Sikhs living in Pakistan’s Orakzai Agency have reportedly paid Rs 20 million as “jazia” to the Taliban, a tax previously levied by Mughal rulers on non-Muslims to exempt them from military service and protect their person in the sub-continent.
The Daily Times, a Pakistani newspaper, reported on Thursday that “detained” Sikh leader Sardar Saiwang Singh was released by the Taliban, who also vacated the community’s houses occupied by them.
They also announced protection for the Sikh community, saying no one would harm them after they paid “jazia”. Sikhs who had left the agency would now return and resume their business in the Agency, which is part of the Federally Administered Tribal Areas in north-western Pakistan, the paper added.
“The Taliban don’t have a state, so they can’t impose jazia,” Lucknow-based historian Salim Kidwai told the HT.
The Mughal ruler, Akbar, abolished jazia on his subjects, which was re-imposed by Aurangzeb in the 17th century.
In Amritsar, the Shiromani Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee (SGPC) secretary Dilmegh Singh quoted the Pakistan Sikh Gurdwara Prabandhak Committee (PSGPC) president Bishen Singh as saying that more than 200 Sikhs and Hindus had taken shelter in gurdwaras in Nankan Sahib and Peshawar.
Meanwhile, SGPC president Avtar Singh Makkar wrote to Prime Minister Manmohan Singh and his Pakistani counterpart Yusuf Raza Gilani to ensure the security of Sikhs and Hindus in the trouble-torn country.
Showing posts with label 'Taliban. Show all posts
Showing posts with label 'Taliban. Show all posts
Thursday, April 16, 2009
Tuesday, April 7, 2009
Jehadi group’s trademark gets stolen Abdullah Khan
Lashkar-e-Tayyaba’s trademark has been stolen, and the irony is that the stolen trademark is now being used against Lashkar’s own support base. The recent attack on the Manawan Police Training School Lahore, after the previous attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team in the same city, is the latest example of this peculiar development. India has been facing such attacks, usually referred to as ‘fidayeen attacks’, since 1999.
This terminology was also used by the Indian media in their news coverage immediately after the Mumbai attacks with headlines such as, ‘Mumbai under Fidayeen attack’. Although Lashkar-e-Taiba had denied involvement in these attacks, yet Indian, British, and Pakistani intelligence still hold this group, which is active in Kashmir against Indian occupation of the State of Jammu and Kashmir, responsible for the Mumbai events in the light of their own investigations. Pakistan has taken more than half a dozen Lashkar commanders into custody, including Zaki-ur-Rahman Lakhvi, who is one of the four leaders on whom the United Nations had enforced sanctions on December 10, 2008, and had frozen their assets. Lashkar-e-Taiba had introduced the tactic of fidayeen attacks back in 1999 when the then prime minister of Pakistan, Nawaz Sharif, had announced the withdrawal of Pakistani forces and Kashmiri fighters from the mountains of Kargil in his Washington Declaration, which they captured in the winter of that year, and where a fierce and bloody battle had been fought in the months of May and June. During this battle, Pakistani forces had shot down two Indian war planes and had even captured the pilot of one of the aircrafts. The Indian army had faced such huge loss of life in this battle that it had had to hand out contracts to private firms for the mass manufacture of coffins for transportation of its dead soldiers from the frontlines. Corruption is rife to such an extent in India’s armed forces and its Ministry of Defense that kickbacks and commissions of millions of rupees were paid and received for the manufacture of these coffins. An inquiry was also initiated later regarding this sordid affair, but that is not what I am writing about today, although I do intend to write in detail about the widespread corruption in the Indian armed forces at some later date.
Lashkar-e-Taiba’s leadership had warned the then prime minister of India, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, through a press statement that ‘the second round of jihad had now begun’, which had meant that India should now expect fidayeen attacks on Indian forces in Kashmir. In the fidayeen style of attack anywhere from two to ten, or sometimes even more heavily armed fighters make a commando-style entry into the target facility and try their best to inflict heavy losses. If they achieve their desired goal, they try to escape from the location; otherwise they fight until death instead of surrendering. According to a report of the Indian Express which was published after the Mumbai events, the first fidayeen attack occurred at the Battalion Headquarters of the Indian BSF (Border Security Force) in Bandipora, in which three attackers had caused havoc at the BSF Headquarters.
