Acts of Terrorism in Pakistan

[AgNoStiC MuSliM]

The cell phones were going to be tough call for the taliban anyway, since the newer ones can play videos and music, both of which the Taliban are against ...

Of course I am sure the Taliban leadership will claim the right to use them, pure of soul and incorruptible that they are ...

 

[S-2]

I just read an interesting story about some American film directors touring Iran and spending some time with leaders of their film industry-which is quite good as you're aware.

I can only hope to imagine the conversations they might have with the Ministry of Virtue officials in the course of "cultural exchanges".

 

[RabzonKhan]

Comment: Obama wants out

Zafar Hilaly
March 26, 2009

The Americans vowed not to get into an Asian war after Vietnam and did just that in Iraq and Afghanistan. They vowed that they would not quit Iraq until the job was done but are in the process of quitting Iraq with the job only half done. And now, their bluster about engaging the “good” Taliban, not the “irreconcilable” Taliban or the “incorrigible” Taliban, reflects their frustration at being unable to find some cover for an exit.

It seems that Obama wants out. He wants a second term and come 2012 a Vietnam-like situation on his hands in Afghanistan is a big no. The elaborate exercise underway for a new strategy seems an attempt to give the war one final effort and then to quit under cover of a “negotiated” settlement.

The bad news for Obama is that the Taliban and Al Qaeda intend to remain one, whole and united. For the US to draw a distinction where none exists smacks of intellectual duplicity. Besides, to engage the Taliban in negotiations at this sensitive juncture of the war would be foolhardy. In the words of a top military adviser to General Petraeus: “If the Taliban sees we are negotiating for a stay of execution or to stave off defeat, it will harden their resolve.”

Further bad news for the US is that neither the Taliban nor Al Qaeda will or can afford to quit. The Taliban because for them there can scarcely be a better proposition than one that offers victory in this world and paradise in the next; while for Al Qaeda no other country affords a better venue for their headquarters than Afghanistan and the borderlands of Pakistan.

To worst Al Qaeda and defeat the Taliban is an endeavour that requires not only an open-ended US commitment to stay in Afghanistan, which Obama is loath to countenance, but also imaginative strategies. The massing of forces to provide security for the populace; good governance that will deliver roads, schools; water and electricity are welcome steps of the new strategy, but hardly novel.

Actually, there has never been any dearth of plans, just poor implementation; and notwithstanding his reputation in Iraq it is by no means certain that Petraeus will succeed where others have failed.

And yet, paradoxically, defeating the Taliban is by no means an impossible task. Especially if, as recent polls show, the Taliban are more feared than loved (5%) in Afghanistan and as many as 60% of Afghans polled wish foreign forces to remain in Afghanistan.

Nor is it beyond Pakistan’s capabilities to take on the Taliban at home. Of course, more and better equipment, greater motivation and skilful tactics will help. But crucially, success requires a government that is capable and popular. Tragically, at the moment this is nowhere in sight.

There is a body of opinion in Pakistan that feels that Afghanistan being “the graveyard of Empires” American attempts to defeat the Taliban are futile and, therefore, an immediate US pullout should be the nation’s foremost priority.

In fact, no Empire collapsed as a result of Afghan opposition and certainly not the British Empire. The three Afghan wars that the British fought were more in the nature of large skirmishes and if the British-Indian troops came off worse in two of them it had absolutely no impact on the British hold on India. King Abdur Rahman (1880-1901) perhaps Afghanistan’s most effective monarch was a staunch British ally who solicited and obtained a British guarantee for his Kingdom’s integrity and was bestowed with India’s highest award — the Order of the Star of India — presumably for proving a staunch ally and not a grave digger of the Empire.

As for King Amanullah he spent most of his reign trying to ape the British even encouraging Afghan women to wear skirts. And when he lost his throne he opted for exile where skirts were aplenty — Europe.

The British strategy in dealing with the troublesome Afghan tribes was to thrash malcontent tribes every so often and/or toss them a bone in the form of lucre now and then. “Why fight when you can buy them over” was the preferred British modus operandi. And it worked for nearly a 100 years.

It is equally erroneous to believe the Soviet Empire collapsed because of the Soviet foray into Afghanistan. Nor did the Soviet Union collapse because 13000 Russians were killed over a period of 11 years in Afghanistan; this figure is a miniscule fraction of Soviet deaths in traffic accidents over the same period. The Soviets withdrew because the war itself was disowned by the Soviet public during the convulsive changes that the USSR underwent at precisely that period of time.

Some also believe that a US withdrawal would end our differences with the Taliban. They are living in cloud cuckoo land.

The war in Afghanistan would intensify as the Pashtun-dominated Taliban try and re-establish control over the smaller nations that comprise Afghanistan. The Tajik and Hazaras, for example, who faced genocide at the hands of the Taliban in the mid 90s, will not again go quietly into the sunset. They will fight more fiercely than they did earlier because they know what to expect from the Taliban. Their fight for survival will be supported by most of the CARs, Russia, Iran, India and the West.

At home our mullahs would support the Taliban/ Pashtun cause and, once again, talibs from Pakistani madrassas will be recruited in droves to help their ethnic brothers in Afghanistan. And if the Taliban are unsuccessful in their attempt to cow the Tajiks or there are major Tajik advances, Pashtun refugees fleeing Tajik retribution may again engulf Pakistan.

