Pakistani honour killing in Denmark

Danish tragedy

The murder of a Pakistani girl in Denmark by her family has sparked a fierce debate about the role of Islam and Pakistani culture in honour killing

By Abdullah Khoso

Uzair Jaleel, like several other Pakistanis in Europe, was worried over the killing of Ghazala, 19, in full view of several on-lookers and in broad day light by her elder brother. When on September 23, 2005 the news of this so called honour killing spread like a wildfire and reached Uzair, he was shocked. The incident made him look at himself to see if he wanted the same identity for himself as the girl's brother who shared with him the country of his origin -- Pakistan. While travelling in a train on the way to downtown Copenhagen, this is how he comments on the issue: "Everyone is pointing an accusing finger at us by denouncing Ghazala's death in one of the world's most democratic countries. These fingers symbolically make us conscious of not only what's being done now but also since unknown times."

Reports say that Ghazala, a day before she was killed, married Abbas, a 27-year-old man of Afghan origin, supposedly without the consent of her family. Before their marriage, the couple escaped from their homes in Copenhagen's Amager locality to a nearby city called Jutland where they married secretly at the city hall. Ghazala then told one of her female relatives about her secret marriage. She did not know that she will be betrayed. In the attack that followed, her husband survived by a hair's breadth.

Ghazala's killer was arrested soon after the murder, and after a month police arrested six more members of his family, all allegedly part of the conspiracy to hunt down and kill the unfortunate girl.

Reports say a strong network of taxi-drivers is also involved in hunting her down. This is a fact acknowledged by Anne Mau, secretary of Denmark's National Association of Women's Crisis Centres, in an online newsletter 'Modern Tribalist'. Her association has provided protection to many immigrant women on the run from their families. She says Pakistani taxi-network works systematically to find the women out who flee their families. The drivers, she says, alert these women's relatives about their whereabouts. The families usually send a picture around of the wanted woman through the mobile phone. "Then the hunt begins," Mau says. "This way many women have been discovered on the street, caught, and delivered back to their families." Only few of them manage to make good their escape though it's not sure how long can they stretch it.

Ghazala, however, suffered something much more cruel than the disgrace and humiliation of a forcible reunion with the family. Belonging to a Gujar family, she apparently forgot that death was the only option for her family to 'redeem' its 'honour' which stood 'soiled' by her act of defiance. This is what several innocent girls suffer silently in her native country. "It is a horrible thing. Her family should have come to terms with her decision instead of her trying to reconcile with them. Her family should have realised that they live in Denmark which is not a fundamentalist society," says Jonathan Staav, a Canadian studying in Denmark. "I cannot even imagine doing what her brother did to her. There is millions of miles of distance between her brother's act and my thinking."

It's quite logical for people like to connect an individual's act with the values and customs of the whole society where Ghazala had come from. "This act shows the society in question has failed to inculcate a true picture of good social and religious values in its members," is how a German student commented on the issue. Though many moderate Muslims would like to oppose honour murders but unluckily for them ever new stories about these murders keep being splashed in the media, taking in their range societies as distant and diverse as Pakistan, Afghanistan, Britain and Jordan. "This kind of act demeans the whole humanity, turning it into something inferior -- verging on beastly," says Shanker, an Indian-born Dane. Another Dane writes to Dhimmi Watch (an online news magazine), "It's primitive fascism." Still another local resident comments: "it is, a horrible, pre-meditated, senseless murder of the worst kind of a defenceless innocent woman, more so because it is done by people from her own family." In his anger, he forgets the difference between the individual and the collective and ascribes it to the "animalistic attitude" prevalent only among the Muslims. "There is no hue and cry from the Mullahs or any Muslims demonstrating against this murder of an innocent girl. (She was not even marrying a non-Muslim)."

When western watchers and readers of acts like Ghazala's murder trace their relation to values of a country or Islam, it is comprehensible as well as painful for someone coming linked to them. These acts provide Islam-bashers mouthful stuff to spit on the values of Islam. Which Mette, a Dane, is apparently right to say that "honour killing does not save honour". It rather brings down the honour of a whole family, a culture and a country.

But at the same time these westerners should be forgiven if they see crimes like honour killing in broad day light in a religious and cultural context. Someone writing to Dhimmi Watch says the (gender) inequality, sanctioned by the Quran and strictly enforced by the Muslims, can only bring sorrow to those less equal. "Societal oppression is a foregone conclusion" under these circumstances. "Systemic theofascism would be a good pathological description for Islam."

Like most people writing for this magazine, the identity of this person is not revealed. His/her anger leads her to rather drastic conclusions: 'Honour' murder is the kind of thing that comes to mind when I hear peaceful, moderate Muslims speak after each and every atrocity. They ceaselessly disavow terrorism while their own holy book and culture promote the same horror on their own flesh and blood. It's hard to wrap the mind around such twisted logic."

Mohammad Ali Baloch, 32, who has been staying in Denmark for the last three years, opines that it's not others' fault if they blame Islam or Islamic culture for the crimes like honour killing. "Not everywhere one can and should practice obsolete tribal traditions, though they are central in our cultural system." Like everyone else back home, he was also taught how to value honour because it's important in the society back home "what people will say" if a woman of the family acts defiantly. During his years in Denmark, Ali seems to have become quite aware of the human rights and the value of upholding them. No wonder, he categorically condemns innocent Ghazala's killing for she had committed no sin.

Jonathan Staav, the Canadian, is one of the few foreigners willing to see Ghazala's murder as an individual as an individual act, and not as a part of the whole called Islam. "Murder is murder; we should consider it no part of Islamic culture because Islam does allow his followers of any gender to marry as per their wish."

Ihsan Miran, a Pakistan studying in Denmark, takes this opinion further and with much more vigour. "It has nothing to do with Islam and Pakistan, though people consider it an expression of something in Pakistani culture. But our constitution and Islamic teachings want us to be moderate human beings rather than act like barbarians as Ghazala's killer has done," he says.

Shahid Javed Burki: Pakistan is losing ground

Pakistan is losing ground
By Shahid Javed Burki

DURING his recent visit to Washington, Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz spoke repeatedly about the openness of the economy he and his economic team manage. “We are perhaps the developing world’s most open economy,” he told his audiences. “You can come and invest whatever you wish and wherever you wish. You can take 100 per cent or 0 per cent share in the company in which you wish to invest. It is your choice, not the government’s.” In that respect, Pakistan is South Asia’s most open economy, certainly more than that of India. But India is on the move.

A day after Aziz’s final public appearance in the United States’ capital, the cabinet in India took the decision to open that country’s large retail sector to foreign participation. “Consent to permit 51 per cent foreign investment in single brand retail operations was the most striking among a package of measures aimed at signalling the Indian government’s determination to kick start a stalled programme of economic reforms,” wrote the Financial Times about the new Indian initiative.

This was a modest level of opening and it came with several restraints. In announcing the decision by his government, Kamal Nath, the Indian commerce minister said that “companies will be allowed to sell goods sold internationally under a single brand. Retailers of multiple brands, even if they are made by the same company, will not be allowed.”

Constraints notwithstanding, foreign retailers including Wal-Mart, the world’s largest, are lining up to move into India. The new Indian policy, considerably more restricted than the one followed across the country’s northern border — in Pakistan — will still lead to large foreign investment in the sector. Foreign companies, while not totally delighted by the small Indian gesture, are likely to move into the country with billions of dollars of investment. Why are foreigners so eager to go to India but reluctant to come to Pakistan?

One answer is the larger size of the Indian market. In 2005 the size of the Indian retail market was estimated at $258 billion and, according to Technopak, a consulting firm, it is set to grow to $411 billion within five years. The sector is currently dominated by nine million “mom and pop corner stores.” India is admittedly large and becoming larger, but Pakistan is small only by comparison to its neighbour. Otherwise it offers a large and rapidly expanding market. It should also attract foreign interest and investment.

One of the points the prime minister repeatedly underscored in his speeches was the size of the Pakistani middle class. He didn’t offer any numbers but those are not hard to estimate. If by the “middle class” is meant the segment of the population that has the disposable income to spend on the products large retailers would like to sell, then a third of Pakistan’s population of 156 million falls into that category. That means 52 million people with combined incomes of $78 billion and a per capita income of $1,500. If these people spend 20 per cent of their income on goods that large retail shops would be interested in putting on their shelves, this means a market of $16 billion. This is probably increasing at the rate of 10 per cent a year and will, by 2010, amount to $23 billion.

Given the size and openness of the Pakistani economy, why are foreigners not attracted to the country? Why has India become such a flavour of the day and why does Pakistan continue to be shunned by foreign investors? Why aren’t foreign investors attracted by the attributes Prime Minister Aziz kept referring to in his many speeches. I have attempted to answer this question in previous articles. I will go over some new ground today.