Activities and operations of Indian forces deployed in the Kashmir valley are controlled from the headquarters of the 15 Corps which is located in the Badami Bagh area of Srinagar. But although this location is considered to be the safest place in terms of security for the Indian forces in Occupied Kashmir, yet three fidayeen of Lashkar-e-Taiba attacked this secure headquarters site on November 3, 1999, dressed in the uniforms of Indian troops and were able to infiltrate and mix with other soldiers by taking advantage of the pandemonium and confusion. These fidayeen were so daring and bold that they made their way to the office of the spokesman of the Indian forces, Maj. Parshotam, in the commotion and killed him, and then audaciously used his telephone to call the British news organization, the BBC, to accept responsibility for the attack. Moreover, two of the attackers were able to escape the premises in an Indian forces vehicle, while only one of them was killed. The success of this type of daring attacks raised the morale of this group tremendously with the result that in the year 2000, some attackers of this group left Kashmir and not only attacked the Red Fort based Indian army barracks in the heart of the Indian capital, New Delhi, but also defiantly accepted responsibility for the said attack. A Pakistani citizen, Muhammad Ashfaq, faces the death sentence in India for his involvement in this attack and his case is pending hearing in the Indian Supreme Court. Fidayeen attacks were therefore considered to be a hallmark of Lashkar-e-Taiba in the subcontinent, while other militant groups in the area also began copying Palestinian and Tamil militants and used suicide attacks as a tactic quite successfully in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Lashkar, however, instead of moving towards suicide attacks, maintained its distinctive style of fidayeen attacks and with time, tried to perfect this technique further. Even though India blames the suicide attack on the Indian embassy in Kabul on Lashkar, yet if one accepts this as truth, even then it would be a rare incident in Lashkar’s history of resistance.
American intelligence officials and experts on militancy had expressed fears after the Mumbai attacks that other militant groups, including Al Qaeda, may try to mimic this style of attack and those misgivings have turned out to be entirely true. Yet ironically, instead of India or America becoming a victim of this style of attack, as had been expected, the Pakistani province of Punjab and its capital, Lahore; considered to be the nexus of Lashkar sympathizers, has itself fallen prey to this particular style of attacks. The leadership of this group therefore, which had announced numerous times in the past that it will never carry out any militant activities on Pakistani soil, is deeply embarrassed and completely flabbergasted, to say the least, at this bizarre development, because after every attack which uses the Lashkar trademark style, the finger is immediately pointed toward this group due to its previous use of this style outside Pakistani soil. This group, which has enjoyed popular public support in Punjab, is extremely worried, understandably, under these circumstances, that if such attacks continue and its name keeps getting mentioned, it could turn out to be fatal for its popularity among the Pakistani populace.
What is interesting is that this group can neither register a case against the theft of its trademark in any court of law, nor can it have a notice issued to the stealers of its trademark under the Copyright Act.
—The writer is an expert on regional security issues and Indo-Pakistan relations.
This terminology was also used by the Indian media in their news coverage immediately after the Mumbai attacks with headlines such as, ‘Mumbai under Fidayeen attack’. Although Lashkar-e-Taiba had denied involvement in these attacks, yet Indian, British, and Pakistani intelligence still hold this group, which is active in Kashmir against Indian occupation of the State of Jammu and Kashmir, responsible for the Mumbai events in the light of their own investigations. Pakistan has taken more than half a dozen Lashkar commanders into custody, including Zaki-ur-Rahman Lakhvi, who is one of the four leaders on whom the United Nations had enforced sanctions on December 10, 2008, and had frozen their assets. Lashkar-e-Taiba had introduced the tactic of fidayeen attacks back in 1999 when the then prime minister of Pakistan, Nawaz Sharif, had announced the withdrawal of Pakistani forces and Kashmiri fighters from the mountains of Kargil in his Washington Declaration, which they captured in the winter of that year, and where a fierce and bloody battle had been fought in the months of May and June. During this battle, Pakistani forces had shot down two Indian war planes and had even captured the pilot of one of the aircrafts. The Indian army had faced such huge loss of life in this battle that it had had to hand out contracts to private firms for the mass manufacture of coffins for transportation of its dead soldiers from the frontlines. Corruption is rife to such an extent in India’s armed forces and its Ministry of Defense that kickbacks and commissions of millions of rupees were paid and received for the manufacture of these coffins. An inquiry was also initiated later regarding this sordid affair, but that is not what I am writing about today, although I do intend to write in detail about the widespread corruption in the Indian armed forces at some later date.
Lashkar-e-Taiba’s leadership had warned the then prime minister of India, Atal Bihari Vajpayee, through a press statement that ‘the second round of jihad had now begun’, which had meant that India should now expect fidayeen attacks on Indian forces in Kashmir. In the fidayeen style of attack anywhere from two to ten, or sometimes even more heavily armed fighters make a commando-style entry into the target facility and try their best to inflict heavy losses. If they achieve their desired goal, they try to escape from the location; otherwise they fight until death instead of surrendering. According to a report of the Indian Express which was published after the Mumbai events, the first fidayeen attack occurred at the Battalion Headquarters of the Indian BSF (Border Security Force) in Bandipora, in which three attackers had caused havoc at the BSF Headquarters.
