Pakistan in Media

The News International, Pakistan
Friday, June 12, 2009

WASHINGTON: American officials say they are seeing the first evidence that dozens of fighters with Al Qaeda, and a small handful of the terrorist group’s leaders, are moving to Somalia and Yemen from their principal haven in Pakistan’s tribal areas, US paper said in a report.

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Daily Times, Pakistan
Friday, June 05, 2009

DUBAI: Al Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden has called for a “long war against infidels and their agents”, and warned Muslims that alliances with Christians and Jews would turn them into apostates. “If a Muslim became an ally of the infidels and backed them against Muslims his faith would be annulled and he would become an apostate,” said Bin Laden in remarks which came in a recording – parts of which had been aired by Al Jazeera TV on Wednesday. “Do not take Jews and Christians as allies,” he said. “We either live under the light of Islam or we die with dignity ... brace yourselves for a long war against the world’s infidels and their agents,” said Bin Laden in the recording posted on a website on Thursday. He said Obama had planted “seeds of hatred” among Muslims. His deputy Ayman Al-Zawahri called the US president a criminal in another recording on Tuesday and warned Muslims against falling for his polished words. reuters.

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Daily Times, Pakistan
Thursday, June 04, 2009

DUBAI: Al Qaeda leader Osama Bin Laden said US President Barack Obama had planted the seeds of “revenge and hatred” towards the US in the Muslim world and warned Americans to prepare for the consequences. The remarks were aired on Wednesday by Al Jazeera TV. reuters

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Editorial, The News International, Pakistan
Friday, May 29, 2009

It used to be an inter-tribal activity on some of the Polynesian islands, was refined during the time of the American Wild West with wanted posters featuring notorious bandits pictured over large dollar rewards; and has its modern apogee in the 'most wanted' list recently published by the US government. Head-hunting, it would seem, has never gone out of fashion. We now have our very own list of 'most wanted' – 21 men whose names and photos were published by the NWFP government in the English and Urdu press this week. All of them are leaders or senior figures in the TTP, the outfit run by Maulana Fazlullah – who now has a 5m rupee price on his head (and has successfully evaded capture for the third time.) There is a tag of 3m each for four local commanders and the rest of this motley crew of ne'er-do-wells are then valued in descending order of worth for anybody who wants to run the risk of turning them in. Should there be anybody wanting to run the gauntlet of the Pashtun honour codes there is the comforting assurance that their identity will be kept secret – or kept secret for as long as it takes to tell assorted profiteers where they live in order that they may be relieved both of their reward and their head.

Whilst all this theatricality makes for excellent TV and newspaper coverage, there is a considerable air of unreality about the entire exercise. It is not that long ago that the US government put a price of $5m on the head of Baitullah Mehsud. Five million dollars is a lot of money, enough, one might have thought, to loosen a few tongues. Has it? No, nor should it be expected to. Simply, the cultural imperatives that overlay Pashtun culture make it well-nigh impossible that Mehsud or any other of those included in the 'wanted 21' list will be captured as a result of treachery by anybody within their own culture. The world's most wanted man – Osama bin Laden – has had a multi-million dollar price on his head for many years, and is widely believed to be a 'guest' of Pashtun hosts. Nobody, seemingly, has been tempted to turn him in either, despite the fact that his whereabouts must be known to more than a handful of people. It is always possible that 'rogue elements' might be tempted to spill the beans – though whether they would live long enough to enjoy the fruits of their duplicity is a moot point. The money set aside for 'bounty' would be better spent on developing 'humint' – human intelligence – networks and investing in state-of-the-art electronic surveillance equipment. An unwary call on a mobile phone, intercepted and acted upon promptly, is far more likely to produce results than a loudly-trumpeted set of rewards that nobody is going to rush to claim.

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Editorial, Dawn, Pakistan
Dr Tariq Rahman
Thursday, 14 May, 2009
NOW that a military operation is going on in the Malakand Division it is imperative that it should be supported by the people and that the IDPs should be looked after with all resources at hand and be treated with compassion and respect.

Unfortunately, we have many myths and conspiracy theories which prevent clear thinking and that need to be debunked.

Myth 1: America wants our nuclear weapons and is destabilising Pakistan through the Taliban.

The New York Times
Thursday, May 14, 2009

By Robert Mackey
The Web site Pakistan Daily is an Islamabad-based hub for Pakistani citizen journalism, promising Pakistani readers: “Your News. Powered by You.” It is also an excellent place to turn if you want to read in on the latest conspiracy theories making the rounds in that country. Or just get very scared.

Somewhat disturbingly, the source for the “top story” on Pakistan Daily today is Pakistan’s president, Asif Ali Zardari. As an anonymous article on the site reports accurately, in an interview with NBC News which aired on Sunday, Mr. Zardari claimed that he “knew” that Osama bin Laden was an American “operator” during the 1980s.

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While most of the conspiracy theories posted on Pakistan Daily seem easy to debunk — like allegations that “Osama bin Laden may be Jewish” or that Islamist militants in Pakistan’s Swat Valley are Indian intelligence agents — it is not hard to understand why some Pakistanis are so willing to believe that unseen forces are behind their current troubles. After all, during the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan in the 1980s, the United States did in fact work closely, and secretly, with Pakistan’s spy service, the Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence, or ISI, to destabilize that country’s government by supporting Islamic extremists like Mr. bin Laden.

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But one of the most interesting conspiracy theories posted recently on Pakistan Daily is the grand, unified theory in a signed essay by a Pakistani blogger and journalist named Ahmed Quraishi, headlined “Barack Obama Is Lying About Pakistan.” In his essay Mr. Quraishi, who has worked as a television journalist for PTV, Pakistan’s state broadcaster, outlines a supposed plot against Pakistan by the American government and media.

According to Mr. Quraishi, the entire battle against militants in Pakistan is nothing less than a huge “American psy-ops” campaign to distract from the failures of the United States in Afghanistan. Mr. Quraishi writes:

In less than two years, the United States has successfully managed to drop from news headlines its failure to pacify Afghanistan. The focus of the Anglo-American media – American and British – has been locked on Pakistan. In order to justify this shift, multiple insurgencies and endless supply of money and weapons has trickled from U.S.-occupied Afghanistan into Pakistan to sustain a number of warlords inside Pakistan whom the American media calls ‘Taliban’ but they are actually nothing but hired mercenaries with sophisticated weapons who mostly did not even exist as recently as the year 2005.

Mr. Quraishi’s reading of events hinges on the idea that a statement by President Obama, during the news conference on his 100th day in office, that he was concerned that Pakistan’s “civilian government right now is very fragile,” was a veiled call for a military coup and “essentially amounts to a declaration of war against another country.” Mr. Quraishi also claims that “academic programs are being launched in the U.S. that advocate the breakup of Pakistan and the creation of smaller entities.”

How you might ask, has Mr. Obama been able to get away with this huge psy-ops campaign against Pakistan? That’s where we come in. In Mr. Quraishi’s view, alarming reports on the progress of Taliban militants in Pakistan are all part of the plot, in which, he says, “the U.S. media and officials are single-handedly tarnishing Pakistan’s image worldwide to justify a military intervention.” According to Mr. Quraishi:

The most spectacular, anti-Pakistan media campaign ever against our country has been launched by the U.S. media and continues unabated, with the purpose of softening the international opinion for a possible military action against Pakistan. And there is no question that this campaign has some backing from official U.S. quarters as was the case in the propaganda that preceded the invasion of Iraq.

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