A Taliban-Al Qaeda victory in Afghanistan followed by a determined effort by the victorious alliance to seize control of Pakistan would probably ignite the civil war which, some feel, is already in the making in Pakistan. Segments of the population, openly or secretly allied with their brand of Islam, would be opposed by the many more that are not.

Even if the result is a foregone conclusion, which it is not, given the blossoming of extremist madrassas and a populace disillusioned with the failed and unworkable political system and a predatory establishment that has had Pakistan in its grip for so long, a civil war would immeasurably advance the prospects of Al Qaeda laying its hands on Pakistan’s nuclear assets. Facing such a prospect it is doubtful if the West would wait for an outcome of the war before acting to safeguard its security.

Such a dreadful prospect may appear far fetched to many but it is not to those who matter abroad, and the discerning at home. This is why a victory for the Taliban-Al Qaeda combine in Afghanistan is simply an outcome that does not bear contemplation.

The writer is a former ambassador

 

[Metallic]

Pakistan Sucide Blast Kills at least 10
26 March 2009

At least 10 people have been killed in a suicide bombing in north-western Pakistan, local officials say.

About 20 people were also reported to have been injured in the explosion at a restaurant in the town of Jandola in South Waziristan.

Officials said a group of militants opposed to Pakistan's top Taleban commander had been in the restaurant.

Violence in Pakistan has surged in recent months amid a wave of attacks blamed on Islamist militants.

Some of the injured were reported to be in a critical condition and officials said the number of dead could rise.

The BBC's Syed Shoaib Hasan in Islamabad says the bomber walked into the restaurant on Thursday morning and blew himself up, destroying the premises.

The attack targeted Turkistan Bittani, a pro-government tribal leader who is a rival of local Taleban warlord Baitullah Mehsud.

Turkistan Bittani, who has been helping the military take on Mehsud, had left the restaurant minutes before the attack.

Turkistan Bittani leads one of the "peace committees", or pro-government armed militias, that oppose the Taleban.

The South Waziristan region is dominated by Mehsud.

Our correspondent says Mehsud is one of the most wanted Taleban militants operating on the Pakistan-Afghanistan border.

He is suspected of masterminding dozens of suicide attacks across Pakistan as well as attacks on Nato forces in Afghanistan.

The latest attack comes a day after a suspected US missile strike in South Waziristan killed seven Arab militants.

It also follows an announcement on Wednesday by the US state department of a $5m bounty for information leading to the capture of Mehsud.

Mehsud has also been accused of plotting the 2007 assassination of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto.

Since 9/11 Mehsud has grown in strength and stature and is said to command about 20,000 pro-Taleban militants. A majority belong to the Mehsud tribe.

Source: BBC

The blast destroyed the restaurant in the town of Jandola

 

[RabzonKhan]

Editorial: Jamrud attack: read the message!

March 29, 2009

A mosque housing nearly 300 people who were saying their Friday prayers was attacked by a suicide-bomber, killing 70 and crippling 125. The reaction of the political agent of Khyber was that “the attackers could not be Muslims because Muslims would never attack a mosque and that a Muslim would never spill the blood of a Muslim, especially when he was saying his namaz”. This statement flies against the worldwide evidence of Muslims at sectarian and national war with and against each other in many different places and at different times in history. Most regrettably, the conclusion thereafter drawn by some TV anchors was that a “foreign” non-Muslim power had staged the attack to destabilise Pakistan. Of course, one can only read “India” into this allegation, which is not very original.

The political agent said something else of interest without making the necessary connections himself, possibly for reasons of simplicity of mind or just fear. He said the attack came because the mosque was next to the checkpost of Baghiari and that among the people killed were many “khasadars”, or local levies, standing guard at the checkpost, a number of whom had been killed in the attack while praying. Later, a government official, who was less opaque about what had happened, clearly accused the Taliban of having done the job in retaliation against a recent operation by the khasadars and other security personnel targeting a militant group in Khyber that owed allegiance to Baitullah Mehsud, the self-proclaimed leader of the Tehreek-e Taliban Pakistan.

When Pakistanis say that “Muslims can’t do this or that” in or out of Pakistan, they are being hypocritical. There are all sorts of Muslims, moderates and extremists, Sufis and Wahabis, and so on. The fact also is that some sorts of Muslims have been killing other sorts of Muslims from Algeria to Iraq to Afghanistan and Pakistan for the past two decades. They dynamite sacred mausoleums, they blow up mosques and routinely kill other Muslims in the act of praying. What is happening in Pakistan today is serious violence against the state of Pakistan by local warlords who are affiliated with the Taliban who in turn are linked up with Al Qaeda. We may have weak resolve to take on the enemy but there is no validity in the assertion that we don’t know who is killing us.

 

[RabzonKhan]

TIMELINE - Attacks destabilise strife-torn Pakistan

Mar 30, 2009

(Reuters) - Militants holed up in a police training centre in the Pakistani city of Lahore on Monday after storming the complex and killing cadets, with estimates of the dead ranging up to 20.

Militant violence has surged in nuclear-armed Pakistan since mid-2007, with numerous attacks on security forces and government and Western targets. Following is a timeline of major attacks in Pakistan since late 2007:

Oct. 19, 2007 - At least 139 people are killed in a suicide bomb attack on former prime minister Benazir Bhutto's motorcade as she is driven through the financial capital of Karachi at the end of eight years of exile. She was unhurt.

Dec. 21 - A suicide bomber kills at least 41 people in a mosque in Charsadda district, in the North West Frontier Province (NWFP), during the Muslim Eid festival prayers.

