Sunday, May 31, 2009

Pakistan Continues its Fight...

Pakistan Continues Its Fight in South Waziristan
By SABRINA TAVERNISE and IRFAN ASHRAF, New York Times, June 1, 2009

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Fighting broke out late Saturday between militants and the Pakistani military in South Waziristan, a stronghold region for the Taliban and Al Qaeda that the government has said will be the next front in its offensive, a Pakistani military spokesman said.

At least 25 militants and six soldiers were killed overall in the fighting, which began on Saturday evening in the Torwam area, where militants ambushed a military convoy, said Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas, a military spokesman. A battle followed, leaving three soldiers and an estimated 10 militants dead, General Abbas said.

Then, around midnight, the Taliban attacked a military post in Spinkai Raghzai. Soldiers fought militants for several hours through the night, killing at least 15 of them, General Abbas said. Three soldiers, including an officer, were also reported killed.

For the past month, the military has been pressing an offensive against Taliban militants who had taken over the Swat Valley, north of Islamabad, the capital. On Sunday, a day after the military reported that it had taken the valley’s biggest city, Mingora, from the Taliban, Pakistani officials said the campaign could be over in a matter of days.

For complete article, click here

Also See:
Pakistan protests organized via Facebook - UPI
Pakistan Military Expects to Wrest Control of Northwest in Days - Bloomberg
The myth of a political solution - The News

Saturday, May 30, 2009

The FM Mullahs and the Taliban’s Propaganda War in Pakistan

The FM Mullahs and the Taliban’s Propaganda War in Pakistan
Terrorism Monitor Volume: 7 Issue: 14, May 26, 2009
By: Mukhtar A. Khan

The scenic Swat valley is thundering with both aerial bombardments and fiery Taliban FM radio sermons. In a large-scale military operation dubbed Operation Rah-e-Raast (Operation Straight Path), the Pakistani army is hitting Taliban targets with gunship helicopters while the Taliban respond with AK-47s and their powerful propaganda radio broadcasts. More than a million people have fled the scene of battle and millions more are trapped inside the valley. While the government has asked the local people to help the military in identifying Taliban hideouts, the Taliban have been broadcasting warnings against supporting the military. Through their pirate FM transmitters, the Taliban have demanded that local parliamentarians, security forces and other government officials resign from their positions as a mark of protest against the military operations; otherwise they should be prepared for a jihad directed against them. The Taliban radio broadcasters, popularly known as “FM Mullahs,” continuously transmit anti-American and anti-government sermons, calling democracy “un-Islamic” and those practicing it “infidels.” In their fiery radio speeches, the Taliban preachers have demanded that the non-Muslim minorities of Malakand pay jizya (protection tax) or face jihad. In the same tone, they have issued warnings to local NGOs, musicians and anybody else involved in “un-Islamic” activities. Those defying their orders are butchered, and daily announcements of the details of their deaths are broadcast on FM channels.

For complete article, click here

For Latest in Swat and NWFP, See:
Pakistan army 'regains' Swat city - BBC
Suicide attack, market blasts hit Peshawar - AFP

The audacity of hope for Palestine

The audacity of hope for Palestine
Kishore Mahbubani, Malaysiskini, May 29, 2009

The world will be enveloped in a heavy cloud of gloom and doom this year. Economies will sputter, governments will fall, and companies will fail. But the biggest danger of all is a sense of hopelessness. Preventing this requires resolving some large and apparently intractable problem. Closing the Doha Round of world trade talks provides one such opportunity. But an even better opportunity is provided by the Israel-Palestine conflict.

Many people around the world, especially in the West, have convinced themselves that this conflict is beyond resolution. Several efforts have been made since the famous Oslo accords of 1993. All failed. But few have noticed that an unusual constellation of forces has emerged, opening a remarkable new window of opportunity for a solution. Such geopolitical opportunities are rare, and it would be a great tragedy not to seize this one.

For a start, there seems to be a near-universal consensus that any solution will be based on the Taba accords worked out by President Bill Clinton in January 2001. Palestinian diplomats have told me they can accept this package.

Equally important, there is now a near-universal consensus among virtually all the Arab states that a peace settlement is in their interest. Many, including Egypt and Saudi Arabia, are more concerned with the rise of Iran. An agreement with Israel could strengthen their hand in dealing with Iran and deprive the Iranian government of an opportunity to whip up Arab popular sentiment against Arab governments' position on Palestine.

The big question is whether Israel is ready. But, despite the difficult political situation in Israel, there seems to be a growing consensus among the Israeli elite that time is no longer on Israel's side.

For complete article, click here

Also See:
Obama in Netanyahu’s Web - Roger Cohen, New York Times
Obama: Israel must halt West Bank settlements - USA Today

Obama to offer personal committment to Muslims

Obama speech to offer personal commitment to Muslims
AFP, May 30, 2009

WASHINGTON (AFP) — President Barack Obama will offer a "personal commitment" to bridge US differences with Muslims in his long-awaited speech to the Islamic world next week in Egypt, aides said.

But White House advisors said Friday that Obama would not shy away from addressing "tough issues" in the speech on Thursday at the University of Cairo which will be co-hosted by Al-Azhar University, an ancient center of Islam and learning.

"The speech will outline his personal commitment to engagement, based upon mutual interests and mutual respect," White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said.

"He will discuss how the United States and Muslim communities around the world can bridge some of the differences that have divided them.

"He will review particular issues of concern, such as violent extremism and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and he will discuss new areas for partnership going forward that serve the mutual interests of our people."

For complete article, click here

Also See:
Obama in the Muslim World - Washington Post
A Historic Opportunity for Obama - Dar Al Hayat
Saudis, Others Looking Forward to Obama Visit - VOA

Thursday, May 28, 2009

Taliban Vs. Pakistan

Editorial: Baitullah retaliates in Lahore
Daily Times, May 29, 2009

After the Taliban accepted responsibility late Wednesday night for the suicide-bombing of the Police Rescue-15 and ISI offices in Lahore, it is obvious that the Taliban are feeling the heat of the Swat Operation and want to show that the battle is joined on their side too. The Wednesday blast was a “hybrid” one, mixing the techniques employed in the Lahore FIA headquarters and the Manawan Police Training School cases. The explosive-laden vehicle was most probably targeting the ISI office in front of the Rescue-15 building. It was prevented from reaching its target and had to be exploded prematurely.

The Tehreek-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP) chief “Amir” Baitullah Mehsud believes in retaliation, and this time he was reacting to the beating his men in Swat are receiving from the Pakistan Army. There is news about the besieged 4,000 militants there, which must have upset him a great deal. The terrorists are trying to escape through routes not yet blocked by the Army, many of them with their beards shaved off. A number have been caught from the refugee camps after they were recognised by the refugees. Some of his best commanders have either been killed or taken prisoner. There are rumours that warlord Fazlullah himself could have been killed during the military operation.

For complete Editorial, click here

Also See:
Pakistan issues dead or alive Taliban list - UPI
Multiple Blasts in Pakistan After Taliban Warning - New York Times
Bombs, gun battle, rock Pakistan's Peshawar - Reuters

Another nuclear anniversary

PAKISTAN: Another nuclear anniversary
By Pervez Hoodbhoy
Dawn, 28 May, 2009

Once upon a time making nuclear bombs was the biggest thing a country could do. But not any more; North Korea’s successful nuclear test provides rock-solid proof. This is a country that no one admires.

It is unknown for scientific achievement, has little electricity or fuel, food and medicine are scarce, corruption is ubiquitous, and its people live in terribly humiliating conditions under a vicious, dynastic dictatorship. In a famine some years ago, North Korea lost nearly 800,000 people. It has an enormous prison population of 200,000 that is subjected to systematic torture and abuse.

Why does a miserable, starving country continue spending its last penny on the bomb? On developing and testing a fleet of missiles whose range increases from time to time? The answer is clear: North Korea’s nuclear weapons are instruments of blackmail rather than means of defence. Brandished threateningly, and manipulated from time to time, these bombs are designed to keep the flow of international aid going.

Surely the people of North Korea gained nothing from their country’s nuclearisation. But they cannot challenge their oppressors. But, as Pakistan celebrates the 11th anniversary of its nuclear tests, we Pakistanis — who are far freer — must ask: what have we gained from the bomb?

Some had imagined that nuclear weapons would make Pakistan an object of awe and respect internationally. They had hoped that Pakistan would acquire the mantle of leadership of the Islamic world. Indeed, in the aftermath of the 1998 tests, Pakistan’s stock had shot up in some Muslim countries before it crashed. But today, with a large swathe of its territory lost to insurgents, one has to defend Pakistan against allegations of being a failed state. In terms of governance, economy, education or any reasonable quality of life indicators, Pakistan is not a successful state that is envied by anyone.

For complete article, click here

Wednesday, May 27, 2009

Pakistan's Struggle for Modernity

Pakistan's Struggle for Modernity
The country's voters have never endorsed religious extremism.
By FOUAD AJAMI, Wall Street Journal, May 27, 2009

The drama of the Swat Valley -- its cynical abandonment to the mercy of the Taliban, the terror unleashed on it by the militants, then the recognition that the concession to the forces of darkness had not worked -- is of a piece with the larger history of religious extremism in the world of Islam. Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari was the latest in a long line of secularists who cut deals with the zealots, only to discover that for the believers in political Islam these deals are at best a breathing spell before the fight for their utopia is taken up again.

The decision by Pakistan to retrieve the ground it had ceded to the Taliban was long overdue. We should not underestimate the strength of the Pakistani state, and of the consensus that underpins it. The army is a huge institution, and its mandate is like that of the Turkish army, which sees itself as a defender of secular politics.

The place of Islam in Pakistani political culture has never been a simple matter. It was not religious piety that gave birth to Pakistan. The leaders who opted for separation from India were a worldly, modern breed who could not reconcile themselves to political subservience in a Hindu-ruled India. The Muslims had fallen behind in the race to modernity, and Pakistan was their consolation and their shelter.

Muhammad Ali Jinnah, the founder of Pakistan, was secular through and through. The pillars of his political life had been British law and Indian nationalism. Both had given way, and he set out for his new state, in 1947, an ailing old man, only to die a year later. He was sincere in his belief that Pakistan could keep religion at bay.

