Friday, May 15, 2015

Pakistan - Karachi’s Deadly Unrest






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Pakistan - Christian Women Sprayed with Acid in Quetta

Today in Basit Panchait vegetable market two Christian women and a teenager sustained severe burn injuries after being sprayed with acid.
28 year old Rimsha Masih and 16 year old Hinah Masih were taken to Lady Hospital near the crime scene. They were later shifted to Provincial Sandeman Hospital but due to inadequate facilities had to be taken to Bolan Medical College Teaching Hospital.
MPA Asiya Nisar condemned the attack saying, “I strongly condemn the brutal act of throwing acid on a Christian mother and daughter in Quetta, whoever found guilty should be punished.”
The Quetta police have confirmed that the women have sustained severe burn injuries and they have nominated Vijay Masih for the crime. Vijay is a resident of Brewery road and is also Christian.
Doctors have confirmed that the women are under medical supervision.
Last year at least four women were sprayed with an acid-filled syringe in different parts of Balochistan.
- See more at: http://www.christiansinpakistan.com/christian-women-sprayed-with-acid-in-quetta/#sthash.kxu60Ske.dpuf
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Pakistan's Shia Genocide - ANOTHER SHIA POLICE OFFICER SP EJAZ MARTYRED BY SAUDI FUNDED ASWJ TERRORISTS IN KARACHI

Former jail superintendent of Hyderabad police Aijaz Haider was shot martyred on Friday when Saudi funded ASWJ aka IS terrorists opened fire on his car near Karachi's Pehlwan Goth area.
According to Senior Superintendent of Police East, unidentified gunmen ( AhleSunnat-Wal-Jamaat-Farooqi Group) opened fire on Shia Police Officer vehicle near Pehlwan Goth jurisdiction of PS Shahrah-i-Faisal. Subsequently, he was killed whereas his wife sustained injuries in the attack and shifted to nearby hospital Dar us Sehat.
Its pertaining to mention here that few days before these Saudi funded terrorists of AhleSunnat Wal Jamaat shot martyred two Shia  professionals Dr Anwaar Abidi in Nazimabad district Central Of Karachi and DSP Zuliqar Zaidi at Shah Faisal Colony of District East Karachi but not a single terrorists involved in the killings of Shia professionals apprehended by the Law Enforcement Agencies.
The , Today, incident of the target killing of Shia Superintendent of Police (SP) Ejaz Haider was held at same district East where Shia DSP Zulfiqar Zaidi was shot martyred by these terrorists who enjoyed Saudi support and establishment patronage in Pakistan.
http://www.shiitenews.org/index.php/pakistan/item/16064-another-shia-police-officer-sp-ejaz-martyred-by-saudi-funded-aswj-terrorists-in-karachi
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Pakistan: April saw 17 Anti-Ahmadi rallies & conferences by extremist elements throughout Punjab

The month of April saw at least 17 anti-Ahmadiyya rallies, seminars and conferences held by 9 separate extremist groups in 11 different town and cities of the Punjab province in Pakistan.

Nearly all of the organizations involved in anti-Ahmadi hate campaigns are known to be patronized by the Pakistan Muslim League - Nawaz, the ruling political party both in the Punjab, and at the federal level. 

Apparently, according to a report distributed by the Asian Human Rights Commission, the government's newly announced National Action Plan (NAP) against extremist religious elements was essentially run in parallel to the anti-Ahmadi sectarian hate activism by many extremist clerics belonging primarily to Khatima-e Nubuwwat organization and the united Pakistan Clerics Council.

The report entitled "Persecution of Ahmadis in Pakistan - News Report April 2015," also listed several seminaries (madrasas), including Jamia Ashrafia, Jamia Rahimia, Jamia Usmania, and Jamia Islamia, that held conferences and seminars inciting agitation against the Ahmadiyya community. The list of events and organizations is not complete, the report said.


"In these conferences etc.," the report says, "all was said at full throat that the NAP aims at discouraging."

"Obviously mullas are using the themes of Khatme Nabuwwat, Blasphemy, Shariah Rule etc. to indulge in sectarian and religious extremism that breeds terrorism eventually," it was asserted.

The report authors complained that the authorities look the other when such activism is carried on. "This sort of attitude and policy led to extensive riots, fall of the provincial and the central governments and the imposition of first ever martial law in the country. It happened in 1953."

In Rabwah, a town with ninety-five percent Ahmadi population, Ahmadi are not permitted to hold any religious conference in their town. On the other hand the Punjab government allows ant-Ahmadi hostile groups to hold rallies and conferences every year.