Dec. 27 - Bhutto is killed in a gun and bomb attack after a rally in northern garrison town of Rawalpindi. At least 16 others are killed.

Feb. 29, 2008 - A suicide attack on a police funeral kills 40 people in the turbulent northwestern district of Swat, 160 km (100 miles) from Pakistan's capital, Islamabad.

March 2 - At least 40 people are killed as suicide bomber attacks gathering of tribal elders in Darra Adam Khel, a northwestern tribal region.

March 11 - Two suicide car bombers kill 24, most of them in an attack on a government security office in the country's second largest city, Lahore, near the Pakistan-India border.

March 15 - A bomb attack at an Italian restaurant in Islamabad, a favourite hangout for foreigners, kills a Turkish woman and wounds several others, including four FBI agents.
Aug. 19 - Suspected suicide bomber kills 23 in compound of hospital in Dera Ismail Khan in the NWFP, southwest of Islamabad, as Shi'ite Muslims protest a leader's killing.

Aug. 21 - Two suicide bombers blow themselves up outside the main defence industry complex in Wah, 30 km (18 miles) northwest of Islamabad. Nearly 50 people are killed and about 70 wounded.

Sept. 20 - Suicide truck bomb attack blamed on Islamist militants kills 55 people, destroys Marriott hotel in Islamabad.

Dec. 5 - A car bomb kills at least 20 people and wounds scores in Peshawar, capital of NWFP.

Dec. 28 - At least 30 people are killed in a suicide car bomb blast at a polling station near Buner, in the NWFP, during a by-election for a provincial assembly.

Feb. 5, 2009 - At least 24 people are killed in a suspected suicide bombing near Shi'ite mosque in Dera Ghazi Khan, central Pakistan.

Feb. 20 - Suicide bomber kills 27 people and wounds 65 in an attack on a funeral procession for a Shi'ite Muslim killed a day earlier in Dera Ismail Khan.

March 3 - Gunmen attack a bus carrying Sri Lanka's cricket team outside a Lahore stadium, killing seven people, including six policemen, and wounding six of the cricketers and a British coach.

March 7 - Eight Pakistani police and soldiers are killed in a booby-trapped car bomb attack on a police van on the outskirts of the northwestern city of Peshawar.
March 16 - A bomb explodes near a bus stop in Rawalpindi, killing seven people.

March 27 - A suicide bomber kills 37 people when he blows himself up in a crowded Pakistani mosque near the Afghan border. Among the dead are 14 policemen and paramilitary soldiers.

March 30 - Militants armed with guns and grenades storm a police training centre in Lahore.

 

[RabzonKhan]

While our rulers are sleeping like the grizzly bears, the evil Taliban/AQ cancer is spreading rapidly in our country.


TTP bans women shopping in Batkhela

Monday, March 30, 2009
by Our correspondent

BATKHELA: The Malakand chapter of the outlawed Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) banned the movement and shopping by the womenfolk in the main bazaars of Dargai and Batkhela on Sunday.

Sources said that the shopkeepers in the markets had received threatening letters from the TTP, warning them to stop the women from visiting their shops. “Those who don’t comply with the TTP directives should be prepared to face consequences,” letters warned.

It was learnt that those women, who were going out alone without their male family members to the markets for shopping, had also been warned. However, some of the shopkeepers in Super Market, Bara Market, Sitara Market, Abaseen Market, Waqar Market, Waqas Market and other shopping markets have already notified womenfolk not to visit the shop without their male family members.

The letters also warned the CD and music shops owners to stop their business immediately, adding that they were spreading obscenity among the youth of the area.

Sources said that TTP also warned the medical superintendent headquarters hospital Batkhela to appoint male and lady medical technicians in emergency and Ultrasound wards forthwith which had been longstanding demand of the patients.

The letters also warned Family Planning centres to close up their office in the area. It may be added that a market in Thana bazaar was blown up few days back where women used to go shopping.

 

[niaz]

The reason why put a lot of blame on Zia and Hamid Gul along with Hamid Mir of Geo TV for what is wrong in Pakistan today is said a far better way by Ifran Hussein.

IMO media in Pakistan needs reining in. Terrorists are being glorified and not condemned as they should be. Only those views are presented which are acceptable to anchors and majority of the anchors are extremists sympathizers. Media has lost the differentiation between what is in the interest of the Pakistan state and what is not. Irfan Hussein, being a journalist himself has shied away from naming names.




Zia’s revenge By Irfan Husain
Saturday, 28 Mar, 2009 | 01:53 AM PST Many talking heads are allowed to get away with espousing extreme viewpoints - File photo. ON my all-too-brief visit back to Pakistan, I have been flipping local channels to catch up on events. I have found new ones to watch, although not necessarily for any length of time, given the generally low quality of the fare on offer.

The other evening, I caught a panel discussion featuring a gentleman who used to be in the foreign service, together with a couple of other talking heads. The discussion was about last November’s lethal terrorist attacks in Mumbai. When I switched on my TV, the gentleman was confidently asserting that the knowledge of downtown Mumbai the terrorists seemed to possess made it clear that they could not have been Pakistanis. From this shaky theory, he leaped to the conclusion that they must have been Indians who had been trained in their country, and then brought to Pakistan before being put on a boat that took them to Mumbai.

