Four explosions in Quetta

[Irfan Baloch]

This bombing shows the incompetence of the center and the failure in protecting the Hazaras in Quetta. Target killing has been a constant menace in this city and now there are huge bombings. The LEJ chief Malik Ishaq's release seems to have resulted in this new tactic. Otherwise LEJ militants were reliant on targeted attacks. LEJ is often acting as a veritable arm of the TTP. It is more than clear.

Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, which is a banned organisation, said it had carried out the attack.

The BBC's M Ilyas Khan in Islamabad says the group has in the past targeted the area's ethnic Hazara Shia.

this group has zero convictions against it. so its very proudly announces its handywork and enjoys a considerable support among the population as well.

the sad part is that our politically correct commentators report it as a Shia-Sunni conflict. go back as many decades you want
and check that victims are only shias and killers are only Luskher Jhangvi, tehrik Taliban and Sipah Sahabah.

rest assured no one will be charged or punished. some of the perpetrators are multiple killers and enjoy celebrity status they openly announce the attacks on shias in their speeches. a family member of mine has been a supporter of these organisations and coldly says that the only solution is the complete eradication of shias from Pakistan or throwing them in Iran.

 

[notsuperstitious]

Point noted !

But Muslim Brotherhood lies at the essence of Pakistan which makes a Baluch & a Pashtun call each other One Nation despite having a culture, language, traditions, values & history, at times, not only different but frictional with respect to each other !

Yes its far from being all rosy even withing Pakistan but its that ideal that binds us together & an ideal that the Muslim world will realize in generations to come till we've finally, in real terms, shrugged off the last vestiges of colonialism (present or past) & lived up to the term that is 'Sovereign States' !
@Ajaxpaul : Think of it in principally the same, though dynamically different, vein than the dharmic past that binds India together.

There are 200+ countries in the world, they do not need an artificial theory to stay intact. Its self interest that keeps countries together or breaks them. Pakistan separated for self interest, bangladesh separated for self interest. The trick is to manage everyone's interests, instead using religion or any other ideology to culturally or otherwise intimidate people into staying together is always going to run into trouble and seen as an attempt to suppress diversity.

This is the job of politicians, by building political infrastructure. Instead army and mullah getting involved has messed things up. Besides, religion is an extremely complicated matter to manage, but food, education, health, hygiene, prosperity are fairly uniform in understanding.

 

[Edevelop]

Don't you think PTI is better option for establishment to support.

There are many sources that state that Imran Khan had met with Pasha. I certainly believe this might turn out to be true. It would be too long to discuss in details but what is clear is that his popularity rose significantly and when Pasha left, PTI's graph went down hard. I'm totally confused and i don't want to make my opinion out of this but i have seen and met different types of people in Punjab including the ones who have gone unemployed from their industries due to load shedding. They tell me that the present Punjab government under Shahbaz Sharif is the best option and their root causes are linked to the federal government. In a nutshell, what i have discovered is the fact that PML-N in general are the favorites. Probably Nawaz Sharif is the weak link, but in general the work they have done or the effort as a party have touched people.

 

[Armstrong]

Butt tell me you are not a supporter of Tahirul Qadri ? I was in Lahore when the Jalsa happened. I'm sure you saw how much money was spent on posters and 'renting the crowd'. If you are not a supporter of him, would you agree with me that he is somehow supported by the same establishment that had meddled previously? It gets even more obvious when he comes in randomly in support for caretaker government. Don't you think ?

I'm not a supporter of Tahirul Qadri !

I might have a soft spot for PML N because they are 'petty thieves' where as PPP is infested by 'seasoned robbers' but its PTI for me !

Nah I don't think the Army did that because it would serve no interest to them ! The Army, as I understand it, knows that there is a consensus in Pakistan that 'democracy' is the only way forward & there is no getting around this fact; no matter how inept, corrupt & stupid politicians may be the evolutionary process must be gone through. The Army, I would imagine, agrees with this too & doesn't want to continue on to be the scapegoat of every ill that has ever befallen the country as these politicians have a habit of doing so. Besides the Army is more preoccupied with the Afghan Theater, Balochistan & India's posturing to even give governance a chance again not even indirectly. In fact one of their grievances, as I understood it to be, was that when Army Operations were made in areas as far flung as Bajaur or Dera Bugti.....where the heck was the civilian apparatus to move in & take it up from there; why is the Army & the FC required to do the fighting & then the rebuilding & development work in those areas when it is not in their purview !

