Monday, August 31, 2009

Autonomy for Gilgit-Baltistan - A Positive Step

analysis: A step in the right direction — Rasul Bakhsh Rais
Daily Times, September 1, 2009

Since Gilgit-Baltistan was part of the Jammu and Kashmir state, its fate became linked to which way the disputed state would go. This was implicitly the reason for the six-decades-long delay in restructuring the governance of the region

Granting a sort of autonomy, or self-rule, to the Gilgit-Baltistan region is the first critical step in the right direction. This is something that the people of the region have been demanding for a very long time.

But is the proposed structure of self-governance that is going to be implemented through a presidential ordinance enough, or do we need more in terms of autonomy from the outset of reforms than wait for further political demands? Have we, in this sense, neglected Gilgit-Baltistan?

The people of this rugged and difficult region have their own individuality and a sense of ethnic identity that has been shaped by history and geography over a long period of time. There is no doubt that this sparsely populated, vast region has diverse communities within it, but at the same time there are overlapping bonds of religion, language and social networks.

Parallel to unifying themes, there are also distinctive feelings among communities at the local level, a pattern similar to the social patchwork that we see in mountain communities.

Unlike tribal communities, the social networks that we have observed in Gilgit-Baltistan are essentially non-feudal, less hierarchical and more open to social change and development than even mainstream areas in the rest of Pakistan. One is greatly impressed by how local communities have embraced the idea of education, community organisation and development, often in competition to outdo others in achieving social and developmental objectives.

For complete article, click here

Related:
Gilgit-Baltistan - Dawn Editorial, August 31, 2009
Editorial: Rescuing the Northern Areas - DT Editorial
Northern Areas to get autonomy as Gilgit-Baltistan - The News
Measures for Gilgit-Baltistan generate suspicion - The Hindu

Sunday, August 30, 2009

Saudi Arabia funded Nawaz led IJI alliance in 1990: General Beg

BB was no security risk: Beg
* She told PAF to target Indian N-sites if Pakistan attacked
* Saudis funded IJI
* Blames Abida for Sharif-Asif Nawaz rift

Daily Times Monitor, August 31, 2009

LAHORE: Former premier Benazir Bhutto was no threat to national security, former chief of army staff Mirza Aslam Beg told Daily Times Editor-in-chief Najam Sethi on Dunya TV on Sunday.

Beg said that Benazir remained “rock solid” in 1990 amid reports of conspiracy against Pakistan.

Attacks: He said when reports surfaced in 1990 that the US, the Israelis and Indians were planning to attack Pakistan’s nuclear facilities, then PM Benazir had asked Pakistan Air Force to be ready to attack India’s nuclear facilities in case Pakistan was attacked.

Money: The former army chief said Saudis had given bags full of money to Mahmood Haroon to woo politicians to join the Islami Jamhoori Ittehad (IJI), which was constituted to ensure that Benazir did not return to power, and fund IJI’s election campaign.

He said Haroon had claimed that the ‘money-bags’ were so heavy that his “shoulders hurt for days”.

Rift: Beg also said former army chief Asif Nawaz and former PM Nawaz Sharif had been at odds because of former ambassador to US Abida Husssain.

He said Abida had complained to Nawaz that Asif had met some American leaders during his US visit, but had not included her in those meetings.

She had told Nawaz that Asif was conspiring against him with the US leadership.

Relevant:
BB, Gen Zia-ul-Haq martyred under same conspiracy: General Aslam Baig - Online

Why Afghan Elections Matter

ANALYSIS: Why the Afghan elections matter — Bruce Riedel
Daily Times, August 30m 2009

More democracy — not less — is a good thing in this war. A new government in Kabul, even if it still has Karzai as President but with a credible popular mandate earned in a credible election fight, can be the basis for changing the momentum in this conflict

Afghanistan’s Presidential election is still a work in progress but its implications will be enormous. President Barack Obama’s new strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan needs a legitimate and credible outcome from this election in order to build support for what is now America’s longest war both at home and abroad. The NATO mission in Afghanistan needs an Afghan partner who has the support of the Afghan people and can provide the decent governance that is essential to fighting an insurgency. War weariness is gaining ground in America and Europe, a flawed election would only add to discontent. So the stakes are unusually high in only the third election ever in the country’s history.

The preliminary results released on the Afghan elections so far are too small (only 17 percent of the polling places) to mean much. The claims of victory by the contenders, including incumbent President Hamid Karzai (a Pashtun) and his main challenger former Foreign Minister Abdullah Abdullah (a Tajik), should also be given little attention; they are just spin. Charges of fraud and vote tampering need to be investigated thoroughly. Final results are not expected until next month and they will provide much more insight into the status of the war. In many ways they will be the best metrics on how the war is going.

For complete article, click here

Related:
Afghan vote fraud claims gather momentum - AFP
Change in Afghanistan must come from within - Guardian

Saturday, August 29, 2009

Trust Deficit in the U.S. - Pakistan Relations

U.S. Accuses Pakistan of Altering Missiles
By ERIC SCHMITT and DAVID E. SANGER
New York Times, August 29, 2009

WASHINGTON — The United States has accused Pakistan of illegally modifying American-made missiles to expand its capability to strike land targets, a potential threat to India, according to senior administration and Congressional officials.

The charge, which set off a new outbreak of tensions between the United States and Pakistan, was made in an unpublicized diplomatic protest in late June to Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani and other top Pakistani officials.

The accusation comes at a particularly delicate time, when the administration is asking Congress to approve $7.5 billion in aid to Pakistan over the next five years, and when Washington is pressing a reluctant Pakistani military to focus its attentions on fighting the Taliban, rather than expanding its nuclear and conventional forces aimed at India.

While American officials say that the weapon in the latest dispute is a conventional one — based on the Harpoon antiship missiles that were sold to Pakistan by the Reagan administration as a defensive weapon in the cold war — the subtext of the argument is growing concern about the speed with which Pakistan is developing new generations of both conventional and nuclear weapons.

“There’s a concerted effort to get these guys to slow down,” one senior administration official said. “Their energies are misdirected.”

At issue is the detection by American intelligence agencies of a suspicious missile test on April 23 — a test never announced by the Pakistanis — that appeared to give the country a new offensive weapon.

American military and intelligence officials say they suspect that Pakistan has modified the Harpoon antiship missiles that the United States sold the country in the 1980s, a move that would be a violation of the Arms Control Export Act. Pakistan has denied the charge, saying it developed the missile itself. The United States has also accused Pakistan of modifying American-made P-3C aircraft for land-attack missions, another violation of United States law that the Obama administration has protested.

Whatever their origin, the missiles would be a significant new entry into Pakistan’s arsenal against India. They would enable Pakistan’s small navy to strike targets on land, complementing the sizable land-based missile arsenal that Pakistan has developed. That, in turn, would be likely to spur another round of an arms race with India that the United States has been trying, unsuccessfully, to halt. “The focus of our concern is that this is a potential unauthorized modification of a maritime antiship defensive capability to an offensive land-attack missile,” said another senior administration official, who also spoke on the condition of anonymity because the matter involves classified information.

“The potential for proliferation and end-use violations are things we watch very closely,” the official added. “When we have concerns, we act aggressively.”

A senior Pakistani official, also speaking on the condition of anonymity because the interchanges with Washington have been both delicate and highly classified, said the American accusation was “incorrect.” The official said that the missile tested was developed by Pakistan, just as it had modified North Korean designs to build a range of land-based missiles that could strike India. He said that Pakistan had taken the unusual step of agreeing to allow American officials to inspect the country’s Harpoon inventory to prove that it had not violated the law, a step that administration officials praised.

Some experts are also skeptical of the American claims. Robert Hewson, editor of Jane’s Air-Launched Weapons, a yearbook and Web-based data service, said the Harpoon missile did not have the necessary range for a land-attack missile, which would lend credibility to Pakistani claims that they are developing their own new missile. Moreover, he said, Pakistan already has more modern land-attack missiles that it developed itself or acquired from China.

“They’re beyond the need to reverse-engineer old U.S. kit,” Mr. Hewson said in a telephone interview. “They’re more sophisticated than that.” Mr. Hewson said the ship-to-shore missile that Pakistan was testing was part of a concerted effort to develop an array of conventional missiles that could be fired from the air, land or sea to address India’s much more formidable conventional missile arsenal.

The dispute highlights the level of mistrust that remains between the United States and a Pakistani military that American officials like to portray as an increasingly reliable partner in the effort to root out the forces of the Taliban and Al Qaeda on Pakistani territory. A central element of the American effort has been to get the military refocused on the internal threat facing the country, rather than on threat the country believes it still faces from India.

For complete article, click here

Post Presidential Election Scenario in Afghanistan

Karzai Using Rift With U.S. to Gain Favor With Afghans
By HELENE COOPER, New York Times, August 29, 2009

OAK BLUFFS, Mass. — A little over 24 hours after the polls closed, President Obama stepped out on the White House South Lawn last week to pronounce the Afghanistan presidential elections something of a success.

“This was an important step forward in the Afghan people’s effort to take control of their future, even as violent extremists are trying to stand in their way,” Mr. Obama said. “I want to congratulate the Afghanistan people on carrying out this historic election.”

But now, as reports mount of widespread fraud in the balloting, including allegations that supporters of the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, illegally stuffed ballot boxes in the south and ripped up ballots cast for his opponents, Mr. Obama’s early praise may soon come back to haunt him.