A commentator in a letter written to this newspaper in response to some of my earlier writings about India said that I was taken in by Indian propaganda and was ignoring the Indian reality. He couldn’t have been more off-base in his reaction. Let me briefly recount as to what is really happening with respect to foreign investors’ interest in our neighbour by offering some concrete examples.

In the space of a few days in December 2005, three of the biggest companies in the United States — JP Morgan Chase, Intel, and Microsoft — announced plans to create a total of more than 7,500 jobs in high value areas such as research and development and processing complex derivative trades. As a newspaper commentator wrote: “But for those worried about sluggish job creation by the US economy there was a snag. The jobs would all be in India. Worse, they would be jobs that in the past would have been in the US.”

What is even more important and impressive from the Indian perspective is the fact that some of these companies have decided to bet their future on India. Under JP Morgan’s plan, 20 per cent of the global workforce of its investment bank will be in India by the end of 2007. HSBC, one of the world’s largest banks operating out of London, has similar plans with regard to its requirement for financial skills. In an entirely different field — computer sciences and IT services — companies such as Microsoft, IBM, Intel, AMD, plan to locate significant parts of their research operations in India. What attracts them most to India is the quality of human resource available in that country. For foreign companies the attractions of India are not just costs — which industry analysts estimate at about 40 per cent below US levels — but also the quality of staff being produced by Indian universities.

According to Veronique Weill, head of operations at JP Morgan’s investment bank, “the quality of people we hire (in India) is extraordinary and their level of loyalty to the company unbeatable.” One of the many areas in which public policy continues to fail in Pakistan — a subject to which I will return momentarily — is the inability of the educational system to produce in significant numbers the same quality of people graduating from India’s science and technology institutions.

What is most troubling for Pakistan is that it is losing ground not only to India, a country that also has a large and young population. It does not even figure in the “back-up” plans drawn up by foreign corporations for addressing growing shortage of skills in their home countries. According to one knowledgeable analyst, “to avoid being too concentrated in one country, JP Morgan is already looking at other potential off-shoring locations mainly in Eastern Europe, but also China and the Philippines.” How can Pakistan get on the corporate maps of America and Europe? Why has public policy failed in that respect?

The most difficult problem Pakistan faces is the perception about it being the epicentre of Islamic extremism on the verge of an explosion in both political and social areas. Not only that, many influential voices in the United States in particular, are not convinced that Islamabad is doing all that is needed to put down Islamic extremists.

In an editorial the day after Prime Minister Aziz left town, The Washington Post not only advocated unilateral US action against extremists if Islamabad failed to act on its own. It resorted to name calling. Calling President Pervez Musharraf, “a meretricious military ruler,” it advised the administration of President George W. Bush that “if targets can be located, they should be attacked — with or without General Musharraf’s cooperation.”

The newspaper had a long list of complaints against the Pakistani leader. “Gen Musharraf has never directed his forces against the Pushtun militants who use Pakistan as a base to wage war against American and Afghan forces across the border. He has never dismantled the Islamic extremist groups that carry out terrorist attacks against India. He has never cleaned up the Islamic madressahs that serve as breeding grounds for suicide bombers. He has pardoned and protected the greatest criminal proliferators of nuclear weapons technology in history, A.Q. Khan, who aided Libya, North Korea and Iran. And he has broken promises to give up his military office or return Pakistan to democracy.”

If the visit by the prime minister was meant to change some influential minds about the way they view his country, it cannot be counted as a great success. The Post’s editorial could not be seen as a ringing endorsement of a country in which American corporations could do business. This segment of opinion-makers in Washington was not prepared to recognize that by following mindlessly the American dictat, President Musharraf’s regime — in fact any regime in Pakistan — could not expect to stay in power by totally alienating its own people. It was also ironical that even after the occupation of Iraq and the use of lethal force against the insurgency in that country, the US was not able to capture or kill Zarqawi, the Jordanian militant. It expected Pakistan to do that with respect to Osama bin Laden and Ayman al Zawahiri with considerably smaller resources and in much more difficult terrain.

While improving Pakistan’s image with respect to its participation in the struggle against Islamic extremism is not fully in Islamabad’s control, what it could do is to measurably improve the quality of its human resource. Here the public policy continues to fail in spite of the large amounts of new money committed to investment in higher education and skill development. Much of the effort under President Musharraf has been directed towards the use of public funds to open new avenues for advance education for Pakistani students.

Only time will tell whether this initiative will bear fruit. What the government could have done but didn’t do was to establish new institutions or significantly improve those that are already operating in a few areas where Pakistan could carve out a place for itself. An approach that was built on public-private partnership would have been very helpful in this area of human resource development.

Some specific initiatives could still be taken. The government could invite the private sector to establish some institutions of excellence — for instance a health sciences institute in Lahore, an advance engineering and technology institute in Karachi, an urban planning institute at Hyderabad, a small scale engineering institute at Muzaffarabad, a transport institute at Peshawar, a banking and finance institute at Islamabad, and an agricultural sciences institute at Faisalabad.

These are some examples of the kinds of initiatives the state should take to avail itself of the advantage of a large and young population that could bring immense economic benefits to the country. In not developing such a strategy Pakistan is rapidly losing ground to other populous countries. It is still not too late to plan for the future and make a real attempt to move forward

Najam Sethi's Daily Times: Pakistan was not consulted on Bajaur missile strikes

EDITORIAL: Pakistan and US should play straight with each other

Some two years ago, says a report in a UK newspaper, American intelligence picked up electronic traffic indicating the possible presence of Al Qaeda chief Osama Bin Laden in the Zhob area of northern Balochistan. Citing US and Pakistani intelligence and diplomatic sources, the report says that the US then sought permission from Pakistan to launch a laser-guided missile from a drone to take out Bin Laden and his associates. However, the paper’s sources say the Pakistani government prevaricated in granting permission for the strike, which allowed Bin Laden to move out of the area and cost America the chance to eliminate him.

The report claims that the account by a diplomat is corroborated by sources in the Pakistani intelligence who confirmed to the newspaper that the Americans did pick up Bin Laden’s spoor in Zhob, an area inhabited by Pashtun and Baloch tribes “sympathetic to Al Qaeda and the Taliban”.

The implication of the report is that some elements within the Pakistani government and/or intelligence might have wanted Bin Laden to escape. They delayed the transmission of the US request for the drone attack through official channels and perhaps tipped Bin Laden off before granting permission for the strike to materialise. “While Pakistan’s president, Pervez Musharraf, has vowed to eliminate terrorists operating within his country, elements within Pakistan’s ISI intelligence service may have sought to protect Bin Laden,” says the report. However, the most interesting part of the report, based on its US diplomatic source, relates to the recent US air strike in Bajaur Agency. The diplomat told the newspaper that the reason America decided to keep Islamabad in the dark before striking in Bajaur was its previous experience.

This is a very interesting bit of information and dovetails with what General Pervez Musharraf has said at least three times, the most recent being his January 29 statement that the US did not get Pakistan’s permission before striking in Bajaur. “This [attack] was definitely not coordinated with us. We condemn it and have objected to it as an issue of sovereignty. (But) we do know there are foreigners and Al Qaeda in that (area). It is my regret that there are (such) people there,” he said in an interview with the US newspaper The Washington Post. To the question about the identity of the foreigners, General Musharraf said, “Yes, indeed. We are investigating who got killed there. Probably — and I use that word carefully — there were five or six Arabs or foreigners killed there.”

This makes two things clear: the US did not consult Pakistan before the Bajaur operation; and there were foreigners in the area, though it is not clear who they were. So while Pakistan has protested the strike as a violation of Pakistani territory and the country’s sovereignty, General Musharraf has had to admit that the US strike was not undertaken in an intelligence vacuum.

This presents us with a worrisome situation. Islamabad inducted troops into the tribal agencies because Pakistan did not want the Americans to operate in the area. However, this policy required that Pakistan genuinely try to pin down the Al Qaeda-Taliban elements in the area. But the Americans seem convinced that it has done so selectively. Some observers allege that Pakistan has tried to target some Al Qaeda elements while allowing the Taliban to operate relatively freely. Be that as it may, it is clear that wittingly or unwittingly Pakistan has not been able to tap the activities of people who are wanted by the US and on whose movement it (US) is picking up intelligence. This is surprising because if these people are moving around in Pakistani territory, then Pakistani intelligence agencies should be able to smoke them out. Pakistan may not have access to the sophisticated electronic and satellite intelligence the Americans have but it has the advantage of human intelligence. If the newspaper report that some elements within the Pakistani intelligence may not want the elimination of senior Al Qaeda leaders is correct then the Pakistani government (read General Musharraf) needs to look into what kind of problems such a policy could entail.

