Pakistan's 'secret' war in Baluchistan

[ajpirzada]

its only 3 tribes from the total of 58 who want freedom. anyways we cant just say they r wrong. we need to give them their rights. i dont know y is our gov so reluctant in granting provincial autonomy. that will solve so many of our problems.
if u go to youtube and search for balochistan movement u will only find few names who have uploaded many videos. actually one of the guy with the name of azadi..... has uploaded half of the total content. most of the remaining content has been uploaded by our indian neighbours

 

[Omar1984]

its only 3 tribes from the total of 58 who want freedom. anyways we cant just say they r wrong. we need to give them their rights. i dont know y is our gov so reluctant in granting provincial autonomy. that will solve so many of our problems.
if u go to youtube and search for balochistan movement u will only find few names who have uploaded many videos. actually one of the guy with the name of azadi..... has uploaded half of the total content. most of the remaining content has been uploaded by our indian neighbours

Yep Indians are adding a lot of their masala into this.

 

[Shoaib_Sham]

We have had friendly ties and a peaceful border with Iran but things are different in Afghanistan. They've allowed Indian terrorist cells to operate from these socalled consulates, hence the problems in Balochistan.

Just wait a little longer, once PA gets green light from Islamabad to enter Afghanistan or to launch pre emptive strikes guess where the first few Baburs will land?

Will we ever go for these preemptives strikes.. I really dont think so.
Infact i can not even see that our government will even mention that they are unhappy with things happening in Afghanistan as regards to Baluchistan let alone the strikes.

 

[ajpirzada]

well guess wats in news today.
balochis protested against india today. they burned effigy of indian PM along with indian flag amid increased tensions bw the two countries.

AFP: Pakistani protesters burn Indian flag, PM's effigy

 

[Imran Khan]

balochi people are good pakistanis problim is only few sardars if you never give them money they start dirty job.

 

[ajpirzada]

main problem is BLA which as been backed by RAW and CIA.

 

[Neo]

Protesters burn Indian flag, Manmohan effigy in Chaman​

CHAMAN: Hundreds of protesters in Balochistan on Friday burnt an Indian flag and an effigy of Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, underscoring mounting tensions following the Mumbai terror attacks. Tribal elders, politicians and residents attended the anti-India rally in Chaman.

"India wants to steal our water in Kashmir, and that is why it is piling pressure on Pakistan following the attacks in Mumbai," local politician Naseer Ahmed Bacha Khan told protesters. Pakistan has claimed India is building dams in the Himalayan region in violation of a 1960s water sharing accord brokered by the World Bank.

Khan said the Pakistani people had been angered by India's alleged recent violations of Pakistani airspace, which prompted Islamabad to summon India's deputy ambassador on Thursday to lodge a formal complaint. India said Tuesday that the peace process with Pakistan was on hold, but reiterated it was not preparing for war. afp

 

[Omar1984]

QUETTA, Dec 21: The Gwadar port became fully functional on Sunday after a ship carrying fertiliser from Qatar anchored at the port.

Federal Minister for Ports and Shipping Nabil Ahmed Gabol and Balochistan Chief Minister Nawab Mohammad Aslam Raisani attended the ceremony held at the port to mark its opening.

Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani had been invited to the ceremony but he could not attend because of other engagements.

Another ship from Qatar, also carrying fertiliser, will anchor at the port on Monday. Over the next four months over 21 more ships are expected to anchor at the country’s third port after Karachi and Port Qasim.

Mr Nabil Gabol said at the ceremony that Gwadar would generate massive economic activities in the region.

He said the port would play an important role for development of the country and create thousands of jobs for local people and change the socio-economic conditions of the area.

Chief Minister Nawab Aslam Raisani said that Gwadar port was the asset of the Baloch people and “we would never let the Baloch majority converted into a minority in Gwadar”.

He said the agreement signed with a Singapore company for operating the port would be reviewed and amended if necessary.

