists his name, age and injury. Sixty percent of his body is covered in burns.
One afternoon last week, Khalid walked out of a classroom straight into the fireball of an exploding suicide bomber.
"I saw a man wearing a sky-blue colored suit. Very close. Maybe the distance [was] two feet ... but I didn't think that it will be a terrorist," Khalid says. "When he pushed the button, right at that time, I saw fire. Very high fire. Very much high fire."
Two suicide bombers were involved in Tuesday's attack on Islamabad's International Islamic University. The first bomber hit the cafeteria on the women's side of the campus, killing a cafeteria worker and four students, and wounding 17 other female students.
Khalid and his classmates heard that blast but assumed it was a car tire bursting.
Moments later, the second bomber self-detonated in the hallway on the second floor of the Sharia law department, directly in front of the department chairman's office.
The blast sprayed the walls and ceiling with ball bearings and left two male students dead.
"I thought now I will go to Allah," Khalid says. "But after five minutes I saw that I'm completely -- all parts of my body is with me."
Though horrifically burned, Khalid somehow survived the inferno and stumbled down the stairs.
Five days after the attack, workers were covering up the blood-stained, pock-marked walls at the Sharia law department with mortar and paint. In a few weeks, the building may look as good as new.
Khalid, meanwhile, is battling for his life.
"He's critical at the moment," says Serva Javed, a doctor at the burn center in Islamabad where Khalid is being treated. "We're trying our level best to save his life."
Before the attack, Khalid studied Arabic and English, and dreamed of becoming an interpreter or a teacher working overseas. He also was an active member of the United Students of Islam, a student association that publicly condemned the Taliban.
"We say openly, these are terrorists which are responsible for the Pakistani condition now. These are killing the persons without any reason," Khalid says.
At the Islamic University, professors teach a moderate interpretation of Islam, which challenges the Taliban's policy of violent jihad.
Still, many teachers and students are stunned that their school would become a target of the militants.
"We never expected it," says Parveen Qadia Agha, the vice president of the university. "The reason could be to create chaos and to create psychological warfare," she said, adding that attacking "the least expected places creates more havoc."
In recent weeks, militants have stepped up attacks in Islamabad and the eastern city of Lahore. Targets have included police stations, the headquarters of the Pakistani military, a high-ranking Pakistani army officer, and the office of the U.N. World Food Program.
The waves of suicide bombers come as the Pakistani military's offensive into the Taliban stronghold of South Waziristan enters its second week.
Khalid's eyes flash with anger when asked about the army's campaign against the militants in the mountains.
"They should kill them," he says. "They should kill them, those terrorists who are killing innocent people."
Khalid's mother Rokhsana, dressed in a flowing purple dress and scarf, holds an agonizing vigil by her son's side. She is worried that her husband, a police officer, may be caught up in the escalating violence around Pakistan.
"No one is safe anywhere, neither at home or in the bazaar or at the hospital," she says.
Despite the horrific extent of his injuries, Khalid is animated, often cracking jokes and waving his bandaged arm in his hospital bed.
"I will join my university when I recover from this injury," he declares.
But he sobers after glimpsing his own reflection in the lens of a camera. It is the first time he has seen his face since the attack.
"I have no courage, no patience to see myself," Khalid says. "This explosion will give me many side effects in the future. But what can I do?... I have to face those things."
Waqar Khalid is one of the latest victims of a war that has now spread to Pakistan's schools. The 24-year-old university student lies in a hospital bed, beneath a small printed sign on the wall that lists his name, age and injury. Sixty percent of his body is covered in burns.
One afternoon last week, Khalid walked out of a classroom straight into the fireball of an exploding suicide bomber.
"I saw a man wearing a sky-blue colored suit. Very close. Maybe the distance [was] two feet ... but I didn't think that it will be a terrorist," Khalid says. "When he pushed the button, right at that time, I saw fire. Very high fire. Very much high fire."
Two suicide bombers were involved in Tuesday's attack on Islamabad's International Islamic University. The first bomber hit the cafeteria on the women's side of the campus, killing a cafeteria worker and four students, and wounding 17 other female students.