Jinnah's vision held sway for three decades. It was only in the late 1970s that political Islam began its assault against the secular edifice. A military dictator, Zia ul-Haq, had seized power in 1977; he was to send his predecessor, the flamboyant populist Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, to the gallows. Zia was to recast Pakistan's political culture. It was during his decade in power that the madrassas, the religious schools, proliferated. (There had been no more than 250 madrassas in 1947. There would be a dozen times as many by 1988, and at least 12,000 by latest count.)

Zia had been brutally effective in manipulating the jihad in Afghanistan against the Soviet Union. His country was awash with guns and Saudi and American money. He draped his despotism in Islamic garb. He made room for the mullahs and the mullahs brought the gunmen with them.

For complete article, click here

Tuesday, May 26, 2009

An Open letter to President Obama on Democracy in the Muslim World

From: Center for the Study of Islam and Democracy: https://www.csidonline.org

URGENT & Open Letter May 22, 2009

President Barack Hussein Obama
The White House
1600 Pennsylvania Avenue, NW
Washington, DC 20500

Dear Mr. President:
First of all, congratulations on your victory in November. Like so many others throughout the world, we find ourselves both hopeful and inspired. Your election is proof of America’s continued promise as a land of opportunity, equality, and freedom. Your presidency presents a historic opportunity to chart a new course in foreign affairs, and particularly in the troubled relationship between the United States and the Muslim world.

We are heartened by your promise to listen to and understand the hopes and aspirations of Arabs and Muslims. By shutting down Guantanamo Bay and forbidding torture, your administration will inspire greater confidence between the United States and the Muslim world. Last month, in your first major interview, millions of Arabs heard your call for mutual respect on one of the Middle East’s most watched television channels. They were encouraged to find that you hold a resolution to the Israel-Palestinian conflict as an urgent priority, as evidenced by the appointment of Senator George Mitchell as your envoy. Reaching out to the people of the region so early on in your presidency is a step of no small significance. But it is a step that must be followed by concrete policy changes.

Improving relations between the United States and Middle Eastern nations is not simply a matter of changing some policies here and there. For too long, U.S. policy toward the Middle East has been fundamentally misguided. The United States, for half a century, has frequently supported repressive regimes that routinely violate human rights, and that torture and imprison those who dare criticize them and prevent their citizens from participation in peaceful civic and political activities. U.S. support for Arab autocrats was supposed to serve U.S. national interests and regional stability. In reality, it produced a region increasingly tormented by rampant corruption, extremism, and instability.

For complete letter, click here

Sunday, May 24, 2009

Iran's Michelle Obama

Thousands gather to hear, cheer Iran's Michelle Obama
CNN, May 24, 2009
From Reza Sayah

TEHRAN, Iran (CNN) -- Dancing in public is not allowed in Iran, but thousands could hardly contain themselves at a recent presidential campaign rally in the capital city, Tehran.

Supporters hope Zahra Rahnavard will become Iran's future first lady.

On this day, the deafening cheers were not for presidential hopeful Mir Hossein Mousavi, but rather for his wife -- a woman some are calling Iran's Michelle Obama.

The comparisons to the first lady of the United States stem from the role Zahra Rahnavard is playing in her husband's quest for the presidency.

Never in the history of Iranian presidential elections has a candidate put his wife in the forefront of his campaign.

Wherever Mousavi -- a centrist candidate -- goes, Rahnavard is usually nearby. Watch more about Zahra Rahnavard »

"We look at her and we say, 'we want to be like her in the future, ' " said Shakiba Shakerhosseie, one of 12,000 people who packed into Tehran's indoor Azadi (Freedom) sports stadium to hear Rahnavard speak.

Iran became an Islamic republic in 1979 after the ruling monarchy was overthrown and Shah Mohammad Reza Pahlavi was forced into exile.

The revolution also ended the ceremonial role of first lady that the last queen, Farah, enjoyed.

At this rally, Rahnavard -- a writer and art professor -- spoke for her husband, who was campaigning elsewhere.

For complete article, click here

Wednesday, May 20, 2009

News From the War Front...

Peace in Af-Pak
The News, May 21, 2009
Zafar Hilaly

Admittedly these are as yet early days and the army action is far from complete. But already there are disturbing signs that the result of the big push may not achieve the intended results. The Taliban are not being killed or surrendering, at least not in sufficient numbers, instead they are relocating. This is evident from Zahid Hussain's article in the Dawn of May18.

Reporting from Dagger he says that while the Taliban have been flushed out of this town of 10,000 persons, "the militants still lurked in the mountains not far from here". Most Pakistanis recognise that this is a war that had to be fought and are supportive of the army action. They are glad that the government appreciates that the answer lies not in sporadic military forays against the enemy but hunkering down with determination in the territories reclaimed from the Taliban for as long as it takes in order to protect the populace from the enemy.

It is difficult to surmise at the outset of what will be a long and bitter conflict as to who will be the eventual victor and whether the military will achieve what few have in the past namely the pacification of the Frontier tribes.

Success will depend on a number of factors some of which are:

1. The Pushtuns of Pakistan must lead the war effort against the Taliban. And if for some sad and inexplicable reason they do not or unite with the Taliban, their fellow Pushtuns, the war will become unwinnable. No nationalist insurgency against a foreign occupation has lost over the past 50 years.

2. It is inconceivable that success in either theatre of the war -- Afghanistan or Pakistan -- can be achieved without success in both. Success requires a far, far greater level of cooperation between all the major stakeholders fighting the Taliban in Af-Pak than that exists today. Efforts must be made to co-opt Iran and persuade India to play a constructive role. True, wars are won on the battlefield but negotiations to enhance the prospects of victory are also advisable.

3. As long as there is a regime in Kabul which is reluctant to end the cultivation of poppy because it profits from it; and as long as the US is reluctant or unable to prevail on Kabul to desist the Taliban will continue to skim off $300-400 million annually from the drug trade to fund their war effort. This is serious money and there are many takers in the poverty-stricken bad lands of Afghanistan.

4. Hard-won successes on the battlefield will be lost unless governance improves and corruption is reduced. Saturating the target area with bombs and dollars will fail if the bombs hit the poor and the money does not. The former will breed hatred and the latter great anger.

5. Poverty, illiteracy and the stagnant economy leave few opportunities for the majority of young Pushtuns especially those who survive on $1 a day. These young men do nothing, earn nothing and look forward to nothing. They provide a fertile recruiting ground for the Taliban. Once the fighting ebbs, massive investments in schools, health units, poverty alleviation and employment schemes must be made in the Frontier.

Defeating the Taliban and caring for the IDPs are formidable tasks and when to these are added the additional tasks of good governance, capable leadership, the elimination of corruption and myriad other tasks, including a skilful handling of the economy, the burden is an onerous one; and far too heavy for a government, particularly one that is regarded as inept, inexperienced and unpopular. Hence today the need for a national government that can forge and implement such an agenda is crucial.

The writer is a former ambassador. Email: charles123it@hotmail.com

Related:
A War on Two Fronts - Dawn
Daggar — devastation all around, Dawn, May 18, By Zahid Husain
Pakistan diary: Unity in Adversity - Aljazeera
Clinton Pledges More Aid to Pakistan - CNN

Why Zulfiqar Ali should not die

Why Zulfiqar Ali should not die By Zubeida Mustafa
Dawn, 20 May, 2009

ZULFIQAR Ali, a prisoner on death row in Adiala jail since April 1998, is to be hanged. There is confusion about the date.

Since September 2008 when President Asif Zardari rejected Zulfiqar’s final mercy petition, the condemned prisoner has been granted three stays of execution. The last expired on May 6.

But Zulfikar Ali’s case calls for immediate attention. True there are over 7,000 prisoners on death row in Pakistan. True they all deserve to be taken note of because there has been a strong opinion building up in the country against capital punishment as has been witnessed worldwide. Today 133 countries have abolished the death penalty in law or in practice.

Why I add my voice to the pleas from many quarters for Zulfiqar’s amnesty is because he is a man who deserves to live. In a country where good teachers are a rarity it would be a pity if a man who loves teaching is sent to the gallows. I may not even have known about Zulfiqar and how he has been dodging the noose had Reprieve (a London-based NGO working for condemned prisoners) represented by three determined lawyers, Sultana Noon, Sarah Belal and Nadia Rehman, not worked so hard to collect the facts of the case and prepare petitions to obtain a stay of execution.

A man who has been so devoted to teaching as Zulfiqar has been even while his life hung in the balance, must surely have something in him that should not be allowed to die. In the 11 years that he has been behind bars, he has improved his own academic qualifications and has gone on to educate hundreds of prisoners — some of them were totally illiterate before their encounter with the man now called ‘the educator’ in Adiala jail. His performance has been stellar: 12 have graduated, 23 have passed their Intermediate while 18 have done their matriculation thanks to his tutoring.

For complete article, click here

Don’t you ever say die By Anjum Niaz


Don’t you ever say die By Anjum Niaz
Dawn, 17 May, 2009

‘Group Captain, give me your Swiss bank account number,’ the vice president of a Fortune 40 company asks Sajad Haider, Pakistan’s air attachĆ© at Washington DC in the 70s. ‘Get out of my office,’ Sajad tells the American. ’I’ll have your company black-listed.’ Sajad kicks up such a ruckus that the president of that company comes running on bended knees. He fires his VP for offering the bribe.

The sacked man gangs up with touts…Pakistanis, Iranians and Americans wanting to make a quick buck from salacious defence deals being offered to Pakistan Air Force. The ticking time bomb against Sajad goes off. Sahibzada Yaqub Khan, the ambassador, tells his air attachĆ© ‘the Shah of Iran wants you to be court marshaled!’ He has personally complained to Prime Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto (ZAB) when they met at Izmir. ‘Remove him immediately and punish him severely for his seditious remarks against me,’ the Shah orders ZAB. Shah’s son-in-law Ardeshir Zahedi, the Iranian ambassador in Washington is stunned. He’s a good friend of Sajad’s. It’s later discovered that a Savak operative from Zahedi’s embassy with a hotline to the Shah has made up this horrendous lie.

For complete article, click here

Visit Sajjad Haider's website here

Tuesday, May 19, 2009

Islam and the West: Good vibes from Yusuf Islam (formerly Cat Stevens) - CNN

Yusuf, formerly Cat Stevens, brings good vibes
By Denise Quan, CNN, May 18, 2009

LOS ANGELES, California (CNN) -- It was the hottest ticket in town. Colin Farrell was there. So were Michelle Branch, Josh Groban and Chris Isaak -- the latter accompanied by his manager's dog, Rodney.


Yusuf, formerly known as Cat Stevens, believes he can help bridge gaps between cultures.

