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.
OBAMA: INSPIRATIONAL LEADER !!!!
Peshawar trembling
The Frontier Post
Commitment to Journalism
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.
Pakistan's tribal areas need vast reform
Pakistan's tribal areas need vast reform
By Ziad Haydar
Commentary by
Friday, September 19, 2008
With a revived Taliban and Al-Qaeda operating out of Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), the region has assumed center stage in the US-led "war on terror." To secure these areas, Pakistan's civilian government seeks to negotiate with tribesmen to end combat, withdraw the army and only use it as a last resort, while promoting economic development.
Yet this strategy will fail unless Pakistan fully addresses FATA's regressive and shrinking governance system. Political and legal reforms are essential to extend the state's writ, uphold constitutional rights and prevent increasing public support for the Taliban while securing the region in the long-term.
Located along Pakistan's northwestern border with Afghanistan, FATA consists of seven tribal agencies and six frontier regions with more than 3 million people. Exercising limited control over this fiercely independent region, the British Empire used force and financial inducements to keep strategically important roads and passes open while neglecting the remaining areas - a status quo preserved after Pakistan's independence.
Militancy in FATA is attributable to a host of factors including its history as a staging ground for the Soviet resistance, fallout from the post-9/11 invasion of Afghanistan, Pakistan's maneuvering in Afghanistan, and its sizeable impoverished and illiterate population. Yet the area's flawed governance has also bolstered the Taliban today in three ways:
First, the full writ of the state has never extended across FATA. Inaccessible areas where the state has no presence have existed since the British era, providing haven for criminals and militants.
Second, where a system of administration exists, the Taliban and the army are dismantling it. Since 2004, the Taliban have reportedly killed more than 300 maliks, or tribal leaders. Many maliks now turn to the Taliban, not the central government's agents, for their marching orders. The Taliban now fill the cumulative political vacuum.
Third, where the system is intact, its key features fuel anti-state sentiment. In a 2008 British government-sponsored survey, 73 percent in the region said the state jirga, or assembly, did not provide speedy justice. Because the century-old British frontier regulations were outdated, locals justified turning to Taliban religious courts for harsh yet swift justice.
Fortunately, there is widespread recognition of the need for reforms in FATA among all the major Pakistani political parties, as reflected in their 2008 election manifestos. Yet recognition does not necessarily translate into action.
Five factors are often cited for the failure of reform initiatives: the deteriorating security situation; bureaucratic elements with vested political and financial interests; the central government's fear of losing control of a strategic area; broader political instability in Pakistan; and the tribal people's rejection of change and suspicion of the government.
The Cabinet Committee on Frontier Crimes Regulations Reforms is now holding consultations with its chairman, the federal law minister, promising to submit recommendations to the Cabinet soon.
Key political reforms include extending the Political Parties Act to FATA to bolster moderate political forces with a related petition pending in the Supreme Court. Phasing out the maliki system, the state should establish agency councils that are more accountable and representative than the appointed councils that expired last year. A FATA-wide council should also be created with a clear mandate to provide a forum to articulate interests, debate reforms and vote on issues such as FATA's ultimate status in the federation - something FATA's people should decide.
On legal reforms, appellate court jurisdiction, currently barred in the region, should be extended. Reforms of the British regulations must be pursued including overhauling certain penalties, giving the parties a role in jirga selection, expediting the judicial process, and accommodating requests for Islamic law-based rulings.
These are questions of domestic and international import. For FATA's plight has exacted a tragic toll on Pakistan and elicited a stark warning from the chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, that the next terrorist attack on America will likely emerge from these badlands. Part of the answer to these questions is FATA's antiquated and ineffective governance - a glaring example of how a local ill can affect global security.
No amount of anti-terrorism operations or development aid alone can cure this ill. The onus is on Islamabad to take the region into the mainstream of Pakistani life, in conjunction with its people. For one of the Taliban's greatest strengths in FATA today is the government's weakness. That is why the federal government must heed the warning of one of its own senior coalition party members, Afrasiab Khattak, from the North West Frontier Province's ruling Awami National Party: "The question of dismantling militant sanctuaries in FATA and taking short- and long-term measures to open up the areas and integrate it with the rest of the country needs urgent attention if we are to avoid impending catastrophe."
