Pakistani general’s killers,Shocking Report.....

From The Sunday TimesDecember 14, 2008

UK may help find Pakistani general’s killers
Carey Schofield The brother-in-law of VS Naipaul, the British novelist and Nobel laureate, was murdered last month after threatening to expose Pakistani army generals who had made deals with Taliban militants.

Major-General Faisal Alavi, a former head of Pakistan’s special forces, whose sister Nadira is Lady Naipaul, named two generals in a letter to the head of the army. He warned that he would “furnish all relevant proof”.

Aware that he was risking his life, he gave a copy to me and asked me to publish it if he was killed. Soon afterwards he told me that he had received no reply.

“It hasn’t worked,” he said. “They’ll shoot me.”

Four days later, he was driving through Islamabad when his car was halted by another vehicle. At least two gunmen opened fire from either side, shooting him eight times. His driver was also killed.

This weekend, as demands grew for a full investigation into Alavi’s murder on November 18, Lady Naipaul described her brother as “a soldier to his toes”. She said: “He was an honourable man and the world was a better place when he was in it.”

It was in Talkingfish, his favourite Islamabad restaurant, that the general handed me his letter two months ago. “Read this,” he said.

Alavi had been his usual flamboyant self until that moment, smoking half a dozen cigarettes as he rattled off jokes and gossip and fielded calls on two mobile phones.

Three years earlier this feted general, who was highly regarded by the SAS, had been mysteriously sacked as head of its Pakistani equivalent, the Special Services Group, for “conduct unbecoming”. The letter, addressed to General Ashfaq Kayani, the chief of army staff, was a final attempt to have his honour restored. Alavi believed he had been forced out because he was openly critical of deals that senior generals had done with the Taliban. He disparaged them for their failure to fight the war on terror wholeheartedly and for allowing Taliban forces based in Pakistan to operate with impunity against British and other Nato troops across the border in Afghanistan.
Alavi, who had dual British and Pakistani nationality, named the generals he accused. He told Kayani that the men had cooked up a “mischievous and deceitful plot” to have him sacked because they knew he would expose them. “The entire purpose of this plot by these general officers was to hide their own involvement in a matter they knew I was privy to,” he wrote. He wanted an inquiry, at which “I will furnish all relevant proof/ information, which is readily available with me”.
I folded up the letter and handed it back to him. “Don’t send it,” I said. He replied that he had known I would talk him out of it so he had sent it already. “But”, he added, “I want you to keep this and publish it if anything happens to me.”
I told him he was a fool to have sent the letter: it would force his enemies into a corner. He said he had to act and could not leave it any longer: “I want justice. And I want my honour restored. And you know what? I [don’t] give a damn what they do to me now. They did their worst three years ago.”
We agreed soon afterwards that it would be prudent for him to avoid mountain roads and driving late at night. He knew the letter might prove to be his death warrant.
Four days after I last saw him, I was in South Waziristan, a region bordering Afghanistan, to see a unit from the Punjab Regiment. It was early evening when I returned to divisional headquarters and switched on the television. It took me a moment to absorb the horror of the breaking news running across the screen: “Retired Major General Faisal Alavi and driver shot dead on way to work.”
The reports blamed militants, although the gunmen used 9mm pistols, a standard army issue, and the killings were far more clinical than a normal militant attack.
The scene at the army graveyard in Rawalpindi a few days after that was grim. Soldiers had come from all over the country to bury the general with military honours. Their grief was palpable. Wreaths were laid on behalf of Kayani and most of the country’s military leadership.
Friends and family members were taken aback to be told by serving and retired officers alike that “this was not the militants; this was the army”. A great many people believed the general had been murdered to shut him up.
I first met Alavi in April 2005 at the Pakistan special forces’ mountain home at Cherat, in the North West Frontier Province, while working on a book about the Pakistani army.
He told me he had been born British in Kenya, and that his older brother had fought against the Mau Mau. His affection for Britain was touching and his patriotism striking.
In August 2005 he was visiting Hereford, the home of the SAS, keen to revive the SSG’s relationship with British special forces and deeply unhappy about the way some elements of Pakistan’s army were behaving. He told me how one general had done an astonishing deal with Baitullah Mehsud, the 35-year-old Taliban leader, now seen by many analysts as an even greater terrorist threat than Osama Bin Laden.
Mehsud, the main suspect in the assassination of Benazir Bhutto late last year, is also believed to have been behind a plot to bomb transport networks in several European countries including Britain, which came to light earlier this year when 14 alleged conspirators were arrested in Barcelona. Yet, according to Alavi, a senior Pakistani general came to an arrangement with Mehsud “whereby – in return for a large sum of money – Mehsud’s 3,000 armed fighters would not attack the army”.
The two senior generals named in Alavi’s letter to Kayani were in effect complicit in giving the militants free rein in return for refraining from attacks on the Pakistani army, he said. At Hereford, Alavi was brutally frank about the situation, said the commanding officer of the SAS at that time.
“Alavi was a straight-talking soldier and some pretty robust conversations took place in the mess,” he said. “He wanted kit, skills and training from the UK. But he was asked, pretty bluntly, why the Pakistani army should be given all this help if nothing came of it in terms of getting the Al-Qaeda leadership.”
Alavi’s response was typically candid, the SAS commander said: “He knew that Pakistan was not pulling its weight in the war on terror.”
It seemed to Alavi that, with the SAS on his side, he might win the battle, but he was about to lose everything. His enemies were weaving a Byzantine plot, using an affair with a divorced Pakistani woman to discredit him.
Challenged on the issue, Alavi made a remark considered disrespectful to General Pervez Musharraf, then the president. His enemies playeda recording of it to Musharraf and Alavi was instantly sacked.
His efforts to clear his name began with a request that he be awarded the Crescent of Excellence, a medal he would have been given had he not been dismissed. Only after this was denied did he write the letter that appears to many to have sealed his fate.
It was an action that the SAS chief understands: “Every soldier, in the moment before death, craves to be recognised. It seems reasonable to me that he staked everything on his honour. The idea that it is better to be dead than dishonoured does run deep in soldiers.”
Alavi’s loyalty to Musharraf never faltered. Until his dying day he wanted his old boss to understand that. He also trusted Kayani implicitly, believing him to be a straight and honourable officer.
If investigations eventually prove that Alavi was murdered at the behest of those he feared within the military, it may prove a fatal blow to the integrity of the army he loved.
Britain and the United States need to know where Pakistan stands. Will its army and intelligence agencies ever be dependable partners in the war against men such as Mehsud?
James Arbuthnot, chairman of the defence select committee, and Lord Guthrie, former chief of the defence staff, were among those who expressed support this weekend for British help to be offered in the murder investigation.
Inside the Pakistan Army by Carey Schofield will be published next year by Soap Box Books.

Why the families of traitors?

Why the families of traitors?
M Waqar New York
I agree with Mr. M. K. Bangash's letter of December, 6. He has made a good point about sons and families of past dictators and traitors on national TV, although I can't keep up with Mr. Bangash letters in Frontier Post, I always admire his views. It seems like not only the media but entire nation does not have any criteria of politicians in this country. It is true that there are hundreds of intellectuals in Pakistan and when I was a student at Islamia College, I came across my professors who were more educated and talented than any Pakistani politician. What citizens of this country needs to do is to get rid of old generation of politicians and Mr Bangash is right in saying that media has always ignored well educated and devoted intellectuals, I think media can play a great role by inviting progressive, well educated, liberal minded people, who can teach and train new generation of Pakistan for their future. I was in my very early years of life when Zia took over the reigns of power in Pakistan back in the 1970s. However, I do remember vividly the days when and how the ugly change was brought about. Yet another elected government was toppled by the military, thanks to the mullahs conniving with Zia.. During Zia's reign, Pakistan got AK 47, heroin, Afghans, sectarian rifts. His appointment was controversial, so was his rule. A dictator who halted the democratic process, publicly hanged, flogged political opponents, implicated and murdered the country's greatest mainstream politician. He misused name of Islam for his greed and power, actually he was not interested in Islam but he was aiding imperialists. Why do we need new generation of politicians who are not family members of past hypocrites, dictators and traitors Pakistani political parties never developed into viable institutions capable of generating leadership. There are talented emerging politicians in some political parties of Pakistan but they stand no chance of occupying their party top slots. In this elitist political system of Pakistan, party office is a lifetime prerogative passed from father to son. None of them is willing to make way for fresh leadership to emerge. There are deep structural and constitutional problems within Pakistani politics that necessitate the presence of Pakistani military in civil affairs for the time being. Only the educated people can help break the choking grip of wealthy, autocratic feudal politicians. In Pakistan the military has been part of the problem because it has been encouraging the monopoly of a handful of politicians in the country, perpetuating a troubled system and never encouraging its replacement with a better one. The Election Commission must introduce the requirement of a verifiable, free and secret ballot for the top slots within Pakistani political parties as a precondition to contesting general elections. This will rid us of stagnating lifetime party leaderships, giving a larger number of Pakistanis a chance to serve the public and pave the way for a better class of politicians to emerge. Drastic changes in the Pakistani constitution, the political system and the composition of Pakistani politics hold the only key to ensure a strong, emerging Pakistan in the 21st century. Islamabad has already wasted too much time. Except Afghanistan, almost all of Pakistan's neighbours Iran, the Gulf, China, and India are well on their way to strong economic growth. The political systems in these nations, despite being different, do not offer loopholes that allow for domestic instability or foreign interference. The objective of a major overhaul of the Pakistani state is to create a government that is able to project its interests while maintaining a robust internal political system that creates and breeds leadership and focuses on the future. Tough reforms will have to target the existing and future political parties. Regular and transparent internal party election has to become a prerequisite for the party to qualify for participating in national elections. This will end leadership rot and allow fresh leaders to emerge. New legislation will have to be introduced to control party finances and expenditure. Today's politicians who only know how to bring people on streets to protest and spread hate can't be a model politician. Main reason for Pakistan's vulnerability is weak leadership and a flawed political system that breeds instability. To get over this, a strong federal government will have to be introduced in Islamabad. This government cannot be drawn from the existing failed political class and cannot be a repeat of past military governments. Cleaning the slate in Pakistan will require some creative thinking. The prevalent feudal system of Pakistan is the main obstacle in the progress of the country and the prosperity of the people. Since the creation of Pakistan the Pakistani people are left at distant from the corridor of power so that the ruling elite can do what they wanted to do in favour of their interest, leaving the Pakistani people at the mercy of circumstances. As this policy is denial of right of Pakistani people to rule their country according to their aspiration and desire to build this country, which can provide equal opportunity to all without any discrimination for the establishment of welfare society. Only the society base on tolerance, equality and justice can be the real guarantee for the prosperous and strong Pakistan therefore your attention is invited to the crucial movement which could be the point of distraction or disaster. Because of corrupt politician of Pakistan the army was tempted again and again place, for one after another military rule. It would be wrong to blame Pakistan army alone for having usurped power for more than half of its life. It was in fact feudal corrupt politicians that facilitated first martial law in Pakistan and again in 1999. How long shall we suffer? How long the future of our coming generation will be at stake. With a population of over 160 million, Pakistan is the sixth most populous country in the world and the second most populous country with a Muslim majority. However, the country faces significant development challenges, with one in 10 children dying before their fifth birthday, and 50% of adults classed as illiterate, no clean drinking water, load shedding and so many other countless problems Pakistanis face everyday.