The Americans are sure that they were justified in conducting the Bajaur strike. This is why the visiting under secretary of state, Nicholas Burns, did not offer an apology. Reports suggest that the United States has taken a policy decision to expand its top-secret plan to kill suspected terrorists with drone-fired missiles. For this purpose, “the CIA and the Pentagon have deployed several dozen Predator drones along the Pakistan-Afghan border and throughout Afghanistan and Iraq for attacking suspected terrorist targets”. This clearly shows that the US is not too concerned about the protests that have followed the attack in Bajaur and plans to strike whenever it gets intelligence about the movement of top Al Qaeda leaders.

Given these developments and reports emerging from the US and UK, Pakistan needs to be clear about what it wants to do. The policy, if there is one such, of selectively taking out Al Qaeda targets cannot be pushed interminably. The US is getting impatient. Pakistan has two options: either it can put the US on warning against intruding in Pakistani airspace, in which case the two sides could come close to an armed conflict in certain areas, or it can play straight ball with the US. The idea that elements from both policies can be wedded may have worked up to a point but is showing diminishing returns now. *

MI5 report: Iraqi jihadis being trained in Pakistan

MI5 probes links between terror groups

By Our Correspondent
LONDON, Jan 29: The British spy agency, MI5, was investigating the significance of a training camp established in Northern Pakistan where July 7, 2005 London suicide bombers visited along with other British terrorists in July 2003, said a report by the Sunday Times.

The newspaper story was based on a leaked secret eight page report prepared by the Joint Terrorism Analysis Centre (JTAC) entitled ‘London Attacks: the Emerging Picture’. The report was delivered to Prime Minister Tony Blair and senior ministers in October, the newspaper said.

The spy agency report said that it “strongly suspects” one man’s visit to Pakistan was relevant to one plot.

Among the tentative findings of the MI5 report, it was said that networks of Iraqi jihadis had formed linkages with terrorists in Pakistan and were attempting to bring a terrorist campaign to Britain.

The report said MI5 was investigating a group of “Al Qaeda facilitators” in the West Midlands, led by a British citizen of Syrian origin, who were believed to be trying to extend the insurgency in Iraq to Britain.

“The main West Midlands suspect is said to have recruited at least one man to lead a terrorist cell and sent him to a terror camp in Pakistan for training,” the MI5 report was quoted as saying.

“The suspect is connected to a number of extremist groups and networks, including Al Qaeda, as well as militant Kashmiri and north African groups. He has played a major role in facilitating support for the Iraq jihad,” said the report.

According to the newspaper, MI5 believed that the suspect directed a second man, an Iraqi, who arranged a trip to a Pakistan training camp for the leader of a separate British terrorist cell.

MI5 believed the two men may have been working ultimately for another West Midlands-based suspect who has links to Al Qaeda in Pakistan. The report revealed that the intelligence services hade found “growing evidence of a wider extremist network in West Yorkshire associated with the 7/7 bombers”.

It said MI5 originally believed the July 7 gang had acted alone but the view had changed.

“There is a distinct possibility that the Stepford Four (July 7 bombers) were not acting alone and that fellow accomplices are still at large,” the paper said while quoting the MI5 report.

The report said the attacks were “likely” to have been supported by Al Qaeda operatives in Pakistan, revealing that in May and June 2005, “there were repeated phone calls from public telephone boxes in Pakistan to mobile telephones recovered at a ‘bomb factory’ in Leeds” where the July 7 rucksack bombs were made. It said the gang’s Pakistani contact “is likely to have been providing support, advice and/or direction”.

However, the report also admitted the limitations of investigations by MI5 and said, “We know little about what three of the bombers did in Pakistan, when attack planning began, how and when the attackers were recruited, the extent of any external direction or assistance and the extent and role of any wider network.”

“We do not know how, when and with whom the attack planning originated. And we still do not know what degree of external assistance either group had. Whilst investigations are progressing, there remain significant gaps in our knowledge,” the MI5 report as quoted in the paper said.

Pakistani government manipulating economic numbers?

Govt policy responsible for distorted figures: National economy

By Sabihuddin Ghausi
KARACHI, Jan 25: The Federal Bureau of Statistics (FBS) has become a punching bag for all the functionaries of the present government who do not miss any opportunity to ridicule the official statisticians for reporting or misreporting the overall economic performance, import-export figures, population census, inflation indices, social indicators, etc.

On Tuesday, prime minister’s adviser on finance and economic affairs Dr Salman Shah found such an opportunity during a meeting with Karachi industrialists when he disclosed that the government was soon to take a policy decision on the FBS. The bureau was blamed for failing to maintain schedule of reports and even the delayed reports were wrong.

Before going for restructuring of the FBS, the government needs to answer a question: what are its priorities? Does it sincerely and seriously want dissemination of correct information and data on the national economy and on social indicators? What is more important for the government — an unlimited number of security agencies and law enforcers or a single well-funded, well-equipped and efficient agency that gives all the data, information, figures within the prescribed time?

In the existing power structure and social culture, the lowest level employee of the Customs and other tax agencies enjoys much more clout and authority than a senior officer of the FBS. The FBS never gets proper reply to their queries in time, even from the government agencies. The private sector does not like to share information with others.

There is a perpetual mistrust between the people and the government, between the businessmen and the government, and between various sections of the society. So much so, that in the population census, there are instances where the number of womenfolk and children is not given. This is not an administrative issue for which the FBS should be blamed but it is a social issue for which the government has to adopt some strategy.

These questions are being asked because the military rules do not digest truth easily. The late Gen Zia-ul-Haq stopped the economists from monitoring economic indicators at the provincial and regional levels. This was because the separation of East Pakistan haunted the military dictator who feared that monitoring of economic indicators at the provincial and regional levels would strengthen the hands of separatists.

Call it an irony that the IMF, the World Bank and the Asian Development Bank (ADP) now want monitoring of the economic indicators at the provincial and regional level in Pakistan. The World Bank in its recent report on the Punjab economy has calculated the size of Punjab’s economy.

But a dark side portray of the economy was despised. The FBS came under fire of the military government functionaries in 2001, when its report based on a household survey of income and expenditure found that the poverty situation in Pakistan had aggravated because of the policy focus only on the revenue generation and bridging the budgetary gap, while showing a contemptuous disregard for equity and justice in resource distribution.

This report was suppressed by the government on the ground that there were technical errors and it needed further processing. But unofficial explanation was that the urban and rural samples worked out for the survey were erratic and were picked up from the poor areas. Since then, this report was never made public, though the Economic Survey of 2001-02 promised an update income-expenditure survey report. But a World Bank report gave a full account of increasing poverty levels in the country. This time it was an Indian lady economist, Tara Vishwanath, leader of the World Bank survey team, for giving such a report that put the military government on the spot.

In the following years, all top level functionaries of the military and civilian governments claimed of reversing the poverty trend, increasing employment opportunities, high growth, rising industrial production, increasing import of machinery and raw material, rise in investment, but all the international agencies — the IMF, World Bank and ADP — came out with their respective perception reports from time to time to belie all these official claims.

Changing the base-year from 1980-81 to 2000-01 for computing various indices was a government decision. It was accepted by all, but the methodology adopted for this purpose was found to be lacking transparency. There are legitimate questions as to how sustainable is the claim of phenomenal industrial production growth in the country. Energy consumption in the country was not compatible with the industrial growth. The customs duty collection remains far behind the rising imports and the nine per cent ratio of taxes with the GDP does not match the 8.4 per cent growth in the national economy.

These questions are addressed to the government and not to the FBS. Whatever the FBS indices reflect, the fact is that government’s total reliance on a free for all bank credit policy in last three years, an extra liberal import of everything under the sun — sugar, wheat, pulses, vegetables, honey, dairy products, beverages — has stretched country’s balance of trade to a point where the rupee is coming under increasing pressure. Pakistani market remained dominated by the sellers and buyers remained helpless.

The government functionaries complain that there are no trained statisticians and analysts in Pakistan. But how come the education in statistics has become an un-surmountable problem like Kalabagh dam for the government. Various universities in Pakistan — the Lahore University of Management Sciences, Institute of Business Administration in Karachi — and Delhi School of Economics and the world-known educational institutions in neighbouring India offer and can provide such facilities.

Ahmed Rashid: The army is holed up in its barracks or in its bunkers.

New Terror Camps: al Qaeda Comeback

ABC News Exclusive

Jan. 25 - al Qaeda and its former protectors - the Taliban - are in the midst of a powerful resurgence, according to accounts by local officials and information contained in new al Qaeda videotapes obtained by ABC News.