Pakistan’s Dangerous Double Game
Sponsored ByPakistan’s Dangerous Double Game
Unsure of Islamabad's loyalties, U.S. forces open up a more aggressive, controversial strategy in the tribal areas.
Ron Moreau and Mark Hosenball
NEWSWEEK
Updated: 3:24 PM ET Sep 13, 2008
Mullah Nasrullah, a Taliban commander, made what has become a routine trek from his guerrilla base in Afghanistan across the jagged peaks into Pakistan last month. His destination: the headquarters of his patron and supplier, the powerful insurgent leader Sirajuddin Haqqani. A genial young man in his late 20s or early 30s with a bushy black beard, Haqqani leads the bloody Taliban insurgency in eastern Afghanistan, where American casualties are highest. Interviewed by NEWSWEEK on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, Nasrullah refused to specify the reason for his meeting with Haqqani, though it's likely he was looking for more suicide bombers, explosive vests, weapons and money to use against U.S. and NATO forces.
Once inside Pakistan, Nasrullah says, he traveled between insurgent camps. He rode in a new four-wheel-drive vehicle with a towering radio antenna fixed to the front bumper, followed by four pickup trucks filled with militants. Yet their convoy sailed through Pakistani military checkpoints. Whenever they neared one, the jihadists would hail someone named "Col. Niazi" on the radio, who would arrange their safe passage. Nasrullah believes this was a Pakistani Army officer and possibly an operative in the military's premier spy agency, Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI. "He seems to feel invulnerable," Nasrullah says of his patron, Haqqani. "The ISI protects him."
Washington seems to agree. Combating Haqqani fighters has become one of the top priorities for American commanders in Afghanistan. But U.S. officials who would speak only on condition of anonymity when discussing sensitive matters say they have evidence that some elements of Pakistan's ISI are protecting or even helping the Haqqani network. That's helping to drive a far more aggressive U.S. strategy in the tribal areas along the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, where the Haqqanis and other Taliban groups have established a network of safe havens and training camps for their own and Al Qaeda fighters. And it's raising tensions between America and Pakistan, supposed allies in the war against terror, to levels not seen since September 11.
Senior Pakistani officers say now is not the time to move against Haqqani. They have limited forces, and are concentrating on militants like Baitullah Mehsud, another powerful Taliban leader who is the source of most of the suicide bombers deep inside Pakistan, and who may have been behind the assassination of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto. Because of their mistrust of the United States and neighboring India, the Pakistani military and the ISI may also see the Haqqani network and other Taliban forces as potential assets to gain influence inside Afghanistan. As long as they're not attacking Pakistani targets, say several Pakistan experts, the Haqqanis are not a priority.
According to the Americans, however, Pakistani inaction has allowed the Haqqanis to grow from one insurgent group among many into perhaps the most deadly threat to U.S. forces in Afghanistan. This July, top U.S. military and CIA officers confronted their Pakistani counterparts with evidence of the ISI links to Haqqani. One consequence: over the summer President George W. Bush approved new, more relaxed rules of engagement along the border. The Pentagon once required "90 percent" confidence that a "high-value target" was present before approving Predator strikes in Pakistan territory. Now U.S. officials on the ground need to have only 50 to 60 percent confidence to shoot at compounds suspected of sheltering foreign fighters, according to knowledgeable U.S. sources who would speak of sensitive matters only anonymously. The CIA declined to comment.
The new rules also allow "hot pursuit" incursions by U.S. Special Operations troops into Pakistan, a move that Bush had long avoided so as not to offend his close ally President Pervez Musharraf, who resigned last month. On Sept. 3, in the first known raid in Pakistani territory, two dozen U.S. Navy SEALs were airlifted into a cluster of huts near the village of Angor Adda, located about one mile from the Afghan border. Last week Pakistani Army chief Ashfaq Kayani furiously denied the existence of "any agreement or understanding with the Coalition Forces" allowing them to cross the border, and he said he would not permit such actions.
