Pakistan in Media

Opinionated Media Coverage

America not to pursue Taliban leaders in Pakistan

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WASHINGTON: Defence Secretary Robert Gates said on Sunday that the United States would not pursue the Taliban leaders in Pakistan and that it was up to Islamabad to address the threat posed by the militants on its territory.

His comments followed a report the White House had granted authority to the Central Intelligence Agency to expand a bombing campaign in Pakistan by unmanned aircraft to strike the Taliban and Al-Qaeda figures.

“Pakistan is a sovereign government. We are in a partnership with them. I think at this point it’s up to the Pakistani military to deal with this problem,” Gates told CBS News’ “Face the Nation.”

He said the United States has helped Pakistan improve security arrangements for its nuclear arms and is “comfortable” the weapons are secure. “We are comfortable with the security of their weapons,” he said. “We have a good relationship with them. We’ve actually given them assistance in improving some of their security arrangements over the past number of years. This is not a new relationship. And I think just based on the information available to us that gives us the comfort,” he said.
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posted @ 7:01 PM, ,

Al Qaeda in Quetta, Pakistan

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PESHAWAR: A US diplomat said here on Friday that some al-Qaeda figures were hiding in Balochistan as the so-called Quetta shura of Afghan Taliban also included members of the Osama bin Laden-led terrorist organisation.

E Candace Putnam, the US Consul General in Peshawar, said American intelligence reports indicated al-Qaeda’s close links not only with the Afghan Taliban but increasingly also with the Pakistani Taliban. She felt all this was in the knowledge of the Pakistani authorities but they may not want to say it openly. “We have to assume that your government and security forces know this,” she told a select group of journalists at the heavily-guarded US consulate.

Putnam said al-Qaeda was working and integrating its activities with the Afghan Taliban, TTP, LeT, Jaish and other groups in the region.
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posted @ 1:11 PM, ,

Pakistan Taliban regrouping outside South Waziristan

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Reporting from Islamabad, Pakistan - Since the Pakistani army launched a long-awaited offensive last month to destroy the Taliban in South Waziristan, many militants have fled to nearby districts and begun to establish new strongholds, a strategy that suggests they will regroup and remain a potent threat to the country's weak, U.S.-backed government.

Pakistani Taliban militants have escaped primarily to Kurram and Orakzai, districts outside the battle zone but still within Pakistan's largely ungoverned tribal areas along the Afghan border, villagers there say. The military lacks a significant presence in much of these areas, making them an ideal environment for the Islamic militants to regroup.

Newly arrived militants have terrorized Pashtun residents and replenished their coffers through kidnappings and robberies, villagers said during interviews in the Kurram and Orakzai districts. With AK-47s and rocket launchers slung over their shoulders, the militants have begun patrols through the new territory and have set up checkpoints.
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posted @ 4:23 PM, ,

Abdullah Shah Mehsud, the most wanted militant arrested

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ISLAMABAD: Security forces have apprehended a most wanted terrorist Abdullah Shah Mehsud with Rs 10 million head money from Tank (the head money has been paid to the informer) during the operation Rah-e-Nijat in South Waziristan.

Our Miramshah correspondent adds: Meanwhile, the security forces sought tribesmen help in arresting 19 most wanted militants in NWA and also announced reward for the informers. Tribal sources said pamphlets were dropped from a plane at about 4 pm in different areas of the North Waziristan announcing the reward.

The militants on whom head money announced included Hakimullah Mehsud, (Rs50 million), Qari Hassain, (Rs50 million), Wali Rehman, (Rs50 million), Commander Gurguray, (Rs20 million), Mazloom Yaar, (Rs20 million), Azam Tariq spokesman (Rs20 million), Noor Samad, (Rs20 million), Maulvi Shamim, (Rs20 million), Commander Muhammad Ismail, (Rs20 million), Jalil Mahsud commander, (Rs20 million), Sher Azam commander, (Rs20 million), Shah Faisal Mehsud, (Rs20 million), Nisaruddin, (Rs20 million), Azmatullah Barmand, (Rs20 million), Commander Anwar Kulachi, (Rs10 million), Khan Saeed commander, (Rs10 million), Commander Asmatullah (Rs10 million), Abdul Wahab commander (Rs10 million) and Abdullah Shah (Rs10 million).
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posted @ 12:18 PM, ,

Pakistan sees spread of Talibanisation in India

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ISLAMABAD: There is the potential for spread of the trends of Talibanisation in India and it would be in mutual interest of India and Pakistan to sincerely cooperate with each other to eliminate the menace of terrorism from region.

