Acts of Terrorism in Pakistan

[RabzonKhan]

Very interesting and informative.


Drone attacks -- a survey

Thursday, March 05, 2009
Farhat Taj

The Aryana Institute for Regional Research and Advocacy, a think tank of researchers and political activists from the NWFP and FATA, conducts research, surveys and collect statistics on various issues concerning the Taliban and Al-Qaeda terrorism and human security there. AIRRA research teams go deep inside Taliban- and Al-Qaeda-occupied areas of FATA to collect information. Most of the areas are not accessible to journalists.

Between last November and January AIRRA sent five teams, each made up of five researchers, to the parts of FATA that are often hit by American drones, to conduct a survey of public opinion about the attacks. The team visited Wana (South Waziristan), Ladda (South Waziristan), Miranshah (North Waziristan), Razmak (North Waziristan) and Parachinar (Kurram Agency). The teams handed out 650 structured questionnaires to people in the areas. The questionnaires were in Pashto, English and Urdu. The 550 respondents (100 declined to answer) were from professions related to business, education, health and transport. Following are the questions and the responses of the people of FATA.

-- Do you see drone attacks bringing about fear and terror in the common people? (Yes 45%, No 55%)

-- Do you think the drones are accurate in their strikes? (Yes 52%, No 48%)

-- Do you think anti-American feelings in the area increased due to drone attacks recently? (Yes 42%, No 58%)

-- Should Pakistan military carry out targeted strikes at the militant organisations? (Yes 70%, No 30%)

-- Do the militant organisations get damaged due to drone attacks? (Yes 60%, No 40%)

A group of researchers at AIRRA draw these conclusions from the survey. The popular notion outside the Pakhtun belt that a large majority of the local population supports the Taliban movement lacks substance. The notion that anti-Americanism in the region has not increased due to drone attacks is rejected. The study supports the notion that a large majority of the people in the Pakhtun belt wants to be incorporated with the state and wants to integrate with the rest of the world.

The survey also reinforces my own ethnographic interactions with people of FATA, both inside FATA and the FATA IDP’s in the NWFP. This includes people I personally met and those I am in contact with through telephone calls and emails. This includes men and women, from illiterate to people with university level education. The number is well over 2000. I asked almost all those people if they see the US drone attacks on FATA as violation of Pakistan’s sovereignty. More than two-third said they did not. Pakistan’s sovereignty, they argued, was insulted and annihilated by Al-Qaeda and the Taliban, whose territory FATA is after Pakistan lost it to them. The US is violating the sovereignty of the Taliban and Al-Qaeda, not of Pakistan. Almost half the people said that the US drones attacking Islamabad or Lahore will be violation of the sovereignty of Pakistan, because these areas are not taken over by the Taliban and Al Qaeda. Many people laughed when I mentioned the word sovereignty with respect to Pakistan.

Over two-thirds of the people viewed Al-Qaeda and the Taliban as enemy number one, and wanted the Pakistani army to clear the area of the militants. A little under two-thirds want the Americans to continue the drone attack because the Pakistani army is unable or unwilling to retake the territory from the Taliban.

The people I asked about civilian causalities in the drone attacks said most of the attacks had hit their targets, which include Arab, Chechen, Uzbek and Tajik terrorists of Al-Qaeda, Pakistani Taliban (Pakhtun and Punjabis) and training camps of the terrorists. There has been some collateral damage.

The drones hit hujras or houses which the Taliban forced people to rent out to them. There is collateral damage when the family forced to rent out the property is living in an adjacent house or a portion of the property rented out.

The Taliban and Al Qaeda have unleashed a reign of terror on the people of FATA. People are afraid that the Taliban will suspect their loyalty and behead them. Thus, in order to prove their loyalty to the Taliban and Al-Qaeda, they offer them to rent their houses and hujras for residential purposes.

There are people who are linked with the Taliban. Terrorists visit their houses as guests and live in the houses and hujras. The drones attacks kill women and small children of the hosts. These are innocent deaths because the women and children have no role in the men’s links with terrorists.

Other innocent victims are local people who just happen to be at the wrong place at the wrong time.

People told me that typically what happens after every drone attack is that the Taliban and Al-Qaeda terrorists cordon off the area. No one from the local population is allowed to access the site, even if there are local people killed or injured. Their relatives cry and beg the terrorists to let them go near the site. But the Taliban and Al Qaeda do not allow them. The Taliban and Al Qaeda remove everything they want from the site and then allow the locals to see the site.