Saved from: http://www.thefrontierpost.com/News.aspx?ncat=le&nid=892&ad=14-12-200
Dated: Sunday, December 14, 2008, Zil Hajj 15, 1429 A.H.

US moves to declare former Pakistani officers international terrorists

Time to arrest General (R) Hamid Gul, Brigadier (R) Ijaz Shah and other rogue elements in Pakistan's intelligence agencies'Who killed Benazir Bhutto? Foot-soldiers of Al-Qaeda/Taliban/Sipah-e-Sahaba. Who were the masterminds? General Hamid Gul, Brigadier Ijaz Shah, other rogue elements in Pakistan's ISI and other intelligence agencies.Who are their mouth-pieces in the Pakistani media? Irfan Siddiqi, Ansar Abbasi, Kashif Abbasi, Mushtaq Minhas, Hamid Mir, Roedad Khan, Orya Maqbool Jan
Who are their political supporters?Ijazul-Huq, Pervez Elahi, Qazi Hussain Ahmed, Imran Khan, Hafiz Saeed, and other pro-jihadi, pro-Taliban and sectarian elements.
Hamid Gul and other ISI former officers are on pay roll of ALQUIDA.What Pakistan Government needs to do,is to arrest and punish former army generals of ISI like HAMID GUL ETC,HAMID GUL was ISI cheif once and is supporter of Osama and fanatic religious groups,he should be arrested by NATO forces and they should investigate him,he is invole in terrorism and supports all those mullahs who spread hate.Presnt Pakistani Govt is afraid of its generals and BHUTTO family was killed by these fanatic army and ISI generals like HAMID GUL.Terrorists are using poor people for their crimes,killing anyone any where is a crime aginst humanity.

Written by Bill Roggio on December 4, 2008 2:20 PM to The Long War Journal
Available online at: http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2008/12/us_moves_to_declare.php


The US government is seeking to add several former Pakistani intelligence officers to the United Nations’ list of international terrorists, The News reported. A senior US intelligence official familiar with the effort to reign in Pakistan’s intelligence service confirmed to The Long War Journal the US wants to get the United Nations Security Council to designate several senior former officers of Pakistan's Inter-Service Intelligence agency as international terrorists.

Included on the list of former Pakistani intelligence officers being submitted to the UNSC are Hamid Gul, Javid Nasir, and Zahirul Islam Abbasi, as well as Aslam Beg, a senior Army officer, the intelligence official said.

The placement of the former Pakistani officers on the United Nations list would open their international accounts up to scrutiny and eventual seizure, the US official said. "We could do some major damage" to the officers' "slush funds" in international bank accounts. The US will also seek to place the officers on INTERPOL's wanted list.

News of the US move broke after Gul spoke to the Pakistani press about being added to the list. Gul "was informed of this by a highly responsible person, who had personally seen the written US request," The News reported.

The US intelligence official expressed concern that Gul still has access to such sensitive information. Gul's knowledge of the effort "is indicative that he still has friends in very high places."

According to The News, Gul said "the government should immediately move to protect the ISI from this indirect attack from Washington. He said the United States and some other Western nations were against him for the simple reason that he did not support their war on terror which, he said, was based on Washington’s greed for energy."

Gul's message is calculated to rally support within Pakistan's intelligence community, the US official said. "He is playing to a very particular crowd there, to convince people in the ISI that those against him are also against them."

Both the United States and India have accused the Lashkar-e-Taiba, a Pakistani-based terror group backed by the ISI, of conducting last week's 62 hour assault on Mumbai that resulted in more than 180 Indians and foreigners killed and more than 300 wounded. Indian police captured a terrorist who admitted to training inside camps Pakistan and to being a member of Lashkar-e-Taiba.

While there have been no direct links between the Mumbai attackers and the Pakistani government, India has accused the Pakistani government of allowing numerous groups to operate on its soil. India has demanded the Pakistani government hand over about 20 wanted terror leaders and operatives, including Hafiz Saeed, the leader of the Lashkar-e-Taiba.

Elements of the Pakistani state may have aided in the training of the Mumbai terrorists and the execution of the operation. The captured terrorist claimed members from Pakistani Navy aiding in his training, while Dawood Ibrahim, the ISI-backed mafia don, provided logistical support. Indian intelligence sources told PTI that the country has "proof that the Inter Services Intelligence was involved in planning the Mumbai terror attacks and training the terrorists." The unconfirmed report stated "the names of trainers and the places where meticulous training took place are also known to the government." US intelligence has additional information, according to the report.

Just this year, the ISI was directly implicated in the suicide attack on the Indian embassy in Kabul. Fifty-four people, including an Indian defense attaché, were killed in the July 7 bombing. The Indian embassy bombing was carried out by the Haqqani Network, with the direct backing of the ISI, The US confronted the Paksitani government with evidence of the ISI's involvement in August. Within two months after the US confrontation with Pakistan, Lieutenant General Nadeem Taj, the Director of the ISI, was relieved of his command,

Background on Gul, Nasir, Abbasi, and Beg

The four senior retired Pakistani officers put forth to be sanctioned by the United Nations have a long history of dealing with extremist groups, and particularly al Qaeda, the Taliban, and the Kashmiri terror groups.

Lieutenant General (Retired) Hamid Gul served as the chief of the ISI from 1987 to 1989. Gul is known as the Godfather of the Taliban for his efforts to organize the fight against the Soviets in Afghanistan from 1979 to 1989, and the helping to facilitate the rise of the Taliban in the 1990s. Gul supports the terrorist insurgency in India-occupied Kashmir and opposes the US-led effort to defeat Islamic extremism.

"God will destroy the US in Iraq and Afghanistan and wherever it will try to go from there," Gul said in August 2003. "The Muslim world must stand united to confront the U.S. in its so-called War on Terrorism, which is in reality a war against Muslims. Let's destroy America wherever its troops are trapped." Gul openly admits he maintains contacts with the Taliban and other extremist groups.

Lieutenant General (Retired) Javid Nasir commanded the ISI from 1992 to May 1993. After the Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan, Nasir helped unite the warring mujahideen factions and establish a government. Nasir, and avowed Islamist, provide support to terrorist movements throughout South Asia, the Middle East, and North Africa. Nasir, along with Gul, kept in close contact with Osama bin Laden in the 1990s.

Major General (Retired) Zahirul Islam Abbasi was a senior officer in the ISI during the Afghan war and served as a senior military commander. In 1995, he led a failed coup against Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto. He planned to kill the entire senior leadership of the Army command. Abbasi was implicated in the plot along with Qari Saifullah Akhtar, the leader of the radical Harkat-ul-Jihad-al-Islami, an al Qaeda and Taliban-linked group. Akhtar later testified against Abbasi, who was then sentenced to seven year in prison. He was released by Pervez Musharraf after serving just four.

General (Retired) Mirza Aslam Beg served as Chief of Army Staff of the Pakistan Army after the mysterious death of General Muhammad Zia ul Haq in 1998. Beg is known to profess sympathy for the Taliban, al Qaeda, and Kashmir terror groups. He has openly bragged that foreigners train in Afghanistan and fight in Kashmir. Beg, along with Gul, purportedly met with Osama bin Laden and more than 300 jihadi leaders at Darul Uloom Haqqania Islamic conference held in Peshawar in

OBAMA: INSPIRATIONAL LEADER !!!!