U.S. troops are not permitted inside Pakistan, and the Pakistani army is barely seen in this part of Waziristan Province.

The new videotapes show open recruitment for the jihad, or holy war, to kill Americans and their allies.

The narrator says, "Come join the jihad caravan."

"The Taliban resurgence this year has been enormous and quite extraordinary," said Ahmed Rashid, author of the book "Taliban: Militant Islam, Oil, and the Fundamentalism in Central Asia."

The tape claims Taliban officials have taken over government functions. There is no date on the tape, but in the last month ABC News reporters have confirmed that Western aid organizations have been forced out, their headquarters burned, schools shut down, teachers and journalists killed, and music banned.

The tape shows men described as thieves being dragged through a village behind a truck, and later beheaded.

'Breakdown of Law and Order'

"We're seeing a complete breakdown of law and order," said Rashid. "The army is holed up in its barracks or in its bunkers."

A much rosier picture was described at the White House today as President Bush met with Pakistani Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz, thanking him for all his government is doing.

"We're working closely to defeat the terrorists who would like to harm America and harm Pakistan," Bush said during a news conference.

But there's no sense of defeat seen in a second tape obtained by ABC News, this one produced by al qaeda.

The tape shows the planning of an attack on a government building across the border in Afghanistan.

The commander is identified as one of the four men who last year escaped from a U.S. prison in Afghanistan - and are now back in action.

The commander is seen on tape, giving a Powerpoint presentation of how the attack was carried out.

It also shows scenes of fighters firing their automatic weapons and of buildings burning. The fighters seen on tape shout "bin Laden forever! Long live al qaeda!"

"It has regrouped, reformed and re-emerged with new vigor," said Akbar Ahmed, professor of Islamic studies at American University, "and this is a very dangerous emergence."

U.S. Troops on Front Line Of Expanding India Ties

Post-9/11 Shift Stresses Common Interests

By John Lancaster

Washington Post Foreign Service
Wednesday, January 25, 2006; Page A01

CHAUBATIA, India -- More than half a century after independence, foreign soldiers have returned to this onetime colonial garrison of tin-roofed bungalows, stone churches and panoramic Himalayan views. But this time, the soldiers' accents are American, not British, and their purpose is not to subdue India but to cultivate it as an ally.

In the latest of a series of such exercises, 120 U.S. combat troops have come here to train with their Indian counterparts in areas such as counterinsurgency and peacekeeping. Besides taking classroom instruction, they are firing Indian weapons, bonding with Indian soldiers over games of soccer and volleyball, and even developing a taste for vegetarian cuisine, albeit with spices toned down for sensitive American palates.

"When you get the armies together, it's like saying, 'Hey, we can work together, we can accomplish this together,' " said U.S. Army Capt. Robert Atienza, 31, of San Diego, who commands the Hawaii-based infantry company that is participating in the 2 1/2 -week exercise that began last week. "It's very broad."

The exercise is an example of the striking improvement in relations between the United States and India following decades of Cold War estrangement and more recent tensions stemming from India's nuclear tests in 1998.

Spurred by the United States, the two governments have signed commercial, scientific and military agreements in the last two years and are negotiating a controversial deal that could permit the sale of civilian nuclear technology to India. The Bush administration is eager to cultivate India as a partner in counterterrorism and, some analysts say, as a strategic counterweight to China.

The warming trend is also reflected in the surge of interest in India among U.S. business leaders such as Bill Gates, the chairman of Microsoft Corp., who recently announced a $1.7 billion investment in the country, the latest in a string of such commitments by U.S. technology firms eager to cash in on India's booming economy and surplus of inexpensive brainpower.

Other indicators include the parade of U.S. lawmakers through New Delhi in recent months and steadily expanding commercial air links. In addition, a record number of Indian students -- more than 80,000 -- are studying at U.S. universities, according to the U.S. Embassy in New Delhi.

President Bush is scheduled to visit India for the first time in early March at the invitation of Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, a self-effacing economist who met with Bush at the White House last July. In New Delhi on Friday, Indian Foreign Secretary Shyam Saran said the planned visit is "really reflective of the very significant transformation that has taken place, and is taking place, in India-U.S. relations."

Saran was speaking at a news conference after meetings with Undersecretary of State R. Nicholas Burns, who was making his third visit to the Indian capital in the last six months. "India is one of the few countries in the world that has the capability to act globally and has the same basic interests as the United States," Burns said in a telephone interview from New Delhi.

The two countries still have important differences. In particular, India has a long history of warm relations with Iran and is pursuing plans to build a natural gas pipeline from Iran across Pakistan, a move that the Bush administration has warned could trigger sanctions against Indian companies under a U.S. law aimed at isolating Iran's Islamic regime. Indian officials say the project is essential to their country's energy security.

Partly for that reason, India has walked a tightrope in its handling of the standoff between Iran and the United States over allegations that Iran is secretly developing nuclear weapons.

India's reluctance to dance entirely to Washington's tune stems in part from the influence of political parties opposed to the Bush administration's policies on Iraq and free trade.

One of the most important tests of the new relationship centers on the agreement signed by Bush and Singh in Washington last July that would give India access to nuclear fuel and reactors to produce electricity. Under the deal, the United States would lift a ban on the sale of such technology to India, provided that India opens up its civilian nuclear facilities to international inspections and other safeguards.

That cannot happen, however, until the administration and India agree on a plan to separate the country's civilian and military nuclear facilities. The U.S. Congress would then have to vote on the deal, which critics say would weaken efforts to curb the spread of nuclear weapons and create perceptions of a double standard in U.S. dealings with such countries as Iran and North Korea.

"The nonproliferation system is built on rules," said Michael Krepon, a specialist on the issue at the Henry L. Stimson Center in Washington. "They're not always honored, but having them makes it easier to gang up on people who break the rules. The approach the administration is taking is very poisonous to all that."

U.S. officials say the deal would strengthen nonproliferation efforts by opening up India's civilian nuclear facilities to outside inspection for the first time. India, they say, is entitled to special treatment in light of its democratic values and exemplary record of preventing nuclear secrets from falling into the wrong hands.

Burns said in the interview that his discussions last week with Indian officials had not yielded a breakthrough on the separation plan, and he made no prediction about whether a deal would be secured in time for Bush's visit. "It's a possibility but not a certainty," he said.

If the deal does fall apart, "a lot of people would be quite happy to say, 'We told you the United States cannot be trusted,' " said C. Raja Mohan, an analyst and commentator in New Delhi.

Other analysts say the relationship would survive such a setback, citing many common interests. Already, they note, India and the United States are working closely to coordinate policy on regional concerns such as instability in Nepal and Bangladesh. "The relationship is going to stand on its own," Burns said.

The goodwill marks a sharp change from the Cold War, when India was a champion of the Non-Aligned Movement and had close ties to the Soviet Union. Relations began to improve in the early 1990s following the Soviet collapse and India's initial moves to liberalize its economy. But they nosedived when the United States imposed sanctions in response to India's 1998 nuclear tests.

The Bush administration lifted the sanctions after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks and has promoted India as a new global partner, citing its vast economic potential and status as the world's largest democracy.

Analysts say the White House drive to court India was also influenced by frustration with traditional allies such as France and Germany and concerns over the rising power of China.

The administration has paid special attention to strengthening India's military capabilities.

Since 2002, India and the United States have held a number of naval, air and ground exercises. The latest is being conducted in Chaubatia, an army base that was established by the British Indian Army in the late 19th century in the forested Himalayan foothills about 90 miles northeast of New Delhi. It is now occupied by the Indian army's Kumaon Regiment and, at least through the end of January, by the men of Charlie Company, 2nd Battalion, 27th Infantry Regiment, which is part of the 25th Infantry Division out of Scofield Barracks, Hawaii.

Chaubatia is an exotic setting for the exercise, with its striking views of snow-capped peaks, immaculate grounds and road sign alerting drivers that "leopards have right of way."

One morning last week, Atienza, the company commander, lectured Indian soldiers on lessons learned during the battalion's year-long tour of Afghanistan, which ended in March 2004, as an interpreter translated his words into Hindi. In other classes, Indian officers shared their experiences fighting Islamic guerrillas in Kashmir. Later in the day, Indian and American troops converged on a firing range, where they took turns shooting each other's assault rifles at pop-up targets.

In part, the exercise is aimed at bridging cultural gaps between the two militaries. Several American officers, for example, said they had been struck by the relative lack of autonomy vested in Indian soldiers at the platoon level. And an Indian officer, who under Indian army ground rules could not be identified by name, said the U.S. soldiers were "quite relaxed," adding philosophically, "That is their way."