I had scarcely managed to digest this brilliant argument before another panellist, a senior lawyer, chipped in with his stunning contribution. According to him, the killers could not possibly have been Pakistanis because had they been, they would not have attacked Mumbai, but would have gone for Delhi’s Red Fort. 'Why would young Muslims from Pakistan be interested in Mumbai?' he demanded. 'They don’t know the language there, and surely they would not have gone there to ogle Bollywood actresses.' Both expressed their outrage that our government had accepted that the attacks had been launched from Pakistan.

In one discussion on minorities, a Pakistani Sikh guest told the audience how he had once been forbidden by a local maulvi from dangling his feet in a stream as Muslims downstream might use the water to perform their ablutions before they prayed. He also complained that he was not served tea at roadside dhabas because other customers might object to drinking from cups that had been used by a non-Muslim. An angry maulvi on the panel tried to reassure the poor Sikh that Islam enjoined its followers to treat minorities well.

On another evening, I caught a bit of a solo discourse by a gent who thundered: 'Allah’s curse be on those who criticise Pakistan! I want to tell all Pakistanis that before long, their current trials will be over, and we will soon re-conquer India!'


During such surreal discussions, many anchors fail to challenge the outlandish views being expressed by their guests, or ask them to produce evidence for their assertions. On the contrary, they are invited to explore their bizarre notions at length.

I have begun to realise the extent to which our media has become an active player in Pakistani politics and society. During the recent movement to restore the chief justice, millions of viewers across the country were mesmerised by the sight of the black-coated lawyers poised to take on the power of the state.

The problem with this kind of in-your-face TV journalism is that moving the camera into the action makes the crowds seem much bigger than they are. Also, in a competitive, pressured environment, there is little time to reflect on events and what they mean: the audience wants to know what’s happening every minute of every day. And to offer opinions, there are armies of pundits waiting to get invited to TV studios to hold forth. Most of them are retired diplomats, generals, judges and civil servants who are happy to leave the tedium of their lives for the glare of publicity. Unpaid, and with no professional reputation to protect, many can (and do) get away with the most absurd views.

In most cases, we do not really know who is behind which channel. Judging from the extreme views being pushed on many of them, the source of funding takes on a slightly sinister overtone. For years, question marks have hung over several journalists, and whispers have done the rounds tying them to our ubiquitous intelligence agencies. Given the role of these organisations in Pakistani politics over the years, I would not be surprised to learn that they are financing some of the channels that have proliferated recently.

Another problem is to do with the qualifications of the anchors and hosts of the many talk shows on offer. Selected for their looks and fluency rather than for their knowledge and education, they are ill-equipped to challenge their loud and self-confident panellists. When somebody voices an opinion as a fact, the anchors let him get away with it because they just do not know any better.

My personal theory is that their lack of a grounding in politics, economics and current affairs is a direct result of the poor education they have received. Without wishing to be lofty or patronising, I can safely point to the poisonous brainwashing an entire generation has been subjected to during the Zia era. Already reeling from Bhutto’s nationalisation of education, millions of Pakistani children then had years of religious studies rammed down their throats by Zia. This was supplemented by reactionary propaganda aired by state television and radio. In those days, there were no private channels to break this monopoly of the airwaves.

The current generation of Pakistanis reaching positions of authority and influence is the product of this brainwashing. Of course many have escaped its worst effects, but unquestionably, public discourse in Pakistan has moved to the right, and we now wear religion on our sleeves to a greater extent than ever before. Secularism is now a label few are willing to accept, even though many privately agree that it’s the only way Pakistan can rejoin the rest of the world.

When private channels first began operating in Pakistan’s stultified environment, I had hoped it would be a liberating force, opening a window to the world for millions of Pakistanis. In reality, it has worked to serve the opposite end by reinforcing existing prejudices, rather than challenging them. Owners of channels have their own concealed agendas, and poorly educated producers and hosts do little to separate opinions from facts.

irfan.husain@gmail.com

DAWN.COM | Columnists | Zias-revenge

 

[sohailbutt]

Dozens militants arrested in Khyber Agency

PESHAWAR: Security forces arrested dozens of militants from different parts of Khyber Agency and seized a cache of arms, and drugs from their possession.

Briefing the media here on Monday, Political Agent Tariq Hayat and FC Sector Command Brigadier Fayaz said that a large quantity of arms and ammunition was recovered from various parts of agency during operation.

They said that the seized arms include 82 MM Mortar, two LPG, six Kalashnikovs, two guns, three rocket launchers, two 127 AA machineguns and two Indian made barrels.

Dozens of extremists were also arrested during the operation, they said.

Dozens militants arrested in Khyber Agency - GEO.tv

 

[sergente rehan]

all this only shows that indian are fully involved in all terrorists acts against Pakistan!

 

[niaz]

I liked this article published in the News of today, because it highlights a new approach to counter terrorism in Pakistan.




Counter-terrorism through the civil service



Tuesday, March 31, 2009
Mosharraf Zaidi

The attack on the Lahore police training facility yesterday, which as of the time of this article's writing had not ended, should wake Pakistan up. There is an existential monster that Pakistanis are unable to acknowledge because of the weakness of their Muslim faith. This weakness is exacerbated by the average Pakistani Muslim's dependence on unholy mullahs whose money-ing by General Zia, radical Saudis, and the joint efforts of the CIA and the ISI is now proving to be the single gravest threat to the sustainability of Pakistan as an operational entity.