Slavery is a bitter history that many would prefer to forget, but it continues to cast a dark shadow over a nation not only in America that was founded on the promise that “all men are created equal” and endowed with the “unalienable rights” to life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness. Though it may seem like a phenomenon of an impossibly distant past, slavery is only just outside living memory. Slavery also reminds many in third world countries who were forced to become colonies of so called great Britain. In America, before the victory of the Civil Rights Movement black people were banned from using the same toilets, water fountains, schools and even bus stations as their white counterparts. The last anti miscegenation laws, which barred marriage between blacks and whites, were overturned by the Supreme Court only in 1967, and in 2000 Alabama became the last state to remove language prohibiting inter-racial marriage from its state constitution. Before this remarkable year, almost no African-Americans expected a black man to become President of the United States. Over almost four centuries, countless Africans were chained in slave ships for the dreaded “Middle Passage” across the Atlantic. Although there is no definitive total, Unesco estimates that 14,270,000 Africans were sold into slavery in the New World. By the time of the American Revolution, one out of five people in the Colonies was a slave. Olderr black Americans who lived through segregation in public institutions until the mid-1960s and who were alive when barriers to voting were finally removed in 1965 were filled with emotion when Sen. Barack Obama was declared the president-elect of the United States. They never thought they would live to see the day a nation of people who had enslaved each other, who had segregated schools to keep their children apart and who had grudgingly come together in the past would vote in masses, waiting in lines for hours, to elect the first bi-racial man to govern the country. Today, when historians will write new chapters, they will add BARAK OBAMA name in their books, they will record story of a kid, whose father was from Kenya, mother was white American, was raised by white grand parents ,a kid who struggled to reconcile social perceptions of his multiracial heritage ,he was not son of a famous politician, wealthy landlord or was born with golden spoon in his mouth, he is not like many other US politicians is from feudal society, he struggled, worked hard, Challenged seasoned politicians of American politics, he raised slogan of change, broke barriers of race and color and became first Afro-American President of America. He proved America is a country of great opportunity. Obama overcame prejudice is not only a tribute to his campaign, but also to the hope that, given a chance, ordinary people can overcome injustice to create a more humane world. The Election of Barack Obama as the 44th US President is a real tribute to Martin Luther King , whose dream is fulfilled. Americans put aside their racial prejudices on Tuesday Nov 4 and picked the best son of the land for the job, Obama's election does not suggest racism is wiped out once and for all, but it does signal that a sizable majority of voters believe America is the land of equal opportunity where anyone born in that land, irrespective of race, ethnicity or religion, can become its president. contest and win at the White House, by abolishing slavery. He seems to be pro-poor and has promised to reduce the difference between the ultra-rich and abject poor. Most of the time, he spoke with his personal convictions, not bothering whether his comment would bring or lose votes for him. And I think in the end, this streak of honesty won him the presidency. When TV screens were reporting that Obama won, people danced in the streets, wept, lifted their voices in prayer and brought traffic to a standstill. From Washington, D.C., to Los Angeles to all over the world, Americans celebrated Barack Obama's victory and marveled that they lived to see the day that a black man was elected president. His election speaks volumes for a bunch of people," Children of single mothers, people who put themselves through college. It says, you can do it, you can do it. Change has come to America." With this statement, Barack Obama encapsulated the feelings of hundreds of millions of his supporters around the globe. Obama's thumping electoral win will go down as one of the most transformational events in political history as he becomes the 44th U.S. president his victory has demonstrated that no person anywhere in the world should not dare to dream of wanting to change the world for a better place .
Pakistani politicians can learn a lot from Obama and changing of guards in Washington, Obama and his team is busy to provide best cabinet to the nation so they can develop better life for American citizens, while in Pakistan, politicians love to travel all over the world, in just past eight months Zardari and PM made more then one foreign trips and members of parliament in Pakistan have no clue what to do with so many problems in Pakistan, In Pakistan you haven’t even started fighting corruption. Indeed, leaders are still at the lip-service stage. The Pakistani politics is like Pakistani movies where the same old story repeated endlessly with the change of faces but in politics, even the faces remain the same with repeated role, which proves that while the world may have moved on we remain stuck in the same grooves. In Pakistan ,the painful dilemma in the political fête is that the politicians who always cry for democracy are unable to produce democracy in their own parties. When the national political figureheads could not maintain fair and clean election within their parties how can they provide or maintain the true democracy in the country. When the power greedy politicians are ready to split their parties to retain the headship of the party or not allow the other person to contest for party leadership, how can one expect from them to run a true democracy in Pakistan. When the leaders of a country start buying properties outside the country and their children get educated and stay abroad then the people of the country should know that there is something seriously wrong with the country which the leaders know but are not telling the people of the
country. Since the creation of Pakistan the Pakistani people are left at distant from the corridor of power so that the ruling elite can do what they wanted to do in favor of their interest, leaving the Pakistani people at the mercy of circumstances. As this policy is denial of right of Pakistani people to rule their country according to their aspiration and desire to built this country, which can provide equal opportunity to all without any discrimination for the establishment of welfare society. Only the society base on tolerance, equality and justice can be the real guarantee for the prosperous and strong Pakistan there for your intention is invited to the crucial movement which could be the point of distraction or disaster. The question is can we expect from them to provide solution to burning issue and will they allow the oppressed people of Pakistan to share decision making process and enjoy fruit of democracy in Pakistan with transparency and accountability. The dominant feudal and corrupt politician in Pakistan, since last 60 years are like a cursed and they have gifted Pakistan many evil like, unchecked corruption, religious and ethnic divisions, religious extremism, feudalism, social disparity, frequent military rules, corrupt bureaucracy, and the worst most generation of corrupt politicians. The only way out of these crucial circumstances is to empower the common Pakistani at grass route level i.e. the change of system. This change is inevitable for the prosperous Pakistan . Along with basic guarantees for the creation of welfare state, where in public representative and institution shall be answerable and accountable to the masses. Every country in the world has a army, Pakistan is the only country where army has a country, The army of Pakistan has been and is a major force in the politics which has always been interfering and intervening time and again in the system of governance. They are not just military-men now. They have become real-estate agents, bankers, educators, etc. The Army has built up a far-flung empire of economic enterprises in all parts of Pakistan with assets in the tens of billions, and can best protect its interests by defusing the escalating conflict with the minorities.
The poor people of Pakistan need free schools, free hospitals, and a decent future for their children. American People expect high standards both morally and integrity from their politicians. Elitism in everything is alienating the people of Pakistan. Pakistani public used to seeing its corrupt elite sending their kids to exclusive English medium schools, eating and drinking imported food, wearing foreign made clothes, driving foreign made cars. Pakistan has experienced three decades of corruption, drugs, military rule, rising Islamist extremism and a general decline in education and health standards. Who is responsible for this ?
Pakistan‘s future looks quite uncertain and a fundamentalist revolution is likely to follow if the wealthy, self-indulgent elites don’t clean up their act and provide proper leadership. Pakistan’s condition in more then 60 years of its ‘independence.' is one of tragedy; it is a country which has lost its way and whose politicians care little for its reputation. it is not sufficient to change from military leaders to political leaders without changing the underlying political system. It will not work now, nor has it ever worked in the past. There is no check and balance in Pakistan. What Pakistan therefore needs is clear, a comprehensive change of system not a return to the failed politics of the past and another set of cosmetic leadership changes. PAKISTAN'S democracy hasn't suffered because of the illiterate but because of the literate, because of abuses by the privileged who went to Oxford and Cambridge. Ninety percent of Pakistan's politicians are feudal. We have to break the hold of tribal leaders who won't permit development. India got it right when it broke up the great landholdings after independence .Pakistani politicians lack moral values, they have no principals, for the last 60 years they are neglecting education, health, justice and other basic needs of citizens. Pakistan’s endless disputes between army and politicians have turned the country’s governing apparatus from one big feudal calculus to one big military calculation. In 2005 Pakistan ranked 34 in the list of “Top Failed States of the world”, when the list was first published. Pakistan is now ranking at position 12 in the same list, Even countries like North Korea, Bangladesh and Uganda are ranking better than Pakistan in the list. Who is responsible for this??? the answer is military/civilian beau racy, bourgeois and elite class of Pakistan. How can we solve this??? The common man has to come out on the streets, take over the government, form a true democracy, reject all forms of religious intolerance and extremism, reject all these selfish and greedy politicians and develop the country. The common man till to date has been a silent voice in Pakistan. It is the opportunistic politicians, greedy mullahs , military, ISI that have been playing the cards to decide the Pakistani future. It is high time that the common man in the streets of Pakistan takes charge of the country. Unless this happens, there is little hope for Pakistan. Pakitsan needs new faces, educated people in political life of this country . Its up to people in Pakistan to vote for their selfish politicians or reject them. In pakiistan, political parties are family business, this has to be change. Pakistani politicians never had any agenda for development of the country, listen to your members of parliament what they are talking about??? Where is the discussion about the higher education in Pakistan? How are the top notch scientists, engineers and doctors going to be trained? When will govt start pouring funds into these fields? I don’t really understand whether Pakistan and Pakistanis wants to become a peaceful and hopeful country or not.
It is pointless to debate whether the army or the politicians have been responsible for Pakistan.s stillborn democracy. The fact is that democracy would not have failed without their partnership. When Lincoln called democracy the government of the people, by the people and for the people, he basically meant a system of government that empowered the people. But unfortunately, .democracy. in Pakistan, whether of political lineage or genetically modified by the army, has only empowered the already empowered. And it has become a government of them, by them and for them. The challenges that Pakistan faces such as ethno-linguistic divisions, sectarian conflicts, competing visions of national identity, cultural wars, existential struggles between extremism and moderation, civil-military tensions and tussle between the centre and provinces, and above all, the stranglehold of feudalism and the civil-military bureaucracy are not susceptible to resolution by prosperity. So what is the solution? What we need is a reform movement not a political party that should address the fundamental issues confronting Pakistan. What is required is a national re-awakening like the ones that brought about the Meiji Restoration in Japan and launched the Chinese reform movement around the beginning of the 20th century.
The problem is Pakistani society as a whole does not know what Democracy is, this includes the media, public and politicians. Pakistan needs stability, economic vibrancy, poverty alleviation, more education. Its really amazing to observe political developments and politicians in Pakistan, it seems like Pakistani politicians does not have any agenda for the welfare of their voters. I don’t see anyone talking and discussing how to solve crisis like load shedding, clean water to all citizens, health benefits for people, education etc.. Pakistan can never be a true democratic nation, unless the illiteracy is reduced, the judiciary is clean, bureaucracy is defeated and every Pakistani from cities, rural areas develops the political acumen. Barack Obama's victory is a clear message for the oppressed people of those societies and countries of the world who are suffering a lot because of injustice, outdated socio-economic system, and varieties of slavery. Now the time has come that people of Pakistan should stand up for their genuine rights and protest against all social and economic ills and discriminations and search out their own OBAMA.

Peshawar trembling

The Frontier Post
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Not long ago, Peshawar was such a wonderful place to live in; a pleasantly peaceful, tranquil and lovely metropolis it then was. Even on the atrocious watch of the holy fathers, this capital city of the Frontier Province wasn’t as scary a place as has it become now in just a few months of the ANP-led rule. Rampaging lawlessness has become this beleaguered metropolis’s saddening watchword. Just in the past two days, this seat of the Pakhtun pride and honour was a witness to two ignoble criminal acts. In one, an American aid worker was murdered by gunmen along with his local driver. In the other, an Iranian diplomat was kidnapped by armed thugs, who gunned down his guard. Earlier, the Afghan ambassador-designate was similarly seized in the city two months ago and till-date he remains untraced. All these criminal acts were, notably, perpetrated in the provincial capital’s posh quarters, having a greater measure of security. Yet, no feather seems this criminality to have ruffled in any niche of the ruling ANP tribe and its subordinate official hierarchy. Indeed, while criminals of every type and of every category are having a field day, not just in Peshawar but all over the province, the ANP troupes are just entertaining the folks with lullabies, of which they have had enough by now. The ANP tribe talks big but acts small. It makes a brave talk but walks not this talk. It speaks of great Pakhtun traditions but practises these not. It sings of non-violence creed of its great leaders but shows itself to be no worthy followers of theirs. The people are really bored and fed with its incessant hymns and songs. And now they want this ANP tribe, for a change, to do some administrating, instead of keep tormenting them with its intermittent haranguing, hectoring, sermonising and pious vowing. And that is where the tribe is, so far, coming a cropper. The Tuesday’s suicide bombing of the metropolis’s sports stadium could give it an excuse, even as slim. But it can have no excuse at all for failing in averting and stopping the incidence of kidnapping, abductions, robberies, thefts, and street murders and crimes. There obviously is a culpable flaw with its policing and governance. Its top hierarchy’s oft-repeated assertion that it had struck peace deals with the extremists but those were aborted by some third party doesn’t wash. To come convincing, it must specifically identify that third party, which it does not, giving the sense that it is just lying. In any case, the popular perception is that it went for those deals expediently, without doing the proper homework and without making adequate preparations, just to accumulate a few brownie, but uncertain, points. In tatters is thus its peace deal in Swat where Fazlullah in effect used the accord to regroup his mauled thugs. And its Malakand deal with Sufi Mohammad too is in deep troubles, with that old ogre camping out with his fanatical flocks now for over a month to have the accord executed the way he wills. The ANP tribe must understand that governance is very serious, tedious and complex business. It admits of no shallowness, no populism, no bunk talk. It requires mature thinking, creative ideas, wise counsels, pragmatic approaches and practicable strategies. It needs deeds, not words. And this tribe has to show all this in it if it wants to succeed in overcoming what is troubling the province so horrendously. Hitherto, this ANP tribe had been figuring up, at best, as a junior partner in ruling coalitions in the province. It is for the first time that it is in the vanguard of a rainbow governing coalition. And it shouldn’t let this opportunity to earn it good name in annals go waste with its shallowness, inaction, inertia and opportunism that it is presently putting on display.