Shireen Mazari op-ed on the Bajaur strikes and Nicholas Burns

Inexplicable commissions and omissions

Shireen M Mazari

It must always be an ego-boosting experience for American officials to visit Pakistan after New Delhi. After all, in India they meet only their equivalent Indian officials and political leaders. Hence we saw Undersecretary of State Nicholas Burns meet with Indian Foreign Secretary Shyam Saran. On arrival in Pakistan, in the wake of the Bajaur missile attacks that killed innocent Pakistani civilians and in the face of an arrogant American refusal to even express regret, forget about apologising, Burns had access to all tiers of Pakistani officialdom and leadership.

No one bothered to recall Mr Burns's defence of the Indo-US nuclear agreement in terms of India's so-called 'impeccable' non-proliferation record. Conveniently suffering from amnesia, Burns chose to forget India's nuclear and other military dealings with the Saddam regime and with Iran. And it is now abundantly clear that one of our major failings is our excessive politeness and accommodation when it comes to foreigners, especially from the West. So of course we were not about to correct Burns's politically correct amnesia.

However, what was truly astounding to learn was that many Pakistani politicians who had been taking on the government on the Bajaur issue adopted silence at a meeting the US ambassador had arranged at his residence, on January 21, for select to meet with Burns. Yet another meeting was held a day or so later, which was reported in some sections of the press. Of course one would have thought that, as a protest against Bajaur, the Pakistanis would have refused the invite. After all, so many in the opposition were wanting the government to take a strong stand on the issue and some politicians were advocating cancellation of the prime minister's visit to the US. But there they all were, at the US ambassador's residence, greeting Mr Burns and - barring the MQM representative -- maintaining a deafening silence on Bajaur (at least in the Saturday meeting).

Worse still, instead of discussing US policies in this region and the unacceptable efforts of the US to delink India's nuclear status from that of Pakistan's, the Pakistanis present chose to embark on a harangue against the state of affairs within the country and the terrible acts of commission and omission by the present government. Now what was the purpose of discussing Pakistan's internal issues with a US official? Are we seeking US intervention on an even greater level within our domestic affairs? It is no wonder then that while the US discusses security and foreign policy issues and cooperation with India, in Pakistan they make pronouncements on our democratic dispensation and other internal problems.

This is truly our national tragedy: we cannot decide whether we want to assert our sovereignty and keep foreign powers like the US from meddling in our internal affairs, or if we want them to listen to us vent against the state and intervene. After all, there is no point in ranting and raving to a US official unless we are seeking his country's intervention in our domestic affairs. Is this what our opposition is seeking? If that be the case, they can hardly complain about the government's seeming compliance with US policies. One wonders where our national self-respect and circumspection is when we come into contact with US officials? Is it any wonder they can kill our citizens with impunity?

We now have our Foreign Office spokesperson declaring that Pakistan has not sought an apology from the US. Why? Do we hold our citizens lives in such contempt that we can simply accept their deaths as so much acceptable 'collateral damage'? What is extremely disturbing is a report in the US weekly Time magazine stating that Islamabad has an understanding with Washington that the US can conduct military attacks within Pakistan's border regions following which Pakistan will conduct formal protests to deflect domestic criticism. One hopes this report will be strongly contradicted by the Government of Pakistan for it totally undermines the country's basic sovereignty.

Meanwhile, as a member of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP), I am disturbed by the latest HRCP Report on Balochistan - not only by what is included but also by what has been ignored or merely mentioned in passing. I have always held the HRCP and its chairperson in the highest esteem and admired the latter's indomitable courage in the face of extreme personal dangers. While we may disagree on many issues, there is never any doubt as to her commitment to the upholding of human rights. That is why the new report on Balochistan is a surprise, because it focuses on only one side of the story.

It documents abuses by the state but does not examine the root causes that have militarised the situation. It merely touches on the tribal system and the tribal leaders who continue to maintain private armies, massive armaments and their own system of justice. It condemns the state's use of military action but does not recommend how the state should deal with the land mines laid by 'militants' and rockets launched by unknown groups and individuals against not only military personnel but also the head of state. The militarised response of the state has not come about in a vacuum and rocket fire cannot be countered simply with political dialogue.

Interestingly, the report does accept the existence of 'militants' and expresses concern "over the fact that militants had placed land mines along roads". However, in its recommendations, it merely requests these militants to de-mine these areas! But how should the state deal with those who indulge in such militarised activities?

The report is also unwilling to recommend ways to bring tribal leaders into the mainstream of national laws, even though it admits that "Balochistan is awash with arms". The report does recommend that "all steps" be taken to end penal sanctions, jirgas and private prisons, but how does the state compel the tribal leaders to disband their private militias, jails and hand over their large arsenals? The report also mentions inter-tribal feuds but again does not focus on these as one major source of human rights abuse. As for tribal norms, these are also not examined and condemned for their multiple human rights abuses.

In terms of disappearances and the deaths of innocent citizens, the report gives a harrowing account which cannot be condoned by anyone. But it is interesting that the report especially notes that "the dead included some Hindus", as if that makes the killings worse. The report talks of "alarming accounts of summary executions, some allegedly carried out by paramilitary forces." Who are the other parties who may have allegedly carried out these executions? Why have these not been mentioned? Elaboration on this count would give a clearer picture of the brutal tribal system. If the people fear the state, they also fear the wrath of the tribal chiefs.

The recommendations should be heeded but there are some noticeable omissions. Why a crucial recommendation to deweaponise the province has been left out is inexplicable. After all, unless there is deweaponisation, violence will always remain endemic. Of course, it is a weakness of the state that the tribal system continues to follow its own writ. But it is also easier to condemn the state while ignoring the ground realities of the violence and abuse of human rights, especially of women, that are part of the tribal system. If a rational assessment is to be made of the present situation in Balochistan, all aspects of the ground realities have to be examined fully and the fault lines exposed across the board. This is where the HRCP's latest Report on Balochistan is found wanting.

The writer is director general of the Institute of Strategic Studies in Islamabad

Email: smnews80@hotmail.com

Pakistan to only get used F-16s? Musharraf getting cold shoulder from Bush?

Musharraf likely to visit China next month

Hanif Khalid

ISLAMABAD: President General Pervez Musharraf is likely to pay an official visit to China next month following an invitation by Chinese president.

Dates for the visit are being finalized through diplomatic channel. However The News has learnt that the visit will take place from February 23 to 25. A high level delegation will accompany the president. Three agreements are likely to be inked during this important visit.

The visit is considered important as it will take place before the visit of the US President George Bush. President Bush is due in India and Pakistan some time in the last week of February or in the first half of March.

President Bush, according to the diplomatic sources has started giving cold shoulder to president Musharraf. United States, it is learnt, will not provide new state of the art F-16 Multi role Fighter Bomber Planes to Pakistan Air force as indicated by Washington last year.

Instead of that Pakistan has been forced to procure the second hand old model F-16 planes. These planes are under the use of Belgium and Netherlands air forces at present. Air Chief Marshal Kaleem Saadat, the Chief of Air Staff had recently indicated getting used F-16 planes from other countries.

US president will pay a four days visit to India while he will stay in Pakistan only for a few hours. He may not spend even a night in Islamabad. During his stay in Beijing, President Musharraf will discuss strategic situation in the region with the president and the prime minister of China. He will also discuss the proposed nuclear agreement between India and America.

According to the draft of this agreement, United States will assist India in its mega plan for the development of civilian nuclear technology. Earlier President Musharraf had asked the US government to provide nuclear power plants to Pakistan under the safe guards of International Atomic Energy Agency. But Washington snubbed Pakistan in this matter also.

Now when Washington is offering these nuclear power plants to India as part of Civilian Nuclear Agreement, president Musharraf has no other option but to contact the tested friend of Pakistan, China for the genuine requirements of nuclear power plants. China has already provided two nuclear power plants to Pakistan which have been installed at Chashma, Mianwali.