No, we're not talking about a Britney Spears or U2 concert. We're talking about a star-studded, invitation-only club show by Yusuf -- the artist formerly known as Cat Stevens.

It was the legendary folk singer's first L.A. show in 33 years, and the audience gave him a heartfelt "welcome back."

He played for just over an hour: half a dozen songs from his new album, "Roadsinger," plus a few gems from the '60s and '70s. It was "Peace Train" that elicited a singalong, with the entire room participating in the song's signature hand claps.

Branch, who sings backup on Yusuf's new album, admitted to getting teary-eyed. "You don't understand," she said. "I learned how to play guitar with the Cat Stevens songbook!"

for complete article, click here

Pakistan’s Roll of Honour (and dishonour)

Pakistan’s Roll of Honour (and dishonour)
The News, May 19, 2009
by Mosharraf Zaidi

In Mardan district, Pakistanis from all corners of Swat converge on a union council called Hathian. In eleven school buildings across Hathian, these thousands of innocent Pakistanis, who we call IDPs, have sought shelter from the violence that has consumed the beautiful places they call home in Swat, Buner and Dir. The lowest estimate of the number of people in Hathian is 8,000. Among them are children, pregnant women, and old folks with all kinds of short- and long-term medical problems. These people left their homes in Swat in a hurry. Most didn’t leave with their American Express card. In fact, most didn’t even have time to take along their identification cards.

For com plete article, click here

The Drone War

The Drone War
by Peter Bergen and Katherine Tiedemann
Are Predators our best weapon or worst enemy
The New Republic, June 03, 2009

The Al Qaeda videotape shows a small white dog tied up inside a glass cage. A milky gas slowly filters in. An Arab man with an Egyptian accent says: "Start counting the time." Nervous, the dog starts barking and then moaning. After flailing about for some minutes, it succumbs to the poisonous gas and stops moving.

This experiment almost certainly occurred at the Derunta training camp near the eastern Afghan city of Jalalabad, conducted by an Egyptian with the nom de jihad of "Abu Khabab." In the late 1990s, under the direction of Al Qaeda's number two, Ayman Al Zawahiri, Abu Khabab set up the terrorist group's WMD research program, which was given the innocuous codename "Yogurt." Abu Khabab taught hundreds of militants how to deploy poisonous chemicals, such as ricin and cyanide gas. The Egyptian WMD expert also explored the possible uses of radioactive materials, writing in a 2001 memo to his superiors, "As you instructed us you will find attached a summary of the discharges from a traditional nuclear reactor, among which are radioactive elements that could be used for military operations." In the memo, Abu Khabab asked if it were possible to get more information about the matter "from our Pakistani friends who have great experience in this sphere." This was likely a reference to the retired Pakistani senior nuclear scientists who were meeting then with Osama bin Laden.

In the pandemonium following the fall of the Taliban in the winter of 2001, Abu Khabab disappeared into the badlands on the Afghan-Pakistani border. The United States put a $5 million bounty on his head and, in January 2006, attempted to kill him and Zawahiri while they were believed to be in the Pakistani hamlet of Damadola, targeting them with a missile launched by a drone aircraft.

Initial press reports said that Abu Khabab was killed in the strike, but, when the dust cleared, 25 civilians, including a half-dozen kids, were dead--and Abu Khabab was not among them. Unsurprisingly, the civilian death toll sparked protests in the region. In one, several thousand tribesmen chanted "Death to America," and the issue of innocents killed by U.S. rockets quickly became a potent Pakistani Taliban propaganda point. A couple of weeks after the botched missile strike, Zawahiri himself appeared in a videotape, saying that the Damadola strike was a "failure" and taunting President Bush as a "butcher."

For complete article, click here

Sunday, May 17, 2009

Congress Wins in India

Indian elections: Congress celebrates as party sweeps to victory
Congress supporters celebrated their party's sweeping victory in the Indian elections by dancing in the streets as they hailed Rahul Gandhi as their "new leader".
By Amrit Dhillon in New Delhi, India
Telegraph, May 16, 2009

Ecstatic party workers danced to the beat of folk drums as a supporter stood under the yellow petals of a laburnum tree outside Congress Party headquarters, wiping away tears of joy with her scarf.

"I feel as happy as when a baby is born or your child gets married," said Razia Siddiqui, a Muslim woman from the Old Quarter of the Indian capital. "A new leader has been born (Rahul Gandhi) and he will lead India to prosperity and happiness."

For complete article, click

Also See:
Congress Party's Dominance Shows Swing Towards Continuity And Stability - Huffington Post
More Than the Vote - The Hindu
India's Election With Little Hope - Wall Street Journal

Friday, May 15, 2009

Girls’ madrassas expanding at a dramatic rate

Girls’ madrassas expanding at a dramatic rate
* 1,900 registered madrassas educating almost a quarter of a million girls in country
Daily Times, May 16, 2009

LAHORE: There are more than 1,900 registered madrassas for girls in Pakistan. And the female madrassas are expanding at a dramatic rate, educating almost a quarter of a million girls and providing more than half of the candidates taking the graduate-level examinations every year.

The madrassas are experiencing a boom thanks to the failures of the public education system and an increasing appetite in the lower middle class for traditional Islamic values.

For complete article, click here

Swat – a report from the frontline

Swat – a report from the frontline
The News, May 16, 2009
Farhat Taj

Recently an AIRRA (Aryana Institute for Regional Research and Advocacy – an Islamabad-based research organisation) investigation team went to some parts of Swat that had been under army attacks. The team observed whether the attacks were targeted at the Taliban and their installations. It observed two villages -- Ladikas and Watkai in Mingora -- and Khwazakhela, a tehsil in Swat. The team with its access to the people of the area could manage to take Besham route from Islamabad to reach Mingora via Khwazakhela. Though continuous curfew and alternate threats from the military posts and the Taliban posts badly hampered the journey of the team but somehow some of the members could manage to reach Mingora via Khwazakhela and Charbagh with the exodus of the people from different parts of Swat valley. The team was able to access and interview several dozens of those families who were still stuck up in the valley.

The team observed that the security forces have successfully destroyed the installations of the Taliban and have disrupted their chain of command in that area. They have killed many Taliban there with very little collateral damage, albeit with the destruction of civilian infrastructure. The best example is the Taliban headquarter in Khwazakhela. The headquarters was located on a mountain. It housed the Taliban operational command led by commander Yamin, the intelligence department led by commander Rashid and the department of logistics and supplies. The aerial bombardment of the Pakistan army reduced all that to rubble. The entire side of the mountain housing the headquarters has been exploded and razed.

The Taliban terrorists had established the headquarters with great efforts. They had cleansed a huge portion of the forest on the mountain to make free space for the building. They recruited the youth on a large scale, strengthened their command and control structure, established their hierarchical structure, planted mines on the main roads, dug bunkers and occupied the strategic passes in only two and a half months. And they did all this after the peace deal agreed with the NWFP government in February of this year.

For complete article, click here

A cobweb of myths Dr Tariq Rahman

A cobweb of myths Dr Tariq Rahman
Thursday, Dawn, 14 May, 2009

NOW that a military operation is going on in the Malakand Division it is imperative that it should be supported by the people and that the IDPs should be looked after with all resources at hand and be treated with compassion and respect.

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

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

This myth is dangerous because those who subscribe to it also believe that America pays the Taliban to destabilise Pakistan to create an excuse to take away our nuclear weapons. This makes it difficult for the government to fight the Taliban while accepting American aid as the whole thing seems to be a cruel hoax to ordinary Pakistanis.

The US has over 5,400 nuclear warheads and it is thousands of kilometres away from this country. Moreover, it allowed Pakistan to develop these weapons. America would not gain if Pakistan is destabilised because then Al Qaeda would be strengthened and that would threaten America.

During the 1971 war America warned India not to overrun (West) Pakistan because it was not in America’s interest to destabilise South Asia any further. In 1999 during the Kargil episode America helped Pakistan to cut its losses without further bloodshed.

During the Afghan war the US wanted to defeat the Soviet Union and paid Pakistan to do so. Pakistan helped because it needed the military aid and money (and Ziaul Haq wanted American support). And now, once again, America wants to defeat the Islamic militants because they threaten America and Pakistan needs the money. That is what the Kerry-Lugar bill is for and that is precisely why the IMF and the Friends of Pakistan consortium have lent Pakistan billions of dollars. It is not in America’s interest to destabilise Pakistan because if it breaks up or is Talibanised it will be a threat to America.

So, while America’s policies might not be the most productive, it makes no sense to claim that the Taliban are US agents in a conspiracy against our nuclear weapons.

Myth 2: Nothing gets done in Pakistan unless America wants it to happen.

This is a different version of the previous myth and it is not true. No country is so powerful that it can get everything done. Pakistan made friends with communist China against America’s wishes. Later, it was the US which sought American help to develop its own relations with China. Pakistan also developed nuclear weapons against American wishes. During the lawyers’ movement America was a supporter of Musharraf until he turned weak and it was no longer in America’s interest to support him.

Myth 3: The Taliban want Islam in the country but their approach is wrong.

This depends on personal interpretations of the Sharia. The Taliban want to impose their version of it. However, it is not only a matter of approach, it is also a matter of the interpretation of the Sharia. In fact the Taliban version of the Sharia would make life joyless for all and a torture for women. Secondly, the country would lose a pool of talent to other countries. Thirdly, productivity would decrease as Pakistan would be isolated.

Fourthly, science and technology, indeed all knowledge, would suffer as creative minds would be stifled in an atmosphere of fear. Fifthly, either the US or India or Iran would be so alarmed as to attack us or stop all foreign aid to us because such a regime would be a threat to their way of life and religious practices. Lastly, the Taliban is a name for disparate groups and gangs. They would fight for power, making us another Afghanistan.

Myth 4: If Nato forces withdraw from Afghanistan there will be peace.

Nato forces should withdraw from Afghanistan as a matter of principle but this will not end Talibanisation. Indeed, if Nato forces withdraw, parts of Afghanistan will be ruled by the Taliban once again. If Pakistan sides with them it will be isolated by the rest of the world. If it does not, it will have a hostile neighbour. In either case the Taliban worldview will be strengthened in Pakistan.

The groups seeking power in order to enforce Taliban-style Sharia in Pakistan will continue their attempt to succeed. This will mean that the danger to girls’ schools, women’s freedom of choice in moving around, dress code, art and music will remain under threat.