Saved from: http://www.thefrontierpost.com/News.aspx?ncat=ed&nid=184&ad=15-11-200
Dated: Saturday, November 15, 2008, Zi'qad 16, 1429 A.H.

Abdul Ghaffar Khan is 'The Frontier Gandhi'

Abdul Ghaffar Khan is 'The Frontier Gandhi'
The devout Muslim leader preached passive resistance and opposed violence.

NEW YORK -- BLOOD-DRENCHED stories about suicide bombings, armed clashes and assassinations that pour from Pakistan's tribal belt these days, while stressing the eruption of Taliban-Al Qaeda-related conflict, often also define the regional culture as one steeped in violence for centuries. But what rarely gets told is how the people of the wild west of Pakistan also share the modern history of radical nonviolence.

Little known in the West is a figure named Abdul Ghaffar Khan, who argued that religiously justified violence was "not God's religion." Known as Badshah (also spelled Baacha) Khan to his followers, the devoutly Muslim leader was called "The Frontier Gandhi" and built an Islamic parallel to Gandhi's violence-eschewing ideals of compassion for one's enemies and peaceful resistance to oppression as a means of overcoming it.


Khan, a Pashtun tribal leader who died at 98 in 1988 in Peshawar, also founded the Awami National Party, which today fights against enormous odds to organize tribal aspirations in the North-West Frontier Province of Pakistan and nearby areas away from the Taliban. The ANP website -- awaminationalparty.org -- carries an image of Khan's long-nosed, serene face at the top. On Oct. 2, Asfandyar Wali Khan, Khan's grandson and the president of the ANP, survived a suicide bomb attack outside Peshawar that killed four others.

On Nov. 8, the first full filmic account of Badshah Khan's exceptional life will get its American premiere in New York at the Mahindra Indo-American Arts Council Film Festival, an art film showcase mounted by a group that includes novelist Salman Rushdie on its advisory board. The documentary, titled "The Frontier Gandhi: Badshah Khan, a Torch for Peace," is the work of filmmaker and writer T.C. McLuhan, daughter of the Canadian media theorist Marshall McLuhan, who spent 21years to bring the story to the screen.

A restless, determined woman, McLuhan -- she's called Teri -- made numerous trips to Afghanistan and other places where the Badshah Khan story unfolded, even as American bombs fell in Taliban-held Afghanistan after 9/11 and through the dangerous times that followed. She shot the film in India, Pakistan, Afghanistan and the North-West Frontier Province, giving this story of filmmaking persistence a geopolitical dimension not many can match. Just her tale of transporting two canisters of film stock from Los Angeles across several South Asian borders becomes a saga.


She says she made six trips over the winding Khyber Pass. She dug into archives Afghan film officials sheltered from the Taliban. She managed impossibly smooth tracking shots on rutted streets using a makeshift dolly her Indian cinematographer built with skateboard wheels. A warlord became her guide and appears with her in production stills, standing in a rugged Afghan gully. She had her equipment thrown into the street by police. And she kept going back, using her Canadian citizenship and a widening network of connections to make her account of South Asia's least known great man.

For McLuhan, 62, the finished film completes a journey that started in September 1987 in Berkeley, when an acquaintance gave her "Nonviolent Soldier of Islam," a book by the late Eknath Easwaran, who knew Khan.

McLuhan says her long commitment to her project grew from her feeling about Khan's "uncommon greatness. And that was accompanied by, certainly, uncommon courage. I felt a depth of spirit that I simply wanted to know more about."

She's sitting in her Manhattan editing studio with a poster of Woody Allen's "Annie Hall" (her father made a memorable cameo in the movie) on a wall. The slightly built McLuhan speaks of her filmmaking adventure as if it was all somehow fated. She says that, upon receiving Easwaran's book, "I looked at it and thought, 'I don't know anything about this part of the world,' and three weeks later, at about 3 in the morning, I picked it up and felt all the electrons around me shift."

South Asian luminaries she interviewed included Afghan President Hamid Karzai, whose memory of meeting Khan as a boy is one of the film's most intimate moments, and former Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf, who makes it clear he doesn't view Khan as a Pakistani patriot (which Khan really was not, given his quasi-nationalistic ideal of a Pashtun homeland).

McLuhan has made two other films, one a fictional tale about twins -- she is a twin -- called "The Third Walker." She also made "The Shadow Catcher," a documentary about photographer Edward S. Curtis, and has written several books. She refers to Khan, whom she never met, as "BK," as if they were close friends.

As a sweeping narrative of a charismatic pilgrim's progress, "The Frontier Gandhi" has both actual history and certain qualities in common with Richard Attenborough's 1982 epic film "Gandhi," in which Khan plays a minor role. McLuhan follows the arc from Khan's start as the member of an aristocratic family in Charsadda, a town in the Peshawar Valley, to the disappointment his universalist ideals met -- as also happened with Gandhi -- with the partition of India.

"As a young boy," Khan once said, "I had violent tendencies. The hot blood of the Pashtuns ran through my veins. We have an abundance of violence in our nature."

McLuhan uses an actor representing a generic (and sinister) British official to recite historical accounts of how the British empire used its military "streamroller" in the tribal areas to play the "great game" for regional influence against Russia. The British ignored the general welfare of the Pashtun people. Like Gandhi, Khan cultivated nationalistic fervor in the soil of deprivations, including poor education and hunger. He convinced villagers that the old ways of feuds and vendettas thwarted collective progress.

At 20, he opened a local school, making education the root of broader reforms. McLuhan says he started to develop his nonviolent philosophy before meeting Gandhi, after a sort of vision that she never quite details. "There is nothing surprising in a Muslim or a Pashtun like me subscribing to the creed of nonviolence," he says, in a line from McLuhan's film (the voice speaking Khan's words throughout the picture belongs to Indian actor Om Puri). "It was followed 1,400 years ago by the Prophet all the time he was in Mecca."

Khan founded a group called the Khudai Khidmatgar, or servants of God, known as the Red Shirts for the red cotton clothing worn by members, who defied ancient local and religious divisions to join. "The more conservative figure for how many there were at their height is the one I say -- more than 100,000," McLuhan says. "Others have said more than 300,000. There were representatives of many different tribes. Muslims, Hindu, Sikh, Christian and Buddhist."

McLuhan recounted how she gathered and filmed 82 former Khudai Khidmatgars, five of them women, many in their 90s: "One of them had saved his complete uniform." In one interview, we hear how Khan taught people from a warrior world that their oppressors "may kill, but we won't. They may harm us, but we won't harm them."

"Do you know the one word BK used when asked to define nonviolence?" McLuhan asks with hushed intensity, eyes wide with a delight that often infuses them when she speaks of her hero. " 'Nonviolence,' he said, 'is patience.'

"Most certainly the heart of the film," she continues, is the "tone poem" she wove of those at-the-camera faces of the Khudai Khidmatgars as they passionately, in six languages, including Urdu and Pashto, speak the oath they learned when they were being jailed and tortured by the British for following Khan, who spent about two-thirds of his life imprisoned by British and then Pakistan authorities who feared his influence.

The oath turns into verbal music, the English translation orchestrated over the still-audible voices. (The music was overseen by composer-performer David Amram.) "I am a Khudai Khidmatgar," it begins. "And as God needs no service, serving his creation is serving him. I promise to serve humanity in the name of God."



Khan, offered the leadership of the Indian National Congress during India's independence fight, rejected it to avoid becoming a purely political figure. It was a larger focus shared by Khan and Gandhi, who were personally close.

Unlike Gandhi, Khan did not leave a large written record or become a media sensation. But McLuhan found photos of them together that are surprising for their glow of mutual warmth. The petite Gandhi is joined by an Islamic sage who stands towering and sinewy in simple cotton clothing, his gentle-fierce aura something like Gandhi's -- only different.

How, one wonders, can Khan be so little known? In the film, M.J. Akbar, one of India's best-known journalists, gives McLuhan an answer: "The market for nonviolence was so used up by Mahatma Gandhi there was no space left for an alternative Gandhi, for a second Gandhi. You know, this is one of the problems of media -- that even history becomes an exercise in brand building. So the brand was built around Gandhi, and not on Badshah Khan."

Pakistan’s Begging Bowl !!!!!!!!!!!!!!