The ostrich-like reaction to terrorism is driven by the average Pakistani's inability to debate the mullah, and an unwillingness to invest the effort and time required to tame that mullah. Abandoned and let loose by the "shurafa" that once were able to tame the mullah, and to speak his language, the mullah's new master--the comfort of Land Cruisers and bottled water--has no scruples.

In the long run, Pakistan cannot be saved until Pakistan's Muslims take back the mosque. This is not a call to start performing qawwalis in mosques. The faux religiosity of hashish-smoking rock-and-rollers pretending to be holier than thou is as much of a scam as the faux religiosity of mullahs insisting that they are the gatekeepers of Paradise. You cannot win the culture wars against orthodoxy with pseudo-Sufism, any more than the Dixie Chicks can win the culture wars against Mike Huckabee and the righteous American right. You can however beat the orthodoxy with the language of faith. There is, quite simply, no basis in Sharia for any of the violence that has been spawned, financed and executed by the monsters that the world's best intelligence agencies--whatever country they may be from--helped incubate. To expect those same agencies to somehow know how to conquer a monster to which they are beholden is ridiculous.

But how are Pakistan's Muslims supposed to take back the mosque when they are scared of going to them? This is the twisted core objective of the terrorists, to completely monopolise religion, and to use that space to pursue their real agenda. And what is their real agenda?

Watching video of Sufi Mohammed make his way from Swat to Peshawar in a jeep marked with the number plate "TSNM - 1" was instructive. The spectacle was only marginally comical. It provided the strangest of insights into Pakistan. The TSNM just wants the piece of pie that it has watched young ACs, DCs, DCOs, SSPs, MNAs, MPAs, DPOs and, yes, even NGOs enjoy to the fullest. It wants the full fruits of state protocol. It wants the flashing lights at the head of the convoy. It wants that the road should clear and traffic should split, in a manner reminiscent of the Prophet Moses parting the River Nile by the grace and kind mercy of the Good Lord. The TSMN just wants the same goodies that the Brahmin bureaucrats, cops and politicians have enjoyed from the comfort of their air-conditioned offices and cars for a long, long time. So we should really call what has happened in Swat, for what it really is. It's the Brahminsation of the shudra mullah. And that explains the outrage of the wannabe-elite bureaucrats at Pakistan's deteriorating security situation. At its heart beats insecurity. The shudras are trying to take away their black Corollas, their multiple mobile phones, and their vast caches of cash, lying at the bottom of the rent-seeking pyramid.

How do these merchants of fear and slaughter earn the legitimacy to demand and win such concessions, both from the people and from the state?

Largely on the back of the illegitimacy of those that have been enjoying state privilege and protocol. It does not take a genius for a local mullah to point the finger and demonise a twenty-something assistant commissioner, who is more enamoured by his Blackberry than the problems his "subjects" face, never attends the mosque, except Fridays, and is so genuinely sure of himself that he can't look the common folk in the eye. It does not take much to delegitimise an MPA whose road scheme only benefits the village he is from, and the farmland that belongs to his father. It does not take much to delegitimise a police official who is seen to be corrupt and in cahoots with troublesome patwaris. The rot at the bottom is gently and carefully nurtured by the top of the local administrative structures in this country.

Local administration is in fact a great example of the myopia that plagues Pakistan's bureaucrats. The real battle over decentralisation, tragically, is that retired one-time DCs and commissioners are so enamoured with their lifetimes of administrative failure that they want their heirs (both genetic and cadre-based) to retain magistracy powers. It is an unmitigated disgrace that crusty old retired bureaucrats somehow burrow their way into the right ear of political leaders to pursue the narrowest of personal agendas.

The separation of magisterial powers from the administrative functions of the district coordination officer (DCO) is a cause of searing pain for the District Management Group (DMG). It is the one thing Gen Musharraf did that was truly intolerable for the DMG and their predecessor CSP cadres. The General's demolition job on the Constitution does not bother a strapping young DMG lad as much as the taking away of judicial powers that were once vested in the twenty-something boy. This self-centred ethos of the Pakistani civil service, personified by the DMG, but shared across all occupational groups, is ripping the heart out of the state's capacity to deal with the demonic attacks on this country's people, such as the one in Lahore yesterday.

This is not to suggest that the bureaucracy is in any way not capable of doing its job. Quite the contrary, in fact. Even after the 1974 Bhutto reforms and their devastating effects on the perception of the civil services as a viable career option for Pakistan's best and brightest young people, civil servants tend to be tremendously resourceful individuals. Indeed, at the individual level, it is usually hard to find really mediocre people occupying really important civil-service positions. And perhaps that's just the problem. A Darwinian process of elimination pushes the best people to the top, or it flushes the best people right out of the system. Out of the system, trained civil servants end up serving the narrow interests of whichever donor is willing to pay them the most money. Within the system, the best civil servants spend 20 hours a day serving the strange and sometimes sordid needs of political masters who don't deserve to sit at the same table as some of their officers, to say nothing of ordering them around. By the time a capable, gold-plated, honest civil servant gets to a position where he can make a real difference, fatigue, cynicism and the competition for good officers between provinces, departments, ministries and the donors conspire to render them useful only in the narrow realm of administrative efficiency.

As bad as Pakistan's bureaucracy has behaved over the years, the irony is that it is the last line of defence for this country. If the terrorists are able to demoralise, demonise and destabilise the civil service backbone of this country, there will be little but the courage of ordinary citizens standing in the way of the Taliban. While the Taliban will be devastated at discovering just how much the Pakistani people possess of that elusive thing we call courage, we should expect more of our political leaders and their leveraging of civil servants.