“The agreement must be to the benefit of Balochistan and its people.”

He said that all federating units must get their rights in the light of the Lahore Resolution of 1940.

Paying tribute to PPP chairperson Benazir Bhutto, the chief minister said Ms Bhutto could keep the country united, but since she was no more there it was the responsibility of the federal government to protect the federation by giving rights to the provinces.

He directed the Gwadar Port Authority to provide jobs to unemployed locals because it was their right and they must be given priority.

He took serious notice of labourers having been brought from Karachi for offloading ship and directed the officials concerned to engage local people for the job.

He said his government had worked for making the port functional in order to provide jobs to the local people and directed the MPA from Gwadar to ensure that local people got jobs in the port city.

“If local people did not benefit from the port, the mega project would be useless for our people,” the chief minister said.

Nawab Raisani said that his government was taking initiatives to give control to local people over their resources and ensure their rights.

The chief minister thanked President Asif Ali Zardari, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani and Mr Nabil Gabbol for taking personal interests in making the port functional.

He said the port was important not only for the region but it had international significance because of its location.

GPA chairman Admiral (retd) Ehsan Saeed and representative of the Singapore company Khurram Abbas also spoke on the occasion.

Balochistan Ministers Younas Mullazai, Asim Kurd Gailu and Hammal Kalmati, Gawadar district nazim Abdul Ghafoor Kalmati and other senior officials attended the ceremony.

APP adds: The Gwadar port is expected to generate billions of rupees in revenue and create thousands of jobs.

According to a report, Gwadar will serve as an energy corridor for Central Asia, Middle East, South Asia and parts of west Asia. The port is also important for China. Pakistan will get a strategic depth southwest from its naval base in Karachi. The expected future business hub will provide the cheapest trade route to ships. It is located on the southwestern coast of Pakistan, close to the Straits of Hormuz, through which more than 13 million barrels of oil passes each day.

Gwadar port becomes fully functional -DAWN - Top Stories; December 22, 2008

Why must we be Balochis, Sindhis, Punjabis, Pathans...why cant we just be Pakistanis. Does it matter who the laborers are if they are doing a good job and helping Pakistan and all of its provinces? Why must people discriminate? They should realize this kind of discrimination is holding Pakistan back including Balochistan.

 

[khawar DSS]

I have the privelage to serve in balochistan for two years incl 9/11 period and felt extremly happy while reading TALAL BUGTI COMMENTS about defending the PAKISTAN against INDIAN agression the way any patriotic pakistani will feel.Lets hope we integrate to become a strong nation JOINTLY. long live pakistan.

 

[Lockheed F-16]

I don't like the Bughtis, what a pity that my name is Talal

 

[RabzonKhan]

JWP does not back militancy and separatism, says Talal Bugti

Lahore: The Jamhoori Watan Party does not support the movements of militancy and separatism that started in Balochistan due to the policies of former president General (r) Pervez Musharraf, JWP chief Talal Bugti said on Tuesday.

Bugti accused Musharraf of breaking Pakistan and said the former president had bombed the Balochis and targeted them with tanks and missiles. He said Musharraf should be arrested to expose the killers of Akbar Bugti and Benazir Bhutto.

He said the people of Balochistan were patriots. He said the party’s manifesto remained the same as outlined by Akbar Bugti. He said the party wanted Baloch resources to be controlled by the Baloch people. aaj kal report

 

[AgNoStiC MuSliM]

main problem is BLA which as been backed by RAW and CIA.

I am not sure the CIA is backing the BLA, though it is alleged to be backing Jundullah in Iran, and that may have led to indirect support for the BLA through Jundullah, since the goals of the two groups are similar.

Also, if the CIA is backing Junduallh in Iran, through Afghanistan, that may be why the US is reluctant to act on Pakistani complaints against Indian support for the BLA and other terrorism in Pakistan.