Mwaqar
Two interesting news of the month:1..India, the population of which exceeds one billion, saying, “We are going to the moon for the first time. China has gone earlier, but today we are trying to catch them. 2...On the other hand Mr. Zardari takes begging bowl to Beijing and asks for financial help, soon this bowl will surf around the Globe, What a sad paradox between a country that is celebrating its mission to the moon and another that is moaning about the pressure of debts and the fear of bankruptcy. what a shame, for a country which has a population of 172 million, with over 40 million people who can’t read and write, who even don’t have clean drinking water in most parts of the country, country where people even can’t enjoy benefits of electricity and facing over 5 hours of load shedding. Who is responsible for this? Lets blame entire world because we are good at that. Three years ago former president General Pervez Musharraf said, “We have broken th e begging bowl,” and Zardari once said that his country would rather tighten its belt than turn to the IMF for help, don’t we love slogans like this??? but today Pakistan finds itself in desperate need of financial aid since there are warnings that its economy is deteriorating sharply, Pakistan’s begging bowl (kachkole) is not new to the world, for the last, more then 60 years that’s what Pakistani leaders doing, Pakistan did get billions of dollars in aid and cash but what happened to all that money??? Gen. Mush received over 10 billions in last 11 years from USA but people in this country were selling their kids or kidneys or committing suicide, while Musharraf traveled to around 40 countries costing the country's exchequer Rs. 1.4 billion. This "begging bowl syndrome" could be avoided long time ago, if Pakistani politicians, generals, bureaucrats, elite and bourgeois were sincere and had some Ego, we talk about China’s development but we ignore that in China they shoot co rrupt officials and politicians. Pakistan should Toss out the begging bowl mentality and all those who stole money from the nation over 60 years bring it BACK to Pakistan, then these politicians ,generals, bureaucrats, elite and bourgeois will be called sincere leaders, but that will never happen. Its time for Pakistani leaders to decide, what they want ? , science, industry and development or just slogans and get aid from world powers and then steal nation’s money? It is obvious that China and other countries are not going to help Pakistan financially and I don’t blame them, because no one trust dishonest leaders who are not sincere with their country but love to steal people’s money. Can Pakistan ever stand up on it’s feet or it will keep running from one master to another master? It will only get used up and discarded by all. All countries look for their own interest and use other countries to further their own ambitions. It is sad that Pakistanis has been let down by its leader s, military, political and religious leaders , If Pakistan wishes to tie its future to china so be it, but unless this country learns to stand on its own two feet it cannot hope to prosper. A crutch is still a crutch be it be of gold. Pakistani citizens realize that they cannot go around looking for dole outs. Nobody want to be friends with a weaker or poorer nation and if they profess to be friends - be sure to read the fine print: a friendship between a strong and weak nation is flawed in its very concept. The stronger nation would always extract a price for its help and Pakistan experienced this for a long time. whenever there is a partnership of unequal, the stronger always knows that it can arm twist the weaker nation ,lets not blame other countries if they are refusing to help you Mr. President,trash your begging bowl and let Pakistan grow on its own. Lets learn from JAPAN, GERMANY, CHINA, MALAYSIA. Pakistan can’t depend on foreign aid forever, its shameful to go t o China or Saudi Arabia and ask for help. The problem is Pakistani leaders never used foreign aid for people welfare, Unfortunately most of this aid has been wasted on strategic weapons to standoff with India or stolen. Shaukat Aziz, frequently likened Pakistan to a "Tiger economy", the former government left an economy on the brink of ruin without any durable base. The situation in Pakistan for ordinary people is indeed tough. Fuel and wheat prices have skyrocketed. Politicians in current Govt should reduce their spending, stop traveling around the world. To inspire investor confidence, please move your offshore foreign accounts back to Pakistan.When you ask someone for money to help your country, the first question they will ask you is what have you done? If you are not able to show loyalty and sincerity to the country that you are hoping to “save,” it makes it difficult for any foreign country or investor to be willing to put money into Pakistan for development or investmen t.To that effect, any member of the Provinicial or National Assembly, Senators, Ministers, Advisors, Chief Ministers, Governors, Prime Minister and President, along with the leadership of each of the “national” political parties should transfer all their forex balances back to bank accounts in Pakistan. move your money back to Pakistan’s banks, it would stabilize the banks and show confidence to potential investors and donors that the elected government BELIEVES that they can “save Pakistan.” No more unneeded foreign visits or tours. Pakistan is a poor country. Elected leaders keep saying and showing with their policy decisions that Pakistan is running out of money and fast. Therefore, Pakistan can no longer afford to pay for trips to Dubai, London or any other country for the different elected offices. Since the global giants that have financed Pakistan in the past are going through their own economic collapses, there is really no reason to go and beg them for money in r eturn for favors. No more stupid domestic visits.In all actuality, no one wants to meet the elected leadership of Pakistan. Partly because of the security risk that they are, being targets of suicide bombers, and partly that there is really no point in talking to an MPA, MNA, Senator, Minister or anyone else. There is no money to be passed around in grafts and gifts, so there is no reason to travel around promising money to different people and organizations. Nor does the nation have money to pay for big meals and fanfare when someone from the government decides to grace their village, town or city. Reduce all other useless spending. Also politicians like NAWAZ SHARIF.IMRAN KHAN,QAZI HUSSIAN ETC should put their money for national cause and make Pakistan strong. Do you think all these politicians would do this???? I don’t think so and that is sad. You may know thousands of ways how to fail, but you don't know even one way to succeed. Politicians in this country know thousands of wa ys of how to fail themselves, their governments, their people and their country, but not even one single of them have known how to empower himself to succeed, enable his people to succeed and manage his government to succeed. This is a country with a long list of failing leaders: both military and civilians, in fact all, without any exception. It is as if it was the fate of this country to never see the good days that it was supposed to bring for the people who were forced to be Pakistanis without other choices. Everybody who has ruled Pakistan had a bad fate. They victimized the country and the people and ultimately, became the victim of their own mistakes. Pakistani politicians, have a long history of failing themselves, failing each other, failing the country, failing the people and giving every opportunity to the army to intervene and rule them, torture them and put them in jail or send them in exile. The leaders of Pakistan have proved in the history of Pakistan that it is not either manageable or they cannot manage it successfully. The people who live in Pakistan must have new options. They cannot live forever in misery and poverty while the rest of the world moves forward and gains more prosperity, stability, security and peace. If they do not gain prosperity and peace in Pakistan, because of Pakistani leaders, then, they must find their own new ways. Politicians have betrayed this country through poor governance, weak capacity and evil intentions. The Pakistani military has practiced politics, as a player or a puppeteer, right since the early fifties and the politicians have eagerly played into its hands satisfied with the lollipops on offer. It plays more politics than its ostensible role, with pliant, selfish politicians playing eager second fiddles. Politics has not been strangled due to lack of opportunity. The mullah as a political force was created by the army and elite and foreign powers, and it flourished on the fertile soil of circumstance. Exploiting illiteracy and blossoming in a greenhouse provided by the military umbrella, obscurantist religious leaders have come to acquire an influence not justified by their personal endowments. They live in an imaginary world, feed on ignorance and are inspired by quixotic and unreal explanations of the world. Islam for them is only a slogan, something to justify an irrational explanation of religiosity. Pakistan as a nation state of tolerant Muslims is not their goal, and betraying it perhaps religious duty for them. If these failed politicians cant solve Country’s problems then they have no right to be in politics, its time for people in this country to get, stand up and raise your voice, you can’t be beggers for all your life, you can’t make your next generation living on super power’s charity and aid.

Jis khait say dehqa’n ko muyassar na ho rozi
us khet kay har khosha-e-gandum ko jala du.

Pakistan’s Tribal Militias Walk a Tightrope in Fight Against Taliban

Source:NYT.COM


PESHAWAR, Pakistan — Two tribal elders lay stretched out in an orthopedic ward here last week, their plastered limbs and winces of pain grim evidence of the slaughter they survived when a suicide bomber blew himself up in the midst of their tribal gathering.

These wounded men, and many others in the hospital, were supposed to be the backbone of a Pakistani government effort to take on the Taliban, and its backers, Al Qaeda, with armies of traditional tribesmen working in consultation with the Pakistani military.

The tribal militias, known as lashkars, have quickly become a crucial tool of Pakistan’s strategy in the tribal belt, where the army has been fighting the Taliban for more than two months in what army generals acknowledge is a tougher and more protracted slog than they had anticipated. And, indeed, the lashkars’ early efforts have been far from promising.

As the strength of the militants in the tribal areas grows, and as the war across the border in Afghanistan worsens, the Pakistanis are casting about for new tactics. The emergence of the lashkars is a sign of the tribesmen’s rising frustration with the ruthlessness of the Taliban, but also of their traditional desire to run their own affairs and keep the Pakistani Army at bay, Pakistani officers and law enforcement officials say.

Some in Washington have pointed to the emergence of the lashkars as a hopeful parallel to the largely successful Sunni Awakening movement in Iraq, which drew on tribes’ frustration with militant jihadis to build an alliance with American troops that helped lessen violence in Iraq. But there are significant differences, a senior American government official acknowledged. In Anbar Province, he said, the Iraqi tribes “woke up to millions of dollars in government assistance, and the support of the Third Infantry Division.”

But the support by the Pakistani Army and civilian government for the tribal militias has been “episodic” and so far “unsustained,” the official said. In addition, tribal structures in Pakistan have been weakened in recent years by the Taliban, unlike the situation in Iraq.

The tribesmen, armed with antiquated weaponry from the 1980s Afghan war, are facing better equipped, highly motivated Taliban fighters who have intimidated and crushed some of the militia.

In the last two months, the Taliban have burned the homes of tribal leaders and assassinated others who have dared to participate in the resistance. They have pulled tribesmen suspected of backing the militia out of buses and cars and used suicide bombers against them as they did in Orakzai, the place where the wounded in the Peshawar hospital were attacked.

“We wanted to form a lashkar,” said Abdul Rehman, 50, a tribal leader of the Orakzai area, as he lay on his crumpled bed in the Lady Reading hospital. “We were pressured by the government to take action because they warned, ‘If you don’t take action you will be bombed.’ ” The lack of consistent Pakistani Army and government support has left some tribesmen feeling betrayed. About 1,000 tribesmen were meeting on Oct. 10 and had just decided to form a lashkar, when the suicide bomber, armed with perfect intelligence for a pre-emptive strike, killed more than 100 tribesmen and wounded many more.

The next day, government forces struck back in Orakzai, but helicopter gunships hit more civilians than militants, forcing a large number of people to leave the area and providing space for the militants to occupy, residents of the area said.

The Pakistani military is counting on the tribal militias to work as localized forces and to pick up some of the burden of the heavy fighting that is now concentrated in the Bajaur part of the tribal belt. “We’re concentrating on the hard core; the lashkars are cleansing their areas, taking people out in their areas,” one general said.

But in the last four years the Taliban have deliberately singled out pro-government tribal elders, killing as many as 500 of them, and have attracted uneducated tribal youth with the lure of good money and stature.

Even in the best of times, there are basic unwritten rules about the tribal militia in Pakistan that limit their impact.

The Pakistani military, for example, can lend moral support but cannot initiate a tribal militia, the generals said. The lashkars come with their own weapons, food and ammunition. They have their own fixed area of responsibility, and they are not permanent.

Great care is taken to make sure the lashkars do not become a threat to the military itself. “We do not want a lashkar to become an offensive force,” said one of the generals, who spoke frankly about the lashkars on the condition of anonymity. For that reason, the military was willing to lend support artillery and helicopters but would not give the militias heavy weapons, he said.