Sunday Times: London Bombers trained in Pakistani terrorist camp

MI5 knew of bomber’s plan for holy war David Leppard

BRITAIN’S top spies knew that the ringleader of the London bombers was planning to fight for Al-Qaeda more than a year before the July 7 suicide attacks, security sources have revealed. MI5 bugged Mohammad Sidique Khan and Shehzad Tanweer, a second bomber, for two months as they talked about Khan’s desire to fight in what he saw as the Islamic holy war. Agents also listened in as the men talked between themselves about Khan’s plans to return to Pakistan where he had attended a camp for British terrorists. They also spoke about engaging in crime to raise money for Islamic extremism. However, police and MI5 officers ruled that the two men were not an “immediate risk” and did not present a “direct threat” to national security. The detectives’ assessment was that the men were primarily involved in fraud rather than preparing to mount attacks in the near future. As a result, surveillance on them stopped, allowing the attacks that killed 52 people and injured 700 to go ahead. Security sources said that the disclosures come from a trawl by officials of MI5 files on all intelligence held on the four bombers. The agency has traced the origins of the July 7 plot back to the summer of 2003 when Khan visited a terrorist training camp in northern Pakistan. It has established that the camp was set up by Al-Qaeda soon after Tony Blair sent British troops into Iraq. The aim of the camp, security sources say, was to train would- be terrorists such as Khan to plan and carry out bomb attacks in Britain. A source said that when Khan returned from the camp in the summer of 2003 he was fully versed in how to make bombs. The intelligence agency should have picked up the early warning signs about Khan and Tanweer’s intentions as they travelled together around England during 2004. The disclosure is expected to lead to renewed calls for a public inquiry into the July 7 attacks and the potential intelligence failings. Last month Blair ruled out in inquiry, saying it would distract from the task of fighting terrorism. Instead the government is to publish an official “narrative of events” leading up to July 7. Charles Clarke, the home secretary, said at the time of the bombings that they had “simply come out of the blue”. Security officials said the suicide bombers were “clean skins” — men not previously known to the intelligence services. Two weeks after their denials, intelligence officials admitted that they knew at the time that Khan was “on the fringes” of terrorist activities. Officials said that hundreds of others had been in a similar situation, adding that they had made a “quick assessment” and ruled that Khan was not an immediate threat to national security. The new evidence, uncovered in the trawl ordered by the Home Office of all relevant documents at Scotland Yard and MI5, shows the intelligence services knew far more about Khan and Tanweer than the government has publicly admitted. A senior Whitehall official, defending the intelligence services last week, said that with hindsight, and the discovery of new evidence about the suicide bombers, MI5 had changed its view of them. Hundreds of pages of transcripts obtained from the surveillance are contained in secret files being prepared by MI5 and Scotland Yard. Clarke has asked for the files to be collated so the government can prepare the official narrative of events. Members of the parliamentary intelligence and security committee, which is holding a confidential inquiry into the intelligence agency’s handling of the attacks, have also been briefed on the findings. This weekend Rachel North, an advertising executive from north London who was injured in the King’s Cross bombing, said: “This is a compelling reason why we need a full public inquiry. The public has a right to know what the risks were and why this happened.” Patrick Mercer, the Tories’ homeland security spokesman, said: “We need the government to reveal the full details of what it knew of the threat at the time. This absolutely underlines the need for an independent inquiry.” MI5 has now established that Khan travelled to other camps in Pakistan in the summer of 2003 and may well have visited Afghanistan. His and Tanweer’s last known visit was in November 2004, according to immigration officials in Pakistan. MI5 has calculated that the entire plot cost less than £10,000 to carry out. It has also employed a team of in-house psychologists to analyse why the four men became terrorists. Khan, who was 31 when he blew up himself and six others at Edgware Road Tube station, had been working as a learning “mentor” in a primary school in Leeds. Tanweer, 21, blew himself up at Aldgate station, killing eight others. When the files go to Clarke they will be reviewed by William Nye, the new director of counter-terrorism and intelligence at the Home Office. He will advise Clarke on how much of the intelligence material on the four bombers should be made public in the narrative of events. It is expected to be complete by the spring.

Mukhtaran Mai barred from speaking at UN because of Pak pressure: NYT

Mai barred from speaking at UN because of Pak pressure: NYT

By Maqbool Ahmed

NEW YORK: An interview with Mukhtar Mai in the United Nations scheduled for Friday night has been cancelled because of pressure from Pakistan’s government, according to the New York Times.

Pakistan's Push in Border Areas Is Said to Falter:Taliban takes control of NWFP

Pakistan's Push in Border Areas Is Said to Falter

By CARLOTTA GALL
and MOHAMMAD KHAN

PESHAWAR, Pakistan, Jan. 19 - Two years after the Pakistani Army began operations in border tribal areas to root out members of Al Qaeda and other foreign militants, Pakistani officials who know the area say the military campaign is bogged down, the local political administration is powerless and the militants are stronger than ever.

Both Osama bin Laden, who released a new audiotape of threats against the United States this week, and his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, are believed to be living somewhere in the seven districts that make up these tribal areas, which run for more than 500 miles along the rugged Afghan border and have been hit by several American missile strikes in recent weeks.

The officials said they had been joined by possibly hundreds of foreign militants from Arab countries, Central Asia and the Caucasus, who present a continuing threat to the authorities within the region.

The tribal areas are off limits to foreign journalists, but the Pakistani officials, and former residents who did not want to be identified for fear of retribution, said the militants - who call themselves Taliban - now dispensed their own justice, ran their own jails, robbed banks, shelled military and civilian government compounds and attacked convoys at will. They are recruiting men from the local tribes and have gained a hold over the population through a mix of fear and religion, the officials and former residents said.

An American military official in Afghanistan, in an e-mail response to questions about Pakistan's tribal areas, said: "I believe this region is going through a period of revolutionary change, in which moderates and extremists fight for the future of their nations. And with vast, lawless areas in which Taliban-style justice holds sway, Pakistan faces serious challenges." The official agreed to comment only on the condition of anonymity.

Maj. Gen. Shaukat Sultan, chief spokesman for the Pakistani military, said the accounts of the size of the militants' forces were exaggerated. He put the number of foreign militants in the whole of the tribal areas at "100, plus or minus."

But the officials and residents say the militants are far more numerous, and have embarked on a disruptive campaign of terrorism, particularly in North and South Waziristan: in the last year, 108 pro-government tribal elders, 4 or 5 government officials, informers and even 2 local journalists, have been assassinated by militants, local journalists say.

Qaeda operatives are the driving force behind the local militants and are influencing their tactics, the officials said. The militants have managed this despite a hammer-and-anvil strategy in the region, with American forces pressing from the Afghan side of the border. There have been three American strikes in the area in the past six weeks, involving missiles fired from remotely piloted Predator aircraft operated by the Central Intelligence Agency, but whether they were an expression of American frustration or the outcome of a burst of intelligence remains unclear.

Despite government denials, the officials said, the strikes may have had the tacit approval of Pakistan's leadership, which has issued mostly pro forma condemnations. The officials asked not to be identified because their supervisors do not allow them to talk to the media.

The most recent strike, in Bajaur on Jan. 13, killed as many as 18 civilians, but might also have killed several high-level Qaeda members.

Bajaur, Afghan and Pakistani security officials said, is not as out of control as North and South Waziristan, but it has become a staging post for fighters entering and leaving the eastern Afghan province of Kunar, where American forces have encountered some of the most serious resistance over the past year.

Al Qaeda's propaganda unit has produced video CD's showing Afghan fighters being trained by an Arab commander and mounting ambushes on American soldiers and convoys in Kunar. Afghans know of two Arab commanders who fought during against Soviet forces and have stayed on in Bajaur, said the governor of Kunar, Asadullah Wafa.

The Afghan border police say they learned of a meeting in a mosque in Bajaur six months ago between members of the Afghan Taliban, a group led by the renegade mujahedeen commander Gulbuddin Hekmatyar from Afghanistan and the Arabs, during which they are said to have divided up responsibility for insurgent operations in Afghanistan.

Pakistan's military has become more cautious about emerging from its bases in North and South Waziristan, and the civilian administration is so hamstrung that the senior government representative in South Waziristan does not even live there.

"We run a government on paper, but not on the ground," said one government official who has worked in North and South Waziristan, which have seen some of the heaviest combat of the past two years.

Now, the heaviest fighting has shifted to North Waziristan, where there are reports of casualties among the military or the civilian population almost daily. At least three small mountain lookout posts built by the army with American funds have been knocked out, one official who was there recently said.

"The situation is going from bad to worse," the official said. "No one can raise their voice against the Taliban." Armed militants come and go freely and have even opened offices in Wana, in South Waziristan, from which they recruit followers from the illiterate and unemployed youth of the area, a former resident said, asking not to be identified for fear of retribution from the militants.

Military operations, which have killed at least 40 civilians and wounded 600, said one official, have also driven youths to join the militants.

General Sultan, the military spokesman, cautioned against taking such reports too seriously. "Calling them Taliban is sensationalizing the situation," in an interview in Rawalpindi. "There is a mix of foreigners, Al Qaeda and Taliban and local supporters." By Taliban, he meant fighters from Afghanistan.

He said foreign militants had been eliminated in South Waziristan and existed in North Waziristan now only in small groups, adding that there were also few local militants allied to Al Qaeda and other foreigners.

"There are a few locals who are definitely supporting them, it is difficult to say how many," he said. Many tribesmen, in fact, support the government but do not say so openly for fear of being assassinated, he added.

He did not have figures for military casualties in 2005 but said there were fewer than in 2004, when 250 Pakistani soldiers died. "It's not anything like that now," he said.

