‘Weapons, money drying up’
* Intelligence official calls public, political support for Pakistan Army a ‘critical change’
LAHORE: Among Taliban groups along the border in Afghanistan, weapons are drying up, money is drying up, said Col John Spiszer of the army unit responsible for patrolling north-eastern Afghanistan along the Pakistani border.
Pakistan’s military offensive against the Taliban has slowed the flow of arms and fighters into Afghanistan, US officials have said.
According to a Los Angeles Times report, this has prompted intelligence analysts to issue new assessments of Islamabad’s ability to contain violent extremists.
Intelligence and military officials told the newspaper the revised outlook reflected a series of developments over the last few months.
“All of a sudden military operations are being imbued with a kind of legitimacy, popular support and political support they have never had before,” said a senior US intelligence official.
Major shift: The official described it as a “critical change” in a nation where the government has for years been reluctant to take on the Taliban for fear of being accused of turning the Pakistani military against its own people.
US military officials said the operations in Swat and South Waziristan were already having a measurable effect on the amount of equipment and violence spilling into Afghanistan.
“There’s a definite impact, and I think it almost can't be overstated," Spiszer said, adding Taliban elements appeared to have concluded that they could no longer afford to send as many fighters or weapons into Afghanistan.
Last year was the deadliest for the US-NATO coalition in Afghanistan, with 294 troops killed. This year, 153 more have died with 35 have been killed in June so far – the highest monthly toll of 2009.
A senior Pakistani official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said the military had begun “commando-type, special forces operations” aimed at Baitullah Mehsud and was seeking to strengthen his rivals. daily times monitor
Home | National
Showing posts with label Lashkare Toiba. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Lashkare Toiba. Show all posts
Sunday, June 28, 2009
Thursday, April 23, 2009
It's the terrorism, stupid; not India: US message to Pak
24 Apr 2009, 0424 hrs IST, Chidanand Rajghatta, TNN
Print Email Discuss Share Save Comment Text:
WASHINGTON: The United States will institute benchmarks that Pakistan will have to meet, including scaling down its confrontational posture
against India, if Islamabad is to earn the massive foreign aid Washington and its partners are lining up, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton indicated on Thursday. ( Watch )
The benchmarks will include moving troops from its border with India to its insurgency stricken areas to fight its homegrown terrorism problem, Clinton suggested, following up on the broad US prescription and advice to Pakistan that its grave domestic situation, and not India, constituted the biggest danger to its existence.
Clinton provided the assurances about benchmarks at the urging of some lawmakers, but said she would prefer they remain an executive decision rather than legislative so that the administration would not be paralyzed. Some of the benchmarks would be classified, but the administration would share them with Congress.
"You know, on a simple measure, is the Pakistani military still amassing hundreds of thousands of troops on the Indian border, or have they begun to move those toward these insurgent areas?" Clinton explained at a Congressional hearing, citing the example of one such benchmark. "What kind of kinetic action are they taking? How much? Is there increasing up-tempo or not? Is it sporadic, so they start in and then they move back?"
"I agree with you completely that we need the internal benchmarks," she told an anxious lawmaker, adding the approach would be across the government. "The intelligence community will have certain measurements; the Defense Department will; we (the State Department) will look as well."
The Pakistani government — and some of its supporters like Senator John Kerry — has opposed legislative benchmarks, especially those which condition US aid to Pakistan ending its sponsorship of terrorism against India, saying they are humiliating. But lawmakers on the House side are against giving Pakistan a free ride given what they say is its history of double-dealing.
"I've been around this place 40 years. My experience with Pakistan during all that time is that it has always been Pakistan, which means it's a country of dealmakers, but they don't keep the deals," said Congressman David Obey. "I have absolutely no confidence in the ability of the existing Pakistani government to do one blessed thing."
Other members also complained about Pakistan's double-dealing – paying lip service to fighting terrorism while cutting deals with extremists. "How do we succeed in Pakistan if the Pakistanis themselves are either unwilling or incapable of making the tough choices and taking the tough action needed to confront the insurgency?" asked one Congressman.
Following up on President Obama's assurance that there will be no blank checks for Pakistan, Secretary Clinton also re-iterated what has become a virtual mantra in Washington in recent weeks: Repeated advice to Pakistan that it is not India, but Islamabad's own home-grown terrorism that posed an existential threat to it.
In an indication that US aid to Pakistan will be contingent on its India policy, even if it is not incorporated into legislation, Clinton said US officials have been "spending countless hours in really painful, specific conversations," to convince Pakistan of the changed situation. Pakistan was slow to understand this, she suggested.
"Changing paradigms and mindsets is not easy," Clinton told anxious lawmakers, adding, "I want to underscore the feeling we get, which is that if you have been locked in a mortal contest with someone you think is your principal — in fact, only — real enemy, and all of a sudden circumstances change, it just takes some time."
Similar policy prescriptions and sentiments (It's not India, it's home-grown extremists) were expressed at a Harvard lecture earlier this week by General David Petraeus, chief of the US Central Command with oversight of Pakistan and the middle-east, indicating that US interlocutors are all reading from the same page.
"The existential threat" facing Pakistan "is internal extremists and not India," Petraeus said in the speech at the Kennedy School of Government, adding such an idea was "intellectually dislocating" for the institutions of Pakistan fostered on decades of projecting confrontation against India.
Over at the White House, spokesman Robert Gibbs said the Pakistan crisis was taking a lot of President Obama's time. Defense Secretary Robert Gates too chipped in, asking Islamabad to recognize the danger and take action.
On her part, Clinton told lawmakers there is a growing understanding of the changed circumstances within the Pakistani leadership.
"Now, there are no promises. They have to do it (act against extremists)," she warned.
Print Email Discuss Share Save Comment Text:
WASHINGTON: The United States will institute benchmarks that Pakistan will have to meet, including scaling down its confrontational posture
against India, if Islamabad is to earn the massive foreign aid Washington and its partners are lining up, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton indicated on Thursday. ( Watch )
The benchmarks will include moving troops from its border with India to its insurgency stricken areas to fight its homegrown terrorism problem, Clinton suggested, following up on the broad US prescription and advice to Pakistan that its grave domestic situation, and not India, constituted the biggest danger to its existence.
Clinton provided the assurances about benchmarks at the urging of some lawmakers, but said she would prefer they remain an executive decision rather than legislative so that the administration would not be paralyzed. Some of the benchmarks would be classified, but the administration would share them with Congress.
"You know, on a simple measure, is the Pakistani military still amassing hundreds of thousands of troops on the Indian border, or have they begun to move those toward these insurgent areas?" Clinton explained at a Congressional hearing, citing the example of one such benchmark. "What kind of kinetic action are they taking? How much? Is there increasing up-tempo or not? Is it sporadic, so they start in and then they move back?"
"I agree with you completely that we need the internal benchmarks," she told an anxious lawmaker, adding the approach would be across the government. "The intelligence community will have certain measurements; the Defense Department will; we (the State Department) will look as well."
The Pakistani government — and some of its supporters like Senator John Kerry — has opposed legislative benchmarks, especially those which condition US aid to Pakistan ending its sponsorship of terrorism against India, saying they are humiliating. But lawmakers on the House side are against giving Pakistan a free ride given what they say is its history of double-dealing.
"I've been around this place 40 years. My experience with Pakistan during all that time is that it has always been Pakistan, which means it's a country of dealmakers, but they don't keep the deals," said Congressman David Obey. "I have absolutely no confidence in the ability of the existing Pakistani government to do one blessed thing."
Other members also complained about Pakistan's double-dealing – paying lip service to fighting terrorism while cutting deals with extremists. "How do we succeed in Pakistan if the Pakistanis themselves are either unwilling or incapable of making the tough choices and taking the tough action needed to confront the insurgency?" asked one Congressman.
Following up on President Obama's assurance that there will be no blank checks for Pakistan, Secretary Clinton also re-iterated what has become a virtual mantra in Washington in recent weeks: Repeated advice to Pakistan that it is not India, but Islamabad's own home-grown terrorism that posed an existential threat to it.
In an indication that US aid to Pakistan will be contingent on its India policy, even if it is not incorporated into legislation, Clinton said US officials have been "spending countless hours in really painful, specific conversations," to convince Pakistan of the changed situation. Pakistan was slow to understand this, she suggested.
"Changing paradigms and mindsets is not easy," Clinton told anxious lawmakers, adding, "I want to underscore the feeling we get, which is that if you have been locked in a mortal contest with someone you think is your principal — in fact, only — real enemy, and all of a sudden circumstances change, it just takes some time."
Similar policy prescriptions and sentiments (It's not India, it's home-grown extremists) were expressed at a Harvard lecture earlier this week by General David Petraeus, chief of the US Central Command with oversight of Pakistan and the middle-east, indicating that US interlocutors are all reading from the same page.
"The existential threat" facing Pakistan "is internal extremists and not India," Petraeus said in the speech at the Kennedy School of Government, adding such an idea was "intellectually dislocating" for the institutions of Pakistan fostered on decades of projecting confrontation against India.
Over at the White House, spokesman Robert Gibbs said the Pakistan crisis was taking a lot of President Obama's time. Defense Secretary Robert Gates too chipped in, asking Islamabad to recognize the danger and take action.
On her part, Clinton told lawmakers there is a growing understanding of the changed circumstances within the Pakistani leadership.
"Now, there are no promises. They have to do it (act against extremists)," she warned.
Sunday, April 12, 2009
Pakistan: the epicentre of Islamist terror
In the lush, green valleys of the Punjab, young men are being schooled in the principles of mass murder.
By Sean Rayment, Security Correspondent
Some 70 miles north of Lahore, in a 200-acre camp that also houses a large mosque, swimming pool and fish farm, volunteers are taught how to assemble bombs, fire weapons, create terrorist networks and communicate covertly using the internet and mobile phones.
They are also instructed in resistance to interrogation techniques and how to create cover stories in the event of being captured.