Activities and operations of Indian forces deployed in the Kashmir valley are controlled from the headquarters of the 15 Corps which is located in the Badami Bagh area of Srinagar. But although this location is considered to be the safest place in terms of security for the Indian forces in Occupied Kashmir, yet three fidayeen of Lashkar-e-Taiba attacked this secure headquarters site on November 3, 1999, dressed in the uniforms of Indian troops and were able to infiltrate and mix with other soldiers by taking advantage of the pandemonium and confusion. These fidayeen were so daring and bold that they made their way to the office of the spokesman of the Indian forces, Maj. Parshotam, in the commotion and killed him, and then audaciously used his telephone to call the British news organization, the BBC, to accept responsibility for the attack. Moreover, two of the attackers were able to escape the premises in an Indian forces vehicle, while only one of them was killed. The success of this type of daring attacks raised the morale of this group tremendously with the result that in the year 2000, some attackers of this group left Kashmir and not only attacked the Red Fort based Indian army barracks in the heart of the Indian capital, New Delhi, but also defiantly accepted responsibility for the said attack. A Pakistani citizen, Muhammad Ashfaq, faces the death sentence in India for his involvement in this attack and his case is pending hearing in the Indian Supreme Court. Fidayeen attacks were therefore considered to be a hallmark of Lashkar-e-Taiba in the subcontinent, while other militant groups in the area also began copying Palestinian and Tamil militants and used suicide attacks as a tactic quite successfully in Afghanistan and Pakistan. Lashkar, however, instead of moving towards suicide attacks, maintained its distinctive style of fidayeen attacks and with time, tried to perfect this technique further. Even though India blames the suicide attack on the Indian embassy in Kabul on Lashkar, yet if one accepts this as truth, even then it would be a rare incident in Lashkar’s history of resistance.
American intelligence officials and experts on militancy had expressed fears after the Mumbai attacks that other militant groups, including Al Qaeda, may try to mimic this style of attack and those misgivings have turned out to be entirely true. Yet ironically, instead of India or America becoming a victim of this style of attack, as had been expected, the Pakistani province of Punjab and its capital, Lahore; considered to be the nexus of Lashkar sympathizers, has itself fallen prey to this particular style of attacks. The leadership of this group therefore, which had announced numerous times in the past that it will never carry out any militant activities on Pakistani soil, is deeply embarrassed and completely flabbergasted, to say the least, at this bizarre development, because after every attack which uses the Lashkar trademark style, the finger is immediately pointed toward this group due to its previous use of this style outside Pakistani soil. This group, which has enjoyed popular public support in Punjab, is extremely worried, understandably, under these circumstances, that if such attacks continue and its name keeps getting mentioned, it could turn out to be fatal for its popularity among the Pakistani populace.
What is interesting is that this group can neither register a case against the theft of its trademark in any court of law, nor can it have a notice issued to the stealers of its trademark under the Copyright Act.
—The writer is an expert on regional security issues and Indo-Pakistan relations.
Sunday, March 1, 2009
To stem terror in Pakistan, US looks beyond military
Washington is seeking to build the Pakistani state and its economy as a way to wean the country from Islamic extremism.
By Howard LaFranchi | Staff writer of The Christian Science Monitorfrom the March 2, 2009 edition
Reporter Howard LaFranchi discusses how the US might be able to leverage financial aid to Pakistan into better results on the ground in the war against the Taliban.
Washington - In an admission that its dependence on the Pakistani military has yielded few results against the Taliban, the United States is now seeking to change its relationship with Pakistan – the world's sole Muslim nuclear power and home of Al Qaeda's leadership.
President Barack Obama's first budget, released last week, proposes significant increases in nonmilitary aid to Pakistan and neighboring Afghanistan. In addition, two influential senators are expected to file legislation in the coming days that would triple nonmilitary US aid to Pakistan to $1.5 billion a year and include $5 billion to stave off an imminent economic crisis.
The shift is part of an increasing awareness within the Beltway of Pakistan's precarious position – beset by economic collapse, political weakness, and a spreading insurgency – and that more than military operations will be needed to build a stable state capable of beating back Islamic extremism in the long term.
"If we fail, we face a truly frightening prospect: terrorist sanctuary, economic meltdown, and spiraling radicalism, all in a nation with 170 million inhabitants and a full arsenal of nuclear weapons," said Sen. John Kerry (D) of Massachusetts last week, while releasing a report about Pakistan.
