02/22/10
Deadly bomb hits Swat Valley
Associated Press, guardian.co.uk, Monday 22 February 2010
Suspected Taliban suicide attack kills at least eight
Explosion is latest in volatile Pakistani border region
A blast apparently aimed at Pakistani security forces ripped through a busy market in the north-western Swat Valley today, killing at least eight people and wounding dozens of others, officials and witnesses said.
The attack in the district capital of Mingora was the latest violence in the region along the border with Afghanistan where the Pakistani military has been waging offensives against Taliban militants, who have been fighting back, often with homemade bombs.
Swat police chief Muhammad Idrees said items found at the scene of the attack suggested it may have been a suicide bombing, though an investigation would be needed to confirm it.
02/09/10
A life lived well- Ajmal Khattak
Dawn Editorial, Tuesday, 09 Feb, 2010
With the death on Sunday of veteran politician and renowned Pushto writer Ajmal Khattak, the country has lost one of its most committed political workers and prolific Pushto writers. A vocal advocate of the rights of the Pakhtun people, Khattak told this newspaper last year: “I am deeply concerned about the political situation in South Asia; what is being done against the Pakhtuns troubles me more than my illness.”
He had, indeed, spent a lifetime working for his people through both politics and literature. Influenced by the Khudai Khidmatgars, he worked for the Quit India movement and joined the Awami National Party after partition, of which he was president twice. He was the stage secretary at the 1973 Liaquat Bagh rally of the United Democratic Front, when UDF leaders were fired upon.
dawn.com, Tuesday, 09 Feb, 2010
The Taliban based in Orakzai Agency confirmed on Tuesday that Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan chief Hakeemullah Mehsud is dead.
According to a DawnNews report, Mehsud died on Sunday in Multan after succumbing to injuries received in a drone attack in Shaktoi village.
However, Alam Tariq the offiicial Taliban spokesman has not yet made a statement.
Sources said that Maulvi Noor Jamal has been nominated as Mehsud's succesor.
Government officials too have confirmed his death.
American and Pakistani officials had been saying Mehsud was dead since the past few weeks.
Maulvi Noor Jamal is a native of the Orakzai Agency and rose to power as the leader of the Taliban in the Kurram tribal area.
AP, Rasool Dilawar, 02 Feb, 2010
MIR ALI, Pakistan – The Pakistani Taliban refused Tuesday to provide proof their leader survived a U.S. missile attack, just one day after promising to do just that. The reversal added to speculation that Hakimullah Mehsud was mortally wounded last month in a strike close to the Afghan border.
The backtracking came on a day in which U.S. drones launched an unusually intense attack in the northwest. The aircraft fired 17 missiles at houses, cars and bunkers in a region dominated by militants battling U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan, killing 14 insurgents, Pakistani intelligence officials said.
Reuters, Saad Khan, 31 Jan, 2010
Pakistan's Taliban denied a report on Sunday that their leader Hakimullah Mehsud had been killed in a U.S. drone aircraft strike. Skip related content
"It is a total lie," a spokesman for the group told Reuters by telephone from northwest Pakistan, referring to a report on Pakistani state television.
Pakistan's military said earlier it was investigating the report that Hakimullah died from wounds sustained in a drone attack and had been buried in the Orakzai tribal region in the northwest of the country.
"We're inquiring further but so far there's no confirmation," said army spokesman Major General Athar Abbas.
Hakimullah's death would likely create disarray in Pakistan's al Qaeda-linked Taliban, analysts say, but it would not deal a major long-term blow to the group, which is fighting to topple the pro-American government.
guardian.co.uk, Declan Walsh, Islamabad, Sunday 31 January 2010
Pakistan's military said today it was scrambling to confirm a report on state television that the leader of the Pakistani Taliban, Hakimullah Mehsud, has been killed.
The report said Mehsud, a target of CIA-directed drone attacks over the past month, has already been buried. The source of the information was not clear.
The main army spokesman, Major General Athar Abbas, told the Guardian the army was trying to verify the report. "We don't have any confirmation yet," he said, adding that the PTV information did not come from "any state agency".
An elder in the Mamuzai area of Orakzai tribal agency said he attended Mehsud's funeral on Thursday, the Associated Press reported. Speaking anonymously for fear of retaliation, the elder said Mehsud died at his in-laws' home.