However, in addition to the principle that one does not want any country to occupy another, one would want America to withdraw since the occupation creates a backlash. So, even at the risk of strengthening the Talibanisation of the Pashto-speaking areas our government and thinkers should raise their voice for a Nato withdrawal. When this happens Pakistan will find it easier to fight the Taliban because Pakistanis will stop calling it an anti-colonial war.

Myth 5: Islamic militancy is created by poverty and ignorance.

This is only partly true. The family background of Osama bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri and Abu Musaib al-Zarqawi (killed in 2006) — all leading lights of Islamic militancy — cannot be called a poverty-stricken one. Osama’s family is among the richest globally. Zawahiri comes from a distinguished Egyptian family. Zarqawi’s father was an army officer and mayor of a town in Jordan called Zarqa.

Nor is the leadership illiterate. All were educated though not in the liberal arts or the social sciences. The fact is that their ideas about using militancy to defeat what is perceived as western domination (called ‘Crusaders’ by them) and the corrupt ruling elites of the Muslim world emanate from Sayyid Qutb of the Muslim Brotherhood and Abd al-Salam Faraj of Egypt. Indeed, they go back to Taqi Uddin Ibu Taymiyya (1263-1328) who lived during the tumultuous time of the Mongol invasions.

The leadership disseminates ideas about the permanent grievances of Muslims, such as Israel’s domination of Palestinian land, to young people who burn with a sense of outrage. Here the poverty nexus does come in since the ordinary rank and file of militant movements come from poor, unhappy, violence-prone households. They want money, respect and justice and these are promised to these deprived angry young men. They then become cannon fodder for the militants.

If we understand these and other myths and realise that we have created our own Frankensteins and not foreign countries; that most of the militants are our people and not foreigners (though some are); that foreign countries may help militants but are not powerful enough to keep them alive for ever; that we made mistakes in the past of which we are reaping the harvest — then we can still make Pakistan safe for our children.

Thursday, May 14, 2009

The battle for Pakistan

ANALYSIS: The battle for Pakistan — Najmuddin A Shaikh
Daily Times, May 15, 2009

The armed forces are now committed, one hopes, to the elimination of the military threat. It is civil society that has to erode and then eliminate the ideological threat that has been allowed to grow over the last thirty years

Some substantial damage has been done to the Taliban and their cohorts by the continuing military operation in Swat. The ISPR spokesman has claimed, corroborating an earlier statement by the interior advisor, that 751 Taliban (‘miscreants’) have been killed up to May 11, while 71 members of the regular and paramilitary forces have been martyred.

Given the intensity of the operation, these are relatively small numbers and bear testimony to the fact that the armed forces are choosing their targets carefully and are trying to avoid civilian casualties, a task rendered difficult by the Taliban’s use of innocent civilians as human shields.

There has been a massive exodus of civilians from the conflict zones. Nearly a million people have made their way out of Swat and Buner into Mardan, Swabi other settled areas of Pukhtunkhwa, and considerable numbers have come down to Karachi, the city with the largest Pashtun population in Pakistan. This, in addition to the half-million refugees from the tribal areas displaced by the army offensive in Bajaur, has created a major problem, which is likely to be further exacerbated when the military expands its operations to other insurgency-hit areas.

We have, however, the experience of coping with even larger displacements. At its peak, the Afghan jihad brought to Pakistan some 5.2 million refugees. Even today we are providing shelter to some 2 million officially registered refugees, while at least another million are unregistered or have somehow acquired Pakistani documentation.

The plight of our Afghan brothers as refugees and as IDPs inside Afghanistan is relevant to the concerns we have now on a number of counts, some positive and some negative. First, we were able to cope with the Afghan refugees and create infrastructure for the most part in the same areas in which the Swat refugees will have to be accommodated. We will now, as then, rely on the generosity and hospitality of the kith and kin of the refugees.

Today, according to official estimates, only 20 percent of the Swat refugees are in camps while the rest have found shelter with relatives and friends. We will need to ensure, however, that the burden on the hosts is minimised by providing essential items and facilities to the refugees, which they would have been entitled to had they moved to the camps.

Second, in trying to cope with the difficult task of administering the camps and in aid of the jihad, we permitted jihadi parties, particularly the more fundamentalist among them, to exercise considerable amount of control in the camps and to propagate their distorted version of Islam. It was in these camps and in the schools run by these parties that the seeds of extremism were planted. Today, there is talk of screening new arrivals in tents to ensure that no Taliban find sanctuary, but it is even more important to ensure that volunteers at camps do not share the Taliban’s worldview.

It was disquieting, in this context, to read a report in the Guardian by Declan Walsh that one of the first refugee camps to be set up at Sher Gur, a few hundred meters from the Malakand Division boundary, is being run by the Falah-e Insaniat Foundation, the renamed relief wing of the Jama’at-ud Dawa. According to this story, the FIF camp is conspicuously well funded and organised, “particularly in comparison with the chaotic efforts of the government”.

For complete article, click here

Tuesday, May 12, 2009

Swat Crisis: The Internally Displaced People in Pakistan

IDPs and the challenges that await
The News, May 12, 2009
by Mosharraf Zaidi

At the end of January this year, the international community’s key humanitarian agencies had done some basic number crunching for how they would deal with the Internally Displaced Persons (IDPs) crisis that was brewing in Pakistan towards the end of 2008. They estimated that the armed conflict in Bajaur and Mohmand agencies would likely drive the numbers of these Pakistanis who are refugees in their own country to about 600,000. To cater to those folks, it was estimated that roughly $36 million would be required to provide for the shelter, water and sanitation, food, and basic health care and schooling needs of the IDPs.

As I write these words, and the long overdue military operation to eliminate terrorists from Swat, Buner and Dir scorches more and more of the earth, that original estimate of 600,000 is exploding into ever larger numbers. Some civil society groups feel that the Swat-Buner-Dir IDPs alone will account for over a million people. The multilaterals and international agencies are slightly more conservative, with off-the-record numbers being cited in the range of 750,000 to 850,000.

Adding the new wave of Pakistanis who’ve been made refugees in their own country to the ones already displaced from Bajaur, Mohmand, Orakzai and other FATA agencies (around 560,000) places the total number of IDPs for 2009 at roughly 1.3 million. And it is only May 12.

For complete article, click here

Also See:
Internally Displaced People in Pakistan
Malakand's Refugees - Zafar Hillaly

Defence or Deterrence

Defence or deterrence? By Haider Nizamani
Wednesday, Dawn, May 13, 2009

THERE was little mention of nuclear weapons during the 15th Lok Sabha election campaign in India. Pakistan is fighting what some term as an ‘existential battle’ without any discernible role of nuclear weapons.

President Asif Zardari was welcomed to the United States with a lecture by his US counterpart as to how Pakistan’s fixation with India was a misplaced security concern. Other officials of the administration expressed their fears about Pakistani nukes falling into unpredictable hands.

Nuclear weapons were supposed to perform assorted wonders for India and Pakistan. Eleven years ago on May 11 the then Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP)-led government authorised the conduct of nuclear weapons tests near the desert town of Pokharan. Pakistan followed suit within weeks of the Indian tests by conducting half a dozen tests of its own in the Chagai region of Balochistan. How have nuclear weapons performed militarily, politically and culturally 11 years down the overt nuclear path? They have followed somewhat dissimilar trajectories in the two countries.

India and Pakistan have traditionally assigned different military roles to their nuclear weapons. For Pakistan the nuclear weapons are there to deter a conventionally superior India from fighting a conventional war. Pakistan has never ruled out the possibility of using nuclear weapons. That is why Asif Zardari, rather naively, had to eat his words when he suggested a few months back that Pakistan was interested in the no-first-use policy. Pakistan’s nuclear weapons, as far as military logic is concerned, are solely India-centric.

In the minds of New Delhi’s strategic pundits their nuclear weapons are not Pakistan-centric. Furthermore, nuclear weapons in the India-Pakistan strategic equation are only to deter a nuclear war between the two and are no guarantee against the outbreak of a conventional war between them.

For complete article, click here

Pakistan Can Defy the Odds: How to Rescue a Failing State: ISPU Report


Picture Source: Roll Call TV


Pakistan Can Defy the Odds: How to Rescue a Failing State
Hassan Abbas,ISPU, May 12, 2009

Is Pakistan collapsing? How far are the Taliban from Islamabad? Can al-Qaeda grab the country’s nuclear weapons? These are the types of questions raised every day by the American media, academia and policy circles. And these are critical issues, given the nature of the evolving crisis in Pakistan. The approximately two dozen suicide bombings in 2009 so far, 66 in 2008, and 61 in 2007, all of which have targeted armed forces personnel, police, politicians, and ordinary people not only in the country’s turbulent northwest but also in its major urban centers, indicate the seriousness of the threat. A major ammunition factory area located close to some very sensitive nuclear installations in Wah (Punjab) was targeted by two suicide bombers in August 2008, an act that sent shudders across the country’s security establishment.

Although certainly a matter of very serious concern, what is often ignored in this context is that terrorists need far more than suicide bombers to get hold of nuclear materials. More alarming, in fact, is the expanding influence and reach of the Taliban and similar groups in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and the North West Frontier Province (NWFP). The Swat imbroglio speaks for itself. Poor law enforcement capacity and inadequate counterinsurgency know-how on the part of Pakistan’s army are partly responsible for this state of affairs. Confused threat perceptions and popular conspiratorial thinking also encourages the denial of reality. The failing infrastructure and absence of good governance, as exposed through prolonged electricity shutdowns and declining economic and social indicators, further provides an overall dismal scenario. All of this, however, presents only one side – and a scary one at that – of the coin.

Close your eyes to the other side of the coin at your own risk. Pakistan, a country of roughly 170 million people, recently witnessed the fruits of a courageous and sustained lawyers’ movement that led to the restoration of the deposed Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry and about 60 other superior court judges. These judges were victims of former President Pervez Musharraf’s short-sightedness and selfishness in 2007 that, in turn, provoked a major movement that inspired and galvanized thousands of Pakistanis to struggle for the rule of law, an independent judiciary, and the supremacy of the constitution. The people stood up for those who defied a dictator – a rare development in the 62 year checkered history of Pakistan. The movement’s leading activists were connected through Twitter.com, an indication that the middle class and pro-rule of law civil society elements are also well networked.*

A vibrant and enthusiastic electronic and print media helped this cause immensely – though sometimes at the cost of objectivity – but for a progressive goal. There is no dearth of Pakistani writers, artists, poets, and intellectuals who are not only continuing with their creative work, but also are readying people to stand up to the country’s challenges – especially the monster of religious bigotry. Another relevant example is the many women who are joining Pakistan’s army and air force as soldiers and fighter pilots, something inconceivable for many Pakistanis just a decade ago due to cultural as well as dogmatic religious worldviews. Lastly, the gallant and heroic way in which Benazir Bhutto embraced death while challenging extremists publicly and repeatedly – knowing exactly how fatal that could be – presents yet another picture. This is the picture of hope and change that Pakistanis are calling "Umeed-e-Sehr," the hope of a new dawn.