 

[muse]

Pakistan's present and future war



Saturday, January 03, 2009
Samson Simon Sharaf

India has carried out a revaluation of its strategic options with Pakistan, and the coming years could witness an all-out strategy of coercion by it, a strategy so effectively applied by Israel in the Middle East. India's biggest advantage in conceptual and technical military cooperation with Israel lies in the fact that its technology is largely indigenous and facilitates material transfer with no end-user problems. Pakistan is already engaged in a war of attrition and the future will be a serious test of its strategy of defiance and ability to ride out the crises as a cohesive nation state.

India's quest for security and response to perceived external threats is shaped and complicated by its past. India desires to exist as a great power with a capability of bullying its neighbours and turning them into vassal states. Pakistan has been the major impediment towards this India's quest for great-power status. Wary of the freedom struggle in Kashmir, an exaggerated threat of Islamic militants and fear of another Two Nation Theory from within, Indian strategists have been toying with the idea of using a small but lethal rapid-reaction force for a limited duration inside Pakistan. However, India cannot accomplish what it has failed to do in the past six decades, unless the breeze blows in its favour.

In the post-9/11 scenario, India sees an opportunity and is acting as a neo-realist to minimise the importance of Pakistan through high-profile coercion in line with international perceptions. In this India is even ready to forego its traditional mantra of keeping the great powers out of the region and to align with them for short-term gains. In the final analysis, India wishes to frame a politically discredited, ethnically fragmented, economically fragile and morally weak Pakistan. This can only happen if the role of the armed forces in Pakistan's policymaking is reduced, Punjab divided and the rallying call of Kashmir taken care of for good.

The Indian military structure is geared towards such a capability with active assistance from Russia and Israel, and now the USA and UK. Having allied itself closely with Israel, India will now seek a continuous harassment through heightened military coercion, control of river waters, diplomatic isolation and covert interference. Mumbai and any such incidents in future will continue to provide reason for such intimidation, all in concert with the US and western strategic objectives in the region.

Interestingly, much of the blame for having landed in the box and then pushed into a vulnerable position must also be shared by the Pakistani establishments of the past decade. Pakistan's declared nuclear capability was meant to deter all types of conflicts and pave the way for sustained economic growth, international stature, and a political solution of the Kashmir dispute, Through Kargil, Pakistan led India and the world to believe that notwithstanding a nuclear shadow, a limited military conflict in an existing conflict zone was still possible. Kargil, and later 9/11, changed international perceptions on an armed freedom struggle in Kashmir as well as Pakistan's relevance to the new form of threat: non-state actors. Seen in the backdrop of 9/11, it was the second effect that finally resulted in disownership of the freedom fighters in Kashmir by Pakistan while also resigning the Kashmir question to the impossibility of backdoor diplomacy.

The nuclear capability of Pakistan provides a very small window of opportunity to India to carry out a physical offensive action across the LoC or the international border. This action could be a raid in the form of hot pursuit through ground or helicopter-borne troops, precision air strikes with or without stand-off; remote-controlled targeting through a guided-missile attack, and in the worst case, an attempt to seize objectives close to the international border with little military but considerable political significance. India had a fully developed chemical weapons programme even before it signed the chemical weapons convention as a country not possessing chemical weapons. But it declared its arsenal soon after signing the convention and is not averse to using quickly diffusing chemical weapons. After 9/11, India has held war games and fine-tuned these concepts and implemented some in a very limited manner during the escalation on the LoC.

Hot pursuit, as the name suggests, is only possible in an already hot theatre like the LoC. These are launched through ground troops or heliborne forces. Such an option has little probability because of the bilateral ceasefire. But such an option, however remote, cannot be ruled out.

With the active assistance of Israel, some Indian aircrafts have acquired a beyond-visual-range, precision stand-off capability, something witnessed during the Kargil conflict. India may use its air force remaining inside its own territory and launch laser-guided munitions diagonally inside Pakistan. However, the selected targets should be within 20 kilometres of the LoC or the international border.