Interior Minister Rehman Malik said this on Wednesday in a telephonic interview to a private television channel. He said Muslims are second largest population group in India and are facing suppression. He said the Indian leadership should realise this situation could be exploited any time by vested interests.
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posted @ 3:47 PM, ,

Schools & colleges shut down

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Some schools in Lahore and others elsewhere in Punjab have shut down once more after the latest bomb blast in the city, which injured 20. Others had never opened since the end of October, when schools across the country were closed following the attack on the Islamic University in Islamabad. The disruption in the life of students has been dramatic. Even during the days some schools opened, bomb drills and other similar exercises dominated thoughts. Attendance remained low and rumours of all kinds flew around campuses. Some schools called in security experts to talk to staff. With the talk of bombs and hostage-taking came fear. Accounts of 'incidents' at various schools added to this, even though it has been impossible to separate fiction from reality.

All this adds a new dimension to society. School administrators, teachers and parents ask how they are to cope with the situation and expect children to do the same without creating damaging paranoia. Security guards and cameras outside gates already contribute to this. One of the issues is that there is no way of knowing when things may change. The factors that give rise to extremism are buried deep in society. Already the very nature of society has changed. The toll on people is enormous. The extent is for the moment probably not fully recognized. But the hesitation to visit markets or parks or restaurants is everywhere. Combined with this we have a lack of hope on other fronts. Little that is positive seems to be happening. This lack of good news affects everyone. The absence of good governance and the lack of law and order adds to a national sense of loss. The question is whether we can find a way back to normalcy and how this will happen. For the moment there are few answers.
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posted @ 7:04 PM, ,

South Punjab and Taliban

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In a TV discussion, ex-Jama’at-e Islami chief Qazi Hussain Ahmad asserted that the terrorists who were killing innocent Pakistanis were not only not Muslims but that the killing was being done by three enemy states: the United States, India and Israel. In another TV discussion, Punjab Law Minister Rana Sanaullah made the case that South Punjab was not the home of terrorism and that the territory of South Punjab was being exaggeratedly expanded by critics to include cities like Jhang.

Qazi Hussain Ahmad rounded off his scenario of a three-state attack on Pakistan by saying that the US wanted to destroy Pakistan’s nuclear programme because it did not want an Islamic state to possess the atom bomb and join the club of nuclear powers. The discussion did not pinpoint the identity of those who killed innocent Pakistanis, so we will not know what he thought of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), especially when it routinely announces ownership of the lethal suicide attacks being carried out in the country.

The JI line on the TTP is that they are own people determined to fight the Americans and that the government should talk to them instead of despatching troops into their territory. One can say that it has tactfully placed itself at the head of all the elements in Pakistan who embrace anti-Americanism and reject “conditional” American aid to Pakistan in these days of economic crisis, manifested each day by protesting state employees who have not received their salaries for months.

But one must note the reluctance on the part of JI leaders like Qazi Hussain Ahmad to define the Taliban as terrorists after alleging that those who kill are not Pakistanis but those paid to do the dirty work by the US-Indian-Israel combine. But in Indian-administered Kashmir, the Jama’at chief Mr Ali Gilani is prepared to concede that “the Taliban are defaming Islam by killing innocent people and destabilising Pakistan”.
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posted @ 12:58 PM, ,

Attack on GHQ

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RAWALPINDI: Army commandos stormed the besieged security building of the General Headquarters (GHQ) in the wee hours of Sunday and rescued 44 men taken hostage by five terrorists on Saturday.