Indeed, the question is which picture is the real Pakistan: those crazy militants who cherish beheading opponents and flogging women or those who stand for a pluralistic, progressive, and democratic Pakistan. The answer is both. Those who accept nothing but hard statistical data should just look at the voting pattern in the 2008 national and elections: the comparatively liberal Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), Awami National Party (ANP), and Muttihada Qaumi Movement (MQM) received significantly more votes than the religious political parties, all of which were trounced. Those parties are, of course, not without fault, and a large bloc of votes also went to such centrist parties as the Nawaz Sharif-led Muslim League, which runs Punjab, the country’s largest province. Although the overall political trends are on the positive side, there is certainly increasing stress and strain. And unless these forces are nurtured, supported, and strengthened, there is no guarantee that Talibanization and extremism will be confined to certain areas or eliminated.

In this scheme of things, American-Pakistani relations are a very important part of the puzzle. It is a puzzle in the sense that despite a long history of relations, including times when Pakistan was called the "most allied-ally" and occasions when it became "the most sanctioned state," both states distrust each other. The bilateral dealings are increasingly fraught with resentment, miscommunication, and a sense of caginess. Senate Foreign Relations Committee chairman John F. Kerry and ranking Republican Dick Lugar, while introducing legislation on May 4, 2009, to put into effect key elements of President Obama’s new strategy in Pakistan and Afghanistan, framed the problem aptly when they said: "The status quo is not working: the United States believes it is paying too much and getting too little - and most Pakistanis believe exactly the opposite.* The new bill, if approved by Congress, will triple nonmilitary assistance to Pakistan to $1.5 billion annually for the next five years to help the country stabilize.

An earlier bill with the same intent, the one introduced by chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee Howard Berman, had a long list of conditions attached to it. This list drew scathing criticism from Pakistani officials, who sent the clear message that they would not accept the aid package with such strings attached. One condition related to the terrorism issue read as: "Pakistan has to certify that there is no activity taking place against India.* Richard Holbrooke, the administration’s special envoy to Pakistan and Afghanistan, and Adm. Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, visited Pakistan together in early April 2009 after these proposed conditions were made known to Pakistan government. The well-informed Shuja Nawaz, director of the Atlantic Council’s South Asia Center, explains what happened during the visit: "This is probably the worst-ever visit by an American team to South Asia in history. ... It was a complete disaster. And if this is how you want to win friends, I just wonder how you want to create enemies." He also cautioned Washington policy makers that, potentially, American-Pakistan relations were heading for a train wreck.* Thankfully, a crisis-in-the-making was duly averted.

However the question remains: How can one make certain that a legitimate and reasonable oversight of the funding and support is provided to those sectors where help is needed the most? To build a deeper, sustainable, and long-term strategic engagement with the people of Pakistan, the United States must learn from its past mistakes and should not shy away from accepting its past missteps. Secretary of State Hilary Clinton deserves credit for saying what Pakistanis have been expecting to hear since late 2001. In an appearance before a subcommittee of the House Appropriations Committee on April 23, 2009, she stated: "We can point fingers at the Pakistanis. … But the problems we face now to some extent we have to take responsibility for, having contributed to it. We also have a history of kind of moving in and out of Pakistan. … Let’s remember here … the people we are fighting today we funded them twenty years ago …"* While this honest acknowledgement made juicy news headlines in Pakistan, it should go a long way toward mending the relationship. From the American perspective, however, this also means more caution about which Pakistani institutions the United States will invest in and, at the end of the day, who will be held accountable for auditing and monitoring the funds’ disbursement.

This brief report seeks to propose exactly that, after first discussing the variables that are having a potent (both negative and positive) impact on the Pakistani polity, in order to understand the history and dynamics of the malaise afflicting the country today. This is not meant to be a short history of Pakistan, for I will refer briefly only to those factors, issues, and events that, in my view, define the Pakistani identity today. Understanding that context is an absolute necessity for those who wish to help Pakistan survive and emerge as a modern democratic Muslim state.

Pakistan is a divided nation today and, as Professor Adil Najam insightfully says, it is "a democratic society trapped inside an undemocratic state." In the West, Pakistan army is still seen as an institution that can stabilize things if need be. Perhaps, that is why TIME magazine profiled Pakistan’s army chief General Ashfaq Pervez Kiani as being among the most influential 100 people in the world today in the category of "Leaders and Revolutionaries."* The one who also deserves to be profiled internationally is Afzal Lala, a now-legendary Pashtun politician associated with the Awami National Party (ANP) who, despite all the threats, is staying in Swat in his home defying the writ of the blood-thirsty Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP).*

Some recently published reports by American think tanks are very useful, especially in terms of devising recommendations for directing Pakistan and American policy for this study. These include publications from Center for American Progress (A New Policy Towards Pakistan [September 2008]); Network 20/20 (A Different Kind of Partner: A Paradigm for Democracy and Counter-Terrorism in Pakistan [October 2008]); The Atlantic Council of the United States (Needed: A Comprehensive U.S. Policy Towards Pakistan [February 2009]); the Carnegie Endowment (Reforming the Intelligence Agencies in Pakistan’s Transitional Democracy [March 2009]), and the Asia Society (How to Stabilize Afghanistan, Pakistan [April 2009]). Three books that inspired this study’s theme are also worth mentioning here: Paul Collier’s The Bottom Billion: Why the Poorest Countries are Failing and What Can be Done about It (Oxford University Press: 2008); Ashraf Ghani and Clare Lockhart’s Fixing Failed States: A Framework for Rebuilding a Fractured World (Oxford University Press: 2008); and, finally, one edited by Robert I. Rotberg, When States Fail: Causes and Consequences (Princeton University Press: 2003).

A pertinent quote from Professor Robert I. Rotberg’s introductory chapter in the above mentioned book, provides a useful framework for this study: He maintains that weak states (or states in crisis) "may be inherently weak because of geographical, physical or fundamental economic constraints; or they may be basically strong, but temporarily or situationally weak because of internal antagonisms, management flaws, greed, despotism, or external attacks. Weak states typically harbor ethnic, religious, linguistic, or other intercommunal tensions... Urban crime rates tend to be high and increasing. … Schools and hospitals show sign of neglect, … . GDP per capita and other critical economic indicators have fallen or are falling… . Weak states usually honor rule of law precepts in the breach." As per these criterions, Pakistan is a weak state in essence. By definition, internal corrective measures and international support can rescue such states.

For complete report (pdf), click here

Media Coverage of the Event:
Leading think tank asks US to stop drone attacks - The News
Picture at the Top: Congressional Muslim Staffer Association President Assad Akhter (right), a staffer for Rep. Bill Pascrell, introduces Haider Mullick (left) of the Joint Special Operations University and Hassan Abbas of the Institute for Social Policy and Understanding during a briefing Monday about a new report on Pakistan.
Photo by Tom Williams/Roll Call

Monday, May 11, 2009

Major Humanitarian Crisis in Pakistan



Refugee Crisis Clouds Pakistan's Anti-Taliban War
By Omar Waraich / Chotha Lahore, TIME, May. 12, 2009

It is in refugee camps like Chotha Lahore, rather than on the battlefields of the Swat Valley, that the outcome of Pakistan's decisive showdown with the Taliban may be decided. The camp, near the town of Swabi, is sheltering some of the hundreds of thousands of Pakistanis displaced by the government offensive to drive the militants out of the Swat Valley and its surrounds. "The purpose [of the campaign] is to cleanse the areas of these miscreants and militants," Pakistan's Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi told TIME. "It will go on until it achieves its objective." But the Pakistani public's revulsion at the abuses of Taliban rule in the area could be eclipsed by anger at the catastrophic toll inflicted on the local civilian population by the military's campaign to oust the militants.

For complete article, click here

Related:
360,000 civilians flee Pakistani offensive - AFP
UN to deliver urgent Pakistan aid - BBC
Samina Ahmed discusses refugee exodus in Pakistan - ABC
Picture Source: Getty Images (Printed in Wall Street Journal: May 11, 2009)

Public opinion has turned against the Taliban

analysis: Blast from the past — Rasul Bakhsh Rais
May 12, 2009

Public opinion has turned against the Taliban both in the insurgency-hit areas and in rest of the country. Another positive sign is that the major political parties are on the same page

What is happening in the borderlands of Pakistan is blowback from the policies that we pursued in the second wave of the Cold War as an American ally and a front-line state against the former Soviet Union. According to American strategic thinking at that time, communists were the greatest enemies of humanity and a primary threat to the stability of the global system.

Islamists from all over the world were encouraged, trained, financed and supported in the war against the Soviets. The United States and Pakistan gave no serious consideration to the long-term consequences of supporting an Islamist insurgency and effects of the militarisation and empowerment of the multi-national Muslim groups that came to dominate the Afghan jihad.

For complete article, click here

Sunday, May 10, 2009

From The News on Sunday: Where Pakistan Police Stands Today?

"Police need immense support from intelligence services"
The News on Sunday, May 10, 2009

Dr Hasan Abbas is a Research Fellow at Belfer Center's International Security Program at Harvard University and a former Police official who served in the administrations of Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto (1995-1996) and President Pervez Musharraf (1999-2000). He is also the author of 'Pakistan's Drift into Extremism: Allah, the Army and America's War on Terror' and 'Sovereignty Belongs to Allah: Constitutionalism and Human Rights in the Islamic States'. His latest work is a research paper on Police reforms in Pakistan.

The News on Sunday: What prompted the compiling of the report on the police, in the first place?

Hassan Abbas: I was motivated to compile a report on the subject for two primary reasons: a)In my assessment, there was no report available on the topic that covered the issues relevant today (i.e. counter-terrorism and counter-insurgency angles and the importance of police; b)being a Pakistani former police officer I have a passion for the subject and I am proud of the days when I wore that uniform and served my homeland in a humble way; and c)I was distressed to see that there was no public discourse in Pakistan or in the policy circles of the United States about this critical issue -- especially in the light of the rising insecurity in Pakistan which is impacting the life of every citizen. I thought I must start 'lobbying' for the cause on my own even if no one else is interested initially -- because without major financial investment, Pakistan police cannot be reformed.