Khalid and his classmates heard that blast but assumed it was a car tire bursting.
Moments later, the second bomber self-detonated in the hallway on the second floor of the Sharia law department, directly in front of the department chairman's office.
The blast sprayed the walls and ceiling with ball bearings and left two male students dead.
"I thought now I will go to Allah," Khalid says. "But after five minutes I saw that I'm completely -- all parts of my body is with me."
Though horrifically burned, Khalid somehow survived the inferno and stumbled down the stairs.
Five days after the attack, workers were covering up the blood-stained, pock-marked walls at the Sharia law department with mortar and paint. In a few weeks, the building may look as good as new.
Khalid, meanwhile, is battling for his life.
"He's critical at the moment," says Serva Javed, a doctor at the burn center in Islamabad where Khalid is being treated. "We're trying our level best to save his life."
Before the attack, Khalid studied Arabic and English, and dreamed of becoming an interpreter or a teacher working overseas. He also was an active member of the United Students of Islam, a student association that publicly condemned the Taliban.
"We say openly, these are terrorists which are responsible for the Pakistani condition now. These are killing the persons without any reason," Khalid says.
At the Islamic University, professors teach a moderate interpretation of Islam, which challenges the Taliban's policy of violent jihad.
Still, many teachers and students are stunned that their school would become a target of the militants.
"We never expected it," says Parveen Qadia Agha, the vice president of the university. "The reason could be to create chaos and to create psychological warfare," she said, adding that attacking "the least expected places creates more havoc."
In recent weeks, militants have stepped up attacks in Islamabad and the eastern city of Lahore. Targets have included police stations, the headquarters of the Pakistani military, a high-ranking Pakistani army officer, and the office of the U.N. World Food Program.
The waves of suicide bombers come as the Pakistani military's offensive into the Taliban stronghold of South Waziristan enters its second week.
Khalid's eyes flash with anger when asked about the army's campaign against the militants in the mountains.
"They should kill them," he says. "They should kill them, those terrorists who are killing innocent people."
Khalid's mother Rokhsana, dressed in a flowing purple dress and scarf, holds an agonizing vigil by her son's side. She is worried that her husband, a police officer, may be caught up in the escalating violence around Pakistan.
"No one is safe anywhere, neither at home or in the bazaar or at the hospital," she says.
Despite the horrific extent of his injuries, Khalid is animated, often cracking jokes and waving his bandaged arm in his hospital bed.
"I will join my university when I recover from this injury," he declares.
But he sobers after glimpsing his own reflection in the lens of a camera. It is the first time he has seen his face since the attack.
"I have no courage, no patience to see myself," Khalid says. "This explosion will give me many side effects in the future. But what can I do?... I have to face those things."
Punjabi Taliban
Dawn Editorial
As a global terror network, Al Qaeda is attracting an alarmingly high number of militants to operate its ‘franchises’ in Punjab under the Taliban brand name. Some of these franchises are already out on a rampage. Through a series of recent attacks on civilian and security targets, they have shown that they are as ruthless as their Pakhtun counterparts and as resourceful as their Al Qaeda mentors. Almost all the terror attacks in Punjab over the last two weeks, including the one on GHQ in Rawalpindi, carry their mark. Even in incidents where they are not the main attackers, they are believed to have put together all the logistics by supplying weapons, procuring transport and arranging board and lodging for the assailants. Reports that two of their top commanders have been arrested should, therefore, mean that they have suffered a setback. The arrests come in the wake of the nabbing of another Punjabi Taliban commander, Aqeel alias Dr Usman, who is said to have masterminded the GHQ attack.
Nevertheless, this does not mean that they have been dealt a fatal blow. The tentacles of the Punjabi Taliban have spread across the province through the activists of banned sectarian organisations and the veterans of jihad in Kashmir and Afghanistan. The arrest of a few leaders cannot render their network ineffective. From Kahuta in north Punjab to Rahimyar Khan in the south, the entire province is strewn with radicalised individuals whose ranks appear to swell, even as they lose some of their leaders. One wonders what strategy the state has in mind to curtail the terror tactics of these militants and to neutralise their organisations. If the government and its law-enforcement agencies fail to act promptly, they may soon find that it is too late to root out the menace.