Afghanistan’s Electoral Complaints Commission said Friday that it had received more than 2,000 complaints of fraud or abuse in last week’s election. Mr. Karzai’s biggest rival, Abdullah Abdullah, showed reporters video of a local election chief in one polling station stuffing ballot boxes himself.

The vote count has progressed very slowly in Afghanistan — as of Friday, preliminary results with 17 percent of the vote in gave Mr. Karzai 44 percent and Mr. Abdullah 35 percent. If no candidate wins 50 percent of the vote, a runoff must be held between the top two candidates.

For Mr. Obama, who is on vacation here in Martha’s Vineyard, and his administration, it is the worst of all possible outcomes. Administration officials have made no secret of their growing disenchantment with Mr. Karzai, who is viewed by the West as having so compromised himself to try to get elected — including striking deals with accused drug dealers and warlords for political gain — that he will be a hindrance to international efforts to get the country on track after the election.

But Mr. Karzai, in a feat of political shrewdness that has surprised some in the Obama administration, has managed to turn that disenchantment to an advantage, portraying himself at home as the only political candidate willing to stand up to the dictates of the United States, according to Western officials.

Case in point: a meeting the day after the elections last week between Mr. Karzai and Richard C. Holbrooke, Mr. Obama’s special representative for Afghanistan and Pakistan, at Mr. Karzai’s presidential palace in Kabul.

A person familiar with the meeting, which also included Gen. Karl W. Eikenberry, the American ambassador to Afghanistan, and the deputy ambassador, Francis J. Ricciardone Jr., said that the three Americans went in to see Mr. Karzai and discussed two things: how Mr. Karzai would govern if he were re-elected, and how the elections had gone.

The three Americans told Mr. Karzai, the person said, that the United States was maintaining a neutral position in the elections, and that it would leave decisions about whether a runoff was needed to the Afghan elections commission and the electoral complaints commission.

Mr. Karzai told the Americans, according to this account, that he believed that he had won. Mr. Holbrooke, administration officials said, did not demand a runoff during the meeting, but did express concern about the complaints about fraud and ballot-box stuffing. The Americans left the meeting and described it as routine.

For complete article, click here

Related:
US envoy 'in angry Karzai talks' - BBC
US warns Karzai on fraud, corruption, militia ties - Reuters
August deadliest month for US in Afghanistan - AFP

Pakistan's Campaign against the Taliban in FATA

Pakistan's Noncampaign Against the Taliban
By Bobby Ghosh / Washington, TIME, Aug. 28, 2009

Despite strenuous entreaties by top U.S. officials, Pakistan has abandoned plans to mount a military offensive against the terrorist group responsible for a two-year campaign of suicide bombings across the country. Although the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) has been in disarray since an Aug. 5 missile strike from a CIA-operated drone killed its leader, Baitullah Mehsud, the Pakistani military has concluded that a ground attack on its strongholds in South Waziristan would be too difficult.

The Pakistani military has choked off main roads leading out of South Waziristan, and the country's fighter jets have been pounding targets from the air (an operation Islamabad insists it will continue). But that falls short of the military campaign the U.S. desires. Instead, Pakistani authorities are hoping to exploit divisions within the TTP to prize away some factions, while counting on the CIA's drones to take out Baitullah's successors.
(See pictures of refugees fleeing the fighting in Pakistan's Swat Valley.)

U.S. counterterrorism officials worry that a failure to capitalize on the post-Baitullah confusion within the TTP will allow its new leader, Hakimullah Mehsud, to consolidate his position and reorganize the group. Officials in Washington say special envoy Richard Holbrooke and NATO commander General Stanley McChrystal have pressed the Pakistanis to strike while the iron is hot. But after initial promises to launch a ground offensive in South Waziristan, the Pakistanis have backed off.

A top Pakistani general, Nadeem Ahmed, recently said preparation for such an operation could take up to two months. Now there will be no ground assault at all, according to a senior Pakistani politician known to have strong military ties. Instead, the politician tells TIME, the military will try to buy off some TTP factions through peace deals.

For complete article, click here

Related:
US Irked as Pakistan Stalls South Waziristan Offensive - antiwar.com
Pakistan Taliban claim suicide attack - AFP
TTP under Hakeemullah will remain a threat - DT
12 ‘foreign militants’ arrested from DG Khan - DT
Al-Qaeda leader: Pakistan is the main battleground - Telegraph, UK

Wednesday, August 26, 2009

ISI, MQM and the 1992 Crisis

Ex-ISI officials come out with new versions on MQM operation
Daily Times Monitor, August 26, 2009

LAHORE: Former Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) officer Major (r) Nadeem Dar claimed on Wednesday he had recovered maps of Jinnahpur from the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) headquarters, a private TV channel reported. Meanwhile, former ISI director general Lt Gen Asad Durrani told another private channel then president Ghulam Ishaq Khan had ordered an end to the military operation against the MQM to deny political mileage to the Pakistan People’s Party.

Dar told the channel he had personally recovered the Jinnahpur maps from Nine-Zero during the 1992 military operation in Karachi. This contradicts claims by Brigadier (r) Imtiaz, who had claimed that he had informed then premier Nawaz Sharif there were no maps of Jinnahpur. Separately, Durrani told a channel the government was informed about every step of the military operation against the MQM. He claimed the MQM-Haqiqi had also supported the military in the operation. He alleged the 1992 military operation had been launched for ulterior motives and Jinnahpur had been used as a scapegoat.

Relevant:
The Other Side MQM Terror: Jinnah-Pur Major Nadeem Dar Also Reveals Stunning Facts - Major Nadeem Dar

Tuesday, August 25, 2009

'Jinnahpur' Hoax Revealed

Second Editorial: Jinnahpur: hoax revealed
Daily Times, August 26, 2009

Two army officers have lifted the veil from what has been called Jinnahpur Conspiracy allegedly hatched by the MQM to snatch Karachi from Pakistan. It was alleged in 1992 that maps had been found in the headquarters of the MQM indicating such a plot. Although never formally owned by any government, the “discovery” sowed hatred among the various ethnic groups in general but particularly between Punjab and the MQM.

The Jinnahpur Conspiracy was in fact not a plot by the MQM but a plot to defame the MQM. This has been disclosed by two military officers then in a position to know the truth. General (Retd) Nasir Akhtar, who was corps commander Karachi at the time of the operation in 1992, has stated that he had no knowledge of the “Jinnahpur map”; and that was the reason why the ISPR withdrew it two days after its publication.
More forthcoming has been the ex-ISI operative and ex-IB chief Brigadier (Retd) Imtiaz Ahmad Billa who says the plot against the MQM was hatched by an officer of middle rank during the 1992 operation against the MQM by the then-army chief General Asif Nawaz and President Ghulam Ishaq Khan, while keeping Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif out of the loop. The “Jinnahpur revelation” had the effect of painting the MQM as a separatist organisation bent upon breaking Pakistan into further parts after 1971.

While complaining that Mr Nawaz Sharif should have called off the 1992 operation in which countless people were killed, including a brother and a nephew of Mr Altaf Hussain, the MQM chief has appealed for a “truth and reconciliation” process in Pakistan. In other words, he wants the MQM and PMLN to forgive and forget the past. But unfortunately, the two parties have only recently engaged in a rather intense exchange of hot words in the National Assembly and may not be able to “readjust” quickly.

In the long run, however, democracy must win the day. The MQM is out of its early days of “identity conflict” and is placed squarely in the middle of the country’s electoral map. Predictably, the PMLN is going to need it as an ally in Sindh if it wins in 2014. The best thing would be an acknowledgement of the bogusness of the “Jinnahpur scheme” by all concerned. *

Related:
Retired army officers absolve MQM of Jinnahpur plot: Altaf calls for truth and reconciliation commission - Dawn

Monday, August 24, 2009

Who is TTP's New Leader?

Hakeemullah annnounced new leader – doubts linger
Dawn, Sunday, 23 Aug, 2009

ISLAMABAD: The Pakistani Taliban announced a successor to slain commander Baitullah Mehsud, but intelligence officials said on Sunday it was probably a smokescreen meant to hold together a movement left leaderless for almost three weeks.

Taliban officials rang journalists in northwest Pakistan on Saturday to say Hakeemullah Mehsud, a young militant who commands fighters in the Orakzai, Khyber and Kurram tribal regions, had been chosen as the new chief by a leadership council, or shura.

Western governments with troops in Afghanistan are watching to see if any new Pakistani Taliban leader would shift focus from fighting the Pakistani government and put the movement's weight behind the Afghan insurgency led by Mullah Mohammad Omar.

A BBC report quoted Faqir Mohammad, head of the Taliban in the Bajaur tribal region, as saying Hakeemullah was selected.

Tribal elders told Reuters that Hakeemullah was named after Faqir Mohammad was dissuaded from taking the leadership, although earlier he had said he was taking temporary command.

'There's confusion. Two days ago, Fariq Mohammad claimed he's acting chief and now he says Hakeemullah is,' one senior intelligence officer in northwest Pakistan said. 'It's a trick.'

Intelligence officials insisted Hakeemullah was killed or gravely wounded in a shootout with a rival days after Baitullah Mehsud was killed by a US missile strike on Aug. 5.

'The announcement is real, but the man isn't,' the officer said. 'The real Hakeemullah is dead.'