Along with Sen. Richard Lugar (R) of Indiana, Senator Kerry is a key supporter of the expected new legislation on Pakistan. It mirrors a plan that Vice President Joe Biden proposed last year when he was still a senator. Then, as now, it is a thinly veiled criticism of the Bush administration's Pakistan policy, which focused aid and relations on ousted military leader Gen. Pervez Musharraf.
Pentagon on board
Last week, Pentagon officials emerged from a meeting in Washington with Pakistan's Army Chief of Staff Gen. Ashfaq Kayani to say they supported a more "comprehensive" strategy for US relations with Pakistan – albeit one that encompassed smarter and more effective military assistance. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton sounded a similar note when she met with Pakistani and Afghan officials last week.
She announced that trilateral US-Afghanistan-Pakistan talks will become a regular feature of the Obama administration's plan for region. It further points to the Obama administration's desire to look beyond the military alone for solutions to the conflict spanning the Afghan-Pakistan border – an area he and others consider the epicenter of global terrorism.
Transforming the US-Pakistani relationship from a personal relationship with a military leader to a long-term relationship with an elected Pakistani government will require patience, says James Dobbins, a South Asia analyst at RAND Corp., a security consultancy in Arlington, Va.
"This transformation won't change the relationship with [Pakistan] as quickly as we'd like," he says. "But both the increase in aid and a new direction are necessary for the stability of Afghanistan and critical for Pakistan itself."
The change in direction comes as the Obama administration gets its first taste of the complexities of Pakistan. The president's special envoy to Pakistan and Afghanistan, Richard Holbrooke, offered unvarnished words for Pakistan's recent decision to bow to Taliban demands and cede a strategically important swatch of the nation to Islamic law. Mr. Holbrooke said the accord leaves the Swat Valley – not far from the Pakistani capital of Islamabad – in the hands of "murderers, thugs, and militants."
The Swat Valley accord has been met with deep skepticism among analysts, who note that such attempts to win over a moderate part of the militancy by working with it have only given extremists time and space to regroup.
"The history of these deals does not lead to a great deal of optimism," says Shuja Nawaz, director of Atlantic Council's South Asia Center in Washington.
The accord does not mean the Pakistani leadership is giving up the fight, says Mr. Nawaz. It is part of General Kayani's mission to secure better equipment like helicopters, detection devices, and night-vision goggles to take on "the hard-core militants," he adds.
But it does reflect a desire to separate moderate Islamists from the hardened jihadists, Nawaz says.
Pakistan vs. Iraq
The design mirrors counterinsurgency strategy the US employed with the Sunni population as part of the "surge" of troops in Iraq. Despite that basic similarity, however, the differences in the two cases are stark, says Mr. Dobbins, the RAND analyst.
"We never agreed to the application of sharia [Islamic] law in Sunni areas," he says, "and we insisted those areas had to remain integrated into the Iraqi state and under Iraqi law."
Nawaz warns that Pakistan could face economic collapse this year, and he says the kind of emergency financial aid Senator Kerry is proposing is needed fast. But he says that the longer-term need is for broader trade – in textiles, for example – among the US, Europe, and Pakistan. That will create jobs and stabilize Pakistani society, he says. Such a transformation in relations with Pakistan won't be easy, he adds, at a time of rising Western unemployment.
Pakistan's Peril
A deal with the Taliban provides a measure of the challenge facing the Obama administration.
Monday, March 2, 2009; Page A16
EVEN AS the Obama administration races to develop a strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, bad news has been pouring in from the region. U.S. casualties in Afghanistan are up sharply so far this year compared with 2008. Pakistan's political system is being pulled apart by conflicts between the civilian government of President Asif Ali Zardari and rival political movements, even as the economy swoons. But from Washington's point of view, the most alarming development is the Taliban takeover of large stretches of territory in the Swat Valley, less than 100 miles from Islamabad. It's not just that Islamic extremists have succeeded in defeating the Pakistani army's attempts to retake control of the region; it's that government and military leaders are arguing that their best option lies in acquiescence to a cease-fire that ratifies the imposition of sharia law.
In meetings in Washington last week, Pakistan's foreign minister and army commander have been contending that the deal is not as bad as it sounds. The Swat region is distinctive, they say; a mild version of sharia will be applied; extremists who have been beheading local officials and demolishing girls schools will be reined in. More convincingly, they point out that the army has been losing both battles on the ground and hearts and minds across the western part of the country. A truce might be welcomed by the terrorized population of Swat while giving the government time to regroup.
The problem with these arguments is that they are premised on a theory that has been repeatedly disproved by Pakistani truces in other regions. The deals have not succeeded either in preventing the imposition of extreme Taliban-style rule or in separating Pakistani Islamists from the Afghan Taliban or al-Qaeda. By agreeing to the Taliban demand for sharia justice, Mr. Zardari's government will be allowing a rupture with the rule of law that could quickly spread to other areas. It could also allow the creation of a haven for al-Qaeda and Taliban operatives seeking safety from the U.S. airstrikes that have killed a number of senior operatives in areas closer to Afghanistan.