Relations between Pakistan and the United States took a sharp downward turn after the July meeting between Kayani and Adm. Michael Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, which one Pakistani military official described as "extremely testy." Perhaps seeking to placate the Americans, Kayani ordered a new offensive in early August in the Bajaur tribal area in northwestern Pakistan. Afterward, Kayani asked for another meeting with Mullen and other senior U.S. commanders, according to the Pakistani military source, who asked for anonymity in order to speak freely. In late August, the Pentagon responded by inviting Kayani to huddle on a U.S. aircraft carrier in the Persian Gulf with Mullen and a team that included incoming CENTCOM commander Gen. David Petraeus; Gen. David McKiernan, commander of NATO forces in Afghanistan, and Adm. Eric Olson, chief of the Special Operations Command.
At that meeting, pressed to deal with Haqqani's growing power as well as that of other militants, Kayani told the Americans that he didn't have the military capability to take on several, sizable insurgent strongholds at once. He asked Washington to provide more modern and highpowered military equipment, notably attack helicopters. But the U.S. commanders were apparently not prepared to give the Pakistani Army chief what he wanted. According to a Pakistani diplomat who asked for anonymity in order to discuss sensitive matters, the Americans told Kayani the United States now reserved the right to strike, even on the ground, against significant Qaeda and Taliban targets inside Pakistan without getting prior approval. Less than one week after the aircraft carrier meeting, the U.S. military launched the Sept. 3 operation, killing what U.S. officials say were two dozen Qaeda and Taliban fighters.
Kayani and his high command were embarrassed by the operation and became enraged, Pakistani officials say. The Pakistanis insist that the dead were almost all civilians, including women and children. "The attack was carried out with bad and faulty intelligence," says the senior military source. "It crossed an acceptable threshold and had a negative impact inside the military and on Pakistani public opinion." Despite protests, at least four more Predator attacks were carried out shortly afterward in North Waziristan against areas controlled by the Haqqani network. One attack on Sept. 8 hit a madrassa complex where Haqqani family members lived and where Qaeda and Taliban fighters frequently sheltered while moving back and forth across the border.
At least one U.S. official, who would discuss American dealings with Islamabad only on condition of anonymity, suggests that there may be some political theater at work in the Pakistani reaction. He says that the U.S. and Pakistani military have reached a "more than tacit" understanding about the new U.S. tactics, in which the Pakistani side has agreed to allow "hot pursuit" operations by American troops, provided that Pakistani authorities are allowed to maintain complete "deniability." That means the Pakistanis will be permitted to publicly criticize the United States for any such operations and assert, without fear of contradiction from Washington, that U.S. forces were acting without Pakistani approval.
Still, U.S. officials acknowledge that if they're not careful, these new aggressive U.S. tactics could backfire. If large numbers of innocents are being killed, U.S. attacks could motivate even more Afghans and Pakistani tribals to join the insurgency on both sides of the frontier. That would widen the war further and undermine the already shaky Pakistani government. It could also create more Islamist sympathizers inside the Pakistani Army and ISI.
Washington is willing to take that risk, in part because Haqqani has become the most active, aggressive and powerful Taliban commander along the border. The son of Maulvi Jalaluddin Haqqani, an aging, ailing former Afghan mujahedin commander who became legendary leading the fight against the Soviet occupation in the 1980s, Siraj is increasingly admired by many jihadists for his smarts and discretion. "He is always friendly, polite and simple, is a good listener, answers directly and has a computerlike memory," says Nasrullah. "He is wise beyond his years."
Under Siraj's leadership, the Haqqani network has come a long way since 2004, when its men were waging small-unit, small-arms, hit-and-run attacks on U.S. bases just a mile or two across the border. Qaeda military experts, ideologues and senior leaders now operate out of Haqqani bases in the tribal areas, and the network has become the primary pipeline for foreign fighters looking to join the jihad in Afghanistan. According to senior Taliban sources who did not want to be identified for security reasons, Siraj also enjoys a steady stream of funding from the Gulf, where three of his brothers are based. "We weren't strong like they are today," says Malem Jan, 42, a veteran Haqqani fighter who led guerrilla strikes across the border until he defected in early 2005 because he thought the Americans were "invulnerable." "If I'd known Siraj would get so strong, I would have never defected."