"This goes on even after the implementation of the NAP," the report said.

 http://ahmadiyyatimes.blogspot.com/2015/05/pakistan-april-saw-17-anti-ahmadi.html
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Pakistan - Literacy Rate Declined In Balochistan Despite Educational Emergency



Literacy rate in Balochistan has declined by 3% despite the imposition of educational emergency by Balochistan Government, revealed a survey on Wednesday.
According to Pakistan Social and Living Standards Measurement Survey (PSLM) conducted byPakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS), literacy rate in Balochistan has dropped by 3% in the year 2013-14. Current literacy rate in the province stands at an abysmal 43%, added the survey.
Survey further stated that Male literacy rate in Balochistan is 55% and Female literacy rate is just 25%.
 “Decline in literacy rate proves that there are serious flaws in the approach of Balochistan government to deal with literacy,” Mukhtar Ahmad, an educationist told The Balochistan Point. “Balochistan government is emphasizing on curbing cheating and establishing buildings which will never translate into increasing literacy,” added Mr. Ahmad.
Balochistan government has imposed educational emergency since January 2014 and it has allocated 26% of budget on education.
Abid Raza, a teacher urged the Balochistan government to revisit its approach to educational emergency while talking to The Balochistan Point. He advised that government bureaucracy concerning education needs to be vetted if any educational reforms are to be made successful.
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Pakistan - Karachi - After the massacre

We woke up to the tears of the Ismaili community of Karachi on Thursday as they buried the men and women killed by terrorists at Karachi’s Safoora Chowk. Two more of the injured passengers succumbed to their injuries. The government had announced a day of mourning with all flags flying half mast, and round after round of meetings continued on Thursday. While the attack has drawn widespread condemnation from all quarters, it is the way the blame is being shifted around all possible quarters that makes clear that no lessons will be learnt. The Karachi police chief says there are two separate terrorist organisations operating in the city, one targeting police officials; the other members of minority communities. While the foreign secretary has suggested that RAW was behind the attack, the Foreign Office downplayed the possibility of the Islamic State being involved, saying there was no definite proof that the pamphlets found on the scene came from them. And of course, there have been all kinds of other conjecture floating around. The so-called paradigm shift claimed after Operation Zarb-e-Azb was launched was said to have, finally, shifted the primary focus of the state towards internal sources of terrorism. However, faced with the inability to come up to people's expectations over securing their lives against terrorism, the RAW trump card seems to be back in fashion with the leadership. However, for most observers, the attack carries the signature of other major Jundullah attacks: wear paramilitary uniforms, kill everyone and flee. It is – as has always been the case – in the protests organised by the civil society and left-wing political parties where questions have started to be asked over what exactly our security measures have been all about, and which way various operations are headed. 

While no one believes that all terrorism in the country would be solved within a year, who is being targeted and who is not is the key debate that has so far been ignored. In such a context, do we not need to indulge in at least a bit of introspection before jumping on the ‘foreign hand’ theories? Who is to blame for the fact that all six of the assailants got away from the scene? The fact is that this is not the first time this has happened. What is most unfortunate is that it will likely not be the last. Once the burial rites for the dead are over, once the media focus on the killings fades, we will be left with a terrifying situation. For months, it has proved impossible to get to the bottom of who is carrying out the attacks in Karachi and precisely how they should be ended. The Ismaili community itself bravely insists it will not bow under terror, with its board continuing with the examination process even as others halted testing for the day in the wake of the killing. The challenge now is to prevent the next attack. We have failed before as well. There is now no further room left for failure. We simply have to succeed if we are to save ourselves and prevent yet further havoc in our midst. 
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Pakistan's Shia Genocide - 'Goodbye, my son!' — After spate of attacks, Shias flee Pakistan