The survey conducted by AIRRA and my ethnographic interactions contradict the mantra of violation of the sovereignty of Pakistan perpetuated by the armchair analysts in the media. I have been arguing on these pages that analyses of those analysts have nothing to do with the reality of the FATA people. For some reason they take FATA for granted. They feel they are at liberty to fantasise whatever they like about FATA and present to the audience as a truth. Some of those armchair analysts also have a misplaced optimism about themselves. They believe my challenge to their fantasies about FATA is because I like to give them time! I give time to the land I love--FATA and the NWFP--and to the state I am loyal to--Pakistan.

What is happening in FATA is destroying the lives and culture of the FATA people, threatening the integrity of Pakistan and world peace. Fantasies of the armchair analysts are helping no one but Al Qaeda and the Taliban--enemies of the land and culture I love, and our state. I will therefore continue to challenge the fantasies of the armchairs analysts, whenever possible.


The writer is a research fellow at the Centre for Interdisciplinary Gender Research, University of Oslo and a member of Aryana Institute for Regional Research and Advocacy. Email: bergen34@ yahoo.com

 

[S-2]

Unbelievable!

This article needs to be read by each and every Pakistani alive today. If true, it turns on the head the prevailing narrative of this board and damned near everywhere else in your nation.

Damn it, Rabzon! I tried to thank you TWICE and it would only let me give you one "thank you". Hardly fair given this interesting (REALLY) article, survey, and findings.

 

[TruthSeeker]

Well, I fully expect the anti-drone crowd here to dismiss this article as a plant by the CIA. I mean, how do we know that Farhat Taj exists or, if he does that he isn't funded by the CIA?? So, I just wanted to get that idea out so as to save time for some of our most strident anti-drone conspiracy theorists here in residence. Also, he probably only interviewed the 650 secular humanists that live in FATA.

 

[S-2]

Author is employed by the University of Oslo, a damned good school.

Here's the Aryana Institute's website-

AIRRA.org

Nothing is etched in stone but given the overwhelming vehemence with which PREDATOR is approached at this board, to be able to locate 650 who've got a different view from anywhere in Pakistan would seem impossible.

Here we're discussing FATAville of all places.

Security doesn't permit a proper survey. It's a fast ticket to a grave for all concerned. Nonetheless, if you ain't reading this you're losing out.

 

[RabzonKhan]

Side-effect

Rahman Baba

Friday, March 06, 2009
Harris Khalique

After the tragedy in Lahore where eight people, including six policemen, died and six of our guests from Sri Lankan cricket team got injured by an assault by terrorists, the news of the bombing of the shrine of Rahman Baba in Peshawar came as another severe blow.

It is not only an attack on Pakhtun culture, history and civilisation, it is an attack on Shah Latif, Lal Shahbaz Qalandar, Bulleh Shah, Waris Shah, Ghulam Farid, Mast Tawakkali, Amir Khusrau, Mir, Ghalib and, above all, Rumi. It is an attack on Iqbal. It is an attempt to desecrate and dishonour everything that we could be proud of as a part of the cross-countries Muslim civilisation spread over Central and South Asia, the Middle East and North Africa.

It is comparable only to the destruction of the historic Buddhas of Bamiyan under Taliban rule in Afghanistan and the damaging of Quli Qutub Shah's tomb in Indian Gujarat by Hindu fanatics. The Sufis, the writers, poets and artists, of this godforsaken country must rise up against this madness now and fight the battle for our survival.

The battle for our survival is actually a war that has three battles to be fought simultaneously. The battle of ideas where bigotry, obscurantism, reactionary thought and eloquent legitimisation of violent means to impose your brand of Islam on others through our print and electronic media, have to be taken on by professing intellectual freedom and tolerance, promoting rational understanding of what is happening around us and encouraging creativity and critical thinking.

This battle has to be fought in schools, colleges and universities, on television, radio, in newspapers and in all public spaces. Michael Ignatieff once said that television is the church of modern authority. The current domination of our primetime discussion hours on key news channels by the semi-literate, reactionary and pompous television anchors needs to be challenged. Exceptions are few and far between. Likewise, newspaper columns, especially in Urdu, which is the language of public discourse in Pakistan, make heroes out of those who inflict pain and suffering on the masses in the name of Islam. The editors have to wake up now and give equally prominent space to rebuttals of such nonsense or to writers who are logical and progressive.

The second is the battle to save, strengthen or establish social and political institutions in the face of chaos, terrorism, mediocrity and plutocracy. What we need is a sovereign Parliament, an independent judiciary and a competent executive. We need political parties which are strong and democratic from within and a military which focuses on professional excellence and defending the country when faced with outside aggression.