Four militants were killed in the process and a top terrorist was arrested in a critically injured condition. Two commandos and three hostages were also killed during the rescue operation. Some 42 military and civilian employees of a section of the GHQ, who were taken hostage at about 11:40 am on Saturday, were freed at 6:03 am on Sunday, but the search and clearance operation continued till 9:30 am, security sources said.

Earlier, nine captives, including two officers, managed to escape from the besieged building under cover of darkness and joined the troops, who were planning to storm the building and provided useful information about the exact location of the terrorists, the sources said.
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posted @ 4:02 PM, ,

Military Operation in South Waziristan

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‘If we don’t take the battle to them, they will bring the battle to us,’ a senior military official said of the militants. ‘The epicentre of the behemoth called the Taliban lies in South Waziristan, and this is where we will be fighting the toughest of all battles.’

For three months, the military has been drawing up plans, holding in-depth deliberations and carrying out studies on past expeditions to make what seems to be the last grand stand against Pakistani Taliban in the Mehsud heartland a success.

‘We are ready. The environment is ready,’ the senior officer said. But military officials also admit Waziristan will not be an easy battle. ‘It will not be a walkover. This is going to be casualty-intensive hard fighting. The nation will have to bear the pain,’ said another officer.
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posted @ 6:50 PM, ,

United States focuses on Quetta

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The US ambassador to Pakistan, Anne W Patterson, has told the Washington Post that “the United States has now turned its focus to Quetta”, claiming that the area has now become a major Taliban base from where “Mullah Omar and his commanders plan and launch cross-border strikes into Afghanistan”. The US-NATO commander in Afghanistan, General Stanley A McChrystal, has also raised the matter of the “Quetta shura” as a major command centre for the Taliban bombings and attacks inside Afghanistan in his initial assessment to US President Barack Obama. As if to complete the message, a newspaper in London has hinted that the US could be making ready for drone attacks in Balochistan too.

The military spokesman in Pakistan says there are no Taliban in Balochistan. DG-ISPR Major-General Athar Abbas also says that the names given to Pakistan by Afghanistan under the so-called rubric “Quetta shura” are of Taliban commanders that have mostly been taken out while some are in Afghanistan: “Six to 10 of them have been killed, two are in Afghanistan, and two are insignificant. When people call Mullah Omar the mayor of Quetta it is incorrect”.

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posted @ 7:17 PM, ,

US planning air strikes in Quetta, Pakistan

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The News International, Pakistan writes in its issue of Monday, September 28, 2009:

RAWAPINDI: The United States is threatening to launch air strikes on Mullah Omar and the Taliban leadership in Quetta as frustration mounts about the ease with which they (allegedly) find sanctuary across the border from Afghanistan, reports The Sunday Times.

The Biden camp argues that attacks by unmanned drones on Pakistan’s tribal areas, where al-Qaeda’s leaders are (believed to be) hiding, have been successful. Sending more troops to Afghanistan has only inflamed tensions.
That's the advantage of acquiring advanced technology. Why should America and NATO get their soldiers killed once they can use drones. Whether it suits Pakistan or not and how many innocent civilians get killed in the process is none of their concern. And, can Pakistan do something about it? I doubt it, certainly not, with present mindset of its rulers. Might is right!

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posted @ 2:19 PM, ,

World democracies to do more for Pakistan

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President Asif Ali Zardari seems to have registered well at home after his Friday address at the UN General Assembly. His strong point was democracy “which has begun to deliver” and the success a democratic Pakistan had achieved in its struggle against the Taliban. He wanted the world to help bail Pakistan out of the crisis it was faced with: “We are doing more in our self-interest. We urge the world democracies to do more for peace and for the development of people affected by militancy and terror. Surgery alone will not be enough. We need to build immunity to contain, reverse and cure the disease”. In addition to asking for help in the removal of deprivation, poverty and illiteracy in Pakistan, he sought mediation from the world to promote the peace dialogue between India and Pakistan and referred to the Kashmir dispute where India has been found wanting despite Pakistan’s flexibility and a number of proposals on the table.
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posted @ 9:10 PM, ,