This is the headquarters of the Pakistani militant group Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) – which in Urdu translates as "army of the pure" – the organisation widely believed to be responsible for the Mumbai massacre in November which left 172 people dead.
LeT, which professes to be a peaceful organisation, is known to have close links with al-Qaeda and is understood to train around 40,000 young men every year at its madrassas (religious schools) and military bases.
Some of the trainees at its base in the Punjab are British.
Many of those who graduate from the camps are sent to the front line in Kashmir to wage war against the Indian army, others venture north to Afghanistan to fight against Nato forces, while many of the British return to the UK and begin plotting.
Mohammed Siddique Khan and Shehzad Tanweer are both thought to have visited the camp several times before carrying out the 7/7 suicides attacks on the London Tube network.
Mohammed Ajmal Khan, who was sentenced to nine years in March 2006 for fundraising for terrorist groups operating in Pakistan and Afghanistan, also admitted visiting one of the organisation’s camps.
Virtually all of the al-Qaeda terrorists convicted in Britain since 2001, including the 7/7 bombers and Dhiren Barot – the so-called "Dirty Bomber" – received training in Pakistan.
Gordon Brown recently stated that three quarters of all British terror plots originate from within the state.
However, monitoring everyone visiting or returning from Pakistan is an impossible task for Britain’s police and MI5.
Up to 400,000 British Pakistanis visit the country every year, the vast majority for completely legitimate reasons. Up to 10,000 young Pakistanis enter the UK every year on student visas.
It is also believed that some of the 12 terrorist suspects arrested in Wednesday’s Operation Pathway may have been trained to form a covert cell in Pakistan before entering Britain.
LeT is a hardcore terrorist organisation committed to using extreme violence to achieve its aim of forcing India to leave the disputed area of Kashmir.
But in the 18 years since its creation, the movement has forged links with other terror groups, most notably al-Qaeda, and has become a major threat to many western countries.
After the Mumbai attacks, it emerged that the group had compiled a worldwide hit list of 320 targets. Yet despite being banned by most western countries, the Pakistani authorities stand accused of effectively having turned a blind eye to its operations.
And the organisation is not alone. Another militant group, Lashkar-e-Janghvi is believed to have been behind the attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team in Lahore last month, also operates openly, while other groups such as Jaish-e-Mohammed and Harkat-ul-Mujahideen are understood to be expanding their influence in Punjab, an area with strong British connections.
In one area of Kashmir roughly the size of the West Midlands, 25 militant groups are known to operate with impunity.
Many of their volunteers sign up here for jihad – or ‘holy war’ – before taking the next step of joining other organisations committed to attacking the West.
It is against this backdrop that Pakistan has now acquired the dubious distinction of being epicentre for Islamist terrorism in the world.
At the same time, MI5 and the CIA are becoming increasingly worried by the country’s inability to clamp down on militants.
Pakistan is now a very dangerous country for Westerners to live and work. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office only allows its diplomats to work in the country unaccompanied, meaning partners, wives and children must remain behind in the UK.
As far as the FCO is concerned, Pakistan is as dangerous as Afghanistan, which is currently in the grips of a full-blown insurgency.
The rise of militant Islamist groups in Pakistan began in the early 1980s under the country’s then leader General Muhammad Zia-ul-Huq, largely in response to the growth of Shia fundamentalism in Iran and in a bid to support the Mujahideen who were fighting the Soviets in neighbouring Afghanistan.
Over the last 30 years, the country’s leaders have been content for various Islamist groups to train and recruit in Pakistan, and to wage a proxy war with India over the disputed Kashmir region. During the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, the Inter-Services Agency (ISI), the intelligence wing of the Pakistan army, funded the Mujahideen and, later, the Taliban in the mid-Nineties.
Although Pakistan is fighting its own counter-insurgency war against militants, the ISI is believed to have firm links with groups like the Taliban and even al-Qaeda, much to the consternation of Britain and the US.
MI5 treats any intelligence passed to it by the ISI with caution, given that much of it is politicised, although the relationship between the two organisations remains strong.
But the US, which over the last few years has funded the Pakistan military and therefore the ISI to the tune of £7 billion, is said to be increasingly frustrated with rogue, Islamist-supporting elements within the ISI.
Washington wants the Pakistani government to clamp down on the militant groups operating within the country and to cleanse the ISI of Taliban and Islamist sympathisers.
Admiral Michael Mullen, the US Chairman of the Joint Chief of Staffs and America’s most senior officer, recently called for the ISI to make "fundamental" changes in its relationship with militants.
But despite the frustrations, there have been some major advances.
The bilateral agreement between Pakistan and Washington, which had been a secret until recently and allowed America’s heavily armed unmanned aircraft, known as Reapers, to attack al-Qaeda and Taliban targets inside Pakistan, have produced enormous dividends.
Security sources said the various strikes over the past 12 months have severely disrupted al-Qaeda operations in Pakistan and their lines of communication back to the UK.
MI5 are convinced that the current lack of so-called "late-stage plots" – in which "cells" of terrorists are close to launching attacks – is partly down to the Reaper strikes in the Pakistan/Afghanistan border regions.
Pakistan, however, remains a country on the brink of catastrophe.
The ‘Talibanisation’ of the Swat Valley in the tribal areas of the northwest frontier province serves to illustrate how the central government is beginning to lose control in certain areas.
It is in this region that more than 75,000 soldiers of its Frontier Corps are waging a bitter counter-insurgency war against the Taliban and al-Qaeda.
The war has reached a stalemate and is causing deep divides within the Pakistani Army. While the officer class support the war, the rank and file see little honour in killing fellow Muslims. The potential for revolt within the Army is very real.
The economy is also in freefall, with some estimates suggesting that Pakistan will be bankrupt within six months, a position which will play further into the hands of the militants, who already recruit the majority of their foot soldiers from the poorest areas.
Pakistan is a country of 150 million people, many of whom are trapped in poverty. It is in desperate need of help, probably more so than neighbouring Afghanistan.
If the economy implodes, the Army revolts and the Islamists gain power – a sequence of events that is entirely possible – the problems for the West will dwarf anything seen in Iraq or Afghanistan and will take international terrorism to a new infinitely more dangerous level.
For the first time since the Cold War, the West would have an enemy with a nuclear capability.
By Sean Rayment, Security Correspondent
Some 70 miles north of Lahore, in a 200-acre camp that also houses a large mosque, swimming pool and fish farm, volunteers are taught how to assemble bombs, fire weapons, create terrorist networks and communicate covertly using the internet and mobile phones.
They are also instructed in resistance to interrogation techniques and how to create cover stories in the event of being captured.
This is the headquarters of the Pakistani militant group Lashkar-e-Toiba (LeT) – which in Urdu translates as "army of the pure" – the organisation widely believed to be responsible for the Mumbai massacre in November which left 172 people dead.
LeT, which professes to be a peaceful organisation, is known to have close links with al-Qaeda and is understood to train around 40,000 young men every year at its madrassas (religious schools) and military bases.
Some of the trainees at its base in the Punjab are British.
Many of those who graduate from the camps are sent to the front line in Kashmir to wage war against the Indian army, others venture north to Afghanistan to fight against Nato forces, while many of the British return to the UK and begin plotting.
Mohammed Siddique Khan and Shehzad Tanweer are both thought to have visited the camp several times before carrying out the 7/7 suicides attacks on the London Tube network.
Mohammed Ajmal Khan, who was sentenced to nine years in March 2006 for fundraising for terrorist groups operating in Pakistan and Afghanistan, also admitted visiting one of the organisation’s camps.
Virtually all of the al-Qaeda terrorists convicted in Britain since 2001, including the 7/7 bombers and Dhiren Barot – the so-called "Dirty Bomber" – received training in Pakistan.
Gordon Brown recently stated that three quarters of all British terror plots originate from within the state.
However, monitoring everyone visiting or returning from Pakistan is an impossible task for Britain’s police and MI5.
Up to 400,000 British Pakistanis visit the country every year, the vast majority for completely legitimate reasons. Up to 10,000 young Pakistanis enter the UK every year on student visas.
It is also believed that some of the 12 terrorist suspects arrested in Wednesday’s Operation Pathway may have been trained to form a covert cell in Pakistan before entering Britain.
LeT is a hardcore terrorist organisation committed to using extreme violence to achieve its aim of forcing India to leave the disputed area of Kashmir.
But in the 18 years since its creation, the movement has forged links with other terror groups, most notably al-Qaeda, and has become a major threat to many western countries.
After the Mumbai attacks, it emerged that the group had compiled a worldwide hit list of 320 targets. Yet despite being banned by most western countries, the Pakistani authorities stand accused of effectively having turned a blind eye to its operations.
And the organisation is not alone. Another militant group, Lashkar-e-Janghvi is believed to have been behind the attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team in Lahore last month, also operates openly, while other groups such as Jaish-e-Mohammed and Harkat-ul-Mujahideen are understood to be expanding their influence in Punjab, an area with strong British connections.
In one area of Kashmir roughly the size of the West Midlands, 25 militant groups are known to operate with impunity.
Many of their volunteers sign up here for jihad – or ‘holy war’ – before taking the next step of joining other organisations committed to attacking the West.
It is against this backdrop that Pakistan has now acquired the dubious distinction of being epicentre for Islamist terrorism in the world.
At the same time, MI5 and the CIA are becoming increasingly worried by the country’s inability to clamp down on militants.
Pakistan is now a very dangerous country for Westerners to live and work. The Foreign and Commonwealth Office only allows its diplomats to work in the country unaccompanied, meaning partners, wives and children must remain behind in the UK.
As far as the FCO is concerned, Pakistan is as dangerous as Afghanistan, which is currently in the grips of a full-blown insurgency.
The rise of militant Islamist groups in Pakistan began in the early 1980s under the country’s then leader General Muhammad Zia-ul-Huq, largely in response to the growth of Shia fundamentalism in Iran and in a bid to support the Mujahideen who were fighting the Soviets in neighbouring Afghanistan.