The third is the battle to be fought on the streets of Pakistan, where people need to come out and ask for their right to a safe, secure and decent life. They have to ask for their legitimate right to employment, education, health, clean drinking water and basic infrastructure. They have to assert their right to a life with dignity where the justice system works and where all citizens are equal in the eyes of the state whether they are women or religious minorities.

Once common people demonstrate their desire for change, newer and stronger pro-people political forces will emerge from within to challenge plutocracy and incompetence. But is it incompetence alone which makes the provincial information minister of the NWFP (to be or not to be Pashtunkhwa) request the TNSM leader that he ask the militants in Swat to stop random firing on the government's security forces? Mind you, he has publicly said after taking charge of Swat that he considers democracy to be an un-Islamic concept.

It will not end in Swat. When a local spiritual leader was killed and buried by the militants, their commander was not fully satisfied. So they decided to exhume his body and hung it by a tree or a pole for some days. Now there is an attack on the symbol of our civilisation, Rahman Baba. Should we now request the TNSM not to let these things happen in future?

The writer is an Islamabad-based poet and rights campaigner.

 

[S-2]

Harris Khalique writes-

"Should we now request the TNSM not to let these things happen in future?"

Of course you should! How else will further desecrations be prevented? Your army? The sooner you make such requests the more likely the TNSM will be able to translate them suitably for the understanding of the leader of the TTP-S, Maulana Faizullah.

It's fortunate that your nation has a patriot like Sufi Mohammad to act as go-between with his proud, mis-understood and underappreciated son-in-law.

Perhaps a small token of your earnest desire that Faizullah adhere to your pleas...$1,000,000 with more to come as it's earned by your peoples? I hope he listens. I don't what else shall save your national treasures.

You could begin packing your historical and artistic artifacts for overseas shipping to America or Saudi Arabia, perhaps. That might help speed matters along if all doesn't go well. Remember, these artifacts are IRREPLACABLE. Once gone, they're lost to mankind forever.

We've lots of libraries and museums that will watch over your religious and artistic history but don't hesitate. Remember Monte Cassino and the good work done there by the transportation battalion of the HERMAN GORING division. Saved hundreds of irreplacable artifacts from the bombardment and concurrent combat.

 

[RabzonKhan]

INSIGHT: An enemy is an enemy

Ejaz Haider
March 07, 2009

BRUSSLES/BERLIN: Speaking at a meeting of NATO foreign ministers here March 5, United States Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said Pakistan is facing a serious internal security threat and NATO foreign ministers had reached a broad agreement on the salient features of a strategic review for Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Clinton also called for a ministerial-level conference on Afghanistan on March 31, in collaboration with the United Nations, ahead of the April summit of NATO leaders in Strasbourg. Until now, the venue of the Afghanistan conference has not been decided but officials from Afghanistan and Pakistan will be invited to the moot along with key international institutions, donors and regional and strategic nations.

Meanwhile, away from Brussels, in Kabul, the US ambassador to Afghanistan, Christopher Dell, noted the same day that “From where I sit [Pakistan] sure looks like it’s going to be a bigger problem. It has certainly made radical Islam a part of its political life, and it now seems to be a deeply ingrained element of its political culture. It makes things there very hard.”

Dell also alleged that infiltration across the frontier from Pakistan’s tribal areas had increased, “possibly as a result of ceasefire deals agreed by Taliban and the Pakistani government”.

As I write this from Berlin March 6, having participated in a Pakistan-specific programme on Deutsche Welle TV this morning, the feeling that there is growing consensus in the outside world on two things hits me with great force: Pakistan is slipping into anarchy; and Afghanistan cannot be stabilised without changing Pakistan’s direction.

Much as one argues, as I have been trying to since I travelled to Europe last month, that Pakistan is very different from Afghanistan at all levels, no one is prepared to buy that argument. Even those who understand the nuances and are fairly empathetic point to how the periphery is folding up towards the centre. They see no determined response from the state to the growing challenge.

They are not entirely wrong. It does not matter whether the state is unwilling or unable to face the challenge. The Lahore attack was completely avoidable. It was a massive security failure: the motorcade route could have been changed every day; the route could have been secured on the ground (and possibly from the air) ahead of the motorcade; a decoy convoy could have been used; etc.

None of this requires high technology; merely common sense and a degree of commitment. Security in such circumstances, where terrorist attacks are an existential threat, should be obviously proportional to what is at stake.

Given how desperate we have been to get teams to come and play in Pakistan, the stakes were very high. Our image and credibility were at stake, as was the future of the game all of us love. Instead of thinking that something like this could not happen, the authorities should have worked on the premise that this could and will happen.