After losing one of his two sons to the worst attack against minority Shias in Pakistan's history, Ali was determined for the other to find a new life abroad.
“Go,” he told Iqbal Hussain, who left his job and family behind after losing his brother Mohammad Hassan to join thousands of others on treacherous waters in search of hope.
In the Shia-dominated Mari Abad quarter of Quetta, each family has tales of death and exile.
Sectarian violence — in particular by hardliners against Shias, who make up roughly 20 per cent of Pakistan's 200 million people — has claimed thousands of lives in the country over the past decade.
In the latest bloodshed, 44 Shias were massacred in Karachi on Wednesday, in the first attack claimed by the Islamic State group in the country. The worst atrocities, however, have struck Balochistan, home to some 200,000 Shias, according to local organisations.
The constant fear of violence is pushing young people towards illegal migration. The worst such attack so far, on January 10, 2013, saw a suicide bomber blow himself up in a small snooker hall.
About ten minutes later, when rescue workers had rushed to the scene, a truck packed with explosives that had been parked near the hall was detonated. The overall toll was close to 100 dead. Among them was Hassan, who had gone to help.
His brother Hussain survived, but with 38 shrapnel wounds which pierced his body.
“After six months, his mother was insisting, 'I have lost my son, I don't want to lose a second',” said Ali, standing in the cemetery Hassan was buried in, where a corridor of photographs of martyrs fix their gazes on passersby.
Ali, who had saved $20,000, sent Hussain and his mother to Karachi, then legally onward to Indonesia.
There, they placed their lives in the hands of people smugglers, and set off on a boat for Australia — the promised land — just before the conservative government there changed the law, and began sending back all new illegal migrants.
“The boat was very dangerous, there were 200 people, among them around 20 people from Quetta. It was very tough, the water was rough, we called for help and were finally picked up by a fishing boat,” Hussain said.
After the journey to a transit camp, the pair made it to Melbourne and today Hussain is learning English.
“There simply isn't any hope in Pakistan for young Shiites,” he said. “Here in Australia we have a new life.”

‘Even today, I am sorry’

Like Hussain, another young man Ali Raza also wanted a new life.
In 2011, Raza, who belongs to the ethnic Hazara community — a predominantly Shia group whose distinct Central Asian features make them easy targets for sectarian militant groups like Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ) — lost his best friend Yusuf to an attack in Quetta.
After the attack, he had only one goal: to leave.
His father Syed Qorban, a tyre vendor, helped him move to Malaysia, where he hoped he would set up a business. That plan, however, never materialised. “He called me to tell me he would be leaving for Australia. I told him, 'Don't go, my son',” cried the old man.
Their old boat, which carried 250 illegal migrants, sank in the sea.
Some decomposed corpses were found, while others, including Raza's were taken by the sea — something the family is still coming to terms with.
“Even today, I am sorry. How did I let this happen,” his father said.
Mushtaq, who declined to be identified by his real name, was on the same boat as Raza, but managed to survive three days adrift at sea, without drinking water, being burned mercilessly by the sun.
“When we were found at sea, my lips were cracked and my skin was raw,” he recalled.
Sent back to Indonesia, he tried to make the illegal crossing again. During one part of the journey, “I lost conciousness, I was having flashbacks for the first time,” he said.
“I couldn't sleep, I was afraid of death at every moment,” said Mushtaq, who finally reached Australia, his Eden, to work on a chicken farm.
“If I stayed in Pakistan, I was afraid of being killed. If I took to the sea, I was afraid of dying. Death awaited in both cases — but at least abroad I have hope.”

Hero smugglers?

In Quetta, those Shia Hazaras who remain stick to their own neighbourhoods, without much hope for a future in their homelands of Afghanistan, Iran and Pakistan.
And people smugglers — a dirty profession in most of the world — are highly regarded.
“Human smugglers for ... other people, they might be bad for them. But for us, we give them lot of importance in our society,” said Abdul Khalique Hazara, chief of the nationalist Hazara Democratic Party.
“You give me peace, then I would say they must be [stopped],” he added.
Wandering between the graves of his two brothers, both of whom were killed for their faith, and his son Hassan, the old man Ali's heart remains tied to the country that robbed him of his loved ones.
“If I leave,” he said, “who will weep for them?”

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Pakistan - Seminaries of violence


  • Zeeba T Hashmi

Whatever policies the state undertook in the past have tragically been met with a backlash, leaving the authorities confused about dealing with this monstrous situation of militant madrassas.

The attack on Ismaili commuters on a bus in Karachi, which has so far claimed 44 precious lives and injured dozens, is the tragic face of today’s Pakistan where minorities have no protection. It also brings into question why such an incident — though not the first of its kind — had to take place. Jundullah has claimed responsibility for the attack and pamphlets were found at the scene of the crime. In the pamphlet, the attackers have expressed their allegiance to the Islamic State (IS). Whatever the forensic evidence leads us to, the motive for this heinous crime is clear: religious intolerance and bigotry. Karachi, in this case, is home to many religious seminaries, some of them run by the Ahle Sunnat Wal Jamaat (ASWJ), a banned outfit among the many hardliners that have emerged in Karachi over the years. It is believed that the ASWJ has re-surfaced in Karachi to break the control of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and other jihadist organisations but the tomfoolery of using seminaries to quash the dominance of others is going to cost us greatly because seminaries function on the principle of exclusiveness and assertiveness of their righteousness and moral authority, meaning those not conforming to their ideologies are inherently their enemies.