As a global terror network, Al Qaeda is attracting an alarmingly high number of militants to operate its ‘franchises’ in Punjab under the Taliban brand name. Some of these franchises are already out on a rampage. Through a series of recent attacks on civilian and security targets, they have shown that they are as ruthless as their Pakhtun counterparts and as resourceful as their Al Qaeda mentors. Almost all the terror attacks in Punjab over the last two weeks, including the one on GHQ in Rawalpindi, carry their mark. Even in incidents where they are not the main attackers, they are believed to have put together all the logistics by supplying weapons, procuring transport and arranging board and lodging for the assailants. Reports that two of their top commanders have been arrested should, therefore, mean that they have suffered a setback. The arrests come in the wake of the nabbing of another Punjabi Taliban commander, Aqeel alias Dr Usman, who is said to have masterminded the GHQ attack.
Nevertheless, this does not mean that they have been dealt a fatal blow. The tentacles of the Punjabi Taliban have spread across the province through the activists of banned sectarian organisations and the veterans of jihad in Kashmir and Afghanistan. The arrest of a few leaders cannot render their network ineffective. From Kahuta in north Punjab to Rahimyar Khan in the south, the entire province is strewn with radicalised individuals whose ranks appear to swell, even as they lose some of their leaders. One wonders what strategy the state has in mind to curtail the terror tactics of these militants and to neutralise their organisations. If the government and its law-enforcement agencies fail to act promptly, they may soon find that it is too late to root out the menace.
Helicopter crash in Pakistan kills 3
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (CNN) -- Three people were killed Saturday when hostile fire caused a Pakistani military transport helicopter to crash, Pakistani officials said.
The incident occurred in northwestern Pakistan, where Pakistani troops have been fighting Taliban militants.
Senior Pakistani military officials say two pilots were injured in the crash, which occurred around sunset and was under investigation, a military spokesman said.
Speaking on the condition of anonymity, an intelligence source and a local political official said the helicopter was brought down by hostile fire.
The aircraft was traveling to the northwestern city of Peshawar from the border district of Bajaur, where at least 25 people were killed in a suspected drone strike on Friday.
A local official told CNN the missile attack killed the nephew and son-in-law of Mawlanna Faqir Mohammed, the Taliban commander in Bajaur. Mohammed, himself, appears to have escaped the assault.
The incident occurred in northwestern Pakistan, where Pakistani troops have been fighting Taliban militants.
Senior Pakistani military officials say two pilots were injured in the crash, which occurred around sunset and was under investigation, a military spokesman said.
Speaking on the condition of anonymity, an intelligence source and a local political official said the helicopter was brought down by hostile fire.
The aircraft was traveling to the northwestern city of Peshawar from the border district of Bajaur, where at least 25 people were killed in a suspected drone strike on Friday.
A local official told CNN the missile attack killed the nephew and son-in-law of Mawlanna Faqir Mohammed, the Taliban commander in Bajaur. Mohammed, himself, appears to have escaped the assault.
7 explosive mines diffused near Peshawar Airport
PESHAWAR: Seven explosive landmines have been recovered under a Canal Bridge in the jurisdiction of Pasta Khara Police Station here on Sunday.According to a private TV channel, miscreants planted seven explosive mines under a Canal Bridge near Peshawar airport. After the information from locals, the bomb disposal squad was called which diffused these explosive mines.Officials of bomb disposal squad said that these mines weighted seven Kilograms have been diffused. After the incident, police started a search operation in the area and security has been enhanced.
Jundullah is common enemy of Iran and Pakistan: Zardari
Tehran Times
TEHRAN -– Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari stated that the terrorist group Jundullah is the common enemy of Iran and Pakistan.
Zardari made the remarks in a meeting with the visiting Iranian Interior Minister Mostafa Mohammad Najjar on Sunday.
Commenting on the recent terror attacks in the southeastern Province of Sistan-Balouchestan by Jundullah which is also known as the Rigi group, because it is led by Abdul-Malek Rigi, the Pakistani president pointed out “Such terror acts cannot disturb the close and friendly ties between Tehran and Islamabad.”