The response, instead, was pathetic, utterly unprofessional and delinquent. The price: very high.

This is just one example.

Terrorism is now a reality. While in many cases it is difficult to draw the line between insurgency and terrorism, in most cases in Pakistan, the issue has been clear. Also real and unambiguous is the fact that those fighting the state will stop at nothing; they are not just reactive, they are proactive.

To say that there may be no danger because Pakistanis have never voted for Islamist parties misses the point completely. These people are not in the business of contesting elections or accepting living and functioning under a democratic overhang. They are inimical to the very idea of democracy and rights.

So, how should the state treat them? Are they any different from an external enemy? No. An enemy is an enemy. The idea of an external enemy presupposes internal stability: one political grouping of people against another. We now have an internal enemy that believes in something radically different from what went into the making of this country.

It needs to be fought and the state has to dispose in this contest whatever it has at its disposal.

This is what worries the West, the lack of will on the part of the state to understand the nature of the threat and the people of Pakistan, at least the majority, to appreciate the stakes.

It is not enough to point to the current situation as begotten of what is happening in Afghanistan. The bombing of Rahman Baba’s mausoleum had nothing to do with Afghanistan but everything to do with the expression of a regressive ideology. Neither is it enough to say that if Afghanistan had not happened, these people would not have risen against the Pakistani state. They gestated in the womb of this state and they challenged the state’s writ much before Afghanistan happened. They killed the Shia, they deprived women of their social and political space, and they attacked the functionaries of the state. All this was ignored by the state because it was using them elsewhere.

They would have challenged the state at the point where the state’s objectives ran contrary to their agenda. Or they would have surreptitiously conquered the state if an upheaval had not occurred.

If the majority of Pakistanis do not accept this threat, they should be prepared to live a different kind of life.

The issue about direction of causality then takes a whole new dimension. Afghanistan, never really a modern state, lies below the line that separates the modern from the medieval. Pakistan, even now, doesn’t. What they have to fully conquer, therefore, is Pakistan. If and when they do it, their medievalism will find, and wed itself to, the technological manifestation of modernity in Pakistan. It doesn’t need saying what that combination can do.

This is not to say that the international community has to ignore Afghanistan and focus on Pakistan. Stabilising Afghanistan is crucial, and so far the international community has not covered itself in glory on that count. My point is to focus, as a Pakistani, on what is at stake here and what needs to be done in the streets of Islamabad, Lahore and Karachi.

The attack on the Sri Lankan team was not about Afghanistan. It was an attack on Pakistan, what the Pakistani state stands for, and if I say so, what we, as Pakistanis, stand for — or should.

That much at least we should be clear about. The situation is messy; what makes it worse is confusion about who the enemy is and where he resides.

Ejaz Haider is Op-Ed Editor of Daily Times and Consulting Editor of The Friday Times.

 

[notsuperstitious]

Sorry for an off topic post, but from the Harris Khalique article, anyone can help me find this incident mentioned in Gujarat? Aren't the Qutub shahi tombs in Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh?

It is comparable only to the destruction of the historic Buddhas of Bamiyan under Taliban rule in Afghanistan and the damaging of Quli Qutub Shah's tomb in Indian Gujarat by Hindu fanatics.

 

[S-2]

Thanks for the Ejaz Haider article. Disturbing is an understatement.

I've been saying that your nation is fully at war with itself for some time here-at least since last fall when I returned if not before.

Now more so than ever. I doubt that Haider's opinion will be read and absorbed. If so, then my comments at this board would be fully vindicated.

You're at war. Technology isn't the restraint from giving battle to your enemies-instead, an absence of good sense and determination, whether in the streets of Lahore or the hills of Bajaur and SWAT.

You're at war. These militants aren't reacting to a grievance by the state. They have an intent and plan to take over your nation forcing all to live by their perverse vision. No amount of diplomacy, negotiation, nor appeasement will alter those bedrock tenets. They will RULE PAKISTAN and make you their minions or you shall fight and die, leave, or die by their hand for failing to please their whims.

I think that's stark. Most here seem to think there's still room for discussion.

 

[RabzonKhan]

COMMENT: A dangerous void in Pakistan

Ahmed Rashid
March 08, 2009

Just as the Obama administration tries to get a handle on Pakistan — a critical part of its regional approach to sorting out Afghanistan and defeating the Taliban — the country takes another spiral downwards, virtually negating options Washington considered before.

Almost in a mirror image of the financial crisis that galloped ahead of the solutions that governments devised, the situation in Pakistan deteriorates at a pace faster than policymakers can grasp. Most worrisome in the developing crisis is the leadership void in Pakistan, without which talk of any solution would be a fruitless exercise.