TNS: What were your main findings?

HA: The most important conclusion I reached was, 'a stitch in time saves nine' -- meaning an effective law enforcement action, as permitted by the law of the land, is a much better option than waging a war later on. For instance, I was able to access many files and records of the Lal Masjid (known as the Red Mosque globally) cases, from 2004-05 period, and after many interviews also in Islamabad (June 2008) I realised that the whole crisis could have been resolved well in time if the Islamabad Police had been permitted to pursue the cases through a due process of law. My study of other international cases also teaches me that well-trained, motivated and well-paid police are an utmost necessity to successfully fight terrorism and insurgency.

TNS: Why this sudden realisation in the US that police need reforms and training to counter terrorism?

HA: There was actually not much realisation about this till recently and even now it is low on the priority list (as far as I know). The emphasis is rather on training counter-insurgency tools to Pakistan army and Frontier Corps -- which is also important but cannot be a substitute for police reforms. Only a handful of organisations and individuals started writing on this. For instance, reports from International Crisis Group (July 2008) and Commonwealth Human Rights Initiative (2008) are good. Many retired police officers in Pakistan are also writing on the subject and, in this age of internet, the message is spread globally. Many serving police officers are also committed and inspired to change the direction of police and there is no dearth of competent and dedicated officers, quite contrary to the general perception. Tariq Khosa, Tariq Pervez, Sarmad Saeed, Pervez Rathore, Zulfikar Hameed and Fasihuddin are some of the finest officers working for a real change in this direction. An excellent organisation by a police officer in Peshawar is one such example (see: http://www.pakistansocietyofcriminology.com). I am sure there are many more.

Secondly, there is also a realisation in the US that the use of force alone creates attendant problems and armies cannot resolve everything.

TNS: What are the salient features of the expected US funding in terms of the police structure, training pattern and conditionalities?

HA: I think at the moment there is interest in the US and the European Union to focus on the NWFP police (for equipment, higher salaries and relevant training). But ultimately (and hopefully) there will be focus on better training for police throughout the country and the government of Pakistan will be encouraged to implement the 2002 Reforms in letter and spirit (minus the 2004 amendments in the Police Act of 2002). I seriously doubt if there will be any conditions attached to such support in this sphere.

TNS: Why do you think police are an important tool to counter insurgency and fight terrorism as compared to the military?

HA: Army's primary job is to defend the borders and not to fight crime inside the country. I believe terrorism and even insurgency is a law enforcement issue in essence. Yes, army is supposed to come to rescue law enforcement agencies when called upon under serious situations, but they are not the first line of defence in state's internal law and order issues. More importantly, army is trained to 'shoot to kill' -- whereas effective counter terrorism and counter insurgency requires sophisticated responses -- and use of force is but one component of such strategies. However, police certainly need immense support from country's intelligence services -- both ISI and IB -- and should also revamp and re-organise the various police departments related to intelligence gathering.

In this context, I must add that in Swat-like situations, army has to clean the area first and then the police can go in and hold the area so that civil institutions can start functioning again and people get a feeling of security. Only a professional police force can do that. But tragically, Pakistan has never invested in such a police force. It would have helped Pakistan more than long-range missiles, submarines and fighter aircrafts.

TNS: How can the police be effective in Pakistan's North Western Frontier, Balochistan and FATA, considering it's the paramilitary agency that has traditionally maintained law and order in most parts of these areas?

HA: In NWFP, police are the main crime-fighting and law-enforcing force. But it is true indeed that in parts of Balochistan and FATA, paramilitary forces (especially the Frontier Constabulary) is the primary agency tasked to maintain law and order, besides civilian levies, etc. This is a legacy from the British colonial times. They needed paramilitary outfits and Pakistan should have adopted a different approach from 1947 onwards. Even now it is not too late -- and my recommendation is that the FC should be converted into a police force for FATA in a gradual manner. Rather than army officers, police officers in a step-by-step fashion should be given commanding positions in the FC. Once the draconian Frontier Crimes Regulation (FCR) is completely discarded, it will be easy to make this conversion. Rule of law is a recipe for all the major ills Pakistan is afflicted with today.

TNS: Considering the existing infrastructure, how long will the police take before they are fully equipped/trained to meet the requirements?

HA: I think if funds are made available today and common sense is used while devising a reform strategy, it won't take them more than 3 to 5 years to transform. These things take time because we are also looking for changing the 'thana culture' and making police force an efficient and accountable force. There is a tendency in Pakistan to overemphasise the 'elite force' phenomenon which, in my assessment, is not the answer because reform of mainstream police is the real issue. Better counter terrorism capacity is only one of the intended goals whereas provision of security to everyone irrespective of one's status and influence is the larger objective. Militancy, terrorist tactics and violent methods succeed where lawlessness prevails and thrives.

TNS: How can intelligence-led policing be made effective in Pakistan?

HA: It will take Pakistan a while before forensic capacity and technological tools are more accessible. So in the meantime, better intelligence can fill in the gap, especially in the counter terrorism arena. For this to happen, police will need help from IB, ISI and the MI, etc.

For more articles on the status of police in Pakistan published in the The News, click here

How India Looks at Kashmir?

comment: Indifference towards Kashmir — Iftikhar Gilani
Daily Times, May 10, 2009

Despite provocations from communal outfits inside and outside the mainstream, including the Hindutva camp, the Indian political system has not been communalised. So much so that the exodus of Kashmiri Pandits in 1990 did not end in a cataclysm

Varun Gandhi’s recent diatribe against Muslims is quite understandable. His idea of politicking was to polarise Hindu votes, a move necessitated after the delimitation exercise, or re-mapping of his constituency, by the Election Commission. The process has added a few more Muslim blocs to Gandhi’s Pilibhit constituency, making his victory on a BJP ticket somewhat suspect.

After the delimitation, analysts say, the number of constituencies where Muslims constitute 15 percent or more votes, and are thus in a position to influence election results, have increased from 119 to 164. For the right-wing Bharatiya Janata Party, this is a nightmare. The capital Delhi has now two Muslim seats instead of one.

While Indian Muslims lag in every sphere, they have used their electoral prowess to punish their detractors very effectively. Their sense of revenge is exemplary: they were instrumental in the death of the Congress party in Bihar following the 1989 Bhagalpur communal riots and the emergence of Laloo Prasad Yadav and Nitish Kumar. Muslims made the Congress party almost non-existent in Uttar Pradesh for its role in the Babri Mosque demolition.

For complete article, click here

The Trilateral Meeting - Obama, Zardari and Karzai

The achievements and embarrassments of Zardari visit
The News, May 10, 2009
By Shaheen Sehbai

WASHINGTON: Three major outcomes of the bilateral and trilateral summit talks between Presidents Zardari, Obama and Karzai are now becoming visible as officials of the three countries hammer out details of how much money would be poured in, how it would be spent and how it would be monitored.

According to officials and experts involved in the intense talks and negotiations, the broader picture emerging from the Zardari visit includes the following three conclusions:

* The tensions in relations between President Asif Zardari and President Karzai of Afghanistan have been removed and both have developed a good and cordial working relationship because both are being asked by President Obama to meet almost similar benchmarks, both are looked at suspiciously and are not fully trusted with money and both are believed to be unpopular and weak. In fact in so many ways, President Zardari has been forced to stand in the much smaller league of Karzai.

* The Americans have decided to pump in a lot of money into Pakistan, almost 1.9 billion dollars into non-military development sectors this year and $ 1.5 billion annually later. The Congress and the Executive Branch agree on this and the process of authorisations will move quickly through the House and Senate and the president will sign the laws without any delay. But the Pakistanis have been forced to accept a disbursement and oversight mechanism which will be very different from the years of General Musharraf when dollars were sent and no one knew where they were being spent.

* The Americans have succeeded, almost, in convincing President Zardari and to a great degree the Pakistan Army, that India is not playing a negative role in Afghanistan and Pakistan should not be unduly concerned. The Indian role, the Americans tried to assure the Pakistanis, was one to help both Afghanistan and Pakistan to overcome the Taliban menace and not to weaken Pakistan.

These three larger outcomes have a lot of highly controversial and even outrightly embarrassing details which the Pakistanis may find hard to explain to their domestic critics and experts. The devil is in the detail, it is said, and this cliche fits exactly in the current situation.

For complete article, click here

Saturday, May 09, 2009

Justice on war-footing Needed: CJ Iftikhar Chaudhry

Provision of justice on war-footing, urges CJP
The News, May 10, 2009

HYDERABAD: Chief Justice of Pakistan (CJP) justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry has said the judges, vacating the Swat valley, are migrating to Peshawar and if it continues to happen so it will be very much on the cards that the same situation props up in other cities also.

He said the judges must ascertain the provision of easy and fast justice to the people on war footing basis.

Addressing the Sindh High Court (SHC) Hyderabad, Iftikhar told attendees that the situation, judges are confronting in Swat, could also become possible here in Karachi, Hyderabad, Rawalpindi and Islamabad if judiciary failed to come to the assistance of oppressed people.

CJP proposed judges to strengthen the courts through their actions and provide people with justice as the judiciary has always pocketed political pressure in past here in this part of the world, which contributed to lift off peoples’ trust from it.

“Five judges thwarted the pressure and wrote a new history of Pakistan during the regime of a dictator”, he remarked adding, “Judiciary has always been denied to become an institute in past but now it is incumbent upon us to strengthen this chief pillar of state”.

“I am thankful to the liberated media, civil society, thinkers, peasants, lawyers and all segments of society whose considerable contribution made it possible for judiciary to get restored”, Iftikhar said maintaining, “17 million people of Pakistan are now backing judiciary”.

Chief Justice said judges must render their services in such a way as if they are performing ‘Jihad’.

Talked to Death - New York Times Op-Ed

Talked to Death
By HASSINA SHERJAN, New York Times, May 8, 2009
Kabul, Afghanistan

FOR several years, President Hamid Karzai of Afghanistan has been trying to negotiate and reconcile with supposedly moderate elements of the Taliban to end the insurgency. This approach has failed every time. Thus it is puzzling to many Afghans that President Obama has also been talking about negotiating with “moderates.” Let’s hope that when the two men met in Washington this week, along with President Asif Ali Zardari of Pakistan, the idea of reaching out to the Islamic extremists was shelved once and for all.