Over the last 30 years, the country’s leaders have been content for various Islamist groups to train and recruit in Pakistan, and to wage a proxy war with India over the disputed Kashmir region. During the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan, the Inter-Services Agency (ISI), the intelligence wing of the Pakistan army, funded the Mujahideen and, later, the Taliban in the mid-Nineties.
Although Pakistan is fighting its own counter-insurgency war against militants, the ISI is believed to have firm links with groups like the Taliban and even al-Qaeda, much to the consternation of Britain and the US.
MI5 treats any intelligence passed to it by the ISI with caution, given that much of it is politicised, although the relationship between the two organisations remains strong.
But the US, which over the last few years has funded the Pakistan military and therefore the ISI to the tune of £7 billion, is said to be increasingly frustrated with rogue, Islamist-supporting elements within the ISI.
Washington wants the Pakistani government to clamp down on the militant groups operating within the country and to cleanse the ISI of Taliban and Islamist sympathisers.
Admiral Michael Mullen, the US Chairman of the Joint Chief of Staffs and America’s most senior officer, recently called for the ISI to make "fundamental" changes in its relationship with militants.
But despite the frustrations, there have been some major advances.
The bilateral agreement between Pakistan and Washington, which had been a secret until recently and allowed America’s heavily armed unmanned aircraft, known as Reapers, to attack al-Qaeda and Taliban targets inside Pakistan, have produced enormous dividends.
Security sources said the various strikes over the past 12 months have severely disrupted al-Qaeda operations in Pakistan and their lines of communication back to the UK.
MI5 are convinced that the current lack of so-called "late-stage plots" – in which "cells" of terrorists are close to launching attacks – is partly down to the Reaper strikes in the Pakistan/Afghanistan border regions.
Pakistan, however, remains a country on the brink of catastrophe.
The ‘Talibanisation’ of the Swat Valley in the tribal areas of the northwest frontier province serves to illustrate how the central government is beginning to lose control in certain areas.
It is in this region that more than 75,000 soldiers of its Frontier Corps are waging a bitter counter-insurgency war against the Taliban and al-Qaeda.
The war has reached a stalemate and is causing deep divides within the Pakistani Army. While the officer class support the war, the rank and file see little honour in killing fellow Muslims. The potential for revolt within the Army is very real.
The economy is also in freefall, with some estimates suggesting that Pakistan will be bankrupt within six months, a position which will play further into the hands of the militants, who already recruit the majority of their foot soldiers from the poorest areas.
Pakistan is a country of 150 million people, many of whom are trapped in poverty. It is in desperate need of help, probably more so than neighbouring Afghanistan.
If the economy implodes, the Army revolts and the Islamists gain power – a sequence of events that is entirely possible – the problems for the West will dwarf anything seen in Iraq or Afghanistan and will take international terrorism to a new infinitely more dangerous level.
For the first time since the Cold War, the West would have an enemy with a nuclear capability.
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.
Tuesday, March 31, 2009
A novel way to tackle Pakistan
COMMENT By Sreeram Chaulia
A new study entitled "World at Risk" by a bipartisan American Congressional commission reveals that if one were to map terrorism and weapons of mass destruction (WMD) today, then "all roads would intersect in Pakistan". It warns that the next attacks on America might originate from Pakistan and urges the US president to take steps on a priority basis "securing" Islamabad's biological and nuclear weapons. Paraphrasing the report, the New Yorker magazine commented that Pakistan as a "nation itself is a kind of WMD".
Coming on the heels of the Mumbai terrorist attacks, which were planned and organized by Pakistani fundamentalists, the American warnings reflect a major dilemma facing international
policymakers - how to make the world safe from Pakistan? The nature and extent of this challenge has been summed up by former US secretary of state Madeleine Albright, "Pakistan has everything that gives you an international migraine. It has nuclear weapons, it has terrorism, extremists, corruption [and is] very poor ... "
What options does the world have to counter the multiple threats to international security and peace being posed by a dysfunctional and dangerously adrift country? Should a country that is itself a WMD be allowed to possess actual WMDs, which are not only liable to fall into the "wrong" hands but also be used by the "right" hands for emotional blackmail?
Irfan Hussain, a leading Pakistani newspaper columnist, recently bemoaned that "Pakistan was the only country in the world that negotiates with a gun to its own head. Our argument goes something like this: If you don't give us what we need, the government will collapse and this might result in anarchy, and a takeover by Islamic militants. Left unstated here is the global risk these elements would pose as they would have access to Pakistan's nuclear arsenal." A state which threatens to explode and destroy everyone else on the planet unless it is pampered is akin to a suicide bomber whose message to his enemies is to change their policies "or else".
The issue to ponder for world leaders is whether an "international migraine" and "suicidal" state should be allowed to possess WMDs or, for that matter, be self-governing? Sovereignty, as an organizing principle of world affairs, is not merely a bestower of rights but also comes with certain responsibilities towards one's own people and to other sovereign countries. Pakistan's track record is one of waving the red flag and screaming SOS to assert its rights as a sovereign country, without fulfilling the corollary obligations.
While many developing countries may have failed to live up to the expectations of their populations to improve living standards and governance, Pakistan has the extra cachet of exporting terrorism and extremist religious values to other countries. The controversial call for "international humanitarian intervention" over the failure of a state to protect its own people from grave human rights abuses is premised on what is happening within a country. To be fair, Pakistan has not fared worse than many other developing countries on domestic human development indices. Albright's mention of corruption and poverty as causes for concern about Pakistan is not relevant as these are not unique failings.
What stands Pakistan apart, though, is its ability to breed terrorism, extremist ideology and nuclear fecklessness and project these outwards at the rest of the world. The correct international response to this should not a "humanitarian intervention" but one based on global collective will, represented by the United Nations. Given the sui generis mixture of threats presented by Pakistan, an equally novel response is warranted. Since Pakistani sovereignty has been misused to impair the sovereignty of its neighbors - Afghanistan to the west and India on the east - the first strategy of an international collective will should be to circumscribe the country's sovereignty and place it under custodianship.
After World War I, when a transfer of colonies occurred between the losing German and Turkish empires to the victorious European ones, a mechanism called "mandate" was introduced at the League of Nations. Mandated territories were deemed unfit for self-rule by the victors of the war and taken over as de facto colonies "until such time as they are able to stand alone". After World War II, successors of the League mandates were rechristened "Trust Territories" and passed on to the UN to be "prepared for independence and majority rule".
Although mandates were thinly disguised veneers for colonial aggrandizement, they contain the germs of an idea for application to the now universally acknowledged "Pakistan problem". Both mandates and trusts were believed by practitioners at the time to be temporary waiting phases before a land could earn the spurs of a fully sovereign state. Although the judgement of whether these wards had the attributes of sovereign states was left to imperialist calculations, the notion that an international legal agreement could decide when and whether a country should be allowed to be sovereign is informative.
For Pakistan to be rid of its WMDs, hate preachers, terrorists and their infrastructure, only a handover of its sovereignty to a UN-designated custodian authority will be effective. Since sovereignty is closely associated with nationalism, such a grand experiment will undoubtedly meet fierce resistance within the Pakistani establishment and society. But there is no other way for the country's Augean Stables to be cleaned. Washington's pressure and protestations from Kabul or New Delhi have come and gone in vain for years without any concrete change in Pakistan's behavior.
A spell of international custodianship over Pakistan is the only feasible means for long-term transformation of the sub-continent's problem child. Those representatives of the Pakistani state who wish to strengthen moderation will benefit from a handover of sovereignty to the UN because the move promises to enhance civilian power and demilitarize policymaking. For Pakistani civil society, which has been struggling to counter what Harvard University professor Jessica Stern called the "jihad culture", a decade or so of international custodianship would open the space needed to rebuild the country with the cement of civic consciousness and religious tolerance. Pakistani activists should welcome coming under a UN trust and ally with like-minded forces pressing for this solution.
Besides Pakistani nationalism, an international campaign to bring the country under UN custodianship is bound to run into two stumbling blocks. The 57-member Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) is likely to vote as a bloc in the UN General Assembly to stymie efforts to constrict the foreign and domestic powers of one of its members. Pakistan is no ordinary member of the OIC because of its possession of the so-called "Islamic bomb" and losing a nuclear-armed Muslim power will rankle with the OIC.
The other hurdle is China, for which the temporary loss of Pakistan's sovereignty will be a big blow to its strategic vision of dominating Asia by tying down India. The Chinese veto has been used sparingly in the UN Security Council, but it will definitely come down with a thump on the table if Pakistan is proposed to be delivered to international custodianship.
Can the OIC and China be convinced by a determined international movement to vest Pakistan's sovereignty in the UN's trust? Can Pakistan as a nation come around to accepting this bitter medicine as a necessary prelude to renaissance? These questions need to be answered soon for the sake of world peace. The longer the delay in legal takeover of Pakistan, the greater the chances are that the "WMD nation" will explode.
Sreeram Chaulia is a researcher on international affairs at the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs in Syracuse, New York.
A new study entitled "World at Risk" by a bipartisan American Congressional commission reveals that if one were to map terrorism and weapons of mass destruction (WMD) today, then "all roads would intersect in Pakistan". It warns that the next attacks on America might originate from Pakistan and urges the US president to take steps on a priority basis "securing" Islamabad's biological and nuclear weapons. Paraphrasing the report, the New Yorker magazine commented that Pakistan as a "nation itself is a kind of WMD".
Coming on the heels of the Mumbai terrorist attacks, which were planned and organized by Pakistani fundamentalists, the American warnings reflect a major dilemma facing international
policymakers - how to make the world safe from Pakistan? The nature and extent of this challenge has been summed up by former US secretary of state Madeleine Albright, "Pakistan has everything that gives you an international migraine. It has nuclear weapons, it has terrorism, extremists, corruption [and is] very poor ... "
What options does the world have to counter the multiple threats to international security and peace being posed by a dysfunctional and dangerously adrift country? Should a country that is itself a WMD be allowed to possess actual WMDs, which are not only liable to fall into the "wrong" hands but also be used by the "right" hands for emotional blackmail?