The governmental weakness was demonstrated dramatically recently while Pakistani Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi took part in a crucial trilateral meeting in Washington with the US and Afghanistan, back home the government virtually ceded control of part of the country to the Taliban. The meeting was designed to input policy options before Richard Holbrooke, the US Special Envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan which President Barack Obama is supposed to sell to NATO at its summit on April 2.

Meanwhile in Pakistan, a controversial ceasefire with Taliban militants in the Swat valley was on the verge of breaking down, economic indicators spiralled down further and the Supreme Court’s controversial verdict to disqualify opposition leader Nawaz Sharif from taking part in politics and ousting his brother Shehbaz Sharif from being chief minister of the Punjab province, plunged the country into fresh political crisis. A terrible week was capped by a terrorist attack on the visiting Sri Lankan cricket team in the heart of Lahore.

Hopes that the 2008 election of the democratic and secular Pakistan People’s Party government would bring political parties together to address these problems have been thwarted by the PPP trying to isolate the long-time rival Sharif brothers. President Asif Ali Zardari is now deeply unpopular for refusing to reconcile with the opposition and failing to address long-term issues such as terrorism and the economy.

The Sharifs are now rallying their supporters to join lawyers who plan a protest in Islamabad for mid-March ostensibly to reinstate the former Chief Justice Iftikhar Chaudhry, but in reality to try and topple Zardari. The country that can least afford more political turmoil will see just that.

With such a rolling crisis, US policy options to help Pakistan are more difficult to ascertain. And yet Pakistan’s crisis is a matter of major concern for not just Pakistan, but the region and the international community. President Obama told a US television station recently that Pakistan “was endangered as much as we are”.’ The expansion of the Pakistani Taliban across northern Pakistan and the safe haven that the leaders of the Afghan Taliban and Al Qaeda have along Pakistan’s borders with Afghanistan present a major global security threat, as does its collapsing economy.

Both the government and the army have already agreed to a controversial ceasefire in the Swat valley east of the Federal Administered Tribal Areas and just 100 miles from Islamabad — which virtually cedes control of the valley to another branch of the Pakistani Taliban.

The deal has been struck with Maulana Sufi Mohammed, a radical cleric freed last year after spending six years in jail for leading 10,000 Pashtun tribesmen in a vain attempt to oppose the US invasion of Afghanistan in 2001. He led a peace march through Swat to convince his son-in-law Maulana Fazlullah, who leads the Swati contingent of the Pakistani Taliban and is closely allied to Al Qaeda, to accept the government’s offer of a ceasefire in exchange for enforcement of sharia law in the valley.

The US is adamantly opposed to such ceasefires, which in the past have only strengthened the Taliban, while the exhausted and demoralised Pakistan army welcomes them. The government insists the legal change will be a limited application of Islamic justice through the local courts, the Taliban interpret it as allowing full application of Sharia law for all aspects of education, administration and law and order in the region. Fazlullah’s men, aided by Uzbek, Chechen and Arab jihadis fought bloody battles with the army over the past two years, finally driving the army out and taking control of most of Swat last year.

The fighting has led to some 1200 civilian deaths and the forced exodus of an estimated 350,000 people out of a population of 1.5 million. Fazlullah has blown up 200 girls schools, hanged policemen and teachers, set up Sharia courts and now runs a parallel government.

Even though the former military regime of President Pervez Musharraf concluded several controversial short-lived ceasefires with the Pakistani Taliban, the government never previously conceded major changes to the legal or political system.

The peace deal has become an explosive issue in Pakistan: Right wing, religious-minded citizens and politicians praise it for bringing peace to Swat, while liberal Pakistanis see it as an unmistakable watershed in the country’s battle against Islamic extremism, giving Al Qaeda and the Taliban a new safe haven. Swat is vital for the militants because it is well out of range of US drones, which successfully attack their leaders in FATA. Pakistan has objected to the US use of drones to bomb its territory and it will be politically unacceptable if the US extends drone attacks in Swat, several hundred miles from the Afghan border.

The Taliban are unlikely to stop with Swat. From FATA, the Taliban have already expanded their influence into the settled areas of the North West Frontier Province and virtually laid siege to the capital Peshawar.

To add to the US and NATO woes, three rival Pakistani Taliban leaders, who have fought the Pakistan army on and off since it deployed into FATA in 2004, have formed a new alliance called the Shura-e Ittehad-ul Mujaheddin or Council of United Holy Warriors. Under the influence of Mullah Mohammed Omar, the Afghan Taliban leader who also has a sanctuary in Pakistan, the new council aims to broker ceasefires with the Pakistan army so that both the Pakistani and Afghan Taliban can concentrate their firepower on the 17,000 new US troops being sent to Afghanistan in spring by the Obama administration.