One recent but rare and much-needed exchange between politicians and religious parties has ignited a new discourse in power circles about the viability of siding with seminaries. The National Action Plan (NAP), instrumental in restricting the seminaries has been much opposed by religious parties. Before that, in 2002, during the days of Musharraf, there had been an attempt to regularise the seminaries but it never materialised despite the fact there was a pressing need for it. The issue is jargoned in the complexity of political and social implications, so much so that it is no longer easy to see things in black and white, widely so because the state has used seminaries for its own strategic purposes. Whatever policies the state undertook in the past have tragically been met with a backlash, leaving the authorities confused about dealing with this monstrous situation of militant madrassas.

It is important to know that the seminaries here are not a recent development as commonly perceived. The roots of madrassas date back to the colonial days when there was a general Muslim distrust in the British system of governance. They set up their seminaries in reaction to the discriminatory and even oppressive policies of the Raj. They were also the ones heralding against the British when the great rebellion arose in 1857, but it failed. They remained active ever since, hardened their roots with radical Islamic ideologies and created a legacy as such. Mainly following the Deobandi school of thought, religious madrassas exist in Pakistan, India and Bangladesh but the problem is more prevalent and serious in Pakistan unlike in India or Bangladesh and there are multiple reasons for this.

Around 60 percent of all madrassas follow the Deobandi school of thought. The rest of them belong to the Salafist and Wahhabi schools of thought, and an estimated four to 10 percent belong to the Shia sect. As I have mentioned earlier, the earlier formation of madrassas here was a militant reaction to British colonialism, hence it carries an essence of violence or jihad against imperialist elements. Who do they consider to be imperial forces? Anyone, in their view, that represents the west or its policies, which they feel are geared towards them. In that, they even hold the state in contempt for siding with the west in the war on terror.

Let us also not forget how they were further militarised in the 1970s and 80s. Ziaul Haq sold the nation to US interests by initiating the madrassa business; many of these seminaries were also used by the Saudis as proxies against Iran. In reference to today’s Pakistan, where we have witnessed a lot of political manoeuvring and international alliances, especially in the aftermath of the Cold War, madrassa growth has mushroomed.

The tables turned with 9/11 when Pakistan was left with no other option but to fight the militants it had bred as proxies. The religious parties vehemently opposed this and considered the US to be a threat. The madrassas, under the direction of their leaders, started blaming the US and its western allies for culturally invading their ideals by force and accusing everybody with humanist ideologies to be western agents and enemies of Islam.

Though it would be wrong to assume that all madrassas are violent, the presence of the streak that abhors anything it considers against the ideals of its version of Islam carries a dangerous potential of violence and bigotry. In a situation where there is no weapons control in place and there exists a militant mindset, seminaries can be used as jihadist recruitment centres to counter the government’s measures to curb terrorism. Not only that, the number of students these seminaries hold is also of great concern as they find themselves incapable of co-habiting with an economically active society. They have no other way to earn a livelihood as they are not vocationally trained. Hence, for them, survival depends on the survival of the seminaries from where they can perpetuate and project themselves in society. This is a factor that the state must look into to detract further recruitments by these seminaries.

There is a need to study closely how these seminaries act to recruit their students and what income class these students belong to. The menace of seminaries has grown out of proportion. There is an urgent need for the state to take control of the situation; unless this is done, Pakistan stands at the brink of self-implosion.
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Pakistan - Education Crisis - Woeful statistics



There has hardly ever been a time in our history in which the education sector has seen progress, development and enviable results. Now, in the year 2015, things have not only remained unchanged, they have gotten a lot worse. The Pakistan Bureau of Statistics (PBS) carried out the Pakistan Social and Living Standards Measurement Survey (PSLM) for the year 2013-14 and reportedly found that the overall literacy rate of the nation fell from 60 percent the year before to 58 percent for the year in question. Sindh and Balochistan showed the very worst literacy rates out of all the four provinces. In a country like ours where education and the average literacy rate is in an abysmal state, to see us moving forward into the future with no clue as to how to educate the next generation is a tragedy indeed.