Irfan Hussain, a leading Pakistani newspaper columnist, recently bemoaned that "Pakistan was the only country in the world that negotiates with a gun to its own head. Our argument goes something like this: If you don't give us what we need, the government will collapse and this might result in anarchy, and a takeover by Islamic militants. Left unstated here is the global risk these elements would pose as they would have access to Pakistan's nuclear arsenal." A state which threatens to explode and destroy everyone else on the planet unless it is pampered is akin to a suicide bomber whose message to his enemies is to change their policies "or else".
The issue to ponder for world leaders is whether an "international migraine" and "suicidal" state should be allowed to possess WMDs or, for that matter, be self-governing? Sovereignty, as an organizing principle of world affairs, is not merely a bestower of rights but also comes with certain responsibilities towards one's own people and to other sovereign countries. Pakistan's track record is one of waving the red flag and screaming SOS to assert its rights as a sovereign country, without fulfilling the corollary obligations.
While many developing countries may have failed to live up to the expectations of their populations to improve living standards and governance, Pakistan has the extra cachet of exporting terrorism and extremist religious values to other countries. The controversial call for "international humanitarian intervention" over the failure of a state to protect its own people from grave human rights abuses is premised on what is happening within a country. To be fair, Pakistan has not fared worse than many other developing countries on domestic human development indices. Albright's mention of corruption and poverty as causes for concern about Pakistan is not relevant as these are not unique failings.
What stands Pakistan apart, though, is its ability to breed terrorism, extremist ideology and nuclear fecklessness and project these outwards at the rest of the world. The correct international response to this should not a "humanitarian intervention" but one based on global collective will, represented by the United Nations. Given the sui generis mixture of threats presented by Pakistan, an equally novel response is warranted. Since Pakistani sovereignty has been misused to impair the sovereignty of its neighbors - Afghanistan to the west and India on the east - the first strategy of an international collective will should be to circumscribe the country's sovereignty and place it under custodianship.
After World War I, when a transfer of colonies occurred between the losing German and Turkish empires to the victorious European ones, a mechanism called "mandate" was introduced at the League of Nations. Mandated territories were deemed unfit for self-rule by the victors of the war and taken over as de facto colonies "until such time as they are able to stand alone". After World War II, successors of the League mandates were rechristened "Trust Territories" and passed on to the UN to be "prepared for independence and majority rule".
Although mandates were thinly disguised veneers for colonial aggrandizement, they contain the germs of an idea for application to the now universally acknowledged "Pakistan problem". Both mandates and trusts were believed by practitioners at the time to be temporary waiting phases before a land could earn the spurs of a fully sovereign state. Although the judgement of whether these wards had the attributes of sovereign states was left to imperialist calculations, the notion that an international legal agreement could decide when and whether a country should be allowed to be sovereign is informative.
For Pakistan to be rid of its WMDs, hate preachers, terrorists and their infrastructure, only a handover of its sovereignty to a UN-designated custodian authority will be effective. Since sovereignty is closely associated with nationalism, such a grand experiment will undoubtedly meet fierce resistance within the Pakistani establishment and society. But there is no other way for the country's Augean Stables to be cleaned. Washington's pressure and protestations from Kabul or New Delhi have come and gone in vain for years without any concrete change in Pakistan's behavior.
A spell of international custodianship over Pakistan is the only feasible means for long-term transformation of the sub-continent's problem child. Those representatives of the Pakistani state who wish to strengthen moderation will benefit from a handover of sovereignty to the UN because the move promises to enhance civilian power and demilitarize policymaking. For Pakistani civil society, which has been struggling to counter what Harvard University professor Jessica Stern called the "jihad culture", a decade or so of international custodianship would open the space needed to rebuild the country with the cement of civic consciousness and religious tolerance. Pakistani activists should welcome coming under a UN trust and ally with like-minded forces pressing for this solution.
Besides Pakistani nationalism, an international campaign to bring the country under UN custodianship is bound to run into two stumbling blocks. The 57-member Organization of Islamic Conference (OIC) is likely to vote as a bloc in the UN General Assembly to stymie efforts to constrict the foreign and domestic powers of one of its members. Pakistan is no ordinary member of the OIC because of its possession of the so-called "Islamic bomb" and losing a nuclear-armed Muslim power will rankle with the OIC.
The other hurdle is China, for which the temporary loss of Pakistan's sovereignty will be a big blow to its strategic vision of dominating Asia by tying down India. The Chinese veto has been used sparingly in the UN Security Council, but it will definitely come down with a thump on the table if Pakistan is proposed to be delivered to international custodianship.
Can the OIC and China be convinced by a determined international movement to vest Pakistan's sovereignty in the UN's trust? Can Pakistan as a nation come around to accepting this bitter medicine as a necessary prelude to renaissance? These questions need to be answered soon for the sake of world peace. The longer the delay in legal takeover of Pakistan, the greater the chances are that the "WMD nation" will explode.
Sreeram Chaulia is a researcher on international affairs at the Maxwell School of Citizenship and Public Affairs in Syracuse, New York.
Taleban: we will launch attack on America that will amaze world
From The Times
April 1, 2009
Zahid Hussain in Islamabad and Jeremy Page, South Asia Correspondent
Baitullah Mehsud, the leader of the Pakistani Taleban, threatened yesterday to launch an attack on Washington that would “amaze everyone in the world” as he claimed responsibility for the raid on a police academy in Lahore and boasted of a new regional militant alliance.
Mr Mehsud, for whom the United States offered a $5 million reward last week, said that Monday's raid, which killed seven police officers, was retaliation for US drone attacks on Pakistan's northern tribal areas, now the main hub of Taleban and al-Qaeda activity.
The 35-year-old leader of Tehrik-e-Taleban Pakistan (Movement of Taleban Pakistan), made the claims after taking the highly unusual step of telephoning Western news organisations from an undisclosed location.
“We wholeheartedly take responsibility for this attack and will carry out more such attacks in future,” he said.
Related Links
“Soon we will launch an attack in Washington that will amaze everyone in the world ... The maximum they can do is martyr me. But we will exact our revenge on them from inside America.”
Mr Mehsud's threat illustrates his growing confidence in the Pakistani Taleban's strength and reach. He recently agreed to shelve differences with fellow commanders and join forces with the Afghan Taleban.
The alliance appears to be a deliberate response to President Obama's “Afpak” strategy, unveiled on Friday, to send 21,000 more troops to Afghanistan, pour $7.5 billion into Pakistan, and to treat the two countries as a single military theatre.
Mr Mehsud's power also appears to have been enhanced after the Pakistani Government reached a controversial peace deal with the Taleban in the northwestern Swat Valley, which borders the tribal areas. He has been blamed for several attacks in Pakistan, including the assassination of Benazir Bhutto in December 2007, but most have been in the north west, and Monday's was thought to be his first on the eastern province of Punjab.
The US Rewards for Justice website describes him as a “key al-Qaeda facilitator” who has conducted cross-border attacks against American forces in Afghanistan and poses a clear threat to American people and interests in the region.
The militant leader boasted that he had recently set up a “Council of Mujahidin” uniting different groups “to step up attacks on US and Nato forces in Afghanistan”. That tallies with other reports that the Afghan and Pakistani Taleban have joined forces, and are also working with outlawed Pakistani militant groups with links to Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency.
The Pakistani Taleban is led by Mr Mehsud and two rival commanders - Hafiz Gul Bahadur and Maulavi Nazir - who are all based in the tribal regions of North and South Waziristan and have long feuded with each other.
Mullah Omar, the Afghan Taleban leader, is reported to have sent a six-member team to Waziristan in late December and early January to forge a new alliance with the three men against the planned increase of American forces in Afghanistan.
The Pakistani Taleban leaders agreed, and in February they formed the Council of Mujahidin and issued a printed statement vowing to resolve their differences and focus on fighting US-led forces in Afghanistan.
However, they also appear to have enlisted elements of Pakistani militant groups such as Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), blamed for the attack on Mumbai last year, and Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, blamed for last month's attack on the Sri Lanka cricket team in Lahore.
They, along with elements of Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM), another banned militant group, give the alliance a presence in Punjab, which may explain the two recent attacks there, security officials and analysts say.
“Many former fighters of LeT and JeM, and from southern Punjab, have been fighting with the Pakistani Taleban,” one Pakistani security official told The Times.
Most experts agree that the militant alliance is fragile, especially since Mullah Omar wants to focus on Afghanistan, while Mr Mehsud and others have ambitions in Pakistan, but it still represents a major challenge to Mr Obama's new strategy.
Michael Semple, an Irish expert on the region who was the former deputy head of the European Union mission in Kabul, predicts that some militants can be split from the group's core if governance and security are improved.
“It can be done, and we do have a few demonstrated examples that prove that it is possible,” he said. “But a lot of things are going to have to be done right if it is going to deliver enough people to be able to make a difference to the conflict.”
April 1, 2009
Zahid Hussain in Islamabad and Jeremy Page, South Asia Correspondent
Baitullah Mehsud, the leader of the Pakistani Taleban, threatened yesterday to launch an attack on Washington that would “amaze everyone in the world” as he claimed responsibility for the raid on a police academy in Lahore and boasted of a new regional militant alliance.
Mr Mehsud, for whom the United States offered a $5 million reward last week, said that Monday's raid, which killed seven police officers, was retaliation for US drone attacks on Pakistan's northern tribal areas, now the main hub of Taleban and al-Qaeda activity.
The 35-year-old leader of Tehrik-e-Taleban Pakistan (Movement of Taleban Pakistan), made the claims after taking the highly unusual step of telephoning Western news organisations from an undisclosed location.
“We wholeheartedly take responsibility for this attack and will carry out more such attacks in future,” he said.