President Asif Ali Zardari has once again fallen for his advisers' flights of fancy, proposing an 80,000-strong national force to counter terrorism. This is a divergent tactic that must stop. Pakistan doesn't need new structures. It needs the strengthening of structures that exist. There are, after all, capable and honest officers out there, from Azam Suleman Khan, to Tariq Khosa, to Suleman Ghani, to Fazalur Rehman, to Kaleem Imam. It is unbelievable that there aren't more of the same kind of civil servants out there. There are. Politicians need to stop playing games and start finding and investing in these officers. Time is running out.



The writer is an independent political economist Mosharraf Zaidi
Counter-terrorism through the civil service

 

[Nihat]

Major attacks in Pakistan since July 2007

ISLAMABAD: Following is a timeline of major attacks in Pakistan since July 2007

July 15, 2007: Suicide attacks kill at least 47 people in northwest Pakistan, including 26 at a police recruitment centre

July 19, 2007: Three suicide attacks kill more than 50 people. The deadliest attack targets Chinese workers in southwestern Pakistan, but kills only locals

October 18, 2007: Bomb attacks targeting two-time former premier Benazir Bhutto kill at least 139 people in Karachi, just hours after she returns to Pakistan for the first time in eight years. She survives unhurt

December 21, 2007: At least 50 are killed in an attack on a mosque in the northwest of the country

December 27: A gun and suicide bomb attack kills Benazir Bhutto and nearly two dozen of her supporters as she leaves a campaign rally in Rawalpindi. The interior ministry later says another 58 people died in a wave of unrest triggered by the former premier's assassination

February 16, 2008: Suicide car bomber strikes a rally by the Pakistan People’s Party in the tribal town of Parachinar, killing 37

February 29: A suicide bomber kills 44 people in Mingora, the main town in the troubled Swat valley, during the funeral of three policemen killed by a roadside bomb earlier in the day

March 2, 2008: Suicide bomber kills 43 at a meeting of anti-Taliban tribal elders in the northwestern district of Darra Adam Khel

March 10, 2008: Suicide attackers detonate two huge truck bombs in Lahore, killing 26 people and partly demolishing the Federal Investigation Agency building in the city

July 6, 2008: Suicide bomber kills 15 people in an attack on police in Islamabad during a rally to mark the anniversary of an army raid on Lal Masjid

August 21, 2008: Twin suicide attacks kill at least 57 people outside Pakistan's main arms factory in Wah, near Islamabad

September 6, 2008: Suicide bomber kills 33 people at a security checkpoint near Peshawar

September 20, 2008: At least 60 people were killed when a suicide attacker rammed a massive truck bomb into the gates of the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad

October 10, 2008: A suicide bomber blows himself up at a meeting of anti-Taliban tribal leaders in Orakzai, killing at least 40 people

December 5, 2008: At least 27 people are killed and dozens injured when two bomb blasts struck crowded markets in northwest Pakistan

December 28, 2008: At least 41 people are killed in a bomb blast at a polling station in the town of Buner on the edge of the Swat valley

February 5, 2009: At least 35 people are killed when a suspected suicide bombing hits a crowd of Shia worshippers outside a mosque in Dera Ghazi Khan

February 20, 2009: Thirty people are killed in a suicide bombing at a funeral procession for an assassinated local Shia Muslim leader in Dera Ismail Khan

March 3, 2009: Gunmen mount a brazen, coordinated attack on Sri Lanka's touring cricket team in Lahore, killing eight people as well as wounding seven players and a coach

March 7, 2009: Eight policemen and soldiers killed in a booby-trapped car bomb attack on a police van on the outskirts Peshawar

March 16, 2009: A bomb explodes near a bus stop in Rawalpindi, killing seven people

March 27, 2009: A suicide bomber attacks a packed mosque in the northwestern town of Jamrud at prayer time, killing around 50 people and wounding dozens more

March 30, 2009: Gunmen storm a police training compound at Manawan, near Lahore, unleashing a fierce battle with security forces. agencies

Daily Times - Leading News Resource of Pakistan

 

[RabzonKhan]

Editorial: At last, Pakistan zeroes in on Baitullah Mehsud

April 01, 2009

After a successful operation at Manawan, Pakistani security forces cleared out the terrorists, capturing five terrorists alive, who will no doubt prove useful in the investigations that follow. The interior adviser, Mr Rehman Malik, has named Baitullah Mehsud, “amir” of the Tehreek-e Taliban Pakistan, (TTP) as the planner and executioner of the terrorist operation, although the speculative reference to a “foreign hand” stays on the table “to be on the safe side”. Mehsud has claimed responsibility for the Manawan attack, and threatened to carry out similar operations in the future. The fact is that Pakistan’s enemy number one is the TTP, which commands the chaos-making activities of the Taliban in the tribal areas and Swat and is now expanding its activity to Punjab and the southern region, including Karachi.

A measure of confusion has thus been removed and Pakistan will now be more determined to act in an organised manner against the spread of terrorist activity in the country. The United States too has only recently recognised that TTP is a part of the Al Qaeda and Taliban threat by putting a price on Baitullah Mehsud’s head. Earlier, it made a distinction between Afghan Taliban and Pakistani Taliban and complained that Pakistan was concentrating on the latter while winking at (or even helping in) the terrorist activity of the former in Afghanistan. What Pakistan has to do now is to complete the mental revision on some aspects of terrorism to bring cohesion to its anti-terrorist response.