Taliban Still in business

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Sunday, September 27, 2009
Anybody who thought that the Taliban were close to defeat or on the run had better think again. Saturday saw attacks on Peshawar and Bannu. At the time of writing five people are reported dead and fifty injured when a police station was destroyed in Bannu. In the heart of Peshawar, in an area normally regarded as well-guarded and secure, a car bomb containing an estimated 100kg of explosives was detonated killing at least 10 and injuring 70 – both figures are likely to rise. The TTP has claimed responsibility for the Bannu blast, but nobody as yet owns the Peshawar bomb. Both atrocities need to be seen in the context of a statement issued by Qari Hussain Mehsud, a Taliban commander in North Waziristan who said to an AP reporter last Friday that their movement had gained more strength after Baitullah Mehsud and that a group of suicide bombers would be activated if the army launched another offensive against the Taliban.
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posted @ 9:05 PM, ,

Rehabilitation after Swat Operation

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We are hearing increasingly encouraging reports of a marked change in mindsets and attitudes in Swat. People are quite obviously eager to banish the memories of the Taliban from their minds and have been speaking out about the atrocities committed by them. Several accounts have surfaced of the militants being asked to leave villages and there have been gun battles too between local tribal people and the Taliban. But for some categories of citizens, the shadows of the past still lurk. According to international agencies, women in Swat have still to return to work. Security concerns mean that those who had worked previously have in many cases felt unable to return. This is a particular worry given that there are more households headed by women in the area than ever before. The aftermath of war will always mean an increase in the number of widows and fatherless children. The plight of such families is currently unknown. There must be some attempt to collect data on their numbers and to ensure too that women feel able to take up work once again.

It is a fact too that in Swat the public space for women has been reduced. In the past, in the relaxed environment of the valley, women were free to visit shops, hospitals, tailors and other places on their own. They often did so without donning the 'burqas' imposed by the Taliban. The landscape over the past few years has changed for them. These liberties have been denied. Fear lingers on even after the Taliban defeat. Some report that remnants of the Taliban are still present in towns or villages. Pro-active measures are needed to alter the situation. These women must be restored to their rightful place as equal citizens. Indeed urgent schemes are needed to offer vocational training and other help to these women – and especially to those who must support families. The evil rule of the Taliban was symbolized by their grotesque mistreatment of women. The future will be marked by the degree of ability shown in rehabilitating these women, who make up half of the people of Swat.
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posted @ 10:35 PM, ,

U.S. military equipment from Iraq to Pakistan

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WASHINGTON: The Pentagon has proposed transferring U.S. military equipment from Iraq to Pakistani security forces to help Islamabad step up its offensive against the Taliban, according to officials and government documents.

The Pentagon request for the authority to "transfer articles no longer needed in Iraq" to the army of Pakistan received a cool reception in the U.S. Congress, where some questioned what safeguards would ensure the arms would not end up being diverted to Pakistan's border with India, a nuclear-armed power like Pakistan.

The inclusion of Pakistan in the request, along with Iraq and Afghanistan, underscored the high priority the Pentagon places on freeing up equipment the Pakistani army says it needs to mount ground operations in South Waziristan and other Taliban strongholds bordering Afghanistan.

In addition to the possibility of transfers from Iraq, the Pentagon is considering expanding programs under which Washington procures equipment for Pakistani forces through third governments, or leases them U.S. equipment at nominal rates, sources briefed on the discussions said. They spoke on condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the matter.
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posted @ 3:48 PM, ,

Post Election Crisis in Afghanistan

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The fact that Abdullah Abdullah got an endorsement from an important tribe of a Kandahar district was a singular exception to the rule that votes are cast in Afghanistan on tribal and ethnic lines

In my column last week, I had expressed the fear that the allegations of election fraud would further divide Afghanistan rather than give added legitimacy to a re-elected President Karzai. Developments over the last week have only strengthened the basis for this apprehension.
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posted @ 6:32 PM, ,