Related Links
“Soon we will launch an attack in Washington that will amaze everyone in the world ... The maximum they can do is martyr me. But we will exact our revenge on them from inside America.”
Mr Mehsud's threat illustrates his growing confidence in the Pakistani Taleban's strength and reach. He recently agreed to shelve differences with fellow commanders and join forces with the Afghan Taleban.
The alliance appears to be a deliberate response to President Obama's “Afpak” strategy, unveiled on Friday, to send 21,000 more troops to Afghanistan, pour $7.5 billion into Pakistan, and to treat the two countries as a single military theatre.
Mr Mehsud's power also appears to have been enhanced after the Pakistani Government reached a controversial peace deal with the Taleban in the northwestern Swat Valley, which borders the tribal areas. He has been blamed for several attacks in Pakistan, including the assassination of Benazir Bhutto in December 2007, but most have been in the north west, and Monday's was thought to be his first on the eastern province of Punjab.
The US Rewards for Justice website describes him as a “key al-Qaeda facilitator” who has conducted cross-border attacks against American forces in Afghanistan and poses a clear threat to American people and interests in the region.
The militant leader boasted that he had recently set up a “Council of Mujahidin” uniting different groups “to step up attacks on US and Nato forces in Afghanistan”. That tallies with other reports that the Afghan and Pakistani Taleban have joined forces, and are also working with outlawed Pakistani militant groups with links to Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency.
The Pakistani Taleban is led by Mr Mehsud and two rival commanders - Hafiz Gul Bahadur and Maulavi Nazir - who are all based in the tribal regions of North and South Waziristan and have long feuded with each other.
Mullah Omar, the Afghan Taleban leader, is reported to have sent a six-member team to Waziristan in late December and early January to forge a new alliance with the three men against the planned increase of American forces in Afghanistan.
The Pakistani Taleban leaders agreed, and in February they formed the Council of Mujahidin and issued a printed statement vowing to resolve their differences and focus on fighting US-led forces in Afghanistan.
However, they also appear to have enlisted elements of Pakistani militant groups such as Lashkar-e-Taiba (LeT), blamed for the attack on Mumbai last year, and Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, blamed for last month's attack on the Sri Lanka cricket team in Lahore.
They, along with elements of Jaish-e-Mohammed (JeM), another banned militant group, give the alliance a presence in Punjab, which may explain the two recent attacks there, security officials and analysts say.
“Many former fighters of LeT and JeM, and from southern Punjab, have been fighting with the Pakistani Taleban,” one Pakistani security official told The Times.
Most experts agree that the militant alliance is fragile, especially since Mullah Omar wants to focus on Afghanistan, while Mr Mehsud and others have ambitions in Pakistan, but it still represents a major challenge to Mr Obama's new strategy.
Michael Semple, an Irish expert on the region who was the former deputy head of the European Union mission in Kabul, predicts that some militants can be split from the group's core if governance and security are improved.
“It can be done, and we do have a few demonstrated examples that prove that it is possible,” he said. “But a lot of things are going to have to be done right if it is going to deliver enough people to be able to make a difference to the conflict.”
Thursday, March 12, 2009
ANALYSIS: Talking to the Taliban —Najmuddin A Shaikh ( Ex-Foreign Secy. of Pakistan )
While the induction of the Taliban into the power structure in Afghanistan may be acceptable as part of the American exit strategy, a similar compromise in Pakistan would be entirely unacceptable
In Pakistan, we are so taken with the domestic political turbulence that little or no attention is being paid by our media and particularly by our analysts to developments in Afghanistan, and even more importantly to the hints that have started appearing in the American media about the direction the Obama administration’s review of its Afghan policy is likely to take.
First things first, we have had in Afghanistan a mini-crisis about the date for the presidential elections. According to the constitution, elections should have been held at least thirty days before the expiry of the term of the president. The election commission however decided that given weather conditions and the difficulties associated with voter registration, the election could be held at the earliest in August. This announcement was immediately endorsed by the US and the UN.
The constitution has however been interpreted as holding that the president’s term cannot be extended even if elections have not been held. It apparently makes no provision for who would take over in the interim. In a belated move, Hamid Karzai issued a decree calling upon the election commission to hold the election before the expiry of his term.
This caused an explosion of protests by Karzai’s opponents and statements by the Americans that the date should remain as decided by the election Commission. Karzai has backtracked and accepted that the election commission’s decision should stand, but is now looking for a means to continue in office until the elections. Whether he succeeds in doing so may depend on the Afghan parliament where Karzai’s supporters appear to be dwindling. How this situation will be resolved remains up in the air.
In the meanwhile, the American and other western media has been full of stories about the cold shoulder that Karzai is getting from the Obama administration, and about the corruption of the Karzai brothers who, from being minor restaurant owners in America, have now become millionaire businessmen in Afghanistan. There is particular concern being expressed about Wali Karzai, who maintains a grip on Kandahar’s political life and uses it to promote his interests in the drug trade.
Alongside this indictment of the Karzai family have been stories of maladministration and poor governance to which is attributed the growth in the Taliban insurgency. Are the Americans preparing to dump Karzai in favour of some other more effective leader? They don’t seem to have much of a choice. No Pashtun figure of any consequence and popularity appears to be available.
On the other side, Obama, after a period of reflection, has yielded to the pleas of his commanders in Afghanistan and sanctioned an immediate 17,000-strong troop augmentation in Afghanistan. He has, however, postponed a decision on the remaining 13,000 demanded by commanders until the review of Afghan policy — in consultation with Pakistan, Afghanistan and other countries — is complete.
Surprising for some has been the decision to invite the Iranians to participate in this review. Secretary Clinton has explained that Iran had cooperated with the US when it first moved against the Taliban in Afghanistan and suggested that this continued to be a common interest. It would seem, however, that this is part of the Obama plan to reach out to those who are prepared to “unclench” their fist and to find a way of assuring Iran that Obama is not looking for regime change, but instead trying to find common ground even while opposing Iran’s nuclear programme.
While apparently far fetched, it may also be an effort to persuade Iran to permit the use of its ports for the transportation of American supplies to Afghanistan. This need has become urgent because of instability in Pakistan and the Kyrgyz demand, presumably under Russian pressure, for the US to vacate Manas Airbase. The Russians have permitted shipments across their territory and have indicated that under the right circumstances, they would permit further supplies. But the US would be loath to make this their primary supply route since they could then be required to pay the heavy price of recognising Russia’s right to have its sphere of influence in Central Asia and to be the only route to Europe for Central Asian fossil fuel.
The Obama administration has been consulting extensively with its European allies on the Afghan situation. More such consultations will be held before the review of Afghan policy is completed, but already it is evident that Obama’s popularity in Europe notwithstanding, the Europeans are not going to offer additional troops for Afghanistan nor is there likely to be any change in the position of countries like Canada and Netherlands, who have indicated dates on which their contingents will be withdrawn from Afghanistan.
All the US can hope for is a greater European effort to support the economic and institutional development effort in Afghanistan. So far, however, the Europeans have been found wanting on this front as well.
In the popular perception, even though the Afghan war has been ongoing for seven years, it will henceforth be Obama’s war because he had maintained throughout the campaign that this was the war America had to fight and win, in contrast to Bush’s war of choice in Iraq. Obama cannot therefore afford to withdraw from Afghanistan but he can revise the aims and objectives he sets for declaring victory. Hence the statement by Defence Secretary Robert Gates that all the US should aim for is a situation where Afghanistan cannot be used as a haven for terrorists wanting to attack the US and its allies. Subsequently, it was only logical for Obama to talk, albeit cautiously, about the possibility of negotiating with the Taliban.
However, most American analysts suggest that there is good reason to believe that the haven for terrorists has already shifted from Afghanistan to Pakistan, and that even if the Taliban were to be sharing power in Afghanistan, they would have no ambitions extending beyond Afghanistan. They would therefore not pose the sort of danger to America that they did while playing host to Al Qaeda.
No one is prepared to take an equally benign view of Pakistan. Juxtaposed with the onset of the current political crisis and following closely on the “deal” in Swat has been the statement by the American charge d’affaires in Afghanistan that Pakistan is more dangerous than Afghanistan. (This view has frequently appeared in the American media but coming form an American diplomat in Afghanistan, it has added significance.). More recently, there have been reports suggesting that American intelligence agencies now believe that the Lashkar-e Tayba rather than Al Qaeda may be the organisation that launches the next terrorist attack on the West.
Let us also be clear that while the induction of the Taliban into the power structure in Afghanistan may be acceptable as part of the American exit strategy, a similar compromise in Pakistan would be entirely unacceptable. The simple reason for this is that here, the Taliban or their local cohorts are seen as sanctuary providers for Al Qaeda and as having many in the mélange of extremist groups operating in Pakistan that have strong links in the Pakistani diaspora in the US and Europe.
Today in Washington, the political crisis in Afghanistan, while real and worrisome, is small potatoes compared to the concern about Pakistan and what the current crisis will mean for the tribal areas, where the army has achieved some success, and for Swat, where the pact with Sufi Mohammad is being watched warily.
The writer is a former foreign secretary
In Pakistan, we are so taken with the domestic political turbulence that little or no attention is being paid by our media and particularly by our analysts to developments in Afghanistan, and even more importantly to the hints that have started appearing in the American media about the direction the Obama administration’s review of its Afghan policy is likely to take.
First things first, we have had in Afghanistan a mini-crisis about the date for the presidential elections. According to the constitution, elections should have been held at least thirty days before the expiry of the term of the president. The election commission however decided that given weather conditions and the difficulties associated with voter registration, the election could be held at the earliest in August. This announcement was immediately endorsed by the US and the UN.
The constitution has however been interpreted as holding that the president’s term cannot be extended even if elections have not been held. It apparently makes no provision for who would take over in the interim. In a belated move, Hamid Karzai issued a decree calling upon the election commission to hold the election before the expiry of his term.