The US military is trying to convince the army to retrain some of its regular forces in modern counter insurgency tactics. Last year after months of dialogue the army allowed the US to retrain and re-equip its paramilitary Frontier Corps, but not regular forces because it considers India a larger threat still expecting a conventional war.

Meanwhile extremist attacks like the one in Lahore only further depress the economy which faces increasing joblessness, inflation and capital flight. Last year Pakistan received a two year USD7.6 billion IMF loan, but any hope for bilateral aid from Europe and other donors has not materialised so far.

The Obama administration has promised Pakistan USD1.5 billion a year for the next five years, but it will take many months before the US Congress will make such money available, while conditions Congress will likely impose — such as decisively combating extremism — Pakistan may be unwilling or unable to fulfil.

The crisis in Pakistan leaves the US with few policy options. Large injections of cash are desperately needed to give the government the time to re-establish the writ of the state and revive the moribund economy. Yet the real issue which Obama certainly cannot address is the lack of leadership in a country that teeters on the edge of chaos. —YaleGlobal

Ahmed Rashid is a Pakistani journalist and author of Descent into Chaos: The US and the Disaster in Pakistan, Afghanistan and Central Asia

 

[notsuperstitious]

Sorry for an off topic post, but from the Harris Khalique article, anyone can help me find this incident mentioned in Gujarat? Aren't the Qutub shahi tombs in Hyderabad, Andhra Pradesh?

It is comparable only to the destruction of the historic Buddhas of Bamiyan under Taliban rule in Afghanistan and the damaging of Quli Qutub Shah's tomb in Indian Gujarat by Hindu fanatics.

I looked it up and could find nothing abt any destruction of Quli Qutub shah's Tomb in Gujarat. The Qutub shahi Tombs are actually in Andhra Pradesh (and built using destroyed Hindu temples of Golkonda ). Its amazing that such a blatant lie needs to be invented to get the article 'credibility' in Pakistani media.

again, sorry for an of topic post.

 

[RabzonKhan]

Threat to secular Balochistan?

By Malik Siraj Akbar
Monday, 09 Mar, 2009

NOTHING embarrasses and irks Pakistani spymasters more than the issue of Talibanisation in Quetta. Over the years, Afghan President Hamid Karzai has repeatedly protested against the alleged protection provided by Islamabad to Mullah Omar, the one-eyed spiritual cleric and reclusive leader of the Afghan Taliban.

As Pakistan’s internationally acclaimed journalist, Ahmed Rashid, laments in his book Descent into Chaos, “Today, seven years after 9/11, Mullah Omar and the original Afghan Taliban Shura still live in Balochistan province.”

A Baloch nationalist leader, Sanaullah Baloch, also bemoans the presence of Taliban supporters who have captured land worth Rs2bn along the eastern and western bypass of Quetta. These quarters are now virtual no-go areas. Islamabad, nonetheless, has been in a state of constant denial.

The Taliban have now vociferously asserted their existence in Balochistan. Engineer Asad, a self-proclaimed spokesman of the newly formed Tehrik-i-Taliban Balochistan (TTB), was recently quoted in a newspaper as saying that their struggle was “against non-Muslims and western forces that had attacked and occupied Islamic countries … the TTB was committed to fighting the enemies of Islam”. The TTB, as reported, disassociates itself from Baitullah Mehsud’s Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), bills suicide bombing as un-Islamic and rules out any vendetta with the Sherani faction of the JUI.

After the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, the ISI-CIA-nexus enthusiastically exported this jihad from Quetta to Afghanistan. During the Taliban regime, Islamabad went overboard in its support for their rule in Kabul by setting up a telephone network, which became a part of the Pakistan telephone grid. Hence one could dial Kandahar from anywhere in Pakistan as a domestic call, with the same code as Quetta.

For Islamabad, the post-Taliban era coincided with the rise of the nationalistic insurgency in Balochistan. The Islamists were given protection in Quetta so that they could serve Islamabad’s interest against progressive and secular Baloch forces. The centre is confident that a bribed mullah is certain to serve as a reliable collaborator against the mounting Baloch nationalist movement.

In fact, over the past many years Quetta has been used as a training ground by the Taliban as they have been blowing up Internet cafes, music and CD shops in the city for long. There is growing fear that the Taliban can surface with a Swat-like showdown any time in the near future.