Zardari added, “Islamabad is completely ready to uproot terrorism in the region and especially to detain the members of the Rigi group.”
On Sunday October 18, a terrorist attack killed over 40 people, including five senior commanders of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, in Sistan-Balouchestan.
Jundullah claimed responsibility for the attack, which was carried out in the city of Pishin, near the border with Pakistan.
The IRGC commanders were on their way to a meeting with local elders of the Shia and Sunni communities when the terrorists carried out the attack.
IRGC Ground Forces Deputy Commander Nour-Ali Shoushtari and Sistan-Baluchestan Province IRGC Commander Rajab-Ali Mohammadzadeh were among those who lost their lives in the attack.
“Extremism is a serious impediment in the way of the expansion of regional cooperation between countries because the enemies cannot tolerate the close ties among the nations and the governments,” the Pakistani president noted.
He also expressed his gratitude to the Islamic Republic of Iran for the $330 million aid to Pakistan.
Elsewhere in his remarks, the Pakistani president stated that Pakistan is seriously pursuing the case of the Iranian diplomat Heshmatollah Attarzadeh who was kidnapped in Peshawar in February 2008.
The Iranian interior minister, for his part, stated Iranian officials are determined to strengthen bilateral ties with Pakistan, adding, “We seriously urge the Pakistani president and administration to detect and detain the terrorist elements who travel back and forth to Pakistan and carry out terror acts against Iran.”
Najjar added that the borders of the Islamic Republic of Iran have always been stable and highly secure for Pakistan and that Iran mutually has higher expectations from Islamabad in this regard.
He also expressed hope that agreements of the negotiations between the Pakistani officials and the Iranian delegation are materialized soon.
At the end of his three-day visit, the Iranian interior minister and the accompanying delegation returned home on Sunday
TEHRAN -– Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari stated that the terrorist group Jundullah is the common enemy of Iran and Pakistan.
Zardari made the remarks in a meeting with the visiting Iranian Interior Minister Mostafa Mohammad Najjar on Sunday.
Commenting on the recent terror attacks in the southeastern Province of Sistan-Balouchestan by Jundullah which is also known as the Rigi group, because it is led by Abdul-Malek Rigi, the Pakistani president pointed out “Such terror acts cannot disturb the close and friendly ties between Tehran and Islamabad.”
Zardari added, “Islamabad is completely ready to uproot terrorism in the region and especially to detain the members of the Rigi group.”
On Sunday October 18, a terrorist attack killed over 40 people, including five senior commanders of the Islamic Revolutionary Guards Corps, in Sistan-Balouchestan.
Jundullah claimed responsibility for the attack, which was carried out in the city of Pishin, near the border with Pakistan.
The IRGC commanders were on their way to a meeting with local elders of the Shia and Sunni communities when the terrorists carried out the attack.
IRGC Ground Forces Deputy Commander Nour-Ali Shoushtari and Sistan-Baluchestan Province IRGC Commander Rajab-Ali Mohammadzadeh were among those who lost their lives in the attack.
“Extremism is a serious impediment in the way of the expansion of regional cooperation between countries because the enemies cannot tolerate the close ties among the nations and the governments,” the Pakistani president noted.
He also expressed his gratitude to the Islamic Republic of Iran for the $330 million aid to Pakistan.
Elsewhere in his remarks, the Pakistani president stated that Pakistan is seriously pursuing the case of the Iranian diplomat Heshmatollah Attarzadeh who was kidnapped in Peshawar in February 2008.
The Iranian interior minister, for his part, stated Iranian officials are determined to strengthen bilateral ties with Pakistan, adding, “We seriously urge the Pakistani president and administration to detect and detain the terrorist elements who travel back and forth to Pakistan and carry out terror acts against Iran.”
Najjar added that the borders of the Islamic Republic of Iran have always been stable and highly secure for Pakistan and that Iran mutually has higher expectations from Islamabad in this regard.
He also expressed hope that agreements of the negotiations between the Pakistani officials and the Iranian delegation are materialized soon.
At the end of his three-day visit, the Iranian interior minister and the accompanying delegation returned home on Sunday
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