Home to six million people and covering 10,000 square miles, the Federally Administered Tribal Areas for years provided a sanctuary for Afghan and other foreign fighters opposed to the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. But for the past four years, after members of the Taliban, Al Qaeda and foreign allies were driven out of Afghanistan, they have lived in the area and gradually taken greater control.

Government officials who have spent time in the tribal areas say there may be as many as 1,000 foreign militants there, but because many have intermarried and raised families, their status as foreigners is somewhat blurred.

Today the region is believed to be home to a kind of rogue's gallery. Besides Al Qaeda's leaders, Tohir Yuldashev, the Uzbek leader of the Independence Movement of Uzbekistan, which was allied with the Taliban, is thought to be in North Waziristan.

Jalaluddin Haqqani and Mr. Hekmatyar, who are both wanted by American forces in Afghanistan, and gained their fame as Afghan commanders from the days of resistance to the Soviet occupation, are widely believed to move between the tribal areas and Afghanistan.

(The Taliban leader, Mullah Muhammad Omar, and his close deputies, are thought to be farther south in the province of Baluchistan.)

The local militants are mostly also men who gained fought in Afghanistan, either against the Soviet Army or alongside the Taliban in its civil war against the Northern Alliance. But it is the foreign fighters who have most radicalized the local population, all agree. "The driving forces are the foreigners," General Sultan said.

The American military official in Afghanistan said the solution to the problem was to strengthen the Afghan Border Police, and "almost certainly it will involve Pakistan continuing to conduct operations in the border region and coming to grips with the Taliban influence inside Pakistan."

"Pakistan appears to struggle with whether to crack down on Al Qaeda and the Taliban, not just with how to crack down on them," he wrote. "This war will take time and unfortunately we expect future attacks on coalition and Afghan forces."

The inhabitants of the tribal areas are deeply religious, yet the local militants have introduced a new extremist language, like that of Al Qaeda, said one official who has spent time in the tribal areas.

The militants' main obsession is to fight Americans in Afghanistan, but they also attack the Pakistani Army and government officials, who are seen as subservient allies.

"They are religious, mujahedeen, and they think the military are serving the cause of Bush," the official said. The struggle is cast in the most messianic of terms, as a battle between God and Satan, he said.

Anyone who is seen to have links to the West or the government, including journalists who work for international news agencies, are also targets. Two local journalists have been killed and one kidnapped in recent months. Another left the area with his family last month after a bomb destroyed part of his house.

The military, rather than pacifying the region, has aggravated the situation by sidelining the civilian administration and the traditional tribal councils, which have also been drastically undermined by the numerous assassinations of tribal elders, the officials said.

The army's tactic of negotiating with militants in South Waziristan has only emboldened them, the Pakistani official said. Self-styled Taliban militants have emerged in spectacular fashion in North Waziristan.

On Dec. 7 in Miram Shah, the administrative center, a band of militants waged a battle with a local criminal gang, killing 11 of them and burning down 25 houses.

The military and the Frontier Corps, which is a militia drawn from the local tribes, stayed out of the battle, and later the Taliban killed 26 or 27 gang members.

The clash made the militants enormously popular among local residents, who had suffered extortion at the hands of the gang, the official said. The campaign was reminiscent of those under the Afghan Taliban, who were born out of a movement to cleanse southern Afghanistan of rapists and other criminals in 1994.

Now, the official said, no one can contest the Taliban's authority in Miram Shah. General Sultan dismissed that, saying both groups in the clash had been put out of action.

Ruhallah Khapalwak contributed reporting from Asadabad, Afghanistan, for this article.

Feds: Arizonan tied to terror(Pakistani Jamaat al Tabligh)

Feds: Arizonan tied to terror

Officials detain Tempe doctor

Dennis Wagner
The Arizona Republic
Jan. 19, 2006 12:00 AM

An Arizona doctor and mosque leader returned to the United States on Wednesday from a pilgrimage in Mecca to face allegations by the FBI and Department of Homeland Security tying him to a terrorist organization.

Nadeem Hassan, 41, made a phone call to his father from Kennedy International Airport in New York, saying he was in the custody of immigration officials.

Hassan, a gastroenterologist at Maricopa Medical Center and former chief executive at the Masjid el-Noor Mosque in Mesa, has worked for years as a coordinator with Jamaat al Tabligh (Society That Propagates the Faith). The worldwide movement calls upon Muslims to live up to their faith.

Jamaat al Tabligh, or JT, previously has not been designated a terrorist group by the government. However, in paperwork rejecting Hassan`s application for a green card, Homeland Security described JT as "a terrorist organization (that) . . . provides material support . . . to members of a designated terrorist organization - al Qaida; and provides the same types of material support . . . to an undesignated terrorist organization - the Taliban."

The papers go on to tell Hassan, "You are found to have engaged in terrorist activity by providing material support to an undesignated terrorist organization."

Pakistan`s Youhana embraces Islam

Mohammed Yousuf`s mother says she had been worried about her son`s behaviour for a long time.

She blamed the brother of a former Pakistan cricket player, Saeed Anwar, for "ruining my son`s life," according to the Daily Times.

Saeed Anwar and his brother have become Muslim preachers who preach from the platform of Tablighi Jamaat - Pakistan`s largest non-political religious grouping.

Yousuf confirmed that he was a regular at the preaching sessions held by the Tablighi Jamaat.

Pakistani facing terror charges in US returns

By Our Correspondent

WASHINGTON, Jan 21: A Pakistani physician accused of having ties to terrorism by the US Department of Homeland Security chose to return home rather than face indefinite detention in the US and likely deportation.

Dr Nadeem Hassan caught a flight to the Middle East earlier this week on his way to Pakistan. The Phoenix physician was in Saudi Arabia for Haj last week when immigration authorities rejected his green-card application and revoked his US travel permit, in part because of his association with the Tablighi Jamaat.

Afghans Protest Pakistan After Bombing : Shout "Death to Pakistan"

Afghans Protest Pakistan After Bombing

SPINBOLDAK, Afghanistan, Jan. 18, 2006


(AP) More than 5,000 people chanting "Death to Pakistan!" marched through two Afghan border towns Wednesday to protest a suicide bombing they blame on the neighboring country.

The blast at a wrestling match on Monday killed 21 people, making it the deadliest suicide attack since U.S.-led forces ousted the Taliban in 2001. No one has claimed responsibility, and a purported spokesman for the Taliban rebels denied involvement.

"Death to Pakistan! Death to al-Qaida! Death to the Taliban!" the protesters shouted as they marched to the towering Friendship Gate that marks Waish's border crossing with Pakistan.

The protesters also made their way through the larger town of Spinboldak, another key border crossing. Most shops in the two neighboring towns were closed because of the protest.

Afghan officials have repeatedly claimed that the Taliban and other militant groups have training bases in Pakistan and are receiving support from that side of the border _ an accusation Islamabad denies.

An Afghan tribal elder who spoke at the demonstration said that attackers in Monday's bombing had trained in Pakistan.

"They kill us Afghans. They kill tribesmen and they want tribesmen living in Pakistan and Afghanistan to fight with each other," said Akhtar Mohammed Qabail.

Hours before Monday's explosion, President Hamid Karzai told reporters he believed most of those responsible for about 20 suicide attacks in the past three months have been foreigners, though he did not say from where.

Pakistan strengthened security on its side of the border during the protest and the crossing was closed temporarily until the demonstrations subsided.

Afghan governor blames Pakistan for attacks

Afghan governor blames Pakistan for attacks

KABUL: An Afghan provincial governor accused Pakistan on Tuesday of training and equipping Taliban suicide bombers who have killed at least 33 people in the southern Kandahar province since Sunday.

Escalating violence is causing some NATO members to agonise over plans to send more peacekeeping troops to the south to allow US-led forces to trim their presence there.

“The suicide bombers are trained and equipped by Pakistan and then sent to Afghanistan for sabotage activities,” Kandahar Governor Assadullah Khalid said. “Pakistan is sheltering and allowing senior Taliban officials on its soil, and in some cases the suicide bombers are even Pakistani nationals. The government of Pakistan is not a new one; it has army and intelligence. Since all the senior Taliban have got their houses there and use some of them as training camps, the government should know what is going on.” Many Taliban driven out of Afghanistan by US-backed forces in late 2001 are believed to have regrouped across the border in Pakistan’s tribal areas and in Balochistan. reuters

White House declines to regret Bajaur air raid

White House declines to regret Bajaur air raid

WASHINGTON: The White House declined on Tuesday to express explicit regret over the US air strike aimed at al-Qaeda number two Ayman al-Zawahiri, which missed and killed several civilians in Pakistan.