The Taliban presence is substantiated by the fact that not a single incident of suicide bombing has ever been reported by Baloch insurgents who have confronted the centre five times since the controversial accession of Balochistan to Pakistan in 1948. Suicide bombing is purely a Taliban-related phenomenon in this region and in the recent past, Quetta city has been the hub of continuous suicide bombings.

For instance, on Feb 17, 2007, 13 people, including a senior judge, were killed and several others injured in a suicide bomb attack in a district court. On Dec 13, 2007, seven people were killed in another suicide bombing incident. Last year, on Sept 24, two persons, including a teenaged girl, were killed and 22 people were injured in a suicide bomb explosion. An earlier suicide bomb attack on Sept 9 took place at a religious school in the outskirts of Quetta; it left five dead and 12 students were injured. The latest suicide attack on March 2 in Pishin also took six lives.

Ironically, Islamabad eliminated Baloch leaders Nawab Bugti and Balaach Marri on the pretext that they had challenged the ‘writ of the state’. But to date, not a single bullet has been fired at Islamists who are training suicide bombers and murdering innocent civilians in the name of religion.

The discourse on moderate and extremist Taliban is ridiculous. A Talib will always remain a narrow-minded, conservative barbarian, bent upon killing until people subscribe to his bizarre and irrational interpretation of Islam. Today, the Taliban are operating in Balochistan with a better strategy. No longer are they willing to put all their eggs in one basket. The proponents of the Taliban, often described as ‘moderate religious forces’, are fast penetrating the secular Baloch province by getting elected to the provincial legislature with overwhelming financial assistance from intelligence agencies, according to some reports.

In the 2002 general elections, the pro-Taliban JUI-F secured16 seats in the Balochistan Assembly. In the incumbent Balochistan Assembly, the JUI-F has 10 seats — a political front for the clandestine backing provided to the Taliban.

Secondly, the Lashkar-i-Jhangvi, another brainchild of the establishment, is out to crush democratic and secular forces in the conflict-ridden province. On Jan 26, the outlawed group killed the chairman of the Hazara Democratic Party (HDP) Hussain Ali Yousafi. Such attacks are likely to transform Quetta into an intolerant place where one would eventually have to be a practisng Sunni Muslim to clinch a ‘residential permit’ from the ‘custodians of Islam’.

The Talibanisation of Balochistan, a province which shares borders with Iran and Afghanistan, is going to be catastrophic. The policymakers in Islamabad should recognise that if the secular Baloch province falls into the hands of fanatics, it will not only jeopardise the integrity of the federation, but also cause unrest in the entire region.

Al Qaeda would surely use this area as a hub for further terrorist attacks on Nato and American forces and pro-US Gulf countries. Undoubtedly, when carrying out political transactions in Balochistan, both Islamabad and the international community must give preference to the democratic and secular Baloch over obscurantist Taliban forces.

The writer is a journalist based in Quetta.

 

[RabzonKhan]

Four dead in Pakistan minister assassination bid: police

17 hours ago

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (AFP) — Four people were killed in a failed attempt to assassinate a provincial minister in Pakistan's northwestern city of Peshawar on Wednesday, police said.

Bashir Bilour, senior minister of North West Frontier Province -- which is racked by militant violence -- was unhurt, a police officer said.

The minister was visiting a congested neighbourhood in the city to inaugurate a development project when a young male jumped out and threw a hand grenade, killing one person and wounding two others.

Bilour told AFP that the attacker, who was young with a short beard, tried to blow himself up but his suicide jacket failed to explode.

After throwing the grenade, he fled into a narrow lane.

The attacker took refuge in a house, where he detonated his explosives, said the police officer, Ijaz Khan.

The roof of the house collapsed, killing two women and wounding three other people, including a child. A 24-year-old man later died of his injuries, according to police and hospital officials.

A policeman was also injured in an exchange of fire, Khan said.

Bilour, a senior member of the secular Awami National Party, also survived an assassination attempt last November.

He blamed the latest incident on Taliban militants, saying: "Those who want to see anarchy in the country are behind this attack."

Peshawar is the gateway to Pakistan's lawless tribal districts that border Afghanistan.

The region has been a stronghold of Taliban and Al-Qaeda-linked militants since the 2001 US-led invasion toppled the Taliban regime in Afghanistan.

 

[SurvivoR]

Seven including two terrorists killed in suicide attack in Peshawar -Minister survives
Thu, 2009-03-12 05:31
By Farzana Shah- Asian Tribune correspondent in Pakistan

Peshawar, 12 March, (Asiantribune.com): The much cherished dream of Rani (20) to have a memorable honeymoon was shattered forever with her death along with her mother and a brother when two suicide bombers blew themselves up in the house of her father.