To that end I think the Army would be interested in a Government that comes in & tries to tackle these issues but still gives a significant degree of autonomy to the Armed Forces to formulate Pakistan's foreign policy with respect to Afghanistan, India & the United States for now ! This by the way is exactly how it happens the world over even if our army's role is both more pronounced & more talked about.

I would imagine that the Army knows that a derailment of the Democratic Process would be both :

(a) publicly unacceptable

(b) they'd be stuck with the same corrupt to the core idiots who are more a nuisance then something that can be brushed aside with nonchalance.

Besides everyone knows that, even though Pakistanis would listen to religious clerics & the sort, they'd never vote them in to even form an opposition with a dignified number of seats; religion in the political sphere just doesn't sell especially from the mouth of a cleric ! They're all hypocrites of the highest order & we know that.

That brings in question how was he able to come up with the finances to plaster half the country with his posters ?

Well because of the lack of evidence one really can't say anything but its not the 'establishment' but 'foreign funding' has been hypothesized that there are some quarters that would want the status quo to remain till 2014 so that new faces are not needed to be dealt with & the problems & complexities that that poses not needed to tackled with !

How of this is truthful, how much is pure conjecture, is all up for grabs !

 

[Armstrong]

There are 200+ countries in the world, they do not need an artificial theory to stay intact. Its self interest that keeps countries together or breaks them. Pakistan separated for self interest, bangladesh separated for self interest. The trick is to manage everyone's interests, instead using religion or any other ideology to culturally or otherwise intimidate people into staying together is always going to run into trouble and seen as an attempt to suppress diversity.

This is the job of politicians, by building political infrastructure. Instead army and mullah getting involved has messed things up. Besides, religion is an extremely complicated matter to manage, but food, education, health, hygiene, prosperity are fairly uniform in understanding.

I hear you that it is indeed 'governance' & 'justice' that keeps countries together but it is a sense of a 'collective consciousness' that builds a Nation; a nation may or may not have a country & many countries are a trans-national in the sense that different nations inhabit that. This is where 'religion', 'culture', 'language', 'ethnicity' etc. all have a part to play whereby one aspect of a community is elevated to such a position that they are willing to leave aside their differences & see themselves in a new light; this is exactly what happened to India & its exact absence is what caused individual Invaders long before the Muslims & the British to continue attacking India with near impunity !

And so it is not about 'artificial identities' for what is 'artificial' or 'genuine' to begin with ? Two term so relative that they are bound to produce many opinions; India too is galvanized into one Nation not because of self-interest but because of its 'dharmic past' & the 'collective consciousness' that it breeds is what gives rise to a sense of 'self-interest' of the community as a whole instead of individual ethnicities, racial or linguistic groups.

For us Islam serves that purposes & it goes much beyond 'hygiene' & 'praying 5 times a day' or other such rituals.

Lastly every individual & every society is divided along multiple identities that may not be mutually exclusive & that is what adds to its vibrancy ! Pakistan is no different & truly contrary to the opinion that is often masqueraded as such we have our own cultures, our traditions, our languages & our history that exists not only side by side but also nurtures our religious identity & its a amalgamation of all of that that shapes our collective consciousness at the community level, the city level, the province level & then later at the National level & they are not always or even frequently the same !

Its all part of the evolutionary process that each society must go through !

 

[haviZsultan]

this group has zero convictions against it. so its very proudly announces its handywork and enjoys a considerable support among the population as well.

the sad part is that our politically correct commentators report it as a Shia-Sunni conflict. go back as many decades you want
and check that victims are only shias and killers are only Luskher Jhangvi, tehrik Taliban and Sipah Sahabah.

rest assured no one will be charged or punished. some of the perpetrators are multiple killers and enjoy celebrity status they openly announce the attacks on shias in their speeches. a family member of mine has been a supporter of these organisations and coldly says that the only solution is the complete eradication of shias from Pakistan or throwing them in Iran.

It is seriously not understandable what our government is trying to do by letting this cancer survive. Me too, I am a sunni but having researched the history of target killings and bomb attacks I know that almost all are done by LEJ/SSP or ASWJ (new name) members. The only attacks (which are few in number) claimed by Sipah e muhammed or other groups are basically those on ASWJ or SSP militants though they have still to demonstrate an ability to strike at LEJ which is basically the worst. They have never struck at civilian populations the way these guys have.

People say I am sympathetic to them (to Shias) but anyone would strike at SSP leaders and these terrorists when 100 people of their community are killed in single day just because they are Shia. There is no logic in what the government/army is doing.