For complete article, click here

Related:
Taliban leader challenges appointment of Hakeemullah Mehsud as group's leader - Long War Journal
Taliban in disarray after death of Mehsud - The National

U.S. Officials Get a Taste of Pakistanis’ Anger at America

U.S. Officials Get a Taste of Pakistanis’ Anger at America
By HELENE COOPER, New York Times, August 19, 2009

KARACHI, Pakistan — Judith A. McHale was expecting a contentious session with Ansar Abbasi, a Pakistani journalist known for his harsh criticism of American foreign policy, when she sat down for a one-on-one meeting with him in a hotel conference room in Islamabad on Monday. She got that, and a little bit more.

After Ms. McHale, the Obama administration’s new under secretary of state for public diplomacy and public affairs, gave her initial polite presentation about building bridges between America and the Muslim world, Mr. Abbasi thanked her politely for meeting with him. Then he told her that he hated her.

“ ‘You should know that we hate all Americans,’ ” Ms. McHale said Mr. Abbasi told her. “ ‘From the bottom of our souls, we hate you.’ ”

Beyond the continuation of the battle against militants along the Pakistani-Afghan border, a big part of President Obama’s strategy for the region involves trying to broaden America’s involvement in the country to include nonmilitary areas like infrastructure development, trade, energy, schools and jobs — all aimed at convincing the Pakistani people that the United States is their friend. But as Ms. McHale and other American officials discovered this week, during a visit by Richard C. Holbrooke, the special representative to Pakistan and Afghanistan, making that case was not going to be easy.

For complete article, click here

To read Ansar Abbasi's Response in The News, click here

Jinnah was more effective politician than Gandhi: Jaswant Singh

Jinnah was more effective politician than Gandhi: Singh
The News, August 24, 2009

NEW DELHI: Jaswant Singh, who was recently expelled from the Bhartia Janata Party (BJP) on declaring Muhammad Ali Jinnah as a great man, on Sunday said Quaid-i-Azam was more effective than Gandhi in Indian politics.

In an interview in Karan Thapar’s programme of CNN-IBN, Jaswant Singh said Jinnah’s entire politics was parliamentary and in the early years he was more effective in putting pressure on the British than Gandhi.

“Jinnah had successfully kept the Indian political forces together, simultaneously exerting pressure on the government,” he said.“Jinnah believed in the strength of logic; he was a Parliamentarian; he believed in the efficacy of parliamentary politics. Gandhi, after testing the water, took to the trails of India and he took politics into the dusty villages of India,” Singh said.

When asked about his observation “Gandhi’s leadership was an entirely religious, provincial character” and Jinnah was “doubtless imbued by a non-sectarian nationalistic zeal,” Singh replied: “Jinnah was non-sectarian. Gandhi used religion as a personal expression. Jinnah used religion as a tool to create something but that came later. For Gandhi religion was an integral part of his politics from the very beginning.”

He further said Jinnah’s fear was that if the whole question or practice of mass movement was introduced into India then the minority in India would be threatened. To a question about his expulsion from the BJP, Singh said the party was narrow-minded. “I didn’t think the party is so narrow-minded, so nervous about Jinnah and Patel and to get so railed at what I have written. I have a feeling, which I voiced also, that perhaps my former colleagues had not really read the book when they passed the sentence,” he said.

Related:
Jaswant Singh Covered BJP's Advani on Khandahar - News Blaze
Jaswant Singh’s graceless, baseless expulsion will haunt BJP for long - Indian Express

Thursday, August 20, 2009

Jaswant thrown out of BJP for writing Jinnah biography

"Thirty years of my political life with the BJP and (being expelled) on this note...... saddened me and on the ground for writing a book, that saddened me even more, immensely more...... The day India starts questioning thought, it starts questioning reading, writing, publishing, we are entering a very very dark alley," he said.
by Jaswant Singh - Indian Express

Related:
Jaswant Singh slams Modi over ban on his book in Gujarat - Hindustan Times
BJP expels Jaswant - DT
Going Jinnah’s way - Dawn

Obama reaches out to religious parties in Pakistan

Obama reaches out to religious parties in Pakistan
* Baloch welcomes change in tone towards Muslims
* Holbrooke rejects JI’s complaints about western assault on Islam
Daily Times, August 20, 2009

ISLAMABAD: US President Barack Obama has started reaching out to some of the country’s most fervent religious and anti-American parties, including one alleged to have given rise to the Taliban.

Obama’s special envoy, Richard Holbrooke, is initiating dialogue between the US and religious parties previous administrations had largely shunned, both sides said. “The purpose is to broaden the base of US relations in Pakistan beyond the relatively narrow circle of leaders Washington has previously dealt with,” explained Vali Nasr, senior adviser to Holbrooke. John Bolton, US ambassador to the UN during the Bush presidency, questioned Holbrooke’s timing for trying to engage Taliban sympathisers on the eve of elections in neighbouring Afghanistan, where US forces are battling the hard-line extremist group. “As a general proposition, democracy in Pakistan is fragile enough now that negotiating with people that some on the democratic side of the Pakistani spectrum would consider terrorists strikes me as fairly risky,” Bolton said. “What we ought to be doing is making sure that our ties with the military are strong because the gravest risk is radical penetration of the military,” he added.

Change in tone: At one of this week’s sessions, Liaquat Baloch, a top member of the Jamaat-e-Islami (JI) party, told Holbrooke he welcomed the new administration’s public change in tone towards Muslims around the world. But Baloch said he was disturbed to see “no change in practice” in Pakistan and Afghanistan, where Obama has stepped up military operations against the Taliban on both sides of the border. Holbrooke invited the JI, which some US officials compare to the banned Muslim Brotherhood in Egypt, to visit the heavily guarded US embassy compound in Islamabad, seeking to dispel long-running rumours that thousands of US Marines would be based there.

Not true: Holbrooke rejected the party’s complaints about a Western “assault” on Islam, saying “that could not be further from the truth” with Obama, who has roots in the religion. Fazlur Rehman, whose Jamiat-e-Ulema-e-Islam party was active in rousing support for the Taliban in 1990s, also got an audience with Holbrooke and his team. reuters

Tuesday, August 18, 2009

Elections in Afghanistan: Possibilities and Prospects

Threats by Taliban May Sway Vote in Afghanistan
New York Times, August 17, 2009
Threats by Taliban May Sway Vote in Afghanistan
By DEXTER FILKINS

TARAKAI, Afghanistan — A group of Taliban fighters made their announcement in the bazaar of a nearby village a few days ago, and the word spread fast: anyone caught voting in the presidential election will have his finger — the one inked for the ballot — cut off.

So in this hamlet in southern Afghanistan, a village of adobe homes surrounded by fields of corn, the local people will stay home when much of the rest of the country goes to the polls on Thursday to choose a president.

“We can’t vote. Everybody knows it,” said Hakmatullah, a farmer who, like many Afghans, has only one name. “We are farmers, and we cannot do a thing against the Taliban.”

Across the Pashtun heartland in eastern and southern Afghanistan, where Taliban insurgents hold sway in many villages, people are being warned against going to the polls.

In many of those places, conditions have been so chaotic that many Afghans have been unable to register to vote. In many areas, there will not be any polling places to go to.

The possibility of large-scale nonparticipation by the country’s Pashtuns is casting a cloud over the Afghan presidential election, which, American and other Western officials here believe, needs to be seen as legitimate by ordinary Afghans for the next government to exercise real authority over the next five years.

Doubts about Pashtun participation are particularly injecting uncertainty into the campaign of the incumbent, Hamid Karzai. Five years ago, Mr. Karzai rode to an election victory on a wave of support from his fellow Pashtuns, who make up about 40 percent of Afghanistan’s population.

Polls show that Mr. Karzai is leading the other candidates. But those predictions could be overturned if a large number of Pashtuns stay away from the polls.

The threats against the local population in villages like Tarakai show a change in the Taliban’s tactics from previous years. Five years ago, the insurgents largely allowed voting to go forward. At the time, Afghan and American officials believed that the prospect of voting was so popular among ordinary Afghans that Taliban commanders decided that opposing it could set off a backlash.

For complete article, click here

Related:
Karzai stumbles as Afghan race down to wire - Los Angeles Times
Afghan warlord General Dostum returns to boost Karzai’s campaign - Timesonline
Taliban hardliners spread out to undermine Afghanistan election - Guardian
U.S. Intelligence and Afghan Narcotics - Washington Post
Peace Talks With Taliban Are a Top Issue in Afghan Vote - NYT

Pakistan Taliban spokesman 'seized'

Pakistan Taliban spokesman 'seized'
Aljazeera, August 18, 2009

Omar was an associate of Baitullah Omar, the Taliban leader reportedly killed in a US raid [File: Reuters]

A spokesman for the Pakistani Taliban has reportedly been captured by security forces in the northwest of the country.

Mauvi Omar was seized as as he was travelling through the Mohmand tribal region in a car with two associates, government, military and intelligence officials were reported as saying.

The Pakistani military has not confirmed the capture of Omar, but Major Fazal Ur Rehman, the head of the military's media department, said: "A very, very important militant has been arrested."

Omar's capture would be another blow to the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan after the reported death of Baitullah Mehsud, the group's leader, in a US missile attack on August 5.

Intelligence officials, who were speaking on condition of anonymity, told the Associated Press news agency that local tribal elders had assisted Pakistani security forces in locating Omar in the village of Khawazeo.