The newly wedded girl is among the seven people killed in a suicide attack minutes after the senior minister in NWFP government from ruling Awami National Party survived a life attempt on him by the terrorists in Mohallah Bajori Kalan Namak Mandi area Peshawar on Wednesday.

Bilour was on a visit to his constituency in Mohallah Bajori Kalan near Sarki Gate -- one of the sixteen historic gates of the city and also near the Namak Mandi the famous beef market of the city offering special meat, when he came under fire by a youth emerged from the crowd.

The youth tried to approach the minister but his guards sensing the danger opened fire on him who along with his accomplice ran towards a nearby house and took shelter there.

The minister told the media that the youth was wearing a suicide jacket that failed to detonate.

"The youth shouted 'Allah-o-Akbar' and tried to blow up the jacket but it did not explode. I saw a grenade in his hands. Then my guards opened fire and he ran away," Bilour said.

Chief City Police Officer Peshawar Sifwat Ghayur said two alleged terrorist blew themselves up inside a house when the police rounded them inside a narrow lane when they escaped after firing at the minister.

The CCPOs says militants first tried to attack senior minister Bilour near Namak Mandi road where he was reviewing development work.

"Two unknown armed men wearing suicide jackets lobbed hand grenade at the minister and opened fire when he was reviewing development work in that area. The hand grenade killed a passerby and wounded a child," Sifwat Ghayur said adding when the police party retaliated the firing the terrorists escaped to Mohallah Bajori Kalan.

The militants barged into a house belonging to one Aurangzeb where they exploded themselves also killing three inmates inside the house after exchange of fire with police.

Seven people including two women Rani, her mother and brother Akif, Police constable Himaya Luqman, and the two militants were killed in the suicide attack while a vendor Tehmas died earlier in the gunfire.

Rani (20) got married just a week back and came to see her parents when the terrorist took shelter in her father, Aurangzeb’s house and afterwards blew themselves up killing her along with her mother and brother.

The minister Bashir Bilour speaking to media termed the attack handiwork of people who were trying to destabilize the country.

Bilour had survived another attempt on his life November last year when a suicide bomber targeted a sports complex in Peshawar where he was present. Three persons were killed and nine others were injured in that attack.

The suicide bomber blew himself near the gate of the complex after he was prevented from entering the building by security forces.

The secular political Pashtun nationalist party ANP had been a prime target of militants recently killing several leaders of the party in Peshawar and restive Swat Valley.

- Asian Tribune -

Seven including two terrorists killed in suicide attack in Peshawar -Minister survives | Asian Tribune

 

[RabzonKhan]

EDITORIAL: Al Qaeda and the Long March

March 13, 2009

Two news stories from the north and south of the country on Wednesday would be greatly upsetting to anyone who doesn’t want a “third force” to benefit from the internecine politics of Pakistan. The NWFP’s senior minister Mr Bashir Bilour was nearly killed by suicide-bombers near Peshawar in a second attempt on his life by the terrorists. From Karachi, the administration has let it be known that the intelligence agencies are clearly anticipating Al Qaeda attacks during the Long March.

If the expectation was that the ANP’s efforts at making peace with the Taliban in Swat would decrease attempts on the lives of its leaders — party chief Asfandyar Wali included — it was a mistake. However, the ANP could not be criticised too much for reaching out to the terrorists of Swat through the sharia of Sufi Muhammad after realising that the army was either ineffective or was uninterested in dealing with terrorism in the province seriously. Earlier, peace deals had been made in the tribal areas without much strategic planning, allowing the warlords there to consolidate their positions.

Mr Bilour’s party is in power through the popular vote. The people of the NWFP decided against Al Qaeda and the clerics when they voted in 2008. But the dice is loaded against it in the rest of the country. There is news that the old strategy of giving safe havens to the Afghan Taliban in Quetta is still in place and it is being noticed by the foreign powers engaged in fighting terrorism at the global level. The ANP tried to defuse the situation in Karachi too by protecting the Pashtuns living there against charges of being a part of Karachi’s “Talibanisation”.

To no avail, it now appears. The police authorities have warned that a new tide of internal migration is changing the nature of the Pashtun communities in Karachi. A number of encounters in the city have disclosed the presence of terrorists there. And now the intelligence agencies warn that Al Qaeda may strike through the Pashtuns during the Long March. Needless to say, it would be tragic if the PMLN and the lawyers should expect to be “helped” by Al Qaeda in forcing the PPP government to back off and make concessions.