Beyond those rules, the Pakistani Army and government have not been able to inculcate the lashkars with the needed confidence, said Khalid Aziz, a former chief secretary of the North-West Frontier Province.

“You put these people up front and you will get them chewed up,” Mr. Aziz said. “If you deploy the lashkar on an ad hoc basis they can be an embarrassment.”

The lashkars’ fragility has been most clearly demonstrated in the Charmang area of Bajaur, a stronghold of the Taliban in the foothills of the mountains that border Afghanistan, where the Taliban have been in control for several years, building supply lines and bases.

The Taliban have ruled civilian life in Charmang, imposing taxes, issuing permits for businesses and handing out their form of justice.

Taj Mohammed, 20, a college student in Bajaur who is now a refugee on the outskirts of Peshawar, said that based on promises from the government that they would receive proper backing, his father and some other elders had formed a lashkar in the village of Hilal Khel.

Immediately, he said, the Taliban brought in 600 reinforcements from Afghanistan under the command of Zia ur-Rehman, a well-known Afghan Taliban leader.

“This weakened the resolve of the elders,” Mr. Mohammed said.

Then, the Taliban sowed terror by kidnapping and killing four tribal leaders of the lashkar, leaving their bodies on the roadside, their throats slit.

After the killings, there was fighting between the lashkar and the militants, Mr. Mohammed said. The Taliban, he said, had “very sophisticated weapons,” including rocket launchers and heavy guns. His father had a Kalashnikov.

“The Taliban came to my father as a leader of the lashkar and said, ‘We will slaughter you.’ ”

The Taliban burned houses in several of Charmang’s villages, he said, an act that is considered a particular humiliation.

After the four killings, many of the leaders of the lashkar fled and others surrendered. The Taliban burned dozens of houses in four villages, particularly in Babara. A request by the lashkar for help from the military did not materialize, and unlike the lashkar, the military took no casualties in the episode, said Fazl-e Sadiq, a schoolteacher from Charmang who is also a refugee in the Peshawar area. “The villagers became very demoralized,” he said.

Mr. Mohammed said his father, Mohammed Gul, was betrayed by the elders of the Hanafia Khel tribe, and he fled for his life. “He tried very hard,” Mr. Mohammed said of his father.

“Now he is in a safe place from the Taliban.”

Among the houses that the Taliban burned was his family home, built 15 years ago at great expense, he said. “My home is very beautiful, my home is very clean, a big house with 12 rooms,” he said in broken English. Thirty members of his extended family, including his wife and 6-month-old daughter, lived there.

“Except for my one clothes, and my one hat,” he had little left, he said pointing to a refugee tent with a couple of mattresses but nothing else.

In one area of Bajaur, known as Salarzai, the recently formed tribal militia has proved a success.

But that was largely because the Taliban have never had strong roots there, and the ancient tribal hierarchy of rich landlords presiding over large properties remains intact, tribesmen from Bajaur said.

The people of Salarzai were strongly motivated to keep the Taliban at bay, said Jalal Uddin, the son of one of the prominent local elders. “I felt overjoyed when I was riding with the lashkar because it meant the old tribal system was working,” Mr. Uddin said.

In a reversal of the pattern elsewhere, the lashkar in Salarzai had recently burned about 20 houses belonging to the militants in the village of Baanda, the only place in Salarzai where the militants have strength, according to Sahibzada Bahahuddin, a journalist in Khar, the capital of Bajaur.

But, so far, such successes are rare in the rest of the tribal region.

In the longer term, the defeat of the lashkar in Charmang would make the situation much more difficult for the government, Mr. Mohammed said. His father felt betrayed, he said, and he doubted that his father would take on such a role again. It was now up to the government to win the war on its own, he said.

As he stood at the flap of his tent, cradling his tiny daughter, Soomia, Mr. Mohammed said that despite the let-down by the government, he wanted nothing more than to return to his lands in Charmang.

“But we must have peace in the area,” he said. “When the Taliban are weakened and the roads are safe we will rebuild. All this depends on the government.”

Pakistan Turns to China's Deep Reserves

Pakistan has reached a critical new phase in its long-deteriorating financial situation, as investor flight and bleeding of national reserves force the country to scramble for international funds to shore up its economy. With the global financial crisis draining coffers in the United States and Europe, the key U.S. ally in the war on terrorism is seeking help from an old friend newly flush with cash: China.

President Asif Ali Zardari arrived in Beijing on Tuesday for a four-day state visit as concern has surged over a possible debt default by Pakistan that could cripple its economy and spark more civil unrest. While the amount of money Pakistan needs in the short term is relatively small -- $4 billion to $6 billion -- analysts say the climate of crisis and public anger over domestic bailouts in the United States and Western Europe have made even a modest infusion from its Western allies politically difficult.

Pakistan's bid for Chinese cash underscores the potential of Beijing's $1.9 trillion in foreign reserves, the largest in the world, to boost its global influence. The government is now seeking as much as $3 billion in emergency assistance from China, as well as assistance from oil-rich Gulf countries including Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates, according to a senior Pakistani official. Pakistan's central bank governor, Shashad Akhtar, is in Washington this week to review a draft plan for overhauling the country's finances with the International Monetary Fund, potentially paving the way for future aid.

U.S. military and intelligence officials fear that Pakistan's increasingly precarious economy will compound an already unstable political situation and undermine military cooperation. Both al-Qaeda and the Taliban leadership are located in the rugged, economically depressed region along Pakistan's western border with Afghanistan. The Bush administration and Congress have been shaping a long-term economic and military assistance package for Pakistan, but there is no indication the United States is able to step in with a short-term financial lifeline.

Pakistan is going to the Chinese now "because you go to the guys with the money," a senior International Monetary Fund official said. "And right now, the Chinese are the ones with the money."

Securing as much as $6 billion would buy the government the breathing room it needs, analysts say, to begin a desperately needed overhaul of its budget to sustain Pakistan's battered economy in the longer term.

Pakistan's financial problems go back at least a year, with current and past administrations borrowing from the central bank to sustain generous state subsidies on gasoline and diesel. As global oil prices surged, the government of former President Pervez Musharraf curried favor with average Pakistanis by having the state absorb the shocks. Musharraf ousted a democratically elected government in 1999 and ruled until a civilian coalition was voted into office last spring, headed by Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gillani. The government forced Musharraf from the presidency in August, electing Zardari as his replacement in September.

Analysts and IMF officials say the current government has made notable progress in lifting those subsidies in recent weeks to ease the budget. Yet the global credit crunch and concerns over security have worsened investor flight, with as much as $1.2 billion a month fleeing Pakistan during the summer. National reserves over the past year have fallen 67 percent, to $8.3 billion, leaving the country ill-prepared to deal with financial turbulence as more investors pulled out in recent weeks as the U.S. crisis spread globally.

That has fed two major fears. First, that Pakistan may not be able to secure the funds to avoid a debt default early next year. And second, that investor concern over its potential insolvency could grow into a panic in coming weeks, leading to a far broader capital pullout that could jeopardize the country's financial system.

Unprecedented inflation, political instability and the growing threat from Islamist insurgents have all had sharply negative effects on investor confidence, said Sakib Sherani, chief economist at ABN Amro Bank Pakistan.

"It is clear that Pakistan is facing challenges in its balance of payments. Without cash inflows we are losing about $1 billion a month, which is untenable," Sherani said. "On the one hand, you are paying more for imports in Pakistan; on the other, you have less cash inflows."

On Oct. 6, both Standard & Poors and Moody's downgraded Pakistani bonds. "Only Seychelles has a lower rating, and it has already defaulted on its debt," said John Chambers, managing director with Standard & Poors in New York.

To curb losses, Pakistan in recent weeks has set new rules on stock trading aimed at preventing even sharper sell-offs of Pakistani companies. Some analysts are concerned that the new government may resort to freezing foreign capital, a measure Pakistan took in the 1990s after being slapped with global sanctions for conducting a nuclear test.

The Pakistani government is seeking to ease those fears by bolstering its central bank reserves with funds from China and Gulf states. China and Pakistan have a long history of economic cooperation, based partly on decades of weapons sales, and a lifeline now, particularly so small a sum, would not be seen as unusual. "The Pakistanis like to call the Chinese their all-weather ally, and the U.S. their fair-weather friends," said Daniel Markey, senior fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. "This kind of loan could be seen as self-serving by the Chinese, and continue that impression."

A senior Pakistani official said the government requested in July that Saudi Arabia chip in with an "oil facility" -- or an agreement that would grant Pakistan concessionary terms and delayed payments and on roughly half the oil it imports. One reason investors are more concerned about Pakistan now is that Saudi Arabia has not yet responded.

Analysts say the Pakistanis may have better luck at a meeting early next month in the United Arab Emirates of the "Friends of Pakistan" -- a group of countries including the United States and Britain that are considered close allies. They are counting, sources close to the talks said, on countries seeing the danger of an economic collapse in Pakistan and the threat that poses to the war on terror as worth the relatively small price of financial assistance.

A last option might be seeking a lifeline from the IMF, though such an agreement is seen as politically difficult for the new government. Pakistan paid off the last of several IMF loans in 2005, with Musharraf hailing the accomplishment as a breaking of the nation's beggar's bowl. By seeking IMF help now, analysts say, the new government may find itself in the difficult position of explaining to the population why it needs to glue that bowl back together.

Pakistani officials, however, are meeting with IMF officials in Washington now, seeking their "seal of approval" on the plan to rein in runaway spending threatening to bankrupt the government. Although IMF officials say the Pakistanis are not seeking a loan, IMF approval of their economic plans could pave the way for other institutions, including the World Bank and Asian Development Banks, to offer lending. It could also make approval of an IMF loan at a later date happen faster.

"What they want is an endorsement in principle," a senior IMF official said, "something that would make financial support go more smoothly if they decide they do need to ask for it."

A new window to Russia

Analysis-Tanvir Ahmad Khan
Daily Times.

Russia is not returning to a classical version of the Cold War. It is today a post-imperialist authoritarian ‘democracy’ with a well-educated ever-expanding middle class determined to find an honourable place in the comity of nations

Conversations with strategic analysts in Peshawar in the third week of September revealed an earnest preoccupation with the role of Russia in regional developments. Geographical proximity to Afghanistan and the Central Asian Republics that are likely to be the locus of a renewed Russian interest provides an obvious explanation.