U.S. Army Maj. Gen. Jeffrey J. Schloesser, who leads the 19,000 U.S. soldiers operating on the frontier, estimates that his forces are facing some 7,000 to 10,000 insurgents in eastern Afghanistan—a higher number than previously disclosed by any U.S. commander. Most of them operate under Haqqani's control, including the insurgents who launched a multiple suicide-bomber attack on a major U.S. military base, Camp Salerno, in Khowst province, last month. Schloesser says the attack was striking because all the suicide bombers were Arabs and Chechens; normally foreigners act as trainers and organizers, not cannon fodder. He says combat incidents have risen by 20 to 30 percent this year compared with last—one reason Bush recently announced that he plans to send an additional 4,000 or so troops to Afghanistan.
Haqqani has also claimed responsibility for the January attack on Kabul's premier hotel, the Serena, that killed seven and nearly missed the Norwegian foreign minister, and the abortive April assault on the country's National Day parade that targeted Afghan President Hamid Karzai, who escaped unharmed. Afghan and U.S. intelligence have fingered Haqqani as the mastermind of the bloody suicide car bombing of the Indian Embassy in Kabul last July that killed two Indian officials and more than 40 others. U.S. officials say they intercepted communications between an ISI officer and the Haqqani operatives who were planning the embassy attack. Pakistani officials strenuously deny the charge.
U.S. counterterrorism officials, who asked for anonymity discussing official assessments, say they do not believe that the top levels of the Pakistani military or ISI have sanctioned aid to the Haqqanis; they think local and perhaps retired operatives are to blame. Nevertheless, the insurgents certainly believe that they have powerful connections. One jihadist, a 25-year-old named Shah Muhammad who fights for Haqqani, says he recently got caught in a roundup of militants by the Pakistani Army in North Waziristan. After checking the identity papers and the loyalties of the fighters, the soldiers released the Afghans who could prove they were linked to Haqqani and arrested those tribal militants linked to Baitullah Mehsud.
Today, Haqqani has become the ISI's "darling," says a former Taliban cabinet minister who is still an active supporter of the insurgency and who would speak only on condition of anonymity for security reasons. According to Jan, the Haqqani defector, the clan frequently received visitors he believed to be ISI operatives in the family's North Waziristan camps back in 2004. Jan says a young Pakistani Army officer named Salim, who he believed worked out of the ISI office inside the 11th Army Corps's main base at Miran Shah, located near the Haqqani madrassa complex, used to meet regularly with Siraj. Jan also claims he believes the Pakistanis used to tip off Siraj whenever a U.S. missile strike was imminent. Soon after suddenly huddling with a visitor, whom Jan associated with the ISI, Siraj would immediately change his position and order his men to move from the Miran Shah area to the mountains.
While top Pakistani officers reject out of hand any accusation that the ISI or any Pakistani intelligence agency is aiding the Taliban, Pakistani Army Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas, the armed forces' spokesman, does not rule out that the ISI is maintaining contacts with the Haqqanis. "Do you think any intelligence agency in the world would like to sever its last contact with any organization it has an interest in?" he asked rhetorically. "It would like to maintain at least one last channel through which it can access and get feedback on the on the-ground realities." Indeed, Afghan Taliban sources say that at the behest of the ISI, Haqqani may now be trying to persuade his ally Mehsud to cease his attacks against Pakistan and to focus on Afghanistan instead.
Whatever ties they may have to the ISI, the Taliban don't feel entirely secure, says the former cabinet minister. He claims the ISI knows the location of Taliban safe havens, training and military facilities, and the precise addresses in towns and villages along the border where commanders and their families live. "I wouldn't be surprised if the ISI arrested us all in one day," he says. "We are like sheep which the Pakistanis could round up whenever they want." He adds that many insurgents still don't have a strong enough foothold inside Afghanistan to spend the winter months there. But more and more are planning to do so, worried about their position within Pakistan.
Recognizing that trend, Schloesser plans to keep his troops operating deep inside Taliban territory this winter. "I plan on having a winter campaign that will take advantage of the mobility that I have to seek out any [insurgent] safe havens in Afghanistan, any facilitation areas, any places they go to for rest and recreation in Afghanistan," Schloesser says. "We're going to give them those options: either flee, get killed or captured, or reconcile." But if they escape across the border—and Islamabad doesn't step up—a new kind of war could well begin.