Omar frequently contacted journalists to issue statements claiming responsibility for suicide bombings and other attacks across the country.

for complete article, click here

Related:
Pakistan: 7 Feared Killed by Car Bomb at Gas Station - NYT
Pakistan 'extremist' is shot dead - BBC

Sunday, August 16, 2009

Jinnah's new biography by Jaswant Singh



VIEW: BJP’s Jaswant revises Jinnah —Karan Thapar
Daily Times, August 16, 2009

Jaswant Singh’s view of Jinnah is markedly different to the accepted Indian image. He sees him as a nationalist. In fact, the author accepts that Jinnah was a great Indian. I’ll even add he admires Jinnah and I’m confident he won’t disagree

There’s a book published tomorrow that deserves to be widely read and I want to be the first to draw your attention to it. It’s Jaswant Singh’s biography of Jinnah. Read on and you’ll discover why.

Jaswant Singh’s view of Jinnah is markedly different to the accepted Indian image. He sees him as a nationalist. In fact, the author accepts that Jinnah was a great Indian. I’ll even add he admires Jinnah and I’m confident he won’t disagree.

The critical question this biography raises is how did the man they called the Ambassador of Hindu-Muslim unity in 1916 end up as the Quaid-e-Azam of Pakistan in 1947?

The answer: he was pushed by Congress’ repeated inability to accept that Muslims feared domination by Hindus and wanted “space” in “a re-assuring system”. Jaswant Singh’s account of how Congress refused to form a government with the Muslim League in UP in 1937, after fighting the election in alliance, except on terms that would have amounted to it’s dissolution, suggests Jinnah’s fears were real and substantial.

The biography does not depict Jinnah as the only or even the principal force behind Partition. Nehru and Mountbatten share equal responsibility. While the book reveals that Gandhi, Rajagopalachari and Azad understood the Muslim fear of Congress majoritarianism, Nehru could not. If there is a conclusion, it is that had Congress accepted a decentralised, federal India, a united India “was clearly ours to attain”. The problem: “this was an anathema to Nehru’s centralising approach and policies”.

Jaswant Singh’s assessment of Partition is striking. After asserting that it “multiplied our problems without solving any communal issue”, he asks: “if the communal, the principal issue, remains...in an even more exacerbated form than before...then why did we divide at all?” The hinted answer is that no real purpose was served.

Jaswant Singh, however, goes further. He accepts that because of Partition the Muslims who stayed on in India are “abandoned”, “bereft of a sense of real kinship” and “not...one in their entirety with the rest.” And he concludes: “this robs them of the essence of psychological security”.

But that’s not all. He does not rule out further partitions: “In India...having once accepted this principal of reservation (1909)...then of partition, how can we now deny it to others, even such Muslims as have had to or chosen to live in India?”

Where the book compares the early Jinnah and Gandhi, the language and the analysis tilt in the former’s favour. At their first meeting in 1915, Gandhi’s response to Jinnah’s “warm welcome” was “ungracious”. Gandhi insisted on seeing Jinnah in Muslim terms and the implication is that he was narrow-minded. Of their leadership, the book says Gandhi’s “had almost an entirely religious provincial flavour” while Jinnah’s was “doubtless imbued by a non-sectarian nationalistic zeal”.

Finally, in terms of their impact: “Jinnah...successfully kept the Indian political forces together, simultaneously exerting pressure on the government.” In Gandhi’s case “that pressure dissipated and the British Raj remained for three more decades.”

Unfortunately, I can’t assess the reliability of Jaswant Singh’s viewpoint. I’m a journalist not an historian. But I can assert that it’s courageous and probably a valuable corrective. We need to see Jinnah without the hate or prejudice of the past. It may be uncomfortable to accept suppressed truths but we can’t keep denying them.

This book will stir a storm of protest, perhaps most from Jaswant Singh’s own party. He realises that. But it did not deter him. Let it not put you off.

The writer is a leading Indian television commentator and interviewer

Related:
Nehru, Patel 'conceded' Pakistan to Jinnah: Jaswant Singh - Times of India
Jinnah according to Jaswant - Interview with Anjum Niaz
Visit Jaswant Singh's website

Saturday, August 15, 2009

Pakistani Public Opinion: Pew Survey



Pakistani Public Opinion
Growing Concerns about Extremism, Continuing Discontent with U.S.
Pew global Attitudes Project, Released: 08.13.09

Overview

Pakistanis see their country in crisis. They give their national government lower ratings than at any time in this decade, and almost no one is satisfied with national conditions. Crime and terrorism are seen as major problems by virtually everyone. And huge percentages of Pakistanis also see their country struggling mightily with corruption and a deteriorating economy.

A long-standing concern about Islamic extremism has grown even greater over the past year. No fewer than 69% of the Pakistanis questioned worry that extremists could take control of the country. At the same time, indifference and mixed opinions about both al Qaeda and the Taliban have given way to a strong condemnation of both groups. In 2008, just 33% held a negative view of the Taliban; today, 70% rate it unfavorably. Similarly, the percentage of Pakistanis with an unfavorable opinion of al Qaeda has jumped from 34% to 61% in the last year.

However, growing concern about Islamic extremism has not resulted in an improved view of the United States. Opinions of America and its people remain extremely negative. Barack Obama's global popularity is not evident in Pakistan, and America's image remains as tarnished in that country as it was in the Bush years. Only 22% of Pakistanis think the U.S. takes their interests into account when making foreign policy decisions, essentially unchanged from 21% since 2007. Fully 64% of the public regards the U.S. as an enemy, while only 9% describe it as a partner.

Further, many express serious concerns about the U.S.-led effort to combat terrorism, both globally and in Pakistan specifically. In particular, many who are aware of the drone strikes targeting extremist leaders believe these strikes are causing too many civilian deaths and are being carried out by the U.S. without the consent of the Pakistani government.

However, for all the anti-American sentiment, the new survey by the Pew Research Center's Global Attitudes Project also finds an openness to improving relations with the U.S. and considerable support for the idea of working with it to combat terrorism. By a margin of 53% to 29% Pakistanis say it is important that relations between the two countries improve.


Moreover, many endorse U.S. assistance for the Pakistani government in its fight with extremist groups.Nearly three-fourths of those interviewed (72%) would support U.S. financial and humanitarian aid to areas where extremist groups operate. As many as 63% back the idea of the U.S. providing intelligence and logistical support to Pakistani troops who are combating these groups. And after being asked about these forms of cooperation between Pakistan and the U.S., nearly half (47%) then say they would favor U.S. missile strikes against extremist leaders.

It is not surprising that American cooperation with the Pakistani military is popular, given the confidence that Pakistanis have in it. As many as 86% say the military is having a good influence on the country, which is far greater than the number who feel that way about the police (39%), courts (58%), and even religious leaders (64%). Just 36% say the Directorate for Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) is having a good impact, although many respondents (41%) do not offer an opinion.

These are the latest findings from the 2009 Pew Global Attitudes survey of Pakistan. Face-to-face interviews were conducted with 1,254 adults in Pakistan between May 22 and June 9, 2009. The sample, which is disproportionately urban, includes Punjab, Sindh, Baluchistan, and the North West Frontier Province (NWFP). However, portions of Baluchistan and the NWFP are not included because of instability. The Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) were not surveyed. The area covered by the sample represents approximately 90% of the adult population.1 (Pakistan was surveyed as part of the Spring 2009 Pew Global Attitudes Survey, which included 24 nations and the Palestinian territories. For more findings from this survey, see "Confidence in Obama lifts U.S. Image around the World; Most Muslim Publics Not So Easily Moved," released July 23, 2009).

For complete summary/overview of the report, click here
For complete report (pdf), click here

Related:
Poll: Pakistanis oppose Taliban, still revile US - The Associated Press
More Pakistanis View Al-Qaeda, Taliban Negatively, Poll Finds - The Washington Post

Friday, August 14, 2009

Understanding what is Sharia

Understanding what is Sharia By Dr Riffat Hassan
Dawn, 14 Aug, 2009

What is Sharia is the subject of an intense debate going on not only in Pakistan but globally, both amongst Muslims and between Muslims and non-Muslims. This, while the majority of those who are engaged in the debate do not often know the original or the classical meaning of Sharia.

Given the importance of Sharia in the lives of millions of Muslims, it is critical that the term be correctly understood. Explaining this term, Dr Gamal Solaiman, a notable Egyptian scholar educated at Cairo’s Al-Azhar University, observes that ‘the word ‘sharia’ literally means a way leading to a watering place where people have access to indispensable life ingredients’.

He refers to Surah 21:31 which states: ‘We made out of water every living thing.’ As water is the essence of all living things, so Sharia represents what is essential for a human being’s spiritual and social development.

Dr Solaiman has pointed out that the word is used in the Quran in three places. One reference is in Surah 42:13 which states: ‘In matters of Sharia, He (God) has ordained for you that which He had enjoined upon Noah — and into which We gave thee (O Muhammad) insight through revelation — as well as that which We had enjoined upon Abraham and Moses and Jesus: Steadfastly uphold the (true) faith, and do not break up your unity therein.’

Here, Sharia ‘stands for the essence of all revealed religions with regard to acknowledging God, being obedient to Him and guided by Him’.

For complete article, click here

Pakistan: What Needs to be Done?

Can’t stop the rot
The News, August 15, 2009
Mosharraf Zaidi

As someone who has recently had a chance to observe how the Punjab government goes about its business, it is easy to confirm the rumours. A more committed and sincere effort to deliver a well-governed administration in Pakistan may be difficult to imagine. The level of commitment that Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif has become renowned for, however, is not completely unheard of in other parts of the country. Though he may be seen as a standard bearer for it, several key political figures represent the same spirit of getting things done.