The Obama administration, which has been publicly skeptical of the Swat accord, faces the daunting challenge of persuading Pakistan's military commanders and civilian leaders to squarely face the Islamic threat. Rhetorically, those leaders say that they know the danger of the Taliban's growing strength; in practice the bulk of Pakistan's army continues to be deployed against India, and little has been done to train or equip it for counterinsurgency.
Yet the United States does have leverage: Pakistani officials have asked for major new infusions of American military and economic aid. The aid should be provided but carefully conditioned on the adoption of a concerted military-political strategy for reasserting government control over the western part of the country and defeating extremist forces. In the meantime, the administration should continue U.S. air attacks on militant leaders. Unfortunately, those strikes are, for now, the only solid blows being dealt to al-Qaeda and the Taliban in Pakistan.
Monday, February 16, 2009
Pakistan on its knees in front of Taliban
Pakistan Praises Taliban Truce, U.S. Warns of Threat (Update1)
By Ed Johnson and Khalid Qayum
Feb. 17 (Bloomberg) -- Pakistan’s prime minister welcomed a peace accord with Taliban militants that will see Islamic law declared in a former tourist destination northwest of Islamabad, as the U.S. warned of the growing threat from extremists.
The agreement, which aims to end 20 months of fighting in the Swat Valley, will be “beneficial for the country,” Yousuf Raza Gilani told reporters in the capital yesterday, the official Associated Press of Pakistan reported.
Militants loyal to cleric Maulana Fazlullah have waged a violent campaign to impose Islamic law in Swat, which lies 250 kilometers (155 miles) northwest of Islamabad. Extremists have extended their grip on the area since a peace accord collapsed in July, destroying more than 180 schools, banning education for girls and beheading local government officials.
Pakistan, the U.S. and India “all face an enemy which poses direct threats to our leadership, our capitals and our people,” U.S. envoy Richard Holbrooketold reporters yesterday in New Delhi, adding Taliban fighters have seized broader swaths of Pakistani territory.
President Barack Obama is pressing Pakistan to root out militants and sent Holbrooke to the region to review U.S. strategy for combating the Taliban in neighboring Afghanistan.
Pakistan says it’s doing all it can against the guerrillas and is trying to combat extremism through political and economic development of the North West Frontier Province and other tribal areas, as well as the controlled use of military force.
Tribal Areas
The Bush administration was critical of previous peace accords in tribal areas, saying they led to a rise in cross- border attacks on international forces in Afghanistan.
Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari said in an interview broadcast at the weekend that militants had exploited the weakness of the army and that the country was “in denial” about the threat posed by the Taliban.
The Islamist group has a presence in “huge amounts of land” in Pakistan, Zardari said in an interview on CBS television’s “60 Minutes” show. “Everyone was in denial that they’re weak and they won’t be able to take over, they won’t be able to give us a challenge.”
Pakistan’s army “is not really equipped to fight a domestic insurgency,” said Samina Yasmeen, a South Asia specialist at the University of Western Australia. Even though it has received counterterrorism training and support from the U.S., “it is still essentially designed to fight on the borders with India,” she added.
“Pakistan’s government is definitely weak at the moment,” Yasmeen said by telephone. “Everything points to the fact that it is not able to control the militants.”
Once the Swat peace accord is implemented, the army will be called back, Gilani said yesterday.
Security forces will respond only if attacked by militants, Ameer Haider Khan Hoti, chief minister of the North West Frontier Province, which governs the valley, said yesterday. All non- Islamic laws in the area will be abolished, he added.
To contact the reporters on this story: Ed Johnson in Sydney atejohnson28@bloomberg.net; To contact the reporter on this story: Khalid Qayum in Islamabad at kqayum@bloomberg.net
Taliban a common threat to Humanity, India, US and Pak’
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Saturday, December 27, 2008
Thursday, December 25, 2008
Taliban will support Pakistan army if India attacks
By Mushtaq Yusufzai
PESHAWAR: Baitullah Mahsud, central head of the banned Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), Monday announced full support to the army against archrival India if it makes any aggression against the country.
“Thousands of our well-armed militants are ready to fight alongside the army if any war is imposed on Pakistan,” Baitullah told this correspondent on telephone from an undisclosed location.