Precision strikes imply that Indian aircrafts will physically violate Pakistan's airspace and launch precision surgical strikes against selected targets from a very high altitude, or conventional bombing runs, or use heliborne troops. In such a situation, these aircrafts will be vulnerable to Pakistani air defence and the PAF.

In the cold start strategy, India positions forces with offensive capabilities in military garrisons close to the international border, equipped, trained and tasked to capture some nodal points along the international border, before the Pakistani forces can react. India may not succeed in such an operation without a massive air cover. In Indian strategic calculus, the timing and lightening speed of such operations will solicit immense international pressure on Pakistan so as to curtail Pakistan's conventional and nuclear response.

Notwithstanding such options hinging on military and diplomatic brinkmanship, India will benefit from the use of Israeli armed and surveillance drones operated by Israeli crews from inside India. Historical precedents for such cooperation already exist.

The whole body of war fighting reasoning in such limited conflicts warrants a level of rationality and comprehension of a common strategic language between the belligerents. This is technically impossible. Different actors would draw varying conclusions from an animated Graduated Escalation Ladder (GEL) always vulnerable to a Fire Break Point that could result in uncontrolled conventional and nuclear escalation. It is, therefore, most important that the decision to graduate a conflict rest solely with the political leaders of the country, wherein a common strategic parlance could be evolved with more ease.

Taking a leaf from the Israeli opaqueness in its nuclear doctrine, India over time has applied a conceptual innovation in her nuclear strategy. The Indian revision in the nuclear doctrine implies the ambiguity in the "no first use clause" through a declared no first use and pre-emptive retaliation to create a perception that it is making a coercive transaction from doctrine of limited conventional war to an opaque level of conflict in which the nuclear weapons remain in a very high state of alert. The implication is that India may flirt with the concept of a limited strategic coercion in the shadow of a very high non-degradable nuclear alert beyond Pakistan's capability to neutralise. It is also my opinion that, as of now, after having signed the Nuclear Deal with USA, India benefits from an extended US nuclear umbrella, and strategic and diplomatic support.

There are reliable reports from Afghanistan that Indian contractors are busy building billets and accommodation in Kabul and Bagram to station two Indian divisions in the area. At the same time, bids have been invited by the US Corps of Engineers to construct a divisional size cantonment in Kandahar. Hypothetically, troops in the garb of protection for Indian investments will actually seal off Afghanistan's Pakhtun regions from the North. Then the US, NATO and Indian troops will go for an all-out counter insurgency operation in the cordoned off Pakhtun areas. The effects of spill-over into Pakistan would be pronounced and the Durand Line would become a figment of imagination. Premised on the romantic notion of Pakhtun nationalism, the doors to Pakhtunkhwa would be opened. The USA would then select the shortest route to Afghanistan through the Arabian Sea and Balochistan.

Whatever the concept, scope and objective of such limited escalations, India, with its newfound allies, has decided to maintain a constant vigil and coercion of Pakistan over a prolonged period of time but well below a Fire Break Point. The obvious targets, in tandem, with its allies, will be addressed through diverse instruments like control of rivers, economics, diplomacy, international pressure, internal law and order, military intimidation and even insurgency. A trillion-dollar question is: will the USA be ready to occupy Balochistan for a secure supply corridor?

The war has already begun. The question is. When did it begin?

The writer is a retired brigadier of the Pakistani army. Email: nicco1988@hotmail.com

 

[muse]

An Editorial from the IHT -- Please read critically


Obama's Afghan challenge: Build a new alliance
Published: January 5, 2009


President-elect Barack Obama has said he intends to expand the military effort to defeat the Taliban in Afghanistan. The reality that Obama must soon confront, however, is that Afghanistan cannot be saved from the Taliban by military means alone.

Ultimately, Afghan stability will require cooperation among many parties. This need for cooperation is illuminated by current American and NATO efforts to arrange for supplies to be transported into Afghanistan from Central Asian states to the north. These include Uzbekistan, Turkmenistan, Tajikistan and Kyrgyzstan, where the U.S. military already has use of an airfield.