For Karachiites, it is obvious just from a trip from the airport down through the Shahrah-e-Faisal into the heart of the city, that Mayor Mustafa Kamal is a public policy hurricane. Not always exactly precise, but pulsating with unbridled energy and a compassion for the constituencies he serves. Jetting from one hotspot of underperforming state machinery to the next, Kamal has garnered international attention for the pace of his work. Even with exaggerated accounts of what such coverage has actually meant, Kamal’s work is manifest and acknowledged even by some of the MQM’s staunchest opponents in Karachi’s dangerous and complex political landscape.

Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani is not just wise on camera, but in fact a clearly serious and thoughtful man, keenly aware of the burdens his country is under, even off it. He has attempted throughout his administration to live up to the requirements of a country under attack from terrorists, on the rebound from an era of military rule and deeply divided along identity fissures. His finance minister, Mr Shaukat Tarin, does not get much sleep at all. He is constantly plotting a way for Pakistan out of the desperately tight fiscal and monetary crises that have enveloped this country for the duration of his reign as the key economic mind on the Zardari-Gilani team.

The sincere intentions of the Mustafa Kamals of Pakistan and the tireless energy of its Shahbaz Sharifs, however, is not quite producing the kind of government that Pakistanis deserve. A country made up mostly of people who are poor, underserved by the state, and underrepresented by public institutions—save a resurgent and activist judiciary—deserve better. The challenge of delivering it in the 21st century is no longer just a matter of sincere intentions, and hard work. The rot in terms of the establishment of ground rules of the game, or institutions, and the interaction of agents for these institutions amongst each other—such as between parliament and the military—is more than knee-deep. Digging Pakistan out of this hole requires a sustained and heroic effort. But heroism in the 21st century is not simply about putting on the cape and learning how to fly. It is about understanding the material the cape is made of, what enables flight whilst one wears it, and the aerodynamics of the superhuman body. In short, the ability of even Pakistan’s finest sons and daughters to affect meaningful and lasting change is about coming to grips with the nooks and crannies of how things work, why they don’t work, and what it will take to get them to work. Once that analytical part is sorted, it is about having the suicidal political courage to take unpopular decisions.

The key questions that collapsing buildings in Karachi, vulnerable police training centres in Manawan, murder, terror and arson disguised as religion in Gojra all raise are not about the individual performance of Pakistani politicians, or civil servants, or judges, or military men. They are about the combined disability of these institutions, despite the presence of sometimes overwhelmingly able personalities in all spheres. When we discuss the vileness of what happened in Gojra purely in the context of religious affairs in Pakistan we miss the larger point. No city, no village and no community, anywhere in the world, should ever have to get into a discussion about religion, when the context is the daylight murder of seven people, in a manner that belongs in sixth century Jahilliya, rather than a 21st century Islamic Republic.

For complete article, click here

Thursday, August 13, 2009

Reclaiming the founding moment on Independence Day of Pakistan


COMMENT: Reclaiming the founding moment — Suroosh Irfani
Daily Times, August 14, 2009

Reclamation of Pakistan’s South Asian Muslim identity, so poignantly reflected in Jinnah’s speech, is as crucial for the survival of a democratic Pakistan as the battle for defeating the Taliban

Rooted in a democratic struggle that ended British rule in the subcontinent, there was something remarkable about Pakistan’s emergence on August 14, 1947 as a sovereign Muslim state. This was as much reflected in the founding father Muhammad Ali Jinnah’s address to Pakistan’s first Constituent Assembly as in its national anthem and flag celebrating Pakistan’s founding moment.

Jinnah’s speech on August 11, 1947 set the direction for Pakistan as a modern democratic state, where religion was a personal matter that had “nothing to do with the business of the state”, and people could creatively rework a divisive past for a promising future. At the same time, the inclusive spirit of a South Asian Muslim identity was reflected, on the one hand, in the first national anthem composed by Jagan Nath Azad, a scholar of Indo-Persian culture, and on the other hand, in a flag that celebrated Pakistan’s three percent religious minorities by giving them twenty five percent of the flag’s space — its white section.

Such eclecticism rooted in an Indo-Persian culture also prevailed in the new national anthem — first played at Karachi airport on March 30, 1950 when the Shah of Iran visited Pakistan, but formally adopted seven years later. As with the Urdu word for ‘national anthem’ (qaumi terana in Urdu, terana e qaumi in Persian), the anthem is as much in Urdu as Persian, the composition is by a Zoroastrian — Ghulam Ahmed Chagla, and the chorus giving it an ‘Indian’ musical aura comprises of almost equal numbers of female and male singers, respectively five and six. (See Ashfaque Naqvi. “A word on Jagannath Azad”, Dawn, June 27, 2004)

Indeed, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto’s populist slogan of “Islam, Democracy and Socialism” that gave him a landslide win in Pakistan’s first general elections held in 1970 also reflected the eclectic spirit of Pakistan’s South Asian Muslim identity. However, General Zia-ul Haq, who toppled Bhutto’s government in a military coup in 1977 and had him hanged two years later, set Pakistan on a different track that eroded the South Asian spirit of its identity. Lacking a political or social base of his own other than the army, Zia carved out a constituency for himself through a Saudi-backed politics of ‘Islamisation’ that infused Islamic conservatism in the state and society and co-opted religio-political parties, including the Jama’at-e Islami that had historically stood in opposition to Jinnah and Pakistan. Moreover, Soviet military intervention in Afghanistan in support of Kabul’s Marxist regime in 1979 helped in entrenching General Zia’s regime and turning Pakistan into “America’s most allied ally” as a Cold War frontline state.

Indeed, if the Cold War had given General Zia a shortcut to legitimacy on the international front, the Afghan jihad enabled Zia to stake Pakistan’s future on the jihadi politics in Afghanistan , giving rise to a plethora of home-grown militant outfits. Clearly, the upshot of the US-Saudi backed Afghan jihad in a regional context shaken by Shia revivalist Ayatollahs of the Iranian revolution had fateful consequences for Pakistan.

At the same time, with the virtual collapse of state education, religious schools linked with jihadi outfits rapidly expanded as breeders of a violent jihadi culture that eclipsed Pakistan’s South Asian identity while promoting an ‘Arabist shift’ — a tendency to view the Arab as the only ‘real’/pure Muslim, and then using this trope of purity as a self-righteous weapon for recasting the present in a glorified imaginary of a triumphal Arab past.

Such reasoning is reflected in a detained Pakistani suicide bomber’s interview on Geo Television on July 2, 2009. The would-be bomber justified the killing of innocent children and citizens in the ongoing spate of suicide bombings by invoking the fatwa of “a great Arab cleric”, to the effect that those who died in the bombings were not innocent victims as they did not support Taliban’s jihad.

Indeed, back in the 1990s when Pakistan helped Taliban’s rise to power in Afghanistan, Talibanic Islam became virtually synonymous with Osama bin Laden and Al Qaeda through fusion with Wahhabi-Salafi radicalism, even as Peshawar became “the capital of the Islamic world”, as noted by Al Qaeda strategist Abu Mus’ab al-Suri in Brynjar Lia’s Architect of Global Jihad: The Life of Al Qaeda Strategist Abu Mus’ab al- Suri. (Hurst. London. 2007) According to al Suri, “every ongoing discussion and debate (in Peshawar) quickly spread out to the rest of the world, through audio communiquĆ©s, books, leaflets, audiocassettes, and through couriers and visitors”.

Moreover, if the founding moment of Indo-Persian culture was rooted in the 11th century publication of Kashf ul Mahjub, (The Unveiling of the Veiled), a treatise on Sufism by Lahore’s patron saint Ali Osman Hujwiri or Data Ganj Baksh as he is popularly known across the country, the publication in Peshawar of al Suri’s The Experience and Lessons of the Islamic Jihadi Revolution in 1991 might well have signalled the internationalisation of the Arabist shift in Pakistan.

At the same time, Arab and Pakistani jihadis continued to flourish in the training camps of Afghanistan and Pakistani-administered Kashmir after Zia’s death and Soviet withdrawal from Afghanistan, even as Pakistan briefly realised its dream of gaining ‘strategic depth’ in Afghanistan under Taliban rule.

However, all this changed following the September 11, 2001 suicide attacks on the United States, masterminded by Osama bin Laden’s Al Qaeda that Taliban had hosted in their Islamic Emirate. And although the invasion by US and NATO forces in October 2001 led to the rout of the Taliban and Al Qaeda in Afghanistan, this further radicalised Pakistan’s Islamist groups, even as the Taliban and Al Qaeda sought refuge in Pakistan. Indeed, most Pakistanis regarded the Taliban as ‘true Muslims’ and bin Laden a ‘hero of Islam’, thereby enabling the terrorists to exploit local hospitality in Pakistan. The existential threat that Pakistan faces is not only because of the Taliban per se, but also a complicit culture largely blurring the boundaries between ‘extremist’ and ‘mainstream’ in the Islamist spectrum.

However, a sea change has occurred in Pakistan’s public perceptions of Al Qaeda and the Taliban since May 2009, after the Pakistan Army was finally compelled to crush the Taliban insurgency. Even so, military action against the Taliban would remain inconclusive without socio-economic and educational measures for winning “hearts and minds”, especially of the people displaced by recent fighting.