Asked whether he would express regret for Friday’s attack, spokesman Scott McClellan declined to confirm that the United States had carried it out but said Washington would continue to target the terrorist network. "I don’t ever get into discussing any specific operational activities, or even alleged operational activities," he told reporters.

"Pakistan is a valued ally in the war on terrorism. We work closely with Pakistan and others to go after al Qaeda and bring their leaders to justice, and we will continue to do so," said the spokesman.

"The president made it very clear that we are going to continue to pursue al-Qaeda leaders and bring them to justice. There are a number that have been brought to justice, and we will continue to do so," said McClellan.

"Al-Qaeda continues to seek to do harm to the American people. There are leaders that we continue to pursue, and we will bring them to justice. The American people expect us to do so, and that’s what this president is committed to doing," he said.

Prodded on whether it might be beneficial for the Bush administration to express regret if US air strike accidentally hit civilians, McClellan replied: "I think you’ve heard our comments about matters of that nature in the past. "If I have anything additional to add, I will," he said.

Guardian: Musharraf denied US forces permission to cross the border. US forces bombed anyway.

The drone, the CIA and a botched attempt to kill bin Laden's deputy

In the hunt for al-Qaeda, a missile attack on a mountain village killed women and children. The attack was precise, the intelligence was flawed, and the strained relation between Pakistan and the US has been pushed to breaking point

Jason Burke and Imtiaz Gul in Islamabad
Sunday January 15, 2006
The Observer

The missiles were deadly accurate. In the pitch dark of a night in Pakistan's sparsely populated North West Frontier Province, they not only located the three targeted houses on the outskirts of the village of Damadola Burkanday but squarely struck their hujra, the large rooms traditionally used by Pashtun tribesmen to accommodate guests.

Yesterday some of the results of the strike were very clear: three ruined houses, mud-brick rubble scattered across the steeply terraced fields, the bodies of livestock lying where thrown by the airblast, a row of newly dug graves in the village cemetery and torn green and red embroidered blankets flapping in the chilly wind. Four children were among the 18 villagers who died in the brutally sudden attack on their homes.

Yet evidence emerging appeared to indicate that, though the technology that guided the missiles to their targets at 3am on Friday was faultless, the intelligence that had selected those targets was not. Even as American military and intelligence sources spoke of the possible death of Ayman al-Zawahiri, the second-in-command of al-Qaeda and the man considered to be the brains behind the militant group's strategy, Pakistani officials said that there was no evidence any 'foreigners', shorthand locally for al-Qaeda fighters, were among the 18 victims, though they said that 'according to preliminary investigations there was foreign presence in the area'.

In a bid to distance themselves from what was looking like a tragic and counter-productive tactical error that had cost many innocent lives, Pakistan announced it would file a formal protest with the Americans. Information Minister Sheikh Rashid Ahmed told a news conference that the Pakistani government wanted 'to assure the people we will not allow such incidents to recur,' adding that the government had no information about al-Zawahiri.

'We deeply regret that civilian lives have been lost in an incident. While this act is highly condemnable, we have been for a long time striving to rid all our tribal areas of foreign intruders who have been responsible for all the misery and violence in the region. This situation has to be brought to an end,' he said.

But his words did little to calm the anger in and around Damadola, a bastion of conservative religion and tribal chauvinism, and elsewhere in Pakistan. The village lies in the semi-autonomous Bajur tribal region around 120 miles northwest of Islamabad, the Pakistani capital. It is a rugged and desperately poor region, until recently a centre of opium cultivation, where local men habitually go armed and government authority is limited to main roads. Thousands of local men marched in a series of protests yesterday, one crowd attacking the office of a US-funded aid group. In another incident, police were forced to fire tear gas to disperse as many as 400 protesters chanting anti-American slogans and waving banners condemning the Pakistan President, General Pervez Musharraf.

Musharraf, who came to power in 1999, has maintained a difficult and domestically unpopular alliance with Washington since 2001 and has deployed unprecedented numbers of troops on bloody operations to capture senior al-Qaeda figures. However, to the Americans' intense annoyance, he has not granted US forces in Afghanistan the right to cross the border into Pakistan, even in pursuit of militants. American-led coalition forces clashing with militants in the mountainous province of Kunar, immediately adjacent to Bajaur which lies a mere four miles from the frontier, say they have often been frustrated by their enemies' use of Pakistan as a sanctuary. Yesterday the Pakistani Foreign Ministry took pains to point out that 'in all probability [the village] was targeted from across the border in Afghanistan'.

Tensions between Washington and Islamabad have grown in recent weeks as American troops have stepped up operations against militants. Pakistan has already lodged a protest with the US military six days ago after a reported US airstrike killed eight people in the North Waziristan tribal region, an almost deserted area of mountains 300 miles south of Damadola. In Damadola itself, locals said they had never sheltered any al-Qaeda or Taliban leaders, let alone al-Zawahiri, an instantly recognisable 54-year-old Egyptian-born ex-doctor.

'This is a big lie... Only our family members died in the attack,' said Shah Zaman, a jeweller who lost two sons and a daughter in the attack. 'They dropped bombs from planes and we were in no position to stop them... or to tell them we are innocent. I don't know [al-Zawahiri]. He was not at my home. No foreigner was at my home when the planes came and dropped bombs.' Haroon Rashid, a member of parliament who lives in a village near Damadola, told The Observer that he had seen a drone surveying the area hours before the attack.

'A drone has been flying over the area for the last three, four days, and I had a feeling that something nasty was going to happen,' he said in a phone interview. 'There was no foreigner there - we never saw a single foreigner here. They were all local people, jewellers and shop-keepers, who used to commute between Bajaur and their village. We knew them.'

The dead were reported to include four children, aged between five and ten, and at least two women. According to Islamic tradition, they were buried almost immediately. One Pakistani official, speaking anonymously, told The Observer that hours before the strike some unidentified guests had arrived at one home and that some bodies had been removed quickly after the attack. This was denied by villagers.

US and Pakistani officials have also said that the missiles were launched from American pilotless predator drones, which have previously been used to target senior al-Qaeda figures. A man alleged to be al-Qaeda's third-in-command was killed in a 'stand-off' missile attack around a month ago. However, several eyewitnesses spoke of seeing planes and illuminating flares over the village, which if true would indicate the use of missiles from planes guided in by special forces teams on the ground rather than CIA-operated drones.

Obaidullah, a local doctor, said he saw the airstrike from his home about five to six kilometres away. 'There was one plane flying (overhead). Then more planes came. First they dropped light and then bombs,' he said. If US troops have crossed the frontier from Afghanistan in pursuit of militants, it would be a major diplomatic incident and a domestic disaster for Musharraf.

The Americans have become increasingly frustrated by their inability to catch al-Zawahiri, whom analysts see as the strategic mentor of Osama bin Laden. Al-Zawahiri was already a hardened Egyptian militant when he joined bin Laden, a Saudi Arabian six years younger, in the late 1980s to form the al-Qaeda group out of the remnants of Arab 'mujahideen' who had fought the Russians in Afghanistan. After masterminding a series of attacks, culminating in the 11 September atrocities, from camps in Afghanistan in the late 1990s, al-Zawahiri has been on the run. However, this has not stopped him providing broad strategic direction for the international Islamic militant movement and, through appearing in frequent propaganda videos, becoming almost as well known as bin Laden himself. Despite a huge manhunt and a $25m reward, he has escaped capture. Strong local sympathy for al-Qaeda fugitives in the harsh hills that line the Afghan frontier with Pakistan has been a major advantage.

'The Americans are really not much closer to finding him than they were years ago,' said one intelligence analyst. 'They are hunting in an area that is about a thousand miles long and two hundred miles wide. That is a tough job by anyone's standards.' The carnage at Damadola indicates that the hunted is still a step ahead of the hunters.

Area bombed by US forces was 50km from the Afghan border

18 killed in missile attack in Bajaur Agency

Three houses were targeted in the attack in Damadola village, 30 kilometres north of Khar, in Mamoond tehsil at 3:00am. The houses were 50 kilometres from the Afghan border overlooking Kuner province, a hotbed of anti-US insurgency.

Pakistan Condemns Deadly U.S. Airstrike

Pakistan on Saturday condemned a purported CIA airstrike on a border village that officials said unsuccessfully targeted al-Qaida's second-in-command, and said it was protesting to the U.S. Embassy over the attack that killed at least 17 people.

Thousands of local tribesmen, chanting "God is Great," demonstrated against the attack, claiming the victims were local villagers without terrorist links and had never hosted Ayman al-Zawahri.

Two senior Pakistani officials told The Associated Press that the CIA acted on incorrect information in launching the attack early Friday in the northwestern village of Damadola, near the Afghan border.