Literacy and the entire education sector in Pakistan has always been in a bad way but what the report missed out on telling is what factor exactly has caused this further dip in national literacy. The report showed that the provincial and federal government combined spent a measly Rs 537.6 billion or two percent of the gross domestic product (GDP) on education, which has actually been the case for a number of years now. It seems education is woefully low on the list of priorities for the government. Even if the government does increase spending on education in the upcoming budget, the root causes of our deficiency will never be addressed if the funds are not put in the right place: keeping our children in school. The report shows that every four out of 10 children are kept out of school by parents who prefer to make their children a source of earning rather than sending them to schools that are no better than abandoned ruins. The underlying factors have remained the same: teacher absenteeism, little to no infrastructure, untrained teachers and staff, lack of basic facilities in public schools and a strict regime of corporal punishment. Unless these issues are addressed, any funds delivered to the education sector — even the shoddy 2.1 percent — will have little effect on our steadily decreasing educational statistics.

In this time of extremism and violence, it is more important than ever before to defeat barbarity with literacy, to beat back the ignorant scourge with the pen and knowledge. Pakistan needs to reverse its lacklustre attitude towards educating its future generations, young people who are finding their place in society through guns and bombs instead of inside classrooms and schools.
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Pakistan - PPP condemns PTI for torture on journalists, calls for apology from Imran Khan


https://mediacellppp.wordpress.com/

Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) Media Cell Sindh in-charge and PPP Parliamentary Leader in the Senate of Pakistan Senator Saeed Ghani and members while condemning Pakistan Tehreek-e Insaf (PTI) furious Gulloo Butts for subjecting the reporters of torture said the reporters were requested by the PTI to cover the Multan gathering. Such brutal attitude toward the journalists and reporters was absolutely unacceptable.
They demanded of the Punjab Chief Minister Mian Shahbaz Sharif to take stern action against those PTI Gulloo Butts, who tortured the reporters.
In a statement issued from the PPP Media Cell Sindh Friday, Saeed Ghani and members of the Media Cell said the Multan incident of torture on reporters was not new as the PTI had long ago pioneered the trend of torturing the reporters and even they did not spare lady reporters, as well. Torturing on the reporters was the hallmark of PTI.
They said the PTI had introduced the concept of intolerance, use of force, foul and abusive language and torturing on reporters in the politics but still the PTI had been misleading the masses that the party was striving for a newer Pakistan.
The negativity that the PTI had introduced in the politics, attack on the Parliament, PTV was filthy skirmishes on the face of the party, which could never be washed off.
They asked the PTI Chairman Imran Khan to publicly apologies the reporters and the masses of the country for the shameful act of torturing on the reporters and ensure the incident would never occur in future.
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What Pakistan Knew About the Bin Laden Raid