He said the time had come to wage a real jihad they had been waiting for. “We know very well that the visible and invisible enemies of the country have been planning to weaken this lone Islamic nuclear power. But the “mujahideen” will foil all such nefarious designs of our enemies,” said the top militant commander. Baitullah, who is accused by the government of his alleged involvement in assassination of Pakistan People’s Party chairperson Benazir Bhutto in Rawalpindi on December 27 last year, said he wanted to assure the nation, government and army that they should not worry about Pakistan’s western borders with Afghanistan as, according to him, thousands of his armed fighters had already been deployed to safeguard the strategically important frontier.
Besides thousands of armed militants, Baitullah Mahsud said, hundreds of would-be bombers were Monday given suicide jackets and explosives-laden vehicles for protection of the border in case of any aggression by the Indian forces. “Our mujahideen would be in the vanguard if fighting broke out. Our fighters will fall on the enemy like thunder,” he declared.
The militant commander maintained that many a people might say the militants had been fighting the army since long, how it would be possible for them now to fight alongside them. “Therefore, I want to make it clear that the army was acting otherwise. But now it would fight for the protection and survival of the country, which is why we will support them,” he said. Baitullah said that Taliban were ready to fight under the Army command. But it would be better for the armed forces to give them a separate sector or specify special targets for us where they could fight the enemy in a fitting manner.
PESHAWAR: Baitullah Mahsud, central head of the banned Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), Monday announced full support to the army against archrival India if it makes any aggression against the country.
“Thousands of our well-armed militants are ready to fight alongside the army if any war is imposed on Pakistan,” Baitullah told this correspondent on telephone from an undisclosed location.
He said the time had come to wage a real jihad they had been waiting for. “We know very well that the visible and invisible enemies of the country have been planning to weaken this lone Islamic nuclear power. But the “mujahideen” will foil all such nefarious designs of our enemies,” said the top militant commander. Baitullah, who is accused by the government of his alleged involvement in assassination of Pakistan People’s Party chairperson Benazir Bhutto in Rawalpindi on December 27 last year, said he wanted to assure the nation, government and army that they should not worry about Pakistan’s western borders with Afghanistan as, according to him, thousands of his armed fighters had already been deployed to safeguard the strategically important frontier.
Besides thousands of armed militants, Baitullah Mahsud said, hundreds of would-be bombers were Monday given suicide jackets and explosives-laden vehicles for protection of the border in case of any aggression by the Indian forces. “Our mujahideen would be in the vanguard if fighting broke out. Our fighters will fall on the enemy like thunder,” he declared.
The militant commander maintained that many a people might say the militants had been fighting the army since long, how it would be possible for them now to fight alongside them. “Therefore, I want to make it clear that the army was acting otherwise. But now it would fight for the protection and survival of the country, which is why we will support them,” he said. Baitullah said that Taliban were ready to fight under the Army command. But it would be better for the armed forces to give them a separate sector or specify special targets for us where they could fight the enemy in a fitting manner.
Monday, October 20, 2008
Pakistan divided on fighting Taliban and Al Qaeda
By Jane Perlez Published: October 20, 2008
ISLAMABAD: An unusual parliamentary debate designed to forge a Pakistani policy on how to fight the Taliban and Al Qaeda has exposed deep ambivalence about the militants, even as their reach extends to suicide attacks in the capital.
Calls for dialogue with the Taliban, peppered with opposition to fighting what is perceived as an American war, dominated the closed-door sessions, according to participants.
After seven years of military rule under General Pervez Musharraf, the new civilian government initiated the debate in an effort to convince the public and the political parties of the necessity of the war against the militants. Musharraf - who had been both head of the army and president, as well as an important ally of the Bush administration - never consulted Parliament.
The new president, Asif Ali Zardari, pledged a strong effort by Pakistan against terrorism during his visit to Washington earlier this month, and stressed the contrast between his civilian rule and that of his military predecessor.
But the tenor of the parliamentary proceedings, including criticism by politicians of a lengthy military briefing by a general on the conduct of the war, showed that members of the political elite have little stomach for the fight against the militants.
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Pakistan divided on fighting Taliban and Al Qaeda
The Pakistani military launched a campaign against the Taliban and its Al Qaeda backers in the tribal area of Bajaur two months ago, an effort that American commanders have applauded as a way to stop the militants crossing into Afghanistan and launching attacks against American soldiers.
At a news conference in Islamabad on Monday, the U.S. assistant secretary of state for South Asia, Richard Boucher, called the "tough actions" of the Pakistanis "very impressive."
In a sign of the mood in Parliament, Nawaz Sharif, leader of the opposition party Pakistan Muslim League-N, sent a letter to the prime minister, Yousaf Raza Gilani, on Monday calling for dialogue with the militants. The letter suggested a halt in military operations while negotiations were given a chance, according to Ahsan Iqbal, an aide to Sharif.
In an interview last week, Sharif said: "What is wrong with talking?"