At the same time, such measures should aim at promoting a new political culture in sync with Pakistan’s founding moment, summed up by Jinnah’s speech to the Constituent Assembly. Indeed, reclamation of Pakistan’s South Asian Muslim identity, so poignantly reflected in Jinnah’s speech, is as crucial for the survival of a democratic Pakistan as the battle for defeating the Taliban.

Suroosh Irfani is an educationist and writer based in Lahore. (Courtesy a special edition of Viewpoints entitled “The Islamisation of Pakistan: 1979-2009.” The Middle East Institute, Washington DC)

Related:
Jubilation in Swat over newly won liberation - Dawn

Adil Najam, Ayesha Jalal, Hasan Askari Rizvi, Bano Qudsia, Javed Ghamdi, Asma Jahangir and Talib Jauhri Honored - Excellent Selection of Intellectuals

Civil awards conferred on prominent personalities
Friday, August 14, 2009

ISLAMABAD: On the Independence Day, President Asif Ali Zardari has conferred civil awards on prominent personalities for their meritorious services in various fields. Hilal-i-Imtiaz was awarded to fiction writer Bano Quddsia and human rights activist Asma Jahangir.

Sitara-i-Imtiaz was conferred on writer Professor Ayesha Jalal; Professor Hasan Askari, an independent political and defence analyst; late film actor Syed Musa Raza (Santosh Kumar); veteran broadcaster late Syed Salim Gilani; intellectual Hanif Ramay (late); artist Jamil Naqsh; Resident Editor of The News, Peshawar, Rahimullah Khan Yusufzai; Asad Umar from Sindh; AK Khan for his pioneering works in the horticultural sector; Dr Javed Ahmed Ghamidi for his contributions to Islamic philosophy; scholar Allama Talib Johri and scholar Professor Rasul Bakhsh Rais.

Also, Award for Pride of Performance was given to writer Fehmida Riaz; writer Masud Mufti; Group Editor of Jang Mahmood Shaam; Atta Muhammad Kakar for promoting sports activities in Balochistan; Pakistan cricket team captain Younus Khan; and artist Najmi Sura. Besides Tamgha-i-Imtiaz was awarded to Akbar Khameesu Khan.

Also See: Sitara-e-Imitiaz for Prof. Adil Najam - All Things Pakistan

For complete list, click here

Frontier Crimes Regulation Amended - A Positive Step

Zardari allows political activities in Fata
The News, August 14, 2009
Political Parties Order extended to tribal areas; administration stripped of unbridled powers
By our correspondent

ISLAMABAD: President Asif Ali Zardari announced the lifting of ban on political activities in the Federally Administrated Tribal Areas (Fata) on the Independence Day on Thursday.

“Today I am announcing the permission of political activities in the Fata to bring them into the main political stream,” he said while addressing the nation on the Independence Day at the presidency during a special programme.

The programme was also attended by Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani, Chairman Senate Farooq H Naik, Speaker National Assembly Dr Fehmida Mirza, Chairman PPP Bilawal Bhutto Zardari and federal ministers.

The president said Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani, his cabinet and political parties of the country backed this decision. “We all are united and will take along the PML, the MQM, the ANP, the JUI-F and all other political parties and make a consensus decision either it relates to Balochistan, Pukhtunkhwa or any other issue,” he added.

He said parliament and the people were united and will allow no one to derail democracy. “Pakistan came into being with democracy and democracy will safeguard the country,” he added.

The president saluted the armed forces for defending the country and flushing out terrorists and extremists. He also saluted the people of Malakand and Swat who rendered great sacrifices for the country.

He paid tributes to the Quaid-i-Azam Muhammad Ali Jinnah, Liaquat Ali Khan, Hussain Shaheed Sohrwardy, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto and Benazir Bhutto Shaheed for offering scarifies for the country.

The president also announced major legal and political reforms in the tribal areas to extricate them from a century of bondage and subservience and usher them into the mainstream of national life, describing it as a gift to the nation on the Independence Day.

For complete article, click here

Related:
Amending the FCR - Dawn Editorial
ANP rejects amendments to FCR - DT
Tribal politicians see FCR behind lawlessness - DT

The New Metrics of Afghanistan: CSIS

The New Metrics of Afghanistan
The Data Needed to Support Shape, Clear, Hold, and Build
By Anthony H. Cordesman
CSIS, Aug 7, 2009

No one who works with the unclassified data on Afghanistan can fail to be aware of how poor and contradictory much of that data now are. In general, no NATO/ISDAF government – including the United States – has yet provided an honest or meaningful picture of the war. Far too often, official reporting has been tailored to report success when the Taliban, Hekmatyer, and Haqqani were actually scoring major gains. In other cases, key problems in the Afghan government, the NATO/ISAF effort, and the economic aid effort were ignored or disguised as successes.

In other cases, governments have simply reported metrics designed for bureaucratic purposes in other contexts, and which simply are not relevant to war fighting. Far too much economic reporting, for example, has ignored the real world poverty and needs of the Afghan people and reported classic econometric data. The bulk of reporting on aid has ignored the realities of warfighting except to excuse focusing aid on areas where it has little or no impact on areas with significant risk or outside the immediate perimeter of military protection. Most aid reporting has focused on funding and money spent and projects started, not on whether they meet the requirements of either broad national development or war fighting, or whether they have any meaningful or enduring effectiveness in actually serving the Afghan people.

CSIS has been tracking the data that are made available by NATO/ISAF, the US, other allied countries, the UN, available for several years. A survey of the key maps, graphics, and other data that are now provided is available on the CSIS web site at :

http://csis.org/publication/dynamics-afpak-conflict-metrics-and-status-report

A review of these data reveals critical problems that call the integrity of most public Western reporting on the Afghan conflict into question. It also shows that clear needs exist for more objective reporting and measures of effectiveness:

Metrics That Show the True Nature of Taliban and Insurgent Successes
Virtually all NATO/ISAF and member country combat reporting has focused on military clashes between NATO/ISAF and insurgent forces. Until recently, almost all of this data has been tied to analyses that grossly minimize insurgent success by focusing on the limited number of districts (13 out of 364 in a recent US report) where there have been major clashes.

Yet, between 2004 and 2009, the insurgents generally avoided engaging NATO/ISAF forces unless they had a strong political motive to fight and concentrated on expanding their political and security control over the countryside. NATO/ISAF was winning largely meaningless tactical clashes without securing or “holding” population centers while the insurgents succeeded in locking NATO/ISAF and Afghan government efforts into steadily smaller areas. They took over much of southern Afghanistan; expanded their influence in the east, center, north, and west; steadily reduced the areas in which aid and PRTs could operate; and steadily won the war of political control that really counted.

For years, NATO/ISAF, the US, and other NATO/ISAF countries failed to provide unclassified data and maps showing this progress. They talked about victory measured solely in terms of the outcome of tactical clashes with insurgent forces from 2002 through much of 2008. Even today, government spokesmen talk about stalemates at a time the insurgency has scored more than half a decade of steady gains in winning the war it is seeking to fight: a battle of ideology, political influence and control in Afghanistan, and political attrition in undermining NATO/ISAF support for the war.

The only reporting that began to show what was actually happening was a series of UN maps that showed the massive expansion of insurgent influence in terms of risk to aid works. The UN reporting showed entire districts at risk when insurgent influence was often more limited, and this tended to exaggerate Taliban and other insurgent influence. It has generally been correct, however, in showing that it expanded from some kind of active presence somewhere close to 30 districts in 2003 to around 150 today – some 40% of the country and more than ten times the figures where NATO/ISAF reported on major attack incidents.

It is only now, after some eight years of warfare, that NATO/ISAF is truly beginning to shift its strategy to fight the war necessary to win, and is focusing on control of key population centers. This shape, clear, hold, and build strategy seeks to defeat the Taliban and insurgents in the war they have actually been fighting by:

■Shape: Create the military conditions necessary to secure key population centers; limit the flow of insurgents;
■Clear: Removing insurgent and anti-government elements from a given area or region, thereby creating space between the insurgents and the population;
■Hold: Maintaining security, denying the insurgents access and freedom of movement within the given space; and,
■Build: Exploiting the security space to deliver humanitarian relief and implement reconstruction and development initiatives that will connect the Afghan population to its government and build and sustain the Afghanistan envisioned in the strategic goals.

For complete article, click here

The Quaid won’t have it By I.A. Rehman

The Quaid won’t have it By I.A. Rehman
Dawn, 13 Aug, 2009

‘Here I should like to give a warning to the landlords and capitalists who have flourished at our expense by a system which is so vicious, which is so wicked and which makes them so selfish that it is difficult to reason with them. The exploitation of the masses has gone into their blood. They have forgotten the lesson of Islam. … There are millions and millions of our people who hardly get one meal a day. Is this civilisation? Is this the aim of Pakistan? Do you visualise that millions have been exploited and cannot get one meal a day? If that is the idea of Pakistan, I would not have it.’ — Quaid-i-Azam, Delhi, 1943
No apology is necessary for flinging a somewhat longish quote from the state’s founding father in the face of his successors who have stopped respecting his legacy.
Instead of using national days to broadcast meaningless resolutions about fulfilling the Quaid’s mission, it would be appropriate tomorrow (Independence Day) to face the question: has Pakistan become the state the Quaid-i-Azam would not have?

The expressions used by the Quaid are exceptionally strong. He was not given to disowning the ideal of Pakistan in a huff. There should thus be little doubt that the foremost justification for Pakistan’s existence must be a consistent effort to end the exploitation of the masses at the hands of ‘landlords and capitalists’ who are amenable neither to reason nor to the call of Islam.