BY HUSAIN HAQQANI

 As Islamabad’s ambassador to Washington, I had an intimate view of the Pakistani response to the SEAL Team 6 operation. But I still have a few unanswered questions.
With a litany of unproved claims, veteran investigative journalist Seymour Hersh has revived discussion about the circumstances in which al Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden was discovered and killed in May 2011 in the Pakistani garrison city of Abbottabad.
Some of Hersh’s assertions in a 10,000-word London Review of Books article border on fantasy. He claims that bin Laden lived under the protection of Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI), was given up for reward money by one of the agency’s officers, and was eventually eliminated in a U.S. raid covertly backed by Pakistan’s army commander and ISI chief.
According to Hersh, the Americans “blackmailed” Pakistan’s generals into helping them kill bin Laden but then stabbed them in the back for political reasons by denying them any credit for assisting in the raid by Navy SEALs. Instead of blaming ISI for sheltering bin Laden in Pakistan (which Hersh claims it did), he points the finger at the Obama administration for not acknowledging ISI’s role in the U.S. operation that killed the terrorist mastermind.
With the exception of the possibility of a Pakistani “walk in” selling information about bin Laden’s location, the other details of Hersh’s story simply do not add up. Hersh explains the Obama administration’s eagerness to claim sole credit for finding and killing bin Laden in terms of domestic U.S. politics. But he offers no explanation as to why, after covertly helping the Americans, Pakistan’s generals would keep quiet about their role. The veteran reporter alludes to the idea that this might have been because of bin Laden’s popularity among the Pakistani public. But by 2011, bin Laden was no longer that popular — and in any case Pakistan’s military leaders have consistently ignored public opinion to ensure the flow of American aid. Hersh’s suggestion that Pakistan’s generals covertly helped Americans eliminate bin Laden simply to maintain the flow of U.S. dollars to the country — but kept it secret so as not to incur the wrath of the Pakistani street — does not hold water.
For several years before the bin Laden raid, Pakistan’s military and the ISI had been criticized in the U.S. media and Congress for double-dealing in the fight against terrorism. If the ISI had protected bin Laden (or held him prisoner) for five years before being found out by the Americans, the United States would have increased its leverage by going public with accusations of hiding bin Laden. But there’s no evidence that Washington held Islamabad’s feet to the fire.
If, however, a backroom deal had been negotiated to secure Pakistani cooperation in the raid on Abbottabad in return for U.S. silence, the ISI would have demanded some glory for its cooperation. Facilitating the raid, as narrated by Hersh, would have provided Pakistan’s military and ISI an opportunity to redeem themselves in American eyes. Hersh wants us to believe an entirely improbably scenario. According to him, Obama’s political requirements denied Pakistanis any credit and senior generals in Islamabad simply accepted that without pushing back.
Was the “walk-in” real?
To this day, there is no solid evidence of Pakistanis at the highest level of government knowing about bin Laden being in Pakistan — though there have been widespread suspicions. If, after being tipped off by a rogue Pakistani intelligence officer looking for personal reward, the United States planned a raid with covert help from Pakistani intelligence, why didn’t the cooperating Pakistani officials demand credit for assisting in targeting bin Laden in order to mitigate the bad press for previously protecting him? And what prevented the U.S. government from publicly acknowledging that they knew bin Laden had been officially protected? Was the need to keep the relationship with Islamabad on solid footing so important that the Obama administration would risk telling a lie this massive?
Hersh’s story is based on the fundamental premise that the U.S. government had bad intentions, including in their interactions with the Pakistan Army and the ISI. In an interview with the Pakistani newspaper Dawn, Hersh defends Pakistan’s generals. “Pakistan has a good army, not a bad army,” he declared, adding that the Obama administration’s cover story made the Pakistan army look incompetent because it didn’t know that bin Laden was residing in a garrison town just two miles from the country’s main military academy. But he still does not offer an explanation for why the Pakistan Army chief, Gen. Ashfaq Kayani, and ISI head, Lt. Gen. Ahmed Shuja Pasha, went along with the cover story.
The only point in Hersh’s story that seems plausible relates to the Pakistani officer who tipped off the Americans about bin Laden’s location. Further reporting by AFP and a story by NBC affirm the role of a Pakistani defector — though NBC later amended its story to clarify that while the defector provided information, it didn’t lead to finding bin Laden. The rumor that the CIA learned about bin Laden’s location through an ISI officer has been around since the Abbottabad raid. But I’ve also heard another version of the same story from Pakistani officials.
According to this version, the ISI officer only facilitated the CIA’s on-ground operation in Abbottabad after the U.S. spy agency started planning an operation based on intelligence obtained through other means. The CIA relocated the Pakistani officer — not because he was the man who tipped them off on bin Laden’s location — but because he acted without authority from his superiors in enabling the CIA to conduct an operation on Pakistani soil.
The NBC story also repeats the suspicion of U.S. officials — about Pakistani complicity in hiding bin Laden — though, obviously, there isn’t enough evidence for the U.S. government to formally and publicly make that charge. As a witness to Pakistan’s response after the bin Laden raid I find it difficult to believe Hersh’s conspiracy theory about so many people in both the U.S. and Pakistani governments and militaries telling a big coordinated lie.
In the middle of a diplomatic dance
I was serving as Pakistan’s ambassador to the United States at the time of the SEAL raid in Abbottabad. I was on my way to Islamabad via London and Dubai when the operation took place; I first found out about it upon landing at Heathrow airport in the early morning of May 2, 2011. My superiors in Islamabad instructed me to turn around immediately. I was back in Washington by around 5 p.m. local time.
My instructions were clear: to ensure that the U.S. government, Congress, and the media did not blame Pakistan’s government, armed forces, or intelligence services for allowing Osama bin Laden’s presence in the country, as that would have been a violation of U.N. Security Council Resolutions 1267 and 1373. My bosses, both civilian and military, were obviously concerned that Pakistan would be taken to task. But nothing in the conduct of Generals Kayani and Pasha (both of whom later forced me to resign as ambassador) hinted at their collusion with the U.S. in the Abbottabad raid.
The generals were embarrassed, both over bin Laden having being found in Pakistan and the U.S. taking place raid without knowledge or approval. They attributed their lack of response to the incursion by U.S. helicopters from Afghanistan to the absence of adequate radar coverage on the western border — a symptom of Pakistan’s view of India as the only threat to its national security. Kayani and Pasha also wanted to ensure that there would be no reprisals against Pakistan over allegations of official complicity in hiding bin Laden.