Pakistanis who support a tough fight against the militants have been surprised that the suicide bomb attack on the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad, which killed more than 50 people last month, has not produced more resolve in Parliament.
"I thought the Marriott would change everyone's attitude, but it has not," said Farook Saleem, a prominent newspaper columnist.
The sentiments in the speeches in Parliament were so opposed to fighting the militants that it was doubtful that the ruling Pakistan People's Party could engineer an "appropriate resolution," said Sardar Aseff Ahmed Ali, a senior member of the party and a former foreign minister.
A religious party, the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl, which serves in the coalition with the Pakistan People's Party, had voiced particularly strong opposition to the war against the militants, Ali said.
"They want the army to pull out of everything and start talks with the militants in North and South Waziristan, in Swat," Ali said. The army is fighting the Taliban in Swat, a settled area of North West Frontier Province, and has fought the Taliban in Waziristan, an area of the tribal belt.
It was possible, Ali said, that divergent opinions within the coalition could produce a parliamentary resolution that was "so hugely diluted that the whole exercise is left futile."
Behind the scenes, the idea of a parliamentary debate was encouraged by the head of the Pakistani Army, General Parvez Kayani, as a way to garner political support for the efforts of his military, according to two Pakistanis familiar with the general's thinking.
At a cabinet meeting attended by Kayani in late July, the civilian government gave the military permission to go ahead with operations against the militants.
But Kayani wanted more than cabinet approval, and was eager for a parliamentary debate that would show the army was responding to civilian rule, according to the Pakistanis who spoke to Kayani.
In that vein, General Ahmed Shuja Pasha, head of military operations for the Pakistani Army and the next head of the powerful Inter Services Intelligence agency, briefed a joint session of Parliament two weeks ago.
The presence of a senior general in Parliament was viewed in much of the Pakistani media as an encouraging, if fledgling, sign of civilian control of the military.
Pasha described what the army had done in several campaigns against militants in the past seven years, showed graphic images of militants slaughtering civilians, and said more than 1,500 Pakistani soldiers had died in operations, according to members of Parliament.
The briefing was poorly received by politicians, who lambasted it as showing little new. The members of Parliament also criticized Pasha for not offering a strategy for the future.
Salman Masood contributed reporting.
ISLAMABAD: An unusual parliamentary debate designed to forge a Pakistani policy on how to fight the Taliban and Al Qaeda has exposed deep ambivalence about the militants, even as their reach extends to suicide attacks in the capital.
Calls for dialogue with the Taliban, peppered with opposition to fighting what is perceived as an American war, dominated the closed-door sessions, according to participants.
After seven years of military rule under General Pervez Musharraf, the new civilian government initiated the debate in an effort to convince the public and the political parties of the necessity of the war against the militants. Musharraf - who had been both head of the army and president, as well as an important ally of the Bush administration - never consulted Parliament.
The new president, Asif Ali Zardari, pledged a strong effort by Pakistan against terrorism during his visit to Washington earlier this month, and stressed the contrast between his civilian rule and that of his military predecessor.
But the tenor of the parliamentary proceedings, including criticism by politicians of a lengthy military briefing by a general on the conduct of the war, showed that members of the political elite have little stomach for the fight against the militants.
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Pakistan divided on fighting Taliban and Al Qaeda
The Pakistani military launched a campaign against the Taliban and its Al Qaeda backers in the tribal area of Bajaur two months ago, an effort that American commanders have applauded as a way to stop the militants crossing into Afghanistan and launching attacks against American soldiers.
At a news conference in Islamabad on Monday, the U.S. assistant secretary of state for South Asia, Richard Boucher, called the "tough actions" of the Pakistanis "very impressive."
In a sign of the mood in Parliament, Nawaz Sharif, leader of the opposition party Pakistan Muslim League-N, sent a letter to the prime minister, Yousaf Raza Gilani, on Monday calling for dialogue with the militants. The letter suggested a halt in military operations while negotiations were given a chance, according to Ahsan Iqbal, an aide to Sharif.
In an interview last week, Sharif said: "What is wrong with talking?"
Pakistanis who support a tough fight against the militants have been surprised that the suicide bomb attack on the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad, which killed more than 50 people last month, has not produced more resolve in Parliament.
"I thought the Marriott would change everyone's attitude, but it has not," said Farook Saleem, a prominent newspaper columnist.
The sentiments in the speeches in Parliament were so opposed to fighting the militants that it was doubtful that the ruling Pakistan People's Party could engineer an "appropriate resolution," said Sardar Aseff Ahmed Ali, a senior member of the party and a former foreign minister.
A religious party, the Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam-Fazl, which serves in the coalition with the Pakistan People's Party, had voiced particularly strong opposition to the war against the militants, Ali said.