Rumours of Russia being gradually sucked into the Afghan wars — so far largely unsubstantiated — also sweep into the historical gateway city. One noticed frequent extrapolation into the current situation with the Taliban of the American attempts to destroy the Ho Chi Minh trail that turned the fire in Vietnam into a regional inferno. There was also a greater recognition of the fact that the world is witnessing a slow but steady diffusion of power and influence.

I told my interlocutors in the deeply concerned capital of “Pakhtunkhwa” that the sketchy evidence of Russian arms joining supplies from other known sources in the adjacent zone of conflict need not be connected to the Medvedev-Putin order in Russia. During my assignment to Moscow, I became aware of a large network of arms dealers with years of past service in the KGB, the border forces and the regular military engaged in international arms trade. Such networks are quite capable of operating outside Moscow’s official approval.

So far as Afghanistan is concerned, thousands of Russians who served there during the Soviet occupation — the “Afghanis of Russia” — are still trying to come to terms with the pain and humiliation of a failed mission.

While this is politics of war at its outer and wilder fringes, a vastly more important fact is the resurgence of Russia as a power to reckon with. The Russian military intervention that has led South Ossetia and Abkhazia to virtually break away from Georgia needs a fuller comment another day. Nevertheless the allegations of Russian neo-imperialism and Czarist expansion are designed to obscure the Russian side of the story.

Russian history has often witnessed the rise of leaders using autocratic structures and practices to hold together a sprawling multi-ethnic, multi-lingual and multi-faith land in times of troubles. Putin followed Gorbachev and Yeltsin at a time when many Russians felt that western capitalistic giants had duped them into playing a servile role in the political and economic domain alike. Putin did not abolish either democracy or capitalism but imposed a relentless nationalistic discipline on the new institutions embodying them and then, taking advantage of windfall profits from energy sales, re-energised the state and the society.

Russia was, indeed, flattered by a seat at G-8 table and also attracted by the prospect of joining the WTO. It was, however, not mesmerised enough to forget what Putin gradually defined as Russia’s right to ‘spheres of interest’ and zones of ‘privileged interest’. This doctrine has a territorial map implicit in it.

Russia’s erstwhile satellites in Eastern Europe have undergone deep “westernisation” and revived the old concept of Mitteleuropa separating Western Europe from historical Russia. The three Baltic States also drifted away despite sizeable Russian minorities.

The Russians accepted these realities but were profoundly disillusioned when the West tried to seduce Ukraine, Georgia and Moldova into joining NATO. Putin drew a red line in front of these former Soviet States in his famous speech in Munich in 2007. Nor would Russia abandon its interests in energy rich Central Asia where too one western-backed “colour revolution” had taken place in Kyrgyzstan.

Russia is not returning to a classical version of the Cold War. It is today a post-imperialist authoritarian ‘democracy’ with a well-educated ever-expanding middle class determined to find an honourable place in the comity of nations. Even the diehard Russian Atlanticists now realise that Russia should throw its weight behind an accelerated transition to a multi-polar world. This means rekindling old friendships — China and India — and investment in new ones in its neighbourhood and in far away Latin America.

Logically, Pakistan should figure high on the list. But there is past baggage and also the primacy of time-tested Indo-Russian strategic partnership. There is not enough space today to plot the chequered course of Pakistan-Russia bilateral relations during the last sixty years. For much of the time they were less than friendly though punctuated by periodic efforts to put them on an even keel.

The last effort dates back to General Musharraf’s visit to Moscow in February 2003. There was optimism about a new beginning as it was followed by many other exchanges. The two sides differ on how the momentum was once again lost. President Zardari’s visit to China affords a valuable opportunity to explore how far the Chinese leadership would help remove the obstacles in the path of Pakistan-Russia cooperation.

On the Pakistani side, the Yaqub Khan syndrome of looking at Russia invariably through the prism of the hostility of the 1954-71 era has to be finally cast aside. Secondly, the Pakistan Foreign Office needs to be convinced that a world of multiple centres of political, economic and military power has already arrived. Despite huge flights of capital to the West, Russia today has 90,000 dollar millionaires and many of them are looking for increased interaction with markets in Asia.

In my experience, our own captains of trade and industry give up too quickly when confronted with difficulties of dealing with their Russian counterparts. Russian reluctance to sell arms to us because of their fear of losing lucrative contracts with India, some involving Israel as well, may continue for some more time. But as highly sophisticated hardware from the United States flows into India in the wake of the nuclear deal, even this reluctance may diminish.

It is also important to go beyond set piece Soviet-style cultural exchanges and encourage free interaction among universities, think tanks, media establishments and non-government civil society organisations. It is a project worth developing in our long-term national interest.

Tanvir Ahmad Khan is a former foreign secretary and a former ambassador to the Russian Federation. He can be contacted at tanvir.a.khan@gmail.com

PROTEST AGINST TALIBAN AND TERRORISM IN TRIBAL AREAS.

FIGHTING IN TRIBAL AREAS...










PUKHTOONS PROTESTS OUTSIDE UNITED NATIONS.

Pakistan vows to retake tribal region in 2 months

Pakistan vows to retake tribal region in 2 months

The Associated Press
Friday, September 26, 2008
KHAR, Pakistan: Pakistan will bring stability to a restive tribal region bordering Afghanistan within two months, a top general said during an assessment of a major ongoing offensive there against al-Qaida and Taliban militants.

Maj. Gen. Tariq Khan told reporters on an army-organized trip to the northwestern Bajur region that troops had killed more than 1,000 militants and wounded 2,000 others since the offensive began in early August.

Some 63 troops have died and 212 were wounded, he said.

"My timeframe for Bajur is anything from between one-and-a-half to two months to bring about stability, said Khan of the paramilitary Frontier Corps.

Still, he also showed reporters photos of militant tunnel systems and trenches, suggesting the insurgents are well dug in the region that is considered a likely hiding place for Osama bin Laden and other top al-Qaida leaders.

Military officials paraded 10 blindfolded and handcuffed men said to be Taliban fighters arrested during the operation before the reporters who joined the trip.

Pakistan's top military spokesman, Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas, told The Associated Press in a recent interview that the militants had established a virtual mini-state in Bajur as well as a "mega-sanctuary" for insurgents attacking foreign and government troops in Afghanistan.

He said militants control the main road leading into the tribal area, have converted schools into Islamic courts and have imposed taxes on timber and marble, the region's two main industries.

The Pakistani offensive has used ground forces backed by helicopter gunships and other air support. A suspension was announced at the end of August in honor of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, but within days the fighting resumed.

The militants are led by 10 commanders stationed in various parts of the tribal region, Khan said. Faqir Mohammed, a top Pakistani Taliban leader, is among those coordinating attacks and is believed to have been injured, Khan said.

Abbas said Afghan militants, led by a commander named Ziaur Rehman, have joined the fight. He added that the operation has so far produced no trace of bin Laden or al-Qaida No. 2 Ayman al-Zawahri.

Suicide bombers coming from Punjab: Owais

September 23, 2008 Tuesday Ramazan 22, 1429
Suicide bombers coming from Punjab: Owais
By Nasir Jamal
LAHORE, Sept 22: NWFP Governor Owais Ghani warned Punjab on Monday that militancy was gaining strength in its backyard.
“Militants in the tribal areas of the NWFP have established firm networking (with jihadi groups) in southern Punjab and most fresh recruits for suicide attacks are coming from there. Militant leaders and commanders are also coming from Punjab. The militants’ field commander in Swat too is from Punjab,” Mr Ghani told a briefing arranged for senior journalists on insurgency in tribal areas.

The words of caution from the governor came soon after a number of people were detained in Punjab apparently in connection with the Marriott bombing.

Mr Ghani also warned against treating the insurgency in the tribal areas as a problem of the NWFP. “It will be ill-advised to think that the militancy will remain confined to the NWFP. Militants’ activities have already shifted to the settled areas and Punjab and they have established strong links with south Punjab. It’s a national issue, a question of survival for (entire) Pakistan.”Later talking to Dawn, the governor said he had discussed the matter with Punjab Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif. He expressed the hope that the Punjab government would effectively handle the situation.

Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani is also said to be aware of the issue of recruitments of suicide bombers from his constituency. “He (prime minister) knows about it,” Mr Ghani said.

He said: “The militants are on the run. But the (military) operation will have to continue for another four to five months before the militancy could be contained.”

He said the issue of militancy could not be resolved without restoration of ‘political peace’ and tranquillity in Afghanistan. “However, we are trying to contain it and lower its intensity.”

In reply to a question, he said there was a political consensus in the NWFP on the counter-insurgency operations. “There is complete harmony between the Governor’s House and the ANP-PPP coalition government. The JUI-Fazl is also supporting the operation,” he said.

Local Taliban Brutality and Barbarianism

CRUEL TALIBAN.......