This caused an explosion of protests by Karzai’s opponents and statements by the Americans that the date should remain as decided by the election Commission. Karzai has backtracked and accepted that the election commission’s decision should stand, but is now looking for a means to continue in office until the elections. Whether he succeeds in doing so may depend on the Afghan parliament where Karzai’s supporters appear to be dwindling. How this situation will be resolved remains up in the air.
In the meanwhile, the American and other western media has been full of stories about the cold shoulder that Karzai is getting from the Obama administration, and about the corruption of the Karzai brothers who, from being minor restaurant owners in America, have now become millionaire businessmen in Afghanistan. There is particular concern being expressed about Wali Karzai, who maintains a grip on Kandahar’s political life and uses it to promote his interests in the drug trade.
Alongside this indictment of the Karzai family have been stories of maladministration and poor governance to which is attributed the growth in the Taliban insurgency. Are the Americans preparing to dump Karzai in favour of some other more effective leader? They don’t seem to have much of a choice. No Pashtun figure of any consequence and popularity appears to be available.
On the other side, Obama, after a period of reflection, has yielded to the pleas of his commanders in Afghanistan and sanctioned an immediate 17,000-strong troop augmentation in Afghanistan. He has, however, postponed a decision on the remaining 13,000 demanded by commanders until the review of Afghan policy — in consultation with Pakistan, Afghanistan and other countries — is complete.
Surprising for some has been the decision to invite the Iranians to participate in this review. Secretary Clinton has explained that Iran had cooperated with the US when it first moved against the Taliban in Afghanistan and suggested that this continued to be a common interest. It would seem, however, that this is part of the Obama plan to reach out to those who are prepared to “unclench” their fist and to find a way of assuring Iran that Obama is not looking for regime change, but instead trying to find common ground even while opposing Iran’s nuclear programme.
While apparently far fetched, it may also be an effort to persuade Iran to permit the use of its ports for the transportation of American supplies to Afghanistan. This need has become urgent because of instability in Pakistan and the Kyrgyz demand, presumably under Russian pressure, for the US to vacate Manas Airbase. The Russians have permitted shipments across their territory and have indicated that under the right circumstances, they would permit further supplies. But the US would be loath to make this their primary supply route since they could then be required to pay the heavy price of recognising Russia’s right to have its sphere of influence in Central Asia and to be the only route to Europe for Central Asian fossil fuel.
The Obama administration has been consulting extensively with its European allies on the Afghan situation. More such consultations will be held before the review of Afghan policy is completed, but already it is evident that Obama’s popularity in Europe notwithstanding, the Europeans are not going to offer additional troops for Afghanistan nor is there likely to be any change in the position of countries like Canada and Netherlands, who have indicated dates on which their contingents will be withdrawn from Afghanistan.
All the US can hope for is a greater European effort to support the economic and institutional development effort in Afghanistan. So far, however, the Europeans have been found wanting on this front as well.
In the popular perception, even though the Afghan war has been ongoing for seven years, it will henceforth be Obama’s war because he had maintained throughout the campaign that this was the war America had to fight and win, in contrast to Bush’s war of choice in Iraq. Obama cannot therefore afford to withdraw from Afghanistan but he can revise the aims and objectives he sets for declaring victory. Hence the statement by Defence Secretary Robert Gates that all the US should aim for is a situation where Afghanistan cannot be used as a haven for terrorists wanting to attack the US and its allies. Subsequently, it was only logical for Obama to talk, albeit cautiously, about the possibility of negotiating with the Taliban.
However, most American analysts suggest that there is good reason to believe that the haven for terrorists has already shifted from Afghanistan to Pakistan, and that even if the Taliban were to be sharing power in Afghanistan, they would have no ambitions extending beyond Afghanistan. They would therefore not pose the sort of danger to America that they did while playing host to Al Qaeda.
No one is prepared to take an equally benign view of Pakistan. Juxtaposed with the onset of the current political crisis and following closely on the “deal” in Swat has been the statement by the American charge d’affaires in Afghanistan that Pakistan is more dangerous than Afghanistan. (This view has frequently appeared in the American media but coming form an American diplomat in Afghanistan, it has added significance.). More recently, there have been reports suggesting that American intelligence agencies now believe that the Lashkar-e Tayba rather than Al Qaeda may be the organisation that launches the next terrorist attack on the West.
Let us also be clear that while the induction of the Taliban into the power structure in Afghanistan may be acceptable as part of the American exit strategy, a similar compromise in Pakistan would be entirely unacceptable. The simple reason for this is that here, the Taliban or their local cohorts are seen as sanctuary providers for Al Qaeda and as having many in the mélange of extremist groups operating in Pakistan that have strong links in the Pakistani diaspora in the US and Europe.
Today in Washington, the political crisis in Afghanistan, while real and worrisome, is small potatoes compared to the concern about Pakistan and what the current crisis will mean for the tribal areas, where the army has achieved some success, and for Swat, where the pact with Sufi Mohammad is being watched warily.
The writer is a former foreign secretary
Wednesday, March 4, 2009
"Throw the bat and seize the sword and instead of hitting six or four, cut the throats of the Hindus and the Jews"--Jihadis motivate Pakistanis
Days before the terror attack in Lahore, the powerful pro-Taliban cleric Sufi Mohammad lashed out at cricket, describing it as a distraction that needed to be curbed.
Tuesday’s attack likely had little to do with cricket or Sri Lanka. Its purpose was to demonstrate to the Pakistani state and civil society the costs of confronting the increasingly-powerful jihadist groups.
But the attack focusses attention on one of the more peculiar preoccupations of the jihadist movement in Pakistan: a loathing of cricket, which elements of the religious right claim is part of a plot to destroy Islam.
In the wake of the 2004 India-Pakistan cricket series, which generated enormous popular goodwill in both countries, the Lashkar-e-Taiba magazine Zarb-e-Taiba set about explaining that the sport was objectionable. The British, Zarb-e-Taiba argued in its April 2004 edition, gave Muslims the bat, snatched the sword and said to them: “You take this bat and play cricket. Give us your sword. With its help we will kill you and rape your women.”
It is sad, the magazine caustically noted, that Pakistanis are committing suicide after losing cricket matches to India. But they are not sacrificing their lives to protect the honour of the raped Kashmiri women. “To watch a cricket match, we would take a day-off from work. But for jihad, we have no time!”
By contrast, Zarb-e-Taiba pointed to the case of the Islamists’ arch-foe Israel. Israel, it observed, is a very tiny country. “[But] It does not play cricket. Therefore, it is progressing. We should throw the bat and seize the sword and instead of hitting six or four, cut the throats of the Hindus and the Jews.”
Zarb-e-Taiba sternly added that the sports of a mujahid are archery, horse-riding and swimming. Apart from these sports, every hobby is un-Islamic. The above are not just sports but exercises for jihad. Cricket is an evil and sinful sport. “Under the intoxication of cricket, Pakistanis have forgotten that these Hindu players come from the same nation that had raped our mothers, sisters, daughters, wives and daughters-in-law.”
Islamists have often found occasion to rail against cricket in the years since that article appeared. Last year, the weekly al-Qalam attacked Pakistan’s plans to reform the madrasa programme which, among other things, envisaged the initiation of an inter-seminary cricket tournament. It described the proposed tournament as evil. “We, the ulema of the Deoband school will have nothing to do with this tournament,” al-Qalam’s editors asserted in the April 17, 2008, issue.
The West, al-Qalam went on, is promoting obscenity in Pakistan by promoting sports among girls’ educational institutions. “It is a matter of shame for us that our daughters are playing cricket, hockey, football, and so on. The conspiracy is to change madrasas into regular schools and colleges. These conspiracies have been hatched by the enemies of Islam.”
Many seminaries claiming to adhere to the Deoband school of theology prohibit their students from playing cricket, as well as a welter of other sports. Others only forbid girl students from engaging in sporting pursuits.
Pro-cricket IslamistsMost Islamists, though, have embraced cricket and the nationalist fervour which goes with it. Jamaat-e-Islami politician Qazi Husain Ahmed, for example, is an ardent supporter of the game or so his party’s press releases suggest.
In the wake of a Pakistani victory in a one-day match in New Delhi, for example, the Jamaat-e-Islami leader said the nation is standing in pride on this grand victory [sic].
However, Ahmed warned that General Pervez Musharraf (then President) could use the popular euphoria generated by the victory to slip from the principled national stance on Kashmir. He expressed fear that the General might give in on the Kashmir issue to save New Delhi from the humiliation of defeat in cricket.
During its years in power, Afghanistan’s Taliban regime also embraced cricket although subject to rules which forbade the crowd from cheering and competitors from sporting short-sleeved shirts (women were barred from either playing or watching the game). In May 2001, an Afghan team toured Pakistan; the Taliban later unsuccessfully applied for membership of the International Cricket Council.
Indeed, Pakistan’s jihadists are known to have several ardent cricket fans in their ranks. Hafiz Mohammad Younus, a Dera Ghazi Khan resident who was killed while he was staging an attack on the Islamabad airport in 2007, was reported to have been an enthusiast.
Tuesday, March 3, 2009
Terrorists push Pakistan to breaking point
PAKISTAN is a country in chaos. The extremist threat is growing, the grip of the fragile democratic government loosening, and the economy is in tatters. The army — a nest of nationalist suspicion over the aims of nuclear rival India — is severely compromised. There are very real worries the country could soon collapse.
This attack on the visiting Sri Lankan cricket team in Lahore is the latest marker of Pakistan's downward spiral.
Like the bomb that flattened the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad in September, or the assassination of Benazir Bhutto the year before, yesterday's strike is a clear sign that Pakistan is the world's most dangerous hot spot. But the tangle of problems inside Pakistan has an enormous impact on the wider region — indeed, the world.
The rampage in India's commercial capital, Mumbai, in November was blamed on militants abetted from across the border. The terrorist cell that struck London's transport network in 2005 trained in Pakistan — and the Taliban in Afghanistan have carved out a haven in Pakistan's restive tribal lands.