"They want the army to pull out of everything and start talks with the militants in North and South Waziristan, in Swat," Ali said. The army is fighting the Taliban in Swat, a settled area of North West Frontier Province, and has fought the Taliban in Waziristan, an area of the tribal belt.
It was possible, Ali said, that divergent opinions within the coalition could produce a parliamentary resolution that was "so hugely diluted that the whole exercise is left futile."
Behind the scenes, the idea of a parliamentary debate was encouraged by the head of the Pakistani Army, General Parvez Kayani, as a way to garner political support for the efforts of his military, according to two Pakistanis familiar with the general's thinking.
At a cabinet meeting attended by Kayani in late July, the civilian government gave the military permission to go ahead with operations against the militants.
But Kayani wanted more than cabinet approval, and was eager for a parliamentary debate that would show the army was responding to civilian rule, according to the Pakistanis who spoke to Kayani.
In that vein, General Ahmed Shuja Pasha, head of military operations for the Pakistani Army and the next head of the powerful Inter Services Intelligence agency, briefed a joint session of Parliament two weeks ago.
The presence of a senior general in Parliament was viewed in much of the Pakistani media as an encouraging, if fledgling, sign of civilian control of the military.
Pasha described what the army had done in several campaigns against militants in the past seven years, showed graphic images of militants slaughtering civilians, and said more than 1,500 Pakistani soldiers had died in operations, according to members of Parliament.
The briefing was poorly received by politicians, who lambasted it as showing little new. The members of Parliament also criticized Pasha for not offering a strategy for the future.
Salman Masood contributed reporting.
Tuesday, October 14, 2008
'Taliban, Qaida trying to take over Pakistan'
15 Oct 2008, 0110 hrs IST, Sachin Parashar,TNN
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NEW DELHI: Could Pakistan fall to a Taliban-al-Qaida coup? Is India looking at the possibility of a Talibanized neighbour to its west, one with access to nuclear weapons? If Pakistan's senior minister for information Sherry Rahman is to be believed, Pakistan is in the midst of a serious internal security threat from a collection of Taliban, al-Qaida and J&K terrorist elements who want to take over the country.
Indian security sources said they have been receiving reports of a steady infiltration of Taliban and al-Qaida elements in Pakistan's biggest cities of Lahore and Karachi recently. In fact, in a recent incident which rang alarm bells, there were a number of Taliban posters in Karachi and Taliban spokespersons were quoted promising a better government in Sindh.
Rahman's statements were made during an in-camera briefing on national security and the war on terror in Pakistan's national assembly on Tuesday.
Rahman went on to state that the Taliban, who are trying to oust the Pakistan government, also had links with their Afghan counterparts and groups operating in J&K. While the fear of Taliban influence in Pakistan has increased in recent years, the latest assertions by a senior Pakistan minister linking the Taliban with J&K terror groups are a cause for concern in India.
India has been concerned about Taliban making inroads into urban areas and cities of Pakistan which are located close to the border. Only two days ago, MQM leader Altaf Hussain made a statement that more than 400,000 Taliban men had infiltrated Karachi. The Pakistani media recently carried reports about Taliban warning traders in Lahore not to sell "immoral" stuff.
Print EMail Bookmark/Share
Save Write to Editor
NEW DELHI: Could Pakistan fall to a Taliban-al-Qaida coup? Is India looking at the possibility of a Talibanized neighbour to its west, one with access to nuclear weapons? If Pakistan's senior minister for information Sherry Rahman is to be believed, Pakistan is in the midst of a serious internal security threat from a collection of Taliban, al-Qaida and J&K terrorist elements who want to take over the country.
Indian security sources said they have been receiving reports of a steady infiltration of Taliban and al-Qaida elements in Pakistan's biggest cities of Lahore and Karachi recently. In fact, in a recent incident which rang alarm bells, there were a number of Taliban posters in Karachi and Taliban spokespersons were quoted promising a better government in Sindh.
Rahman's statements were made during an in-camera briefing on national security and the war on terror in Pakistan's national assembly on Tuesday.
Rahman went on to state that the Taliban, who are trying to oust the Pakistan government, also had links with their Afghan counterparts and groups operating in J&K. While the fear of Taliban influence in Pakistan has increased in recent years, the latest assertions by a senior Pakistan minister linking the Taliban with J&K terror groups are a cause for concern in India.
India has been concerned about Taliban making inroads into urban areas and cities of Pakistan which are located close to the border. Only two days ago, MQM leader Altaf Hussain made a statement that more than 400,000 Taliban men had infiltrated Karachi. The Pakistani media recently carried reports about Taliban warning traders in Lahore not to sell "immoral" stuff.
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