By
A. Z. Hilali
After the collapse of the Soviet Union, the CIA (Central Intelligence Agency) created Taliban in 1994 and recruited radical Muslims from all around the globe and trained thousands of Muslims in religious schools of Pakistan and Afghanistan. In fact, the CIA deliberately promoted fundamentalism and extremism to protect the United States economic and commercial interests and the militants proved effective bodyguards driving against the burglars who attacked and looted the convoys. According to Selig Harrison, the CIA made a historic mistake in encouraging Islamic militant groups from all over the world to come to Pakistan and Afghanistan for their vested interests and provided million dollars for building up fierce and fanatical force to protect its sphere of influence to control trade route from Pakistan to Central Asia. The Taliban were not just recruits from traditional madrassas (Muslim theological schools) but were on the payroll of the CIA and soon became notorious for Pakistan because of their actions, practices and treatments. Religiously, they spread the conservative Wahhabi version of Islam based on Deobandi school of thought. It is interesting to note that most of the Taliban are illiterate, inexperienced and semiliterate and close to ultra-conservative Wahhabism (Deobandi) who follow a Salafist egalitarian model that was widely practiced among themselves, and regard Shia as non-Muslim. They hold interpretation that a Muslim's primary obligation and loyalty is only of religion. Thus, the Deobandis oppose any kind of social caste system within Islam and believe that they have a sacred right and obligation to wage jihad to protect Muslims in the world. So, the Taliban introduced an extremely harsh and rigid version of Islam in Afghanistan. They treated people inhumanly and their behaviour with women was against the will of Pashtunwali beliefs and novel values of Islam. The Taliban forced women to wear the burqa because according to their philosophy the face of a woman is a source of corruption and provocation. They prohibted women working outside the home and also banned performing duty in all field of life including education institutions and hospitals. Moreover, women were not allowed to be treated by male doctors unless accompanied by a male chaperone, which led to illnesses remaining untreated. Taliban restricted women to visit the public places and also banned bright and multi-coloured clothes as they viewed as sexually and socially attractive. They also prohibted internet, movies, and television and banned popular music as well as kite-flying. Moreover, men are required to have beards and girls were forbidden to go to school. However, the philosophy and ideology of Taliban has come under attack when the tragic incident of 9/11 changed the fashion of World politics. The US hawkish elements carry out their crusade against the nations and Afghanistan was invaded and Taliban regime was replaced by the Northern Alliance. In this background, the US has initiated offensive strategy to eliminate Taliban and Al-Qaeda network in Afghanistan and tribal areas of Pakistan. The Islamabad supported the US-led war on terror and sent more than 90,000 military troops along the Pakistan and Afghanistan border to contain the Taliban and al-Qadea terrorists' network. Pakistan also deployed its Frontier Corps and other paramilitary forces to target insurgents. In this regard, the efficiency of Pakistan is undoubtly remarkable because Pakistan military has captured more than seven hundred al-Qaeda operatives within its borders and handed over to the US as compare to Afghanistan poor performance who made no significant contribution to curb and control Taliban activities inside the country. On the other hand, Pakistan's military has proven effective in its mission in the tribal areas when nearly a thousand soldiers including officers have been killed in the fight against militancy. Moreover, this is the result of Pakistan's military cooperation with the US that presently the country is almost in a state of constant warfare and the Taliban and Al-Qaeda has become as serious threat to the state and society. In the contemporary time, the US wrong strategies and policies have made worst situation in Pakistan, particularly in the North West Frontier Province (NWFP) including Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA). The US blind and incorrect covert military operations in the tribal areas have given sympathies to Taliban in the masses and anti-Americanism has increased tremendously in all-over Pakistan. In fact, as long as the US policy makers depend on Pakistan military, secret services and its leadership they were near to achieve their objectives but the day the US administration started consultations with India, Northern Alliance and Hamid Karzi (US Puppet Regime) the situation deteriorated for the United States and awful to Pakistan. According to political observers the US is directly responsible for Pakistan's political instability and disarray. So, this was not the result of Pakistan's planning but the US unflinching policies when the Taliban and al-Qaeda operatives have spread in different parts of Pakistan and strengthen their positions. Although before that the frontier region (NWFP) was heaven on earth but the American attacks and bombing converted the region into hell and today all strategically important areas of Pakistan have turned into a battle ground and the writ of Islamabad has become a great question mark. It is interesting to note that the alliance of CIA, RAW and KHAD have started offensive psychological warfare against Pakistan and continuously working on the agenda to destabilize or Balkanize of Pakistan. They have recruited hundreds of people and volunteers from different countries (India, Afghanistan, Pakistan and Europe) including social evils, subversive elements, frustrated youth and professional criminals to damage Pakistan state, society and system. There are rumours that some countries such as Iran and Russia are also providing material and financial assistance to some groups of Taliban to give a tough time to Americans and also to protect their vested interests in the region. So, the secret alliance of three agencies have introduced new terrorists groups whose are functioning as a "Local Taliban" everywhere, in every place of Pakistan especially in the NWFP and their attitude and treatment is extremely violent, rigid and inhuman. They are religiously hardcore and their version of Islam is different than the actual Islam. They also introduced the toughest and brutal version of religion as compare to normal Islamic values and have no room for women activities and education. Their prime objectives are to target army, common citizens and public property to create chronic fear and frustration against Pakistan through the violent anarchy. In this regard, RAW and KHAD both are working under the umbrella of CIA and actively involved to provide training with advisers and material support to create stirring sense of terror, panic, insecurity and uncertainty. In this regard, India has supplied high-altitude warfare equipments to so-called militants. Even they have given defence advisors, anti-air and tank missiles, technical assistance against the Pakistan army and paramilitary forces. There are reports that India, Afghansitan and Iran are leading the anti-Pakistan military campaign on the ground and the US is providing information and logistic support. Military sources indicated that Tajikistan and Uzbekistan are being used as bases to launch anti-Pakistan operations by India and Afghanistan. In fact, India has launched a forceful diplomatic campaign against the ISI and Pakistan military and two brigade of the Indian army has been dispatched under the pretext to provide security to the Indian Consulates and Indian construction companies working on a large scale in Afghanistan. The first two brigades will be from the same mountain division. It is clear that it is the Indian plan to deploy 15,000 soldiers in Afghanistan with the support of Hamed Karzai. In this context, the evil designs of foreign forces, agencies, and agents have frustrated ISI and left no options to use all means to protect the security and survival of Pakistan. This institution has rendered an extraordinary service for the defence, survival and security of Pakistan. This is the reason that it is a "thorn in the eye" for those who are anti-Pakistan and are working against the security of country. The ISI has kept a strict watch over all those countries that have made military, political, or espionage plans against Pakistan; and on all the intelligence agencies of the world, be it the CIA, RAW and Khad. It has proved that Indian RAW has established special branch of its intelligence service specifically to target Pakistan. In reality, the RAW has a long history of involvement in Pakistan and working to promote dissatisfaction against Pakistan. According to the intelligence sources RAW is directly involved in sabotage activities in NWFP and supporting local Taliban movement financially to promote destructive activities in the frontier region. The reports have appeared that as many as 8,000 RAW and KHAD trained militants have entered in frontier region and they are actively working in different parts of area against the Pakistan military. Moreover, they have around 40 terrorist training camps near Pak-Afghan border in which militants are getting specialized training to handle explosives, engineer bomb blasts and use sophisticated weapons. According to reports some militants are from Pakistan and many are of different ethnic origin including Afghan and Indian Hindus and white Europeans and they are without circumcision (the fore skin of the male organ) but have beard to impress local people. Thus, RAW is supplying weapons through the Afghanistan to the local militant terrorists and providing shelter and training to the militant guerrillas for their malevolence objectives. So, RAW and KHAD has an extensive network of militants including dissident elements from various sectarian groups of NWFP. Moreover, Indian diplomats, RAW and the CIA officials have significantly enter in the Afghan ministry of tribal affairs and have close understanding to conduct covert activities inside tribal areas of Pakistan. Indian agents are instrumental in arranging meetings of tribal elders and Afghans with dual nationalities with Indian consulate officials in Jalalabad and assisting them in spotting and recruiting suitable tribal elders from Jalalabad and Pakistan's North and South Waziristan agencies for covert activities. The government of Pakistan has solid evidence that Indian and Afghan agents are carrying out clandestine activities in tribal areas of Pakistan and creating disturbing situation for the US and NATO troops, so they should attack Pakistan. So, the local Taliban are fighting against Pakistan military with modern and sophisticated weapons made by India, Russia and the United States. They are indiscriminatory killing or slaughtering innocent civilians, military personnel and cadets through brutal actions. They have evil plan to create an unprecedented disturbance and made it ungovernable situation for Pakistan. Further, they have created anarchy and fear through the violent actions, and are busy in attacking the infrastructure of military, communication and have targeted nuclear arsenals. It is not difficult to understand that the foreign actors have evil designs against Pakistan if they are supporting anti-state elements and hired criminals for the disturbance of state system. They are involved in subversive activities under the banner of jihad and attacking the security forces, bombing military camps, patrols and vehicles. Importantly, militants have recently geared up a guerrilla-style war against Pakistan military by adopting hit-and-run tactics. Ambushes, remote-controlled bomb explosions and long-range rocket attacks on military checkpoints and government installations have become a routine matter. So, this is a common practice to attack convoy of the military and paramilitary forces. It has also confirmed that the local Taliban are battling not only against the Pakistan military even they are also involved in kidnapping or killing businessmen and traders and foreigners including Chinese engineers to defame the country. The sources also confirmed that local Taliban are fighting on the indication of their masters (India, Afghanistan, America, Iran and Russia) and within a limited time they have converted the areas of Swat, Bajaur, Darra Adamkhel, North and South Waziristan into bloodbath where the blood of human beings is cheaper than the water. The insurgency of local Taliban has spread radically from rural area to urban centres of the NWFP and also expanded their grip to many major cities of Pakistan (Islamabad, Peshawar, Mardan, Bunnu, Quetta, Lahore, Karachi, Rawalpindi etc) and using the instrument of suicide bombers to paralize the functioning life of the country. Sometime they target the governemnt building, security checkpoints and police stations by the explosion and inflict heavy casualties. Moreover, they have created exicited turmoil in the NWFP owing to constant unrest and their brutal activities have suceesfully developed innumerable psychological discorders among the common people. Moreover, they are also involved in the burning of girls' schools in the volatile tribal region including Swat and Dir region and reports are received that local Taliban are involved in this unholy game. It has also confirmed that they have burnt several CDs and video shops in various towns of the NWFP and justified their actions by saying that Islam has no concept of entertainment rather it preaches to prepare for jihad every time. Ironically, local Taliban have challenged the writ of Islamabad and have virtually ceased to exist in Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and other parts of NWFP. They have established their own courts in seven tribal agencies and twenty four (24) districts of the NWFP and their so-called Qazis (judges) awarding the verdicts including stoning to death sentence without formal legal procedure. In fact, local Taliban have established a parallel government in Pakistan's tribal areas and are administering their own brand of justice to the people. They have also taken the law into their own hands by providing speedy and severe justice without appropriate procedure and court system in the name of cleansing society of social evils. Moreover, they have been trying to force people to live according to their "puritanic interpretation" of Islamic law and tradition. Nevertheless, the activities of local Taliban are no longer confined to the NWFP and along the Pak-Afghan border. They have created a grave situation for Pakistan and have smashed all important and popular cultural centers in NWFP, and created a severe halt in civil life. The foreign sponsored militants have wilfully caused mass killings, serious suffering and inhuman treatment with unarmed civilian population, destruction of social and physical structure in strategically valuable parts of NWFP. The brutal actions of local Taliban have resulted in the death of thousands of innocent people, the destruction of hundreds of homes and villages, and the dislocation of thousands of people. So, the brutalities of proxy militants have created human, economic and environmental catastrophes for the people of NWFP. Nonetheless, the misery and tragedies desire collective response from the people of frontier region because only Pakistan military cannot handle the critical situation and could not alone ensure sustainable peace, harmony stability and security. azahilali@yahoo.co.uk
Saved from: http://www.thefrontierpost.com/News.aspx?ncat=ar&nid=442&ad=18-09-200
Dated: Thursday, September 18, 2008, Ramadan 17, 1429 A.H.