A bevy of damage diplomacy followed. A few days after the Abbottabad raid, then-chairman of the Senate Foreign Relations Committee John Kerry visited Islamabad. Gen. Kayani was eager during that visit for a statement by the U.S. senator emphasizing Pakistan’s position as an American ally in the war against terrorism. Kerry agreed to the reassuring language proposed by Kayani. The Kerry visit was followed by a visit by Pasha to Washington during which he was keen to convince the CIA that the ISI had no knowledge of bin Laden being in Pakistan. In a meeting with CIA Director Leon Panetta, Pasha listed the CIA’s own failures over the years to advance his argument that intelligence gathering is often imperfect and that the enemy can hide within plain sight.
Notwithstanding my own disagreements with Kayani and Pasha, I found no reason to believe that either general was feigning ignorance or outrage while being secretly in league with the Americans. The Foreign Office also asked me to protest the violation of Pakistan’s sovereignty by U.S. forces in conducting the operation and to point out how it violated the norms of international conduct between two sovereign countries that were, at least officially, allies. I didn’t make much headway.
The U.S. officials I interacted with were not only unwilling to apologize for violating Pakistani sovereignty but demanded that Islamabad cooperate in giving Americans access to data and persons found at the house in Abbottabad where the raid was conducted. They also demanded the return of the wreckage of the stealth helicopter that had been damaged and left behind during the operation. Pakistan handed over the wreckage a few days later, though not without prodding by the Chairman of Joint Chiefs of Staff, Adm. Michael Mullen.
Security Council cover
Immediately after the raid, the U.S. government persuaded the president of the U.N. Security Council to issue a statement, “welcoming [the] end of Osama bin Laden’s ability to perpetrate terrorist acts.” Obama administration officials I spoke with pointed to UNSC resolutions and this statement by the Security Council president to justify their unilateral action in Abbottabad in disregard of Pakistani sovereignty.
Pakistan’s protests about violation of its sovereignty and against the U.N. Security Council president’s statement came within hours of the Abbottabad raid. Our side was stunned because it had not been kept in the loop. At the United Nations, the Security Council president was busy listing justifications under international law for the violation of Pakistan’s sovereignty. But none of these responses would have occurred if, as Hersh says, the cover story about the unilateral raid had been “manufactured” in the White House just two hours after the raid, in a cynical ploy to help Obama’s re-election bid.
On the evening of May 2, I was interviewed on CNN. There I made what remains a valid point: I said that it was obvious someone in Pakistan protected Osama bin Laden. The question was to determine whether bin Laden’s support system lay “within the government and the state of Pakistan or within the society of Pakistan.” I had asked for “a full inquiry into finding out why our intelligence services were not able to track him earlier.”
I never got an answer to my question. Pakistan created a commission that conducted its hearings in a non-transparent manner and declined to publish its findings. The Obama administration went back to business-as-usual with Pakistan — without insisting or pushing Islamabad for answers on the tough questions about bin Laden’s stay in Pakistan from 2006 to 2011. I understand how the failure of both Washington and Islamabad to disclose a more complete understanding of what transpired in the years leading up to the raid feeds conspiracy theories and the presumption that something is fishy.
But it is this failure — explaining bin Laden’s presence in Pakistan, not the elaborate conspiracies Hersh alleges on the say-so of a single retired U.S. counterterrorism official — which has been a major disservice to truth.

Both the people of Pakistan and the people of the United States would benefit from detailed answers to questions about bin Laden’s support network in Pakistan. But don’t hold your breath. It might not be in either Islamabad’s or Washington’s interest to wake sleeping dogs.
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America's Pakistan Policy Is Sheer Madness