Talking to the TV channels on Monday, Brigadier (Retd) Mehmood Shah, an expert on terrorism in the tribal areas, said clearly that the official Pakistani mind was still reluctant to connect the TTP and the country’s various jihadi organisations with Al Qaeda, and thus gave itself room to speculate about such matters as terrorist funding through which it usually arrived at the “guesstimate” about the “foreign hand” which usually implies India and even the United States. For good measure, at times even Israel is named by experts on TV, adding to more confusion than objective analysis. This in turn has resulted in the local authorities ignoring warnings that a terrorist attack is imminent, as happened twice in one month in Lahore, in respect of the attacks on the Sri Lankan cricket team and the raid at Manawan. In the first attack, the TTP had only to plant the “information” that the terrorists were going to come from India.

A misanalysis of the source of terrorism has led to misunderstandings between Pakistan and the West which, led by the United States, is now expressing doubts about the handling of the situation by the ISI. From the US Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, down to the CENTCOM chief General Petraeus and Secretary of Defence Robert Gates, all have now expressed fears that the ISI could actually be supporting the Afghan Taliban in their terrorist attacks into Afghanistan. The trend, allegedly based on telephonic intercepts, actually began under the Bush Administration when, during President Asif Ali Zardari’s visit to Washington, the “complaint” was made to the Pakistani delegation.

Pakistan’s military strategy is based on its threat perception from India, both from the eastern as well as the western border of the country. This perception compels Pakistan to look at the ongoing developments in Afghanistan as being against its national interest. Therefore there is need on both sides to make revisions and adjustments in the anti-terrorist strategy, failing which there will be adverse consequences for the region. On the other hand, Pakistan needs to realise that a regional consensus developing among Pakistan’s neighbours is bound to isolate and harm it in the coming days if it does not revisit its strategy and make adjustments.

The foremost threat is internal and it comes directly from the Taliban-Al Qaeda combine, as proved by the incident at Manawan. The Pakistani mind should now be concentrated on the removal of this internal threat. Crucial international economic assistance to Pakistan is growing in these days of global crisis in the anticipation that a common regional approach to terrorism will be evolved that will include Pakistan. Hopefully Pakistan will steer skilfully through this process to preserve its self-interest.

 

[RabzonKhan]

Talibanisation of Pakistan

By Dr Tariq Rahman
Thursday, 02 Apr, 2009

WHEN I wrote these lines a police training school in Lahore was under attack by armed men. Mayhem had broken out, people were killed, while many had to be taken to hospital to be treated for injuries.

On the same day, there were press reports of a militant ban on women going shopping in parts of Swat and of warnings to close down CD shops. A few days earlier, a huge explosion in a Jamrud mosque killed and injured more than 200 people. There is panic in the air, even though we have become inured to gory sights.

After the peace arrangement, Swat does not really appear as part of the Pakistani state. It has passed into the hands of the Taliban. It is, to all intents and purposes, a Taliban state and this hard reality should sink into the minds of our ruling elite.

First, the Nizam-i-Adl Ordinance (not yet promulgated) is meant to operate in Swat and not the rest of the country. The way Sharia will be interpreted will depend entirely on the power of the interpreter. The interpreters will be the Taliban and their supporters. This means that a part of Pakistan has been virtually detached from the rest of the country and handed over to those responsible for terrorising this area in the past.

Secondly, as pointed out by former caretaker interior minister Lt Gen Hamid Nawaz, the creation of a legal system different from that in the rest of the country will encourage hard-line elements in Hazara Division and the Seraiki region to demand such a parallel system. If this turns out to be the case, then we are headed for balkanisation or the Talibanisation of Pakistan.

Thirdly, the qazi courts, as they are seen to be functioning at present, will not introduce the Islamic system of justice as it existed before colonialism. There were several local systems of jurisprudence in different Islamic countries much before. The system which is presently envisaged threatens to render hundreds of lawyers jobless and it is not clear how the laws will be interpreted. The fear is that the rough-and-ready justice administered by these courts will not be justice at all. The reality in Swat is that everyone is afraid of the Taliban. There is peace but at the cost of accepting the militants’ domination. This is more of a defeat than a truce — and it is the state of Pakistan which has been defeated.

The cost of this defeat is heavy. According to a letter sent by several peace groups, including the Pashtun Peace Forum, to UN chief Ban Ki-moon about 700,000 people have been internally displaced and are leading miserable lives. Moreover, if one talks to these people they express their resentment against both the Taliban and the army. They complain that the army did not save them from the militants even when it was possible to do so. The army denies this charge but the public perception is that the army either played it safe or was not capable of combating the militants.

Some people, and not just American officials, point to the army’s romance with the jihadis since the time Pakistan fought America’s proxy war against the Soviet Union. Although Gen Musharraf withdrew support for the Taliban in Afghanistan soon after 9/11, journalists like Ahmed Rashid kept pointing out that there were Taliban camps in Quetta. The argument is that old policies are either carried out by individuals in their private capacity, or, at least at some level, are not reversed.

I have no inside information about this but it is clear that there is much confusion when groups that claim to operate in the name of the sacred are attacked by our soldiers. Surely years of state radio, television, school textbooks and public speeches using the name of Islam have caused people to see the Islamic idiom as something quite normal — and, of course, the Taliban use this idiom. It is altogether a separate matter that the Taliban’s usage of it is different from how ordinary people perceive it.