Finding the culprit behind yesterday's attack is no easy task. With so many conflicts swirling around both the targets and the location, the accusations will be fierce.
Suspicion will naturally fall on the Tamil Tigers, fighting for an independent homeland in Sri Lanka but facing annihilation after recent military setbacks.
It would be an act of extreme desperation for the Tigers to attack the national team, let alone in Pakistan, said to be a source of arms for the rebel movement. Nor have the Tigers typically carried out attacks abroad, barring the 1991 assassination of former Indian prime minister Rajiv Gandhi.
Others will reach into Pakistan's murky political scene to find blame, pointing the finger at supporters of Nawaz Sharif, Pakistan's former prime minister. Lahore is a Sharif stronghold, and only last week he was again banned from holding office. Sharif blames the ruling on President Asif Ali Zardari, widower of Bhutto and a bitter political rival.
The spectre of Lashkar-e-Taiba — the most notorious Islamist group in the region and blamed for the shootings in Mumbai — will also hang in the air. But most likely, the so-called Pakistan Taliban will be the focus of concern.
The malignant spread of this extremist movement is the greatest threat to Pakistan's stability. It springs from capricious efforts over decades by hardliners in the Pakistan military to exploit Islamist ideology to fight proxy wars, against India in the disputed territory of Kashmir or in an attempt to control Afghanistan.
Now the extremists have turned against the Government in Islamabad.
Sensitivity over US missile attacks against suspected Taliban and al-Qaeda hide-outs in the border lands near Afghanistan fuels their rage.
The Pakistan Taliban are not yet a co-ordinated movement guided by a single objective, but they will attack when and where the opportunity presents.
Claude Rakisits is an Australian-born security specialist based in Geneva who has spent the past fortnight in Pakistan talking with officials and academics. He has watched Pakistan over many years, and says there is now a real sense of political crisis in the country. "All these attacks also confirm that the Pakistan security apparatus is not managing to deal effectively with the security situation," Mr Rakisits says.
"The aim of the Taliban militants is to destabilise the Pakistani state. Unfortunately, they are being assisted indirectly by the politicians who are too busy fighting among each other."
Australian Foreign Minister Stephen Smith last week called Pakistan one of the most strategically important countries in the world. He is right. But the world needs to appreciate that Pakistan is a country perilously close to breaking down.
Monday, March 2, 2009
Islamic Terrorists unite under Taliban to fight US forces
Three rival Pakistani Taliban groups have agreed to form a united front against international forces in Afghanistan in a move likely to intensify the insurgency just as thousands of extra US soldiers begin pouring into the country as part of Barack Obama's surge plan.
The Guardian has learned that three of the most powerful warlords in the region have settled their differences and come together under a grouping calling itself Shura Ittihad-ul-Mujahideen, or Council of United Holy Warriors.
Nato officers fear that the new extremist partnership in Waziristan,Pakistan's tribal area, will significantly increase the cross-border influx of fighters and suicide bombers - a move that could undermine the US president's Afghanistan strategy before it is formulated.
The unity among the militants comes after a call by Mullah Omar, the cleric who leads the Afghan Taliban, telling Pakistani militants to stop fighting at home in order to join the battle to "liberate Afghanistan from the occupation forces".
The Pakistani Taliban movement was split between a powerful group led by the warlord Baitullah Mehsud and his bitter rivals, Maulvi Nazir and Gul Bahadur. While Mehsud has targeted Pakistan itself in a campaign of violence and is accused of being behind the assassination of the former prime minister Benazir Bhutto, Nazir and Bahadur sent men to fight alongside other insurgents in Afghanistan.
The move potentially provides short-term relief in Pakistan but imperils Nato forces, especially those stationed in southern and eastern Afghanistan, including the British, close to the Pakistani border.
"It's of concern to us when we see a grouping like that," said a western security official in Pakistan. "This can't be ignored."
Fears of an increase in fighting come as the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC) warned yesterday that civilians would face the brunt of any increase in violence in Afghanistan. Ordinary Afghans were now more at risk from the fighting than at any time since the start of the war in 2001, said Pierre Kraehenbuehl, director of operations for the ICRC.
Violence in Afghanistan intensified last year with some 5,000 people killed, including more than 2,100 civilians, a 40% increase on the previous year, the UN reported last month.
Pakistan was already under intense western pressure to act against extremists based in its tribal area. A western military adviser, also based in Pakistan, said a Pakistani Taliban alliance would cement the grip of the militants over Waziristan. The region is also home to Afghan Taliban and al-Qaida, who use Waziristan and other parts of the tribal area as a haven to regroup and launch attacks against Afghan and Nato forces.
"No insurgency has ever been destroyed as long as the sanctuaries are still alive. If the sanctuaries are gaining more strength, that certainly worries Nato," said the military adviser.
The Obama administration in Washington has announced 17,000 extra troops for Afghanistan. American forces will concentrate on areas close to the Pakistani border, which are seen as the most troublesome. Obama is pressing European countries to also boost their troop numbers.
In an apparent response to the augmented US challenge, Mullah Omar has directed Pakistani militants in Waziristan to halt attacks on Pakistani forces.Baitullah Mehsud is feared in Pakistan, having led an assault on his own country since 2007, killing hundreds of soldiers, policemen and ordinary Pakistanis through suicide attacks and other bombings. But his tactics, influenced by al-Qaida, were controversial even within the Taliban.
"If anybody really wants to wage jihad, he must fight the occupation forces inside Afghanistan," Mullah Omar told Pakistani militants in a letter. "Attacks on the Pakistani security forces and killing of fellow Muslims by the militants in the tribal areas and elsewhere in Pakistan is bringing a bad name to mujahideen and harming the war against the US and Nato forces in Afghanistan."
The Pakistani Taliban recognise Mullah Omar, founder of the Taliban movement in Afghanistan, as their ultimate leader, although operationally they work independently.
"Baitullah Mehsud is now taking on the Americans," said Talat Masood, a retired Pakistani general turned analyst. Baitullah Mehsud has recently called off his fighters in two key battles inside Pakistan, with ceasefires declared in Swat valley, in the North West Frontier Province, and Bajaur, another tribal area. While Pakistani forces claim to have "won" in Bajaur, they show no appetite for taking the war to Waziristan.
Controversially, the Pakistani government has acceded to the militants' demand for Islamic law in Swat. Under two secret peace deals signed by Pakistani authorities with the militants last year, covering north and south Waziristan, a truce exists there.
While western countries want to see the Pakistani army take the fight to Waziristan, Pakistani forces have been repeatedly defeated there. Major General Athar Abbas, chief spokesman for the Pakistan army, said that there was "no plan" to start operations in Waziristan. "It's the government that decides these things," he added.
Sunday, March 1, 2009
| Sweeping Swat | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
 | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| Monday, March 02, 2009 The media is a fickle thing with a short attention span, and the events in the upper reaches of government in recent days has diverted attention from what is happening in Swat and the other troubled areas that have so preoccupied it in recent weeks. As change swirls through the corridors of power, change is being consolidated in the troubled valley. Power has shifted in Swat, and the deal done with the Taliban is the precursor of retreats yet to come. The way has been cleared for the government to make similar arrangements with other groupings of extremists in other parts of the country and it will be able to say, hand on heart, that these are ‘local solutions to local problems.’ Now that their hold is consolidated – at least for the time being – the Taliban are revealing their hand and it is clear that sweeping change is the order of the day, allowing us to see what is our likely future as the Taliban groups gradually take hold of the country. The Taliban spokesman, Muslim Khan, has said that all non-government organisations working in the valley have to cease operation until the implementation of Sharia law. “All NGOs should leave Swat because they are creating problems for peace,” Fazlullah said in a speech which was for the first time cut short by jamming by government agencies. However, he added before being cut off that emergency medical crews were exempt from the order. Thus far it is not clear how many charities, national or international, operate in the valley. Fazlullah called on soldiers deployed in Swat to remain at their bases, vowing to retaliate against any troop increases. No date has been announced for Sharia law to take effect in the valley. It is not clear, either, how the system, which supporters say will be faster than the penal courts, will be implemented or who will be responsible for justice. The Taliban and the NGOs have never sat easily together, if only because the NGOs represent that which the Taliban most detest – moderation and a degree of modernity. Although they are often reviled by commentators who know little or nothing about the work done by NGOs, the fact is that they are the indigenous backbone of much of our social care system. They fill in the blanks in government services, particularly health and education services, they provide support for poor farmers and artisans, they give vocational training, they work with government on public/private partnerships that are increasingly cost effective and, to the obvious distaste of the Taliban, employ women and promote women’s rights and opportunities. It is this latter aspect which is probably the underlying reason for the Taliban demanding that the NGOs cease their work in Swat. The NGOs are only creating problems for peace because they are doing something that the Taliban do not approve of, not because they are engaging in anything remotely warlike. This is the pattern that will follow agreements such as this wherever they are made, and with one agreement under its belt the government will seek others. | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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.
Gates calls Pakistan 'most worrisome'
WASHINGTON (CNN) -- The "most worrisome" part of the U.S.-led war in Afghanistan has become the havens the Taliban and other insurgents have carved out in neighboring Pakistan, U.S. Defense Secretary Robert Gates said.
Afghan and U.S. soldiers walk at the site of a suicide attack outside Jalalabad in Nangarhar province Sunday.
Gates said the United States had a similar perch in Pakistan when U.S. and Pakistani officials supported Afghanistan's mujahedeen rebels against the Soviet Union in the 1980s -- "and let me tell you, it made a big difference."
"I think as long as they have a safe haven to operate there, it's going to be a problem for us in Afghanistan," he told NBC's "Meet the Press" on Sunday.
The Pentagon is in the process of sending an additional 17,000 troops to Afghanistan, the original front in the "war on terrorism" sparked by the September 2001 attacks on New York and Washington. They will be tasked primarily with clamping down on that border, a military official with specific knowledge of the deployment told CNN earlier this month.