Baitullah Mehsud buried at last

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The Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan has finally decided to put an end to the lingering confusion over the death of Baitullah Mehsud. The man who seems to have emerged as the new leader of the outfit, Hakimullah Mehsud, has confirmed that the ex-amir is indeed dead. The murder of the father-in-law and other kin of Baitullah, on suspicion that they may have given him away, is proof that the group remains as ruthless as ever. But it is also true it has been weakened. The rival claims to leadership heard over the past weeks underscore this. It is indeed still not clear if Hakimullah's leadership will be challenged or indeed how he has been chosen. The question now is whether the TTP will be allowed to re-build and reassemble itself around a new leader or whether it will be delivered a death blow now that some of its weaknesses have been exposed. Naturally, we must all hope the authorities are working to a plan of action and will go after the Taliban at a time when they are vulnerable.

We must all speak with one voice against militancy. When acts of violence committed by the Taliban or other groups are covered, this must be done with responsibility. Already, in Swat and other conflict-hit zones, people have begun to speak out against the militants. These voices need to be projected more widely. Propaganda and the building of opinion is after all a potent weapon in any war. It is time these tools were used to deliver a final defeat to the Taliban and by doing so make Pakistan a safer place for everyone living within its frontiers.

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posted @ 12:55 PM, ,

Mass burials in Swat

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THE unearthing of mass graves is always a grim reminder of just how ugly wars can be. The shock is even more profound when the discovery is made nearer home. A fact-finding mission of the HRCP to Swat has come across eyewitnesses who speak of mass burials in the valley which has witnessed bloody battles between security forces and Taliban militants in recent weeks. In a report released on Wednesday, the HRCP pinpoints many other aspects of the conflict to indicate just how serious matters remain in Swat. The human rights commission warns against rights violations by the security forces who are still conducting an operation against militants in the troubled parts of the Frontier. It takes note of the hardships faced by the displaced who are now returning home to resolutely resume their lives after the trauma of living in camps and other places. The key word in the HRCP media release, however, is “transparency” which underscores the importance of granting greater freedom to the media to make as complete a discovery of the facts as possible.
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posted @ 12:58 PM, ,

Training of Suicide Bombers

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Dawn, Pakistan, Friday, 31 Jul, 2009
MINGORA, July 30: Four boys who were kidnapped by militants to be trained as suicide bombers have narrated harrowing tales of their ordeal in captivity.

They said militants had taken them by force from their villages to training camps in different parts of Matta where a large number of other boys were being trained as suicide bombers.

On Thursday, they were presented before a team of reporters here by security forces. Two of the boys were from Banr and the other two from Naway Kallay.
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posted @ 11:40 AM, ,

Taliban's Financial Resources

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The News International, Pakistan, Friday, July 31, 2009
War-fighting is an expensive business, and every bullet costs money. We have a defence budget and assorted parcels of aid to pay for the war against the Taliban we are currently engaged in; but the Taliban have to find other ways of paying for their armaments and materiel. Some of it they acquire by old-fashioned thievery but recent years have seen a much greater diversity and complexity in their funding arrangements. Richard Holbrooke speaking to journalists in the NATO headquarters in Brussels said that their most lucrative source of income was money donated by sympathisers outside of Pakistan and Afghanistan, and that it was a mistake to assume that the bulk of their income was derived from drug money. The money was coming from the Gulf States, including those to whom we are closely allied, but was coming from individuals and small organisations, not from the governments of Gulf States – a point Holbrooke was keen to emphasise given the sensitivity of what he was saying. It was also coming from Western Europe, where there is a large Muslim community many of whom are sympathetic to the Taliban cause. The manufacture and sale of illegal drugs still pulls in a significant sum -- $60-$100 million a year. It was Holbrooke's opinion (and he offered no supporting evidence) that the drug money funds local operations in the Pashtun tribal belt whilst the money raised elsewhere funded other operations.
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posted @ 11:36 AM, ,


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