Usually we think its on the international front we are failing... where we are really failing is in the protection of Pakistanis. For example we captured Ramzi Yousuf, Abdul Salam Zaeef, Mullah Fazal Muhammed, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed (who was one of the main culprits of 9/11) and even recently in 2010 Mullah Ghani Baradar. Now none of these militants were a real concern for Pakistan like the LEJ and TTP should be. They were a concern for USA. We got them. Most Pakistanis don't know that neither does the world... but if you ask me we have been much more successful in doing their bidding than we have been at protecting Pakistani citizens. The failure to kill or capture one Bin Laden is not going to change these. There are 100's and if my contact on the inside is right 1000+ militants (or perhaps "suspects") handed over the US.

What can be done when a country fails to understand its duty to its people and its citizens? Death is not something to take lightly. In India 2 of their soldiers were killed and they were screaming their heads off. Here 100+ dead and 300 wounded and we are so desensitized to violence that we don't care.

 

[karan.1970]

QUETTA: A blast was heard in Quetta on Friday, a day after a series of explosions claimed 102 lives in the restive capital of Balochistan province, DawnNews reported.

The powerful blast, which was reported to have taken place near the office of the Quetta Development Authority (QDA) in the city’s Sariab Road area, was said to have been heard from kilometres away.

This is a developing story and will be updated as further reports are received.

 

[notsuperstitious]

I hear you that it is indeed 'governance' & 'justice' that keeps countries together but it is a sense of a 'collective consciousness' that builds a Nation; a nation may or may not have a country & many countries are a trans-national in the sense that different nations inhabit that. This is where 'religion', 'culture', 'language', 'ethnicity' etc. all have a part to play whereby one aspect of a community is elevated to such a position that they are willing to leave aside their differences & see themselves in a new light; this is exactly what happened to India & its exact absence is what caused individual Invaders long before the Muslims & the British to continue attacking India with near impunity !

And so it is not about 'artificial identities' for what is 'artificial' or 'genuine' to begin with ? Two term so relative that they are bound to produce many opinions; India too is galvanized into one Nation not because of self-interest but because of its 'dharmic past' & the 'collective consciousness' that it breeds is what gives rise to a sense of 'self-interest' of the community as a whole instead of individual ethnicities, racial or linguistic groups.

For us Islam serves that purposes & it goes much beyond 'hygiene' & 'praying 5 times a day' or other such rituals.

Lastly every individual & every society is divided along multiple identities that may not be mutually exclusive & that is what adds to its vibrancy ! Pakistan is no different & truly contrary to the opinion that is often masqueraded as such we have our own cultures, our traditions, our languages & our history that exists not only side by side but also nurtures our religious identity & its a amalgamation of all of that that shapes our collective consciousness at the community level, the city level, the province level & then later at the National level & they are not always or even frequently the same !

Its all part of the evolutionary process that each society must go through !

You are complicating matters because you also come from an ideological stand.

Indians are Indians when it comes to pakistanis chinese and others, otherwise when it comes to a punjabi, I'm a marathi, When it comes to a delhiite i'm a mumbaikar, when it comes to a deshastha, i'm a konkani and so on and so forth and when it comes to an indian muslim, sikh, christian, jain, or buddhist, I'm an indian hindu.

India does not use our dharmic past for nation building, we have officially - under government sponsored PR used ''unity in diversity'' to promote our national identity and have used taj mahal as our recall symbol. But just having that identity is not sufficient, its the other stuff that keeps the shyte under control. Don't get fooled, its the food, water, education and money.

When it comes to other nations pakistanis are fiercely pakistani already, when it comes to religion they are fiercely muslim already, but how is that working out in results???

@Armstrong BTW have you moved back to pakistan from Canada?

 

[karan.1970]

Looks like another blast today

http://www.defence.pk/forums/pakistans-war/228964-breaking-news-another-blast-heard-quetta.html

 

[Armstrong]

You are complicating matters because you also come from an ideological stand.

Indians are Indians when it comes to pakistanis chinese and others, otherwise when it comes to a punjabi, I'm a marathi, When it comes to a delhiite i'm a mumbaikar, when it comes to a deshastha, i'm a konkani and so on and so forth and when it comes to an indian muslim, sikh, christian, jain, or buddhist, I'm an indian hindu.