The reason for turning to these Central Asian neighbors is that the passage from Pakistan, through the bottleneck of the Khyber Pass, has become too dangerous. A resurgent Taliban and kindred groups have been ambushing U.S. convoys that carry supplies overland from the port of Karachi, through the Khyber Pass, to Afghanistan.

The strategic lesson is two-fold. Most obvious is the need for Pakistan's government and army to get their house in order. For too long, Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency sponsored the Taliban as a cut-rate means of shielding Afghanistan from Indian, Russian or Iranian dominance. Lately, though, the Taliban and its Pakistani allies have become a threat to Pakistan itself.

A less obvious lesson to be drawn from the search for new supply routes is that, for too long, Afghanistan has served as a proxy battlefield for both near and distant powers. During the era of Taliban rule from 1996 to 2001, Russia, India and Iran supported the anti-Taliban forces of the Northern Alliance, a combination of ethnically Tajik and Uzbek Afghans who resisted the Taliban in the north of the country until - with the aid of U.S. air power and CIA operatives - the Alliance was able to take Kabul in late 2001.

There is little chance for peace in Afghanistan until a crucial majority of its neighbors act on a common interest in Afghan stability.

One intriguing sign that such cooperation is possible comes from Russia. Despite the tension in U.S.-Russian relations since the war in Georgia last August, Russian officials are saying openly that they share with NATO a strategic interest in helping protect Afghanistan from the Taliban. Toward that end, Russian and NATO representatives have been discussing the transport of NATO supplies to Afghanistan through Russia's airspace.

Obama's Afghan challenge will be more diplomatic than military. To save Afghanistan, he will need to mold a strategic partnership that includes parties as disparate as Pakistan, India, Iran, Russia and the Central Asian states. This will not be an easy task. But the alternative is endless war in Afghanistan.

 

[Omar1984]

Balochistan govt cancels land agreement with PAF

QUETTA: The Balochistan cabinet on Saturday cancelled an agreement to allot 63,000 acres of land in Hingol to the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) and decided to construct a dam there.

The provincial cabinet, which met here with Chief Minister Nawab Muhammad Aslam Khan Raisani in the chair, said the construction of the dam would help irrigate 100,000 acres of land. To construct the dam, the cabinet decided to abandon the agreement made with the PAF by the previous government. The meeting also resolved to approach the federal government to seek funds for construction of the dam.

The cabinet also accorded approval to restore the old divisional commissionerate system in the province. It also recommended restoration of the district magistrate system in view of problems and difficulties being faced by the people. However, the matter was deferred till the approval of the federal government since the matter comes into the authoritative jurisdiction of the Centre. The chief minister said that he would talk to the federal government in this regard soon.

It was decided to constitute a committee for amending the Act of the Protection of Rights of New Plants and Agricultural Seeds. The committee, which would work under the supervision of the provincial minister for agriculture, would present its report in the next cabinet meeting. While expressing reservations over the establishment of civil courts, the cabinet approved the restoration of Qazi courts in Gwadar, Khuzdar, Panjgur, Naseerabad, Sibi and Turbat. Raisani said the Sharia law was supreme.

The meeting also decided to carry out an audit of the district governments and local councils in the province.

In another crucial decision, the cabinet withdrew the ban imposed on recruitments and transfers of officers of Grade-17 with immediate effect.

Meanwhile, Speaker Balochistan Assembly Muhammad Aslam Bhootani welcomed the decision of the provincial cabinet on the cancellation of the agreement with the PAF and hoped that the step would help introduce a green revolution in Lasbela, his constituency.

While talking to The News, Bhootani said that the decision was taken as per the aspirations of the people, who had been demanding the construction of a dam at Hingol since long. ìThis step will usher a new era of development and prosperity in the province,î he hoped.