By C. Christine Fair

This week, the Congressional Research Service published a list of all major U.S. arms sales and grants to Pakistan. Washington claims that these transfers enable Pakistan to be better a partner in the U.S.-led war on terrorism. The evidence belies these claims. In fact, Pakistan undercuts key U.S. interests in the region and it perdures as a source of Islamist terrorism at home and abroad. The items that Washington has conveyed to Pakistan have little utility in fighting insurgents and terrorists; rather, they enable Pakistan to better fight India, a democratic American partner that has long endured Pakistani predations. A new American policy towards Pakistan, rooted in sober realism, is long overdue.
Since 9/11, the United States has lavished Pakistan with nearly $8 billion in security assistance, $11 billion in economic assistance, and $13 billion in the lucrative program known as Coalition Support Funds (CSF). Since then, Pakistan has availed of significant U.S. weapons systems and armaments, including: a used Perry-class missile frigate; 18 new and 14 used nuclear-capable F-16s; an array of munitions (i.e. 500 air-to-air missiles, 1,450 2,000-pound bombs);  1,600 kits that allow Pakistan to convert gravity bombs into laser-guided smarter bombs, 2,007 anti-armor missiles, 100 Harpoon anti-ship missiles, 500 Sidewinder air-to-air missiles, seven naval guns, 374 armored personnel carriers, and much more. A transfer of 15 reconnaissance unmanned aerial vehicles is also under way. This list suggests that Pakistan’s insurgents have developed air, naval and ground-force capabilities.
What tangible benefits has Washington secured for these emoluments? Very few it appears. Victory in Afghanistan was long ago lost. Pakistan is more unstable than ever. Even though Washington justified this largesse in terms of securing Pakistan’s cooperation in the Afghan war, Pakistan unrelentingly supports the Afghan Taliban, which has killed 2,356 U.S. military personnel, and is responsible for 677 coalition military deaths, as well as the deaths ofthousands of civilian contractors (for whom there is no official count), more than 21,000 Afghan civilians since 2001, and more than 20,000 Afghan police and army personnel since 2003. Insurgents killed more than 5,000 ANSF in 2014 alone. Pakistan continues to support the Jalaluddin Haqqani network, which launches sophisticated suicide operations against U.S., NATO, Afghan and Indian targets in Afghanistan. Without Pakistan’s direct military, diplomatic, political and financial support—as well as secure sanctuaries—in Pakistani territory, the insurgents would not be as lethal or as capable as they are. And, of course, Osama Bin Laden was discovered a short distance from Pakistan’s famed military academy at Kakul. Pakistan has not even bothered to investigate who facilitated his tenure in the country. Apparently, this is what cooperation looks like.
These U.S. policies towards Pakistan have guaranteed a more dangerous world for several reasons.  
First, this assistance better situates Pakistan to wage war against India while doing nothing to shape Pakistan’s will or capabilities to target terrorists and insurgents. This should vex Americans, Indians, Afghans and even ordinary Pakistanis who are the terrorists’ most common victim.   
Second, U.S. efforts to bolster Pakistan’s ability to fight its rebelling clients are stymied by the simple fact that Pakistan continues to create terrorists while fighting a selective war against others. Pakistani soldiers and citizens are dying at the hands of recalcitrant elements of the Pakistani Taliban, yet the deep state continues to churn out “good terrorists” such as Lashkar-e-Taiba (now operating under the names of Jamaat-ud-Dawa and Filah Insaniyat Foundation) and Jaish-e-Mohammad. It even tolerates sectarian killers who reliably mow down any Shia who may be suspected of being a “fifth column” for Iran.
Third, Washington provides Pakistan access to these weapon systems even despite Pakistan’s failures to comply with the numerous conditionalities which the U.S. Congress has emplaced upon such assistance. Currently, the United States provides this assistance under various waivers. In doing so, Washington erodes its own credibility, demeans its own laws, and rewards Pakistan for engaging in the very activities that the United States seeks to curtail. Worse, given the fungibility of funds, the United States has subsidized Pakistan’s investment in its jihadi and nuclear capabilities. This policy of allurements is an affront to all of Pakistan’s victims including U.S. and NATO personnel in and out of uniform who have made great sacrifices in Afghanistan; thousands of Indians murdered by Pakistani terrorists since 1947; and tens of thousands of Afghans slaughtered by Pakistan’s proxies over the same period.
This madness must stop. Successive U.S. administrations have worried about the next war in South Asia, arguing that the most likely precipitant of that war will be a Pakistan-backed terrorist attack on India. If the United States is truly worried about this scenario, why is it prosecuting policies that make this outcome more likely—not less?

If there is any hope of rectifying this mess of Washington’s making, it must quickly adopt a new policy towards Pakistan that embraces containment and serious punitive actions unless Pakistan closes down the various jihads it runs.
Opponents of this approach erroneously cite the invocation of the Pressler Amendment sanctions in 1990, opining that it failed to prevent Pakistan’s nuclearization in its 1998 tests, and attribute the rise of the Taliban and the events of 9/11 to this decision. These arguments are all wrong. Pakistan acquired the bomb in the early 1980s. Moreover, nothing about that cut-off required Washington to outsource its Afghan policy to Pakistan, which ultimately sowed the seeds of 9/11 rather than the sanctions.
Fearing that Pakistan is too dangerous to fail, pusillanimous members of Congress, as well as officials in the White House and the Departments of State and Defense, are wary of moving away from the status quo and the uncertain future that may ensue. One thing is certain: their failure to act now will ensure more terrorism and more death in the future. And they will have only themselves to blame.
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