To divert attention from the foremost ideal of guaranteeing the masses a decent standard of life quite a few half-baked theories have been concocted to exonerate the state of Pakistan. One of the most puerile statements that has been going round is that had Pakistan not been created this famous lawyer might have spent his life as a district pleader’s clerk or that the finance wizard would have been lucky to hold the ledger for a non-Muslim moneylender.

For complete article, click here

Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Muslim women uncover myths about the hijab: CNN

Muslim women uncover myths about the hijab
By John Blake, CNN, August 12, 2009

(CNN) -- Rowaida Abdelaziz doesn't want your pity.

Rowaida Abdelaziz says wearing the hijab sometimes interferes with usual U.S. teenager activities, but that it's worth it to her faith.

She doesn't want your frosty public stares; the whispers behind her back; the lament that she's been degraded by her father.

What the Muslim high school senior wants you to understand is that she doesn't wear the hijab, the head scarf worn by Muslim women, because she is submissive.

"It represents beauty to me," says Abdelaziz, the 17-year-old daughter of two Egyptian parents living in Old Bridge, New Jersey.

"My mom says a girl is like a jewel," Abdelaziz says. "When you have something precious, you usually hide it. You want to make sure you keep it safe until that treasure is ready to be found."

The nation has heard plenty of debate over racial profiling. But there's a form of religious profiling that some young Muslim women in America say they endure whenever they voluntarily wear the hijab.

The hijab, also known as the veil, is the headscarf worn by Muslim women around the globe. It's a simple piece of cloth, but it can place young Muslim women in Western countries in difficult situations.

Some hijab-wearers say that strangers treat them as if they're terrorists. Others ask them if they're a nun -- or even allergic to the sun. In some cases, their worst critics are not Americans, but fellow Muslim Americans.

The pressure on Muslim teenagers in the U.S. who wear the hijab may be even more acute. Their challenge: How do I fit in when I wear something that makes me stand out?

Randa Abdel-Fattah, who has written two novels about this question, says wearing the hijab can "exhaust" some young Muslim women in the West.

"You can sometimes feel like you're in a zoo: locked in the cage of other people's stereotypes, prejudices and judgments, on parade to be analyzed, deconstructed and reconstructed," says Abdel-Fattah, a Muslim who has Palestinian and Egyptian parents but was born in Australia.

Abdel-Fattah says people should not assume that Muslim women who wear the hijab are being controlled by men. She, too, struggled with the choice of wearing a hijab when she was a teenager.

"When it comes to the hijab -- why to wear it, whether to wear it, how to wear it -- there is theology and then there is practice and there is huge diversity in both," says Abdel-Fattah, author of "Does My Head Look Big in This?"

For complete article, click here

Related:
Women, Islam, and Hijab - Emory University
Women and gender in Islam By Leila Ahmed - Google books

Tuesday, August 11, 2009

Restructuring of Pakistan's ISI

Govt decides to restructure ISI
The News, August 12, 2009
By Muhammad Saleh Zaafir

ISLAMABAD: The government has decided to restructure the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) to make it more efficient and vibrant.

The effort that is already underway would bring energetic and more dedicated personnel into the fold of the agency who could live up to the challenges of the modern age. As part of the endeavour 32 officers of brigadier and colonel ranks have been retired from the ISI and it is expected that other officers who have not proved their utility would be shown the door further down the line in the months to come. The outfit is also being trimmed in the manner the Army was restructured three years ago without compromising its skill to defend the motherland.

Well placed sources in the Ministry of Defence told The News that the ISI was expanded in recent years out of proportion, especially the officers who on the verge of superannuation joined the agency and subsequently secured agreement to continue with it. The practice expanded the agency in terms of number without enhancing its tangible capacity. Keeping in view the situation, various departments of the agency were asked to offer their comments about the working of the officers who had attained the superannuation and were still working with it but without putting in anything useful with regard to the assignments given to them. Such officers were a burden on the organisation and ultimately it was decided that such officers should be asked to relinquish their duties forthwith, the sources added.

The sources revealed that the retrenchment process in the ISI would continue for at least two more years but it would be carried out in an extremely careful manner so that the working of the agency did not suffer in any way. The incumbent leadership of the armed forces and the agency are fully cognizant of the quality of the force and particularly the requirements of the men on sensitive jobs. The officers who have been shown the door were given due esteem on their parting the organization, the sources added.

To a question the sources brushed aside any impression about the involvement of any pressure from any side while dealing with the process of streamlining the working of the agency. “No-one could think in terms of exerting pressure with the incumbent command of the armed forces,” the sources said.

Relevant:
The ISI, Pakistan's notorious and feared spy agency, comes in from the cold - Guardian
Pakistan: How the ISI works - Guardian
Inter-Services Intelligence - New York Times

Sunday, August 09, 2009

Karzai in His Labyrinth: NYT

Karzai in His Labyrinth
By ELIZABETH RUBIN
New York times, August 9, 2009

On a sunny June morning in Kabul, I sat among hundreds of turbaned men from Afghanistan’s Helmand and Kandahar provinces in a chandeliered wedding hall where they had gathered for a campaign rally to re-elect President Hamid Karzai. War was raging in Helmand and Kandahar. And yet there was an atmosphere of burlesque about the place. Waiters hammed up their service, skidding across the floor balancing mounds of rice, bananas and chicken, whirling shopping carts of Coke and Fanta. The organizer of the event and master of ceremonies was none other than Sher Muhammad Akhundzada, the five-foot-tall ex-governor of Helmand and probably the country’s most infamous drug trafficker. From a velvet couch he barked out to the speakers: “Not so many poems! Keep your speeches short!” — but no one was listening.

At my table, an elderly Helmandi engineer described how awful things were in his region — families killed in coalition airstrikes, villages overrun by the Taliban. So why more Karzai? “If we choose someone else, it will only get worse,” he said through an interpreter. Another man said that at least Karzai had brought education and unity. “They are all lying,” a third said in English. He was the son of a prominent Kandahari elder who, a year before, was assassinated outside the family’s house. He’d also lost his uncle, brother and 45 other members of his extended family, he told me. He blamed the government. He was shaking his head at the spectacle in the wedding hall. “I told the men at my table, ‘You just came to show your faces on camera so if Karzai wins he will give you privileges.’ ” He laughed and said, “They told me they just came for lunch.” I asked what he thought would happen during the election in Kandahar. “Fraud,” he said. He himself claimed to have made 8,000 fake voter-registration cards. They were selling for $20.

After lunch, in a downstairs room filled with mannequins in pink and green wedding gowns, I had a chat with Akhundzada, the ex-governor. He is campaigning in the south for Karzai. First he wanted to explain that the nine tons of drugs found in his compound in 2005 were planted there by the British to frame him. Then he changed tack: “If people think I was a smuggler, O.K. But at least I spent the money on government and soldiers! Now the money goes to the Taliban and kills British and Americans and Afghan soldiers.” This is the same logic that Karzai used to try to get Akhundzada reinstalled as governor of Helmand. The British would not accept it. This seemed distinctly unfair to Akhundzada, given the other characters on the political stage: “They don’t take Fahim out of elections? Dostum is not criminal? Mohaqiq is not criminal? Just me?”

It was a comical and sinister and telling performance — a prominent Karzai backer damning key members of the president’s re-election team (locally dubbed “the warlord ticket”). The ethnic-Tajik Muhammad Fahim is running as Karzai’s first vice president (having previously served in the same post and as defense minister); the ethnic-Uzbek warlord Abdul Rashid Dostum is returning from Turkey to deliver Uzbek votes to Karzai; and the ethnic-Hazara politician Muhammad Mohaqiq is a key Karzai ally to whom Karzai pledged five ministerial posts.

For complete article, click here

Related:
U.S. to Hunt Down Afghan Drug Lords Tied to Taliban - James Risen, NYT
UN: Hamid Karzai's government using state resources to swing Afghan election - Telegraph
Karzai Befriends Rivals to Improve Poll Odds - Wall Street Journal

TTP Succession Fight - Emerging Scenario

TTP leader dead in succession fight? By Pazir Gul
Dawn, 09 Aug, 2009

MIRAMSHAH: A key Taliban commander was killed in a struggle over succession to Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan chief Baitullah Mehsud at a shura meeting in South Waziristan, government and security officials said on Saturday.
Baitullah was killed, along with his wife, in a US Predator strike on Wednesday.

Interior Minister Rehman Malik confirmed reports of a shootout at the shura meeting and said that one of the commanders had been killed.

According to sources, commanders Hakeemullah Mehsud and Waliur Rehman, the two leading contenders for the chief slot, exchanged hot words at the shura meeting in Sara Rogha over the choosing of a successor to Baitullah.

A shootout followed, leading to the death of Hakeemullah while causing life-threatening injuries to Waliur Rehman.

However, a government official in Peshawar said that both Hakeemullah and Waliur Rehman had been killed in the clash.

The names of Hakeemullah, Waliur Rehman and 50-year-old Azmatullah Mehsud were shortlisted at a meeting of senior Taliban leaders from the Mehsud tribe, but a decision was put off following differences over who would succeed the slain leader.

For complete report, click here

Related:
After Baitullah - Dawn
Is Baitullah really dead? - Hamid Mir, The News
News of Baitullah’s death encourages IDPs to return - DT

Friday, August 07, 2009

Who is responsible for recent attack on the Christian community in Pakistan?