Ordinary people are not at all clear about what the implementation of the Sharia would entail. They think it would bring them the justice they have always sought but never obtained. They think they will finally find the food they have always craved but never eaten. They think there will be electricity in their homes, water in their taps, schools for their children, and no bribery or humiliation in their daily lives. In short, ordinary folk desire justice, good governance and peace. They want to live without having to face the danger of being blown to smithereens by a suicide bomber.

What the militants will give them is a dictatorship of the most barbaric kind. Excesses are always committed by ideological rulers such as the Stalinists in the Soviet Union and the Iranian Revolutionary Guards in Iran. But they will be more than matched by the cruel and mindless barbarity of the Taliban. We saw this in Afghanistan when it . Slowly, they are nibbling at parts of our country. This is a situation of our own making. And we have our own unwise, narrow policies to blame. This being the caswas under their rule. We are gullible and the militants take advantage of our gullibilitye, we are the ones who should be finding a solution. A durable solution can only be found when we acknowledge our past mistakes, clean up the Augean stables inherited by the state, take our citizens on board and call the war on militancy ‘our war’ and then fight it single-mindedly, all the while helping the internally displaced.

The events which we are witnessing are reminiscent of the break-up of the Mughal empire. A number of states emerged then until the British created a centralised Indian empire. A number of states are emerging now. But the British gave us education, science, a legal system, canals, roads, railways and the postal service. What the Taliban will give us is anyone’s guess!

 

[RabzonKhan]

EDITORIAL: Logic of drone attacks

April 03, 2009

A US drone attack in Orakzai agency has killed 12 recruits of the Tehreek-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP) of Baitullah Mehsud, including one local leader. An Arab too has been killed while the family of the man providing them haven, Maulana Gul Nazir, was the only “collateral damage”. The press links the US attack to Baitullah Mehsud’s challenge that he was going to attack Washington again. The drone’s target was Hakimullah Mehsud, Baitullah’s close contact and local commander of the TTP training centre.

Since the media in Pakistan is formally against the drone attacks, efforts were made on several TV channels on Wednesday night to get the anti-drone stance of the public confirmed. But all Pashtun reporters covering Orakzai refused to give the drones a blanket stamp of disapproval. Asked why Orakzai was attacked if it was not geographically linked to Afghanistan, the answer was: it was attacked because it had become a stronghold of the TTP and foreign terrorists since the last one year and was clearly seen as a threat by the Americans as a training resource for those who attacked across the Durand Line.

This meant that since one year Orakzai has been open as a possible stronghold of the terrorists while the media has been concentrating on Swat, Bajaur and Mohmand as the region of TTP challenge where the Pakistan army is supposed to be taking action. It was discovered that the local Orakzai population had given in after the slaughter of their anti-TTP “jirga” last year did not evoke much response from the army or the state of Pakistan. Added to the TTP dominance of Kurram Agency, a whole swath of territory in the tribal areas was now ruled by Baitullah Mehsud. Orakzai, where the terrorists plied special vehicles stolen from NATO supply caravans in Khyber, was the base from where TTP commanded the NWFP city of Hangu where the Shia are made to live like a hunted minority.

When asked if the drone attack in Orakzai will provoke the local population into becoming anti-American, the Pashtun reporters told the TV channels that unless collateral damage became widespread enough to include the local population, there was no chance of an anti-American feeling. They said that the population was completely under the despotic rule of the TTP and would actually want the drone attacks to continue to lessen the severity of TTP control on them. Had Pakistan any sovereignty left to counteract the TTP, the local population would have fought against the terrorists.

This evidence weakens the argument we have heard advanced against the American drone attacks. A Peshawar-based NGO has come under pressure from the authorities and the media for discovering exactly what was revealed by the TV reporters on Wednesday night. The Aryana Institute for Regional Research and Advocacy (AIRRA) published an article recently (The News, March 5, 2009) which stated that its teams visited Wana (South Waziristan), Ladda (South Waziristan), Miranshah (North Waziristan), Razmak (North Waziristan) and Parachinar (Kurram Agency) and found that the victim population was not opposed to drone attacks.

The AIRRA teams handed out 650 structured questionnaires to people in the above areas. The 550 respondents — 100 declined to answer — were from professions related to business, education, health and transport. The following were some of questions and responses of the people of FATA. 1) Do you see drone attacks bringing about fear and terror in the common people? (Yes 45%, No 55%). 2) Do you think the drones are accurate in their strikes? (Yes 52%, No 48%). 3) Do you think anti-American feelings in the area increased due to drone attacks recently? (Yes 42%, No 58%). 4) Should the Pakistani military carry out targeted strikes at the militant organisations? (Yes 70%, No 30%). 5) Do the militant organisations get damaged due to drone attacks? (Yes 60%, No 40%).

One thing is certain: the local population is against the TTP and doesn’t mind too much if the Americans take it out in the absence of an adequate Pakistani response. The Pakistani stance that its sovereignty is being violated by the drones is weakened by the day by the very clear loss of Pakistan’s sovereign territory to the TTP and the inability of the state of Pakistan to either recapture it or come to the rescue of the local population. The “external” argument that this lost territory brings the world under real threat of terrorist attacks through the local and foreign terrorists also gains strength as Baitullah Mehsud extends his violence-based emirate to Punjab and Sindh in the coming days.