After all, President Karzai’s efforts have simply revealed the weakness of the Afghan government and its international allies. Taliban spokesman have repeatedly demanded unacceptable conditions for talks, including the departure of all foreign forces from Afghanistan and the establishment of Shariah law.

Indeed, shortly after Mr. Obama raised the subject of reconciliation, the Taliban rejected his proposal, stating there were no extremists or moderate groups within their ranks. On this point at least, the Taliban are right. Zabiullah Mujahid, a Taliban spokesman, put it very clearly: “The Taliban were united under the leadership of Mullah Muhammad Omar. All the fighters follow and obey orders of one central command. The existence of moderates and extremist elements within the rank and file of Taliban is wishful thinking of the West and the Afghan government.”

What can be the purpose of talks with the Taliban? These men deprive women of their rights, throw acid in the faces of schoolgirls, reject religious freedom and oppose constitutional democracy. They also threaten to kill any Afghans who have worked with Western militaries and nongovernmental groups or had other contact with foreigners.

For complete article, click here

The Talibanisation of minds By Kamila Hyat

The Talibanisation of minds
The News, May 07, 2009
Kamila Hyat

The writer is a freelance columnist and former newspaper editor

There are two dimensions to the challenge of defeating the Taliban. One of course is the issue of re-gaining control over the territories they have wrested away from the state. The military successes in Dir and Buner, as the army moves into a new phase of aggression, are of course encouraging. The mysteries of how tactics in this respect are decided remain rather obscure though. In the past the civilian governments have implied that the military is unwilling to take on the Taliban. In an unusually strong set of comments the US has meanwhile slammed the government while praising the military.

What wheels are moving behind the scenes we don't quite know – but we have learnt from the past to be wary in such situations. And meanwhile, despite the increasingly nonsensical statements of Sufi Mohammad, who now says democracy is un-Islamic and Sharia must extend across Pakistan, the ANP government seems determined to cling to its myth of a peace accord that seems increasingly fragile by the day, if not the hour.

There is, however, another aspect to battling the Taliban. That is the question of control over minds. The Zia years taught us how difficult it can be to fight off notions of morality used to brainwash and blind people. The dance with orthodoxy that began during the 1980s – when TV actresses rose from their beds with dupattas miraculously intact – lingers on. It has taken nearly two decades to reclaim some of the space Zia stole away from us, and re-discover music, classical dance and the simple liberty to dress as we choose.

Now the Taliban have launched a new threat to these basic freedoms. In Lahore's Liberty Market shopping centre – women have been ordered over loudspeakers to cover their heads. The more relaxed dress codes that had become the norm, echoing back to a happier time in the 1960s and the 1970s have begun once more to retreat. Many women admit they are more careful than ever before about how they dress in public. In both Karachi and Lahore stories echo of threats being made to women shoppers in the streets. These may be inaccurate, but they add to the fear we all feel almost constantly.

The threat to schools – especially those that are co-educational or which take in just girls – is also terrifying. No one could perhaps have imagined a situation where security cameras appear at school gates, visitors face elaborate searches and pupils live in fear of bomb attacks. This could be the work of the handful of elements on the lunatic fringe who have in the past placed explosives at juice shops frequented by young couples and attacked the venue of a performing arts festival. It could also be the doing of individual 'pranksters'. But the effect it has had is very real – altering the city scene forever.

For complete article, click here

Also See:
Pakistan must rebuild lives to beat Taliban: analysts - AFP

The Swat Exodus

Fear and Taliban sympathisers follow flood of refugees from Swat
Declan Walsh in Mardan guardian.co.uk, Thursday 7 May 2009

A billboard on the verge of a country lane that glides through the wheat fields of North West Frontier province offers a hopeful vision of the future – a modern, two-storey residence advertising a smart new housing scheme. But the field behind the billboard presents a darker but truer picture of what this corner of Pakistan has become: the overflow of a battle zone.

Instead of smart new houses, the building site is filled with rows of newly pitched tents where desperate, dispossessed people, full of tales of civilian casualties and abuses at the hands of black-turbaned Taliban fighters, have come to seek refuge.

Among them is Imran Khan, a 24-year-old textile worker who fled the Swat valley two days ago after a stray army shell landed near their house, injuring several relatives. "Windows, doors, everything, was blown in," he says.

Abandoning the modest possessions they hold dear – cattle, crockery and clothes – the family stumbled through the fields on foot, dodging Taliban checkposts and a government curfew, before reaching a bus that carried them to safety. Now they are looking for a new home amid the rows of green UN tents, which are already turning into mini-ovens under the morning sun. Behind him a clutch of burka-clad women squat under an awning; a few dare to lift the veil to fan their faces.

For complete article, click here

Friday, May 08, 2009

Obama To Address U.S.-Islamic Relations In Egypt

Obama To Address U.S.-Islamic Relations In Egypt
by The Associated Press

NPR.org, May 8, 2009 · President Barack Obama, who promised to lend a hand to the Islamic world if it unclenches a fist, plans a major speech from Egypt next month as he seeks to repair damaged relations between the United States and Muslims.

The much-anticipated speech will further Obama's efforts to cool down animosities that burst into flame 30 years ago when Iranians overran the U.S. embassy in Tehran, and were fueled by the 9/11 terrorist attacks and the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

At least two other emotional highlights seem certain. Obama will visit the former Nazi concentration camp at Buchenwald in Germany on June 5. And he will be in France to commemorate the 65th anniversary of the allies' invasion of Normandy on D-Day.

Obama, whose father was a Muslim from Kenya, said in Turkey last month that the United States "is not and never will be at war with Islam."

His June 4 speech at a yet-to-be-determined Egyptian site will delve more deeply into U.S.-Islamic relations at a time when predominantly Muslim Pakistan is a major concern to the Obama administration.

White House press secretary Robert Gibbs said Obama chose Egypt because it "in many ways represents the heart of the Arab world." He later said the president will be addressing non-Arab Muslims as well, noting that non-Arab Indonesia is the world's largest Muslim country and a place where Obama spent part of his childhood.

Obama's decision may not sit well with activists pushing for greater democracy in Egypt, where President Hosni Mubarak has been in control since 1981. Gibbs sidestepped the question of whether Obama considers Egypt a democracy.

"The issues of democracy and human rights are things that are on the president's mind," Gibbs told reporters at the White House. "And we'll have a chance to discuss those in more depth on the trip."

Egyptians' reception of Obama will be closely watched all over the world. With his Islamic name (Barack Hussein Obama) and family links to Islam, many Muslims are fascinated by the new U.S. president.

For complete article, click here

Related:
Obama outreach to Muslims worries Israelis - AP
Obama embraces Muslim world - Politoco.com

Boston Globe Talks about "Punjabi Taliban"

Worldy Boston:
More cause for Pakistan worries
James F. Smith, Boston Globe, May 7, 2009

As if there weren't enough crises in Pakistan and Afghanistan, Harvard Kennedy School fellow and Pakistan expert Hassan Abbas is offering more cause for worry.

Abbas, a former Pakistan government official who is one of the leading scholars in the United States on security issues in his homeland, says in a new article that most attention has rightly focused on the threat from the Pakistani Taliban in the border tribal areas and the North-West Frontier Province. Those are the traditional Pashtun Taliban militants, who share that ethnic heritage with Taliban fighters in southern Afghanistan (and who received US backing in the 1980s to fight the Soviets).

But in a new study in the CTC Sentinel, a publication of the Combating Terrorism Center at West Point, Abbas describes a growing threat with potentially even greater consequences. He explains that the loosely organized Punjabi Taliban -- from Punjab Province, Pakistan's most populous area -- is gathering strength and momentum. The Punjab is Pakistan's heartland, home to some of Pakistan's largest cities and military installations.

It was these Punjabi Taliban, Abbas notes, who attacked the visiting Sri Lankan cricket team in March, among many notorious attacks. The Punjabi Taliban are working more closely with Pashtun Taliban. The Punjabis are often better-educated, and better-trained in the use of weaponry. Abbas, who is a fellow in the Kennedy School's Belfer Center for Science and International Affairs, says it is imperative to strengthen Pakistan's law enforcement capacity to counter this threat.

The army finally gets it right

The army finally gets it right
The News, May 09, 2009
Farahat Taj

It was retaliation par excellence. A convoy of the Pakistan army was ambushed by Taliban terrorists in the Kanjo area in Swat. The convoy had intended to go to Mangora to reinforce the army units there. Several soldiers died on the spot. The army responded with robust force and attacked the Taliban holding strategic positions on the heights containing Mangora emerald mines. From those heights the Taliban used to attack the Mangora circuit house, where the army was stationed. All the militants on the heights were killed and the state property, the emerald mines, was regained. Moreover, the army conducted successful attacks on other strongholds of the Taliban in Rahimabad and Takhtaband, and killed them there. "I am so pleased to see the forceful attacks. It is like avenging a slap in the face with a kick in the face," said a resident of Swat from Mangora. He also informed me that all the people in Swat were very happy with this retaliatory response of the army. "This is what we expect from the state army and this is how the army must deal with the Taliban beasts," he said further

For complete article, click here

Also See:
EDITORIAL: Pakistan goes to war in Swat - Daily Times
To your battle stations - Zafar Hilaly
Pakistan Launches Assault on Taliban - Washinton Post

Taliban Retaliatory Style

Taliban blow up Umar Baba’s shrine
Daily Times, May 9, 2009

PESHAWAR: Taliban on Friday blew up the shrine of Sheikh Umar Baba at Regi area of the city, locals told Daily Times. According to the police, the explosives had been planted near the pillars of the centuries-old shrine, APP reported. Locals said a blast around 3am destroyed the shrine situated on Palosi Road. A local resident said the villagers were now worried about other shrines in the area. Meanwhile, the Taliban also blew up two plazas and killed a local activist in Adezai area in the Mattani Police Station jurisdiction. Adezai Union Council Nazim Abdul Malik told reporters that Taliban had planted bombs in two plazas that went off around 2am on Friday. He said at least 16 shops and houses were destroyed in the blast. Taliban also killed a local activist, Shamim, in the Adezai village around 8am on Friday. staff report/app

Also See:
Taliban vow to eliminate PM, family members - The News

Fighting the Taliban Fascism: What is to be done?