The lynching of Hameed Masih
The News, August 08, 2009
Faris Kasim

What happened in Gojra was not the work of a foreign-funded militant group but the result of our own propagation of religious chauvinism, intolerance and glorification of militancy in the past three decades as part of state policy and school curriculum.

The younger brother of one of our family’s caretakers lives in Gojra and he told us a chilling tale of the lynching of Hameed Masih and three members of his family by a mob. Most of us who have been following the tragedy know that the trouble began at a Christian wedding in the nearby village of Korian on the evening of July 29. It later turned out that some children had cut out pages of an Islamiat textbook and used them as confetti for the wedding. However, the community immediately told the Muslims of nearby homes that the Holy Quran was not desecrated and that the children were all illiterate and did not know what book they were tearing the pages from.

Javed said that despite this the situation began to get out of control after local pesh imams began saying at mosques that local Christians had desecrated the Holy Quran. He said that the announcements continued the next day as well and this really served to inflame the local Muslim population. Javed said that he and his friends soon realised that the matter could get very serious and contacted the local nazim and MPA and MNA and were told that the police were being sent for their protection. He said that in response they said that the police were not sufficient and that either the rangers or the regular army needed to be deployed – and that too immediately, if the lives of the Christians were to be saved.

He said that the first attack on Gojra’s Christian Colony came from the youth of nearby Awan Town. By then the Christians had hastily left their homes – and Javed could see from a distance the boys descending on his and his friends’ homes, kicking the doors and ransacking everything. He said he saw a dozen or so men chase a young Christian boy throwing stones at him as he ran. He did say though that many of the Christian families managed to find refuge with Muslims families in Gojra, while some fled to Faisalabad, Jhang and nearby Toba Tek Singh.

The most horrifying incident was the lynching of Hameed Masih, a 50-year-old well-known painter of Gojra. Hameed had come home from his work and was caught by the mob which began hitting him. Javed said that the police tried to save Hameed by firing in the air but the mob was too large and violent.

In addition to Hameed, two women and a child of his family were also killed by the mob. As the policemen left the colony, Javed saw around 30 men dressed in black shalwar kameez arriving at the scene. He said they were members of the Sipah-e-Sahaba and came from nearby Jhang. These men, he said, had some kind of chemical with them. They sprayed it on the empty homes of the Christians and set them on fire. They also threw the chemical on the bodies of Hameed and his family members and burned them.

Javed said that the Punjab chief minister has promised between three and five lakhs for each family which lost its home but this amount is too little compared to what the Christians of Gojra really lost.

Instead of blaming outsiders for this violence, as some politicians and media commentators seem to have done, what is needed is to look inward and see the curse of intolerance and bigotry that is eating our social and moral fabric. The time is now for the government to review and reform Section 295-C of the Pakistan Penal Code.

The writer is a freelance contributor. Email: fariskasim@gmail.com

Baitullah Mehsud is Dead: What is the Way Forward?

WATANDOST COMMENT: It will not be long before Mehsuds will pick another leader to spearhead the militant Pakistani Taliban, but undoubtedly Baitullah Mehsud's death has served as a serious blow to the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) movement. Already stressed out due to reversals in the Swat region, militants from FATA are already sneaking out of the area in considerable numbers. Pakistan must avail this opportunity to regain control of South Waziristan - and a major military ground offensive is needed for this end.

For Analysis of the situations, See

Mehsud death could signal turning tide against Pakistan militants
The US appears to have decapitated Pakistan's most notorious Taliban outfit, but the war is by no means won
Declan Walsh, guardian.co.uk, Friday 7 August 2009

For a time, Baitullah Mehsud appeared to have cloaked himself in the historical garb of the Faqir of Ipi, a militant cleric whom British colonial troops spent much of the 1930s and 40s chasing through the mountain passes of Waziristan.

"They sought him here, they sought him there, those columns sought him everywhere," went an old British couplet that equally applied to Mehsud as he shrugged off efforts by Pakistani and, more recently, US forces to kill him.

In June a CIA-operated drone fired a barrage of missiles at a funeral for militants killed in an attack that day. Mehsud had slipped away hours earlier. Now, though, the odds seem to have fatally narrowed.

If the blizzard of reports out of Washington, Islamabad and the tribal areas are confirmed, the US has decapitated Pakistan's most notorious Taliban outfit. Over the two years since he founded the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), Mehsud rose from a little-known border warrior to public enemy number one, notorious for mastering the dark art of suicide bombing.

Coming on the heels of the army's success in the Swat valley this summer, his apparent death could signal that Pakistan is finally turning the tide in its struggle against Islamist militancy. But the war is by no means won

For complete article, click here

Related:
Evidence Mounts That Taliban Chief In Pakistan Is Dead - NPR
Good riddance, killer Baitullah - Dawn

Thursday, August 06, 2009

70 Murders, Yet Close to Going Free in Pakistan: NYT

70 Murders, Yet Close to Going Free in Pakistan
By SABRINA TAVERNISE and WAQAR GILLANI
The New York Times, August 6, 2009

MULTAN, Pakistan — It has been 12 years since Fida Hussein Ghalvi testified against the militant who was charged with killing 12 members of his family. But some days he feels as if he were the one who ended up in jail. He still gets threats, his servants all quit and an armed guard is posted at his gate.

Most maddening is the fact that the militant — Malik Ishaq, one of the founders of the country’s most vicious sectarian group, whose police record has a dizzying tally of at least 70 murders — has never had a conviction that stuck.

In Pakistan, the weakness of the state is matched only by the strength of its criminals. When Mr. Ishaq was arrested in 1997, he unleashed his broad network against his opponents, killing witnesses, threatening judges and intimidating the police, leading nearly all of the prosecutions against him to collapse eventually.

Now, with the cases against him mostly exhausted, Mr. Ishaq, 50, jihadi hero and leader of the militant group Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, could be out on bail as early as this month. That prospect terrifies Mr. Ghalvi, whose world has shrunk to the size of his house in this central Pakistani city.

“My life is totally constrained,” he said. “I can’t even go to funerals. What have I gotten from 13 years of struggle except grief?”

Punishing criminals is a slippery business in Pakistan, where years of military rule have badly weakened the country’s civilian institutions, like its police force. Its criminal code dates from the 1860s. There are no modern-day forensics, shifting the burden onto witnesses, who, without a functioning protection program, routinely refuse to appear.

What is more, the country’s intelligence agencies have a long history of nurturing militants as proxy forces over the heads of the police. Few civilian victims, judges or even police officials dare to buck what Pakistanis take for granted as an untouchable network of support.

Such was the case with Hafiz Saeed, a cleric who was freed from house arrest in June, despite abundant evidence that his group was behind the attacks in Mumbai, India, that killed more than 160 people last year.

Mr. Ishaq is no exception. Pakistan’s spy agency, hedging against the Shiite revolution in neighboring Iran and in favor of the fight against the Soviets in Afghanistan, began pouring money into hard-line Sunni groups like his in the 1980s.

These days, Mr. Ishaq, a cigarette dealer with a sixth-grade education who has been in jail since 1997 with 44 cases against him, no longer seems to have official support, police officers said. Even so, convicting him has been all but impossible.

For complete article, click here

community police in Swat - New Initiative worth supporting

Govt launches community police in Swat
* Police chief says recruitment essential as displaced return to area * Expert claims community police best means to restore peace in Swat
Daily Times, August 6, 2009

MINGORA: The country has armed and appointed the first community police force in Swat, hoping to prevent a Taliban resurgence and bolster the capacity of security forces depleted by beheadings and mass desertions.

A calm — however tense — has returned to the district, more than three months after Islamabad ordered the military to wage a blistering air and ground assault against Taliban fighters who effectively ruled the area.a.

But civilian and military officials say peace depends on a properly trained and equipped police force, which, under an effective civil administration, must fill the security vacuum and prevent the Taliban return.

Very Important: New Swat police chief Sajid Khan Mohmand says the answer lies in his drive to recruit community police, particularly as hundreds of thousands of displaced civilians return to the valley.

“Community police have started to function at local police stations in the valley. They’ll work alongside regular police and help them deal with the Taliban effectively. We have already received 1,600 applications,” he said.

Regular police are not always from the neighbourhoods in which they work, so the community officers should help root out militants by telling them who’s who and keeping their finger on the pulse.

They are chosen by tribal elders for their clean credentials and strong physique and will earn a monthly salary of Rs 10,000. If needed on patrol, community police are armed with Chinese-made assault rifles, 10 rounds of ammunition and a bulletproof jacket, Mohmand said.

His ambitious plans to recruit nearly 4,000 men — should they come to fruition — would significantly bolster the ranks of the police force, which he estimates at around 2,200 in Swat.

The government claims the military has “eliminated” the Taliban, two years after they rose up under radical cleric Fazlullah to enforce repressive laws and more than three months after launching a new offensive under US pressure.

Law enforcement staff were frontline victims of the thousands of extremists who fought under Fazlullah.

Petrified by a campaign of intimidation and brutal beheadings, hundreds of police deserted as successive military operations failed to subdue the Taliban. Mohmand said at least 91 police officials were killed, mostly in bomb attacks and beheadings.

Best option: Retired brigadier and security expert Mahmood Shah said community police were the best means to restore peace in Swat but stressed that success or failure would depend on their being properly trained in policing and insurgency. “This is the best step to restore peace in Swat,” he said. afp

Related:
Pakistan sets up community police to thwart Taliban - AFP
Police Officer Found Dead in Swat Valley of Pakistan - NYT