Adm. Mike Mullen, the chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, told CNN's "State of the Union" the troops will also be there to safeguard the country's upcoming presidential election. But that mission could be jeopardized by Afghan President Hamid Karzai's recent call to move that vote up from August to April, Mullen said.
"I'm on a pretty tight timeline, right now, to get security forces there in order to provide the kind of security for the elections," he said. "And so moving those dates to the left certainly generates a higher level of risk with respect to security for those elections, which we want to be free and fair as well as secure."
Karzai was named the head of an interim Afghan government after the U.S.-led invasion that dislodged the Taliban, which ruled most of Afghanistan before the attacks and allowed al Qaeda to operate from its territory. He was elected to an interim term in 2002 and to a full term in 2004. That term ends in late May.
Don't Miss
Karzai is the country's first popularly elected president and has said he intends to run for a second term. He argues that the Afghan constitution requires an election at least 30 days before the end of his term, but opposition groups are crying foul.
But Karzai may not have the authority to move up that vote, which an international commission set, Mullen said. He said the Karzai government's inability to improve security and public services have contributed to "the situation that we're in right now" -- where the Taliban and its allies, including al Qaeda, are on the offensive.
Meanwhile, the war is spilling over into Pakistan, where the Taliban have long had a foothold in the tribal areas along the mountainous border. Its supporters have been battling Pakistani troops in the region for more than two years, and the United States is believed to be responsible for periodic airstrikes that target suspected militant leaders.
Neither Gates nor Mullen would discuss those strikes, which Pakistani officials say are mostly conducted by armed surveillance drones. But Gates said Pakistan now believes the border area "is as big a risk to the stability of Pakistan as it is a problem for us in Afghanistan."
European, Pakistani and Afghan officials are taking part in the administration's strategy review, and the process could be done in "a few weeks," Gates said.
U.S. Rep. Neil Abercrombie, a senior Democrat on the House Armed Services Committee, said the administration is "buying political time" by sending additional units to Afghanistan while it completes a new plan.
President Barack Obama was highly critical of the U.S. invasion of Iraq, which he called a "strategic blunder" during the 2008 campaign. Because of that, Abercrombie said, "He's very, very wary of committing the same kind of tragic move in Afghanistan."
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.
Friday, February 13, 2009
Taliban spreads all over inside Pakistan - Zardari
NEW YORK, Feb 13 (Reuters) - The Taliban has established itself across a large part of Pakistan, forcing the country to fight a war against the hardline Islamist group that is about Pakistan's own survival, President Asif Zardari told CBS News.
"(The Taliban) do have a presence in huge amounts of land in our side. Yes, that is the fact," Zardari told "60 Minutes" in an interview to be broadcast on Sunday, excerpts of which were released on Friday.
U.S. President Barack Obama said this week there was no doubt terrorists were operating in safe havens in the tribal regions of Pakistan, and the United States wanted to make sure Islamabad was a strong ally in fighting that threat.
Obama and Zardari spoke by telephone on Wednesday, the Pakistani foreign ministry said. The two discussed the surge in violence by al Qaeda and the Taliban, which has stepped up its insurgency against U.S. forces and the Afghan government.
Zardari said Pakistan had been in denial about the Taliban in the past. "Our forces weren't increased ... . We have weaknesses and they are taking advantage of that weakness," he said.
Zardari has now put 120,000 soldiers into the fight against the Taliban, despite concerns among many Pakistanis that it is fighting a proxy war for the United States.
"We're not doing anybody a favor," Zardari said. "We are aware of the fact it's ... Taliban... trying to take over the state of Pakistan.
"So, we're fighting for the survival of Pakistan. We're not fighting for the survival of anybody else."
Zardari, who was elected last year after the assassination of his wife Benazir Bhutto in 2007, rejected suggestions that he lacks the full support of the military and intelligence services, saying he was confident they were behind him.
"If that wasn't the case, then Islamabad would have fallen because obviously if the army doesn't do its job, these men are not restricted. They've blown up the Marriott Hotel before. They've attacked us inland before. They would be all around us, wouldn't they?" he said. (Reporting by Claudia Parsons; Editing by Xavier Briand)
"(The Taliban) do have a presence in huge amounts of land in our side. Yes, that is the fact," Zardari told "60 Minutes" in an interview to be broadcast on Sunday, excerpts of which were released on Friday.
U.S. President Barack Obama said this week there was no doubt terrorists were operating in safe havens in the tribal regions of Pakistan, and the United States wanted to make sure Islamabad was a strong ally in fighting that threat.
Obama and Zardari spoke by telephone on Wednesday, the Pakistani foreign ministry said. The two discussed the surge in violence by al Qaeda and the Taliban, which has stepped up its insurgency against U.S. forces and the Afghan government.
Zardari said Pakistan had been in denial about the Taliban in the past. "Our forces weren't increased ... . We have weaknesses and they are taking advantage of that weakness," he said.
Zardari has now put 120,000 soldiers into the fight against the Taliban, despite concerns among many Pakistanis that it is fighting a proxy war for the United States.
"We're not doing anybody a favor," Zardari said. "We are aware of the fact it's ... Taliban... trying to take over the state of Pakistan.
"So, we're fighting for the survival of Pakistan. We're not fighting for the survival of anybody else."
Zardari, who was elected last year after the assassination of his wife Benazir Bhutto in 2007, rejected suggestions that he lacks the full support of the military and intelligence services, saying he was confident they were behind him.
"If that wasn't the case, then Islamabad would have fallen because obviously if the army doesn't do its job, these men are not restricted. They've blown up the Marriott Hotel before. They've attacked us inland before. They would be all around us, wouldn't they?" he said. (Reporting by Claudia Parsons; Editing by Xavier Briand)
Sunday, January 4, 2009
Why India Can't 'Do A Gaza' On Pakistan...?
Five Reasons Why India Can't 'Do A Gaza' On Pakistan
Tunku Varadarajan, 01.05.09, 12:00 AM ESTIsrael has far fewer restrictions.
 |
Over the last week, many Americans (and Indians) have asked me why India does not "do a Gaza" on Pakistan, referring, of course, to an emulation of Israel's punitive use of force against Hamas-run Palestine, a territory from which rockets rain down on Israeli soil with reliable frequency (if not reliable destructiveness ... but that is not for want of Hamas intent).
My answer, given with the heavy heart that comes always with a painful grip on reality, is simple: India does not because it cannot.
EMAIL
PRINT
REPRINT
NEWSLETTER
COMMENTS
Here are five reasons why:
1. India is not a military goliath in relation to Pakistan in the way Israel is to the Palestinian territories. India does not have the immunity, the confidence and the military free hand that result from an overwhelming military superiority over an opponent. Israel's foe is a non-sovereign entity that enjoys the most precarious form of self-governance. Pakistan, for all its dysfunction, is a proper country with a proper army, superior by far to the tin-pot Arab forces that Israel has had to combat over time. Pakistan has nukes, to boot. Any assault on Pakistani territory carries with it an apocalyptic risk for India. This is, in fact, Pakistan's trump card. (This explains, also, why Israel is determined to prevent the acquisition of nuclear weapons by Iran.)
2. Even if India could attack Pakistan without fear of nuclear retaliation, the rationale for "doing a Gaza" is, arguably, not fully present: Israel had been attacked consistently by the very force--Hamas--that was in political control of the territory from which the attacks occurred. By contrast, terrorist attacks on India, while originating in Pakistan, are not authored by the Pakistani government. India can-- and does--contend that Pakistan's government should shut down the terrorist training camps on Pakistani soil. (In this insistence, India has unequivocal support from Washington.) Yet only a consistent and demonstrable pattern of dereliction by Pakistani authorities-- which would need to be dereliction verging on complicity with the terrorists--would furnish India with sufficient grounds to hold the Pakistani state culpable.
3. As our columnist, Karlyn Bowman, writes Israel enjoys impressive support from the American people, in contrast to the Palestinians. No other state--apart, perhaps, from Britain--evokes as much favor in American public opinion as does Israel. This is not merely the result of the much-vaunted "Israel lobby" (to use a label deployed by its detractors), but also because of the very real depth of cultural interpenetration between American and Israeli society. This fraternal feeling buys Israel an enviable immunity in the conduct of its strategic defense. India, by contrast--while considerably more admired and favored in American public opinion than Pakistan--enjoys scarcely a fraction of Israel's "pull" in Washington when it comes to questions of the use of force beyond its borders.
4. Pakistan is strategically significant to the United States; the Palestinians are not. This gives Washington scant incentive to rein in the Israelis, but a major incentive to rein in any Indian impulse to strike at Pakistan. However justified the Indian anger against Pakistan over the recent invasion of Mumbai by Pakistani terrorists, the last thing that the U.S. wants right now is an attack--no matter how surgical--by India against Pakistan-based terror camps. This would almost certainly result in a wholesale shift of Pakistani troops away from their western, Afghan front toward the eastern boundary with India--and would leave the American Afghan campaign in some considerable disarray, at least in the short term. So Washington has asked for, and received, the gift of Indian patience. And although India recognizes that it is not wholly without options to mobilize quickly for punitive, surgical strikes in a "strategic space," it would--right now--settle for a trial of the accused terrorist leaders in U.S. courts. (Seven U.S. citizens were killed in Mumbai: Under U.S. law, those responsible--and this should include Pakistani intelligence masterminds--have to be brought to justice.)
5. My last, and meta-, point: Israel has the privilege of an international pariah to ignore international public opinion in its use of force against the Palestinians. A state with which few others have diplomatic relations can turn the tables on those that would anathematize it by saying, Hang diplomacy. India, by contrast, has no such luxury. It is a prisoner of its own global aspirations--and pretensions.
Tunku Varadarajan, a professor at the Stern Business School at NYU and research fellow at Stanford's Hoover Institution, is opinions editor at Forbes.com, where he writes a weekly column.
My comments....There is only one reason....Indian leaders are the the biggest IMPOTENTS on this earth.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)
Posts
Comment On This Story