India does not use our dharmic past for nation building, we have officially - under government sponsored PR used ''unity in diversity'' to promote our national identity. But just having that identity is not sufficient, its the other stuff that keeps the shyte under control. Don't get fooled, its the food, water, education and money.

When it comes to other nations pakistanis are fiercely pakistani already, when it comes to religion they are fiercely muslim already, but how is that working out in results???

Everyone comes form an 'ideological' point-of-view including yourself 'unity in diversity' is after all an ideological stand !

But perhaps I wasn't able to elucidate better because my point appears to have been misinterpreted; it is not that Indians are not Indians or the Chinese are not Chinese but rather what that means ! For India, whatever the 'unity in diversity' business may or may not mean is in addition to a very conspicuous exaltation of the 'dharmic past' as a tool to define your identities with. The pluralism bit comes as an additional feature that is needed to account for a significant portion of the population that doesn't belong to that narrative. For the Chinese their identity comes from their past, their social dispositions & how even their Socialism & Atheism is not of the militant kind that the Soviet Union displayed but is in fact tempered from the same social & historical reference point from their past that defines them at a basic level & leaves an indelible mark in whatever they do next.

Such is also the case of Pakistan !

Furthermore no where did I say that having an 'identity' is sufficient cause to keep a Nation together for History is testament to that. I've always maintained that Pakistan's issues are not 'ideological' but 'governance' related & so unless the 'economic', 'social' & 'law & order' related indicators are improved whatever ideological change is besought would be cosmetic at best.

 

[Armstrong]

You don't make sense !
Imran Khan had supported Tahirul Qadri's Jalsa..... Since this is a public forum i do have my limits. I have links to the Army and they blame their own colleagues for playing dirty politics. I won't go into details but i'll tell you right now that there are strong piece of evidence regarding some people within the Army supporting MQM, PTI, Tahirul Qadri. Their target is PML-N to stop its popularity ! I have been observing very closely. Why do i see that all 3 of them are using Lahore for Jalsas ? Heck even MQM, a party based in Karachi is keeping up to get in Punjab.

So why ask for my opinion then if you've got inside information !

But seriously I have no contacts within the military or anything like it & yet when I look at it, purely from the outside, I can't bring myself to agree with that.

I don't think the Pakistan Military is ready or willing to influence Pakistani politics in the way it is suggested to be; they are stretched thin elsewhere & their foremost priority seems to be to let the Government, whatever Government it maybe, sort out their sh*t on a domestic level & try to tackle the economic & law & order crisis that Pakistan faces, & give them the space to work out post-2014 Afghanistan in a manner they see fit. I would imagine that the PML N & not the PTI would be a more amenable candidate for that owing to their timidity & the skeleton's in their closets.

 

[American Pakistani]

Very sad...Rest In Peace.

I hear on CNN that more than 100 innocent lives lost due to this incident. It is disturbing that 2009 kind of attacks started again. Where are the security authorities? Where are Intelligence agencies? Why they failed to prevent these kind of incidents?

 

[Jade]

 

[notsuperstitious]

Everyone comes form an 'ideological' point-of-view including yourself 'unity in diversity' is after all an ideological stand !

But perhaps I wasn't able to elucidate better because my point appears to have been misinterpreted; it is not that Indians are not Indians or the Chinese are not Chinese but rather what that means ! For India, whatever the 'unity in diversity' business may or may not mean is in addition to a very conspicuous exaltation of the 'dharmic past' as a tool to define your identities with. The pluralism bit comes as an additional feature that is needed to account for a significant portion of the population that doesn't belong to that narrative. For the Chinese their identity comes from their past, their social dispositions & how even their Socialism & Atheism is not of the militant kind that the Soviet Union displayed but is in fact tempered from the same social & historical reference point from their past that defines them at a basic level & leaves an indelible mark in whatever they do next.

Such is also the case of Pakistan !

Furthermore no where did I say that having an 'identity' is sufficient cause to keep a Nation together for History is testament to that. I've always maintained that Pakistan's issues are not 'ideological' but 'governance' related & so unless the 'economic', 'social' & 'law & order' related indicators are improved whatever ideological change is besought would be cosmetic at best.

Even if we consider unity is diversity as an ideological stand (to me its practical), even then its wish-wash.

You did not answer, have you moved back to pakistan from canada? (I know its personal so if you do not reply after i've asked a second time i'll stop asking )

 

[Armstrong]

@fateh71 : Never stepped a foot outside of Pakistan except putting a toe across Wagha when one of your boys wasn't looking touuu Canada kaisee pohanchaa diyaaa ?