Fighting the Taliban Fascism: What is to be done?
By Dr. Mohammad Taqi
Watandost: May 8, 2009

Begin - to begin is half the work, let half still remain; again begin this, and thou wilt have finished.

Many in Pakistan and abroad believed that the Taliban would be satisfied after getting their pound of flesh - the Nizam e Adl Regulation (NAR) 2009. However, the fall of Buner and then the April 19, 2009 speech by Sufi Muhammad coming on the heels of videos of the Taliban atrocities, sent shudders down the spine of even those riding the fence, on the issue of fundamentalist militancy in Pakistan.

Detailed reports from individual and organization-based analysts have given excellent account of what now appears to be the primary concern for Pakistan, the United States and the international community at large: the existential threat to Pakistan from the rising Taliban tide.

The question is, then, what is to be done?

But more importantly, where to begin and where do we go from here? What is the path that we choose and what are the practical steps that we shall take?

Thought Leaders as the Vanguard:

The gravity of situation demands a comprehensive national and international approach to confront the Taliban fascism that portends a clear and present mortal danger to Pakistan. Nothing less than a mass movement to eradicate the Taliban will suffice.

In the absence of the traditional political parties taking the bull by its horns and showing effective leadership, it becomes national duty of the intellectuals to the raise awareness – internally and globally - about the crisis and bring to bear pressure on the indigenous forces to re-establish the writ of the state.

The process of formulating a national policy must start with the analysts, Op-ed writers and thought leaders from all sections of the society coming together on one platform, to clearly define the reality and magnitude of the Taliban menace and explain to the general public what we are really up against.

Individual writers and speakers have done a reasonably good job of stating the obvious but so far it appears more like parallel play and not a unified and concerted effort to delineate a minimum common program around which the public can rally.

The opinion leaders must talk to each other, before they can convey a powerful message to the masses. This dialogue must take place as soon as possible and the Pakistanis working at different policy institutes within and outside Pakistan ought to take the lead in initiating it.

An average Pakistani needs to hear a clear message that cuts through the chaotic web of disinformation and conveys in simple terms all the evil that the Taliban represent. The following are a few areas which are interconnected and deserve immediate attention and action:

Who are Taliban?

Many people still have qualms about as to the Taliban are. The Tehrik e Taliban Pakistan (TTP) is a multiethnic conglomerate involved in active insurgency in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and the Northwest Frontier Province (NWFP) and in terrorist activities in the rest of Pakistan. In Pashtun areas the leadership and cadres of the TTP are ethnic Pashtun along with strong presence of Arab, Uzbek, and Chechen and Punjabi militants.

Whereas many of the TTP rank and file has fought in Afghanistan against the Soviets, Afghan Mujahedeen and the US-NATO, others have trained inside Pakistan.

The common ideological thread for the various individuals and groups comprising the TTP is a militant brand of Islamic fundamentalism which had – courtesy Saudi money and indoctrination - become the core creed of the Jihad against the Soviets. Wahabists, Salafists, Ahl e Hadith, Panjpiri and Deobandi are some of the terms used interchangeably for its adherents. There exist doctrinal differences among these various sectarian franchises but their vehement opposition to the moderate Hanafi, Barelvi, Sufi and the orthodox Shiite Islam, is strong enough to unite them on one platform.

The Al Qaeda (AQ) and Punjab-based jihadist (PBJ) outfits like Sipah e Sahaba,Lashkar e Jhangvi, Lashkar e Toiba and Jamat ud Dawa work hand-in-glove with the TTP; the former in the North and South Waziristan and the latter in Orakzai,Kurram and Khyber Agencies, Swat and settled areas of the NWFP.

The local criminal networks have found common ground with the militant outfits for various reasons and have been involved high-profile targeted killings and bombings of the police officers, especially in Peshawar city.

International criminal networks have served as the economic nervous system of the TTP through their AQ and PBJs connection, and have served as conduit of funds from (mostly) private donors based in the Gulf countries.

The Afghan Taliban are in close contact with the TTP and some of the key leaders Jalauddin Haqqani,Mullah Dadullah and Maulana Sufi Muhammad (in 2001) have operated on both sides of the Durand Line against the Afghan, US and Pakistani interests .

The Taliban objective in Pakistan is to replicate the fascist Islamic emirate that existed in Afghanistan from 1996 to 2001; their eyes are on Pakistan as a whole, and not just one division, region or province.

Impact of Media:

The single most important variable that can change the equation against the Taliban is the effective use of media.

To date, little has been done to thwart the conspiracy of conspiracy theories, perpetuated by the half-baked media anchors that double as nouveau intellectuals these days.

Moving forward as a united front, the opinion leaders must confront the media-persons trying to sell to the nation, their fantasies about the Taliban being a CIA, Mossad or RAW creation.

It would take more than the sporadic “civil-society” activists to take on the pro-Taliban retired Army generals and the Taliban apologists among the politicians on talk shows, weaving a web of deceit about an Indo-Zionist plot at work in Swat and FATA.

The media, obviously, could not and should not be censored and the only solution to the outright lies and half-truths is that a systematic and overwhelming pro-Pakistan response must be crafted and delivered by a designated team of intellectuals to counter the pro-Jihadi message.

The Taliban propaganda machinery continues to spread its hateful message through FM radios but no attempt has been made to counter this. A proposal for Radio Free Swat had been launched with no success in implementing.

It is imperative that immediate radio and television broadcasts be started and recorded DVD/CD messages from figures like Afzal Khan of Swat distributed widely, to counter the Taliban vitriol.

International agencies can help facilitate a robust media offensive and the Pakistanis at various international policy institutes can help fast-track the proposal to an actionable stage.

This war could be won – or lost, over the airwaves.

Civilian Authority ,War Cabinet, Consensus Building and Alternative Leadership:

A case must be made for strengthening the civilian authority in Pakistan. However, the civilian rulers should be helped to take stock of their individual and collective potential.

What we have not seen thus far is anything along the lines of a war cabinet at the federal level. A weak defense minister and an even weaker prime minister can hardly be relied upon to inspire confidence. The defense minister has been MIA and the prime minister has a very poor insight into the mechanizations of the rapidly unraveling situation in FATA and Swat, as reflected by his cavalier remarks about Sufi Muhammad’s poisonous speech. The ruling coalition may need to be prodded into making an in-house democratic change for both positions.

Following the effective coalition models used elsewhere in the world, Mr. Nawaz Sharif should be offered the defense portfolio. With his popularity, parliamentary position and executive experience, Mr. Sharif would be a formidable person to lead charge against the Taliban.

Although unlikely, the PPP could do itself and the country well by replacing the prime minister with someone like Aitzaz Ahsan who commands deep respect across Pakistan, has an international recognition and is adept at workings of the federal government.

Similarly at the level of the NWFP and FATA the dissident voices within the ANP must be heard and brought to fore. Former parliamentarians from FATA like Lateef Afridi (Khyber Agency), Dr. Javed Hussain (Kurram Agency), Shahabuddin Khan (Bajaur) and Afzal Khan Lala (Swat) are some of the names that have been warning the provincial and central governments about their miscalculations and capitulations, but have not been brought into the decision making loop.

The Pakistani political parties ,across the board, lack any intellectual reservoirs, think tanks or policy institutes and this void is reflected in their knee-jerk response to national issues, including militancy.

However, such enterprises will take time to develop and to formulate a short to medium term policy, an all parties forum is probably the most expedient way to consensus building. There obviously are going to outliers and dissenters in such a conference but without a plurality of the political voices favoring a certain course of action , it would be impossible to take the general public into confidence and more importantly to have the Army obey the civilian authority.

Military Operations:

At the time of this writing, the Pakistan Army is already back in Swat.

However, the track-record of the Pakistan Army against the TTP has been less than stellar. The opinions on the Army’s performance range from it being inept and ineffective to its outright complicity with the Islamic fundamentalists.

Giving credence to such an adverse view is the fact that the Pakistan Army has been consistently ceding territory to the Taliban starting with its FATA operations in 2004. It has itself made, or forced the civilian governments to make, deals with the militants, who continue to renege on their promises. To date, not a single major Taliban operative has ever been captured or killed by the Army whereas the civilian deaths have led locals to cry foul. The sporadic and amateurish operations in FATA and Swat point towards either a dishonest or an incompetent assessment of risk.

Serious ideological differences might be at work within the Army whether to fight its Jihadist assets or to protect and preserve them for future use in Afghanistan and possibly Kashmir, after the US is forced to make a premature departure from the region.

Complicating the situation is Army’s perennial involvement in Pakistani politics, rampant corruption related to its innumerable business ventures and the Islamist penetration of the security agencies.

The civilian authorities, particularly the ANP’s provincial government have, from time to time, raised concerns about the lack of honest communication by the Army, on any aspect of military operations.

At the very least Pakistan Army’s willingness to produce lasting results remains moot and a credibility gap exists between what it is supposed to do and what it has delivered thus far.

Nonetheless, the Army remains the only organized force theoretically capable of defeating the Taliban. It has also been proven time and again that it cannot act in utter disregard of the popular opinion. In a situation where the thought leaders help build a case for annihilating the Taliban fighting machine – along the lines of the public opinion against the Nazis – the Army would not want to be on the wrong side of the national will.

The United States:

The USA obviously remains a key player globally and in the Pak-Afghan theater. However, the depth of the US understanding of the Pakistani situation leaves much to be desired.

For starters, the thought leaders, especially from the US-based think tanks, could ask the Obama administration to stop blowing hot and cold vis a vis the civilian setup in Pakistan. It does not behoove a meticulous person like Mr. Obama to make projections about the nascent democracy in Pakistan.

It would be imprudent and impractical to believe that eight years of Bush-Musharraf mismanagement of Afghan war can be undone - in months- by a civilian government in Pakistan, even if it was led by Nawaz Sharif.

The interests of the United States and the civilian government of Pakistan are convergent and without a strong political consensus in Pakistan to support the US Af-Pak effort a holocaust is looking us in the eye.

The US cannot have a one shot at victory approach. Patience and perseverance are the key to winning any war but more so against a perfidious enemy which has dug in for a long haul.

Raising awareness and not just militias is the way we can fight the Taliban fascism. It is imperative that the Pakistani intelligentsia takes charge of the situation. To climb out of the current abyss, a clarity of vision is required that can only come from the collective wisdom.

Sometimes, history needs a push; are the Pakistani thought leaders ready to deliver?

(Author teaches and practices medicine at the University of Florida and can be reached at mazdaki@msn.com)