A Reuters report, quoting a Pakistani intelligence official, said the Taliban leader may have been fatally wounded following a 17 January drone attack on two vehicles in North Waziristan.
01/31/10
Talks with the Taliban
dawn.com, Huma Yusuf, Sunday, 31 Jan, 2010
In the matter of reintegrating Taliban fighters into Afghan society, the question is no longer whether to talk or not. President Hamid Karzai has already invited the Taliban to a peace jirga and UN representatives reportedly met members of the Quetta shura in Dubai to discuss the possibility of direct talks.
US Gen Stanley McChrystal even has access to a $1.5bn Peace and Reintegration Trust Fund to provide ‘incentives’ to militants to put down their arms. Thus, the question now should be whether or not talks can work.
Although the Dubai meeting remains unconfirmed, Karzai’s willingness to engage the Taliban leadership is bolstered by reports within Afghan diplomatic and military circles that certain militant commanders are tired of fighting and eager for a negotiated end to the conflict.
01/31/10
Smokers’ Corner: A matter of will
dawn.com, Nadeem F. Paracha, Sunday, 31 Jan, 2010
Like most urban middle class folks these days, a friend of mine too has a habit of using the term Inshallah (God willing) a lot. So one day I asked him why is almost every sentence uttered by my fellow Pakistanis punctuated with an Inshallah?
His reply was the usual: “So? What is wrong with using Inshallah?”
“Absolutely nothing,” I said. “In fact I sometimes use it myself. But why do some of us use it constantly? Will things not happen the way we want them to if we don’t use it?”
“Perhaps,” he said.
“Then this means God didn’t will them to happen, right?” I asked.
“But, of course,” my friend replied.
“But maybe we too had something to do with them not happening?” I suggested.
01/23/10
What the Taliban want
dawn.com, Irfan Husain, Saturday, 23 Jan, 2010
Often, I am asked by readers or friends abroad what the Taliban want. Why, they ask, are they slaughtering hundreds of innocent people wherever they can? What is their purpose? What is their agenda?
The short answer is power. Other excuses for their murderous excesses are a fig-leaf: demands for the Sharia and the expulsion of foreign forces from the region are no more than window-dressing.
These terrorists realise that they cannot achieve power through peaceful, democratic means as they have no support. Even relatively moderate Islamic parties have been repeatedly trounced at the polls in Pakistan. So extremists reject democracy as it does not give them access to power.
dawn.com.pk, Nadeem F. Paracha, Sunday, 10 Jan, 2010
On the day of the devastating terrorist attack on the Ashura procession in Karachi, the MQM chief, Altaf Hussain, pleaded for a complete boycott of those political parties and personnel who he believed were supporting the Taliban.
Leaders of other secular political parties such as the PPP and the ANP and members of the liberal intelligentsia too have been expressing their concerns about certain political and TV personalities who are said to be mouthing loud, sympathetic sentiments for the Taliban. It must be asked: what does it mean to be an educated, pro-Taliban entity in a modern, urban setting?
To begin with, the question is riddled with an obvious dichotomy. How can a person or a party in a modern, urban setting sympathise with a set of mountain men who are completely detached from reason and humanity; and whose idea of an Islamic state is actually a stony religious emirate built on the slain bodies of thousands of men, women and children, and a scruffy, violent romanticism derived from glorious myths about jihad, martyrdom and battles?
12/27/09
Tension and terror in Pakistan
guardian.co.uk, As told to Jason Burkem The Observer, Sunday 27 December 2009
Fatima Bhutto on why the pro-American government is at war with its own people
It all changed this year in April when the government decided to sign a deal with Islamic militants who had taken over the Swat valley, which allowed them to impose Sharia law in the areas they controlled. It set a terrible precedent of negotiating with people who have seized territory by force.
12/19/09
Who'd be a hack in Swat valley?
guardian.co.uk, Mustafa Qadri, guardian.co.uk, Saturday 19 December 2009
Journalism is a dangerous profession in Pakistan. But a vibrant, relatively free press still exists in this volatile country
For as long as anyone cares to remember, journalism has been a dangerous profession in Pakistan. Although of late much of the attention has focused on the risks to foreign journalists, the situation for local reporters is equally, if not more, parlous.
First consider that virtually all the on-the-ground news you read from Pakistan, especially from conflict zones, has been gathered by a local reporter under considerable personal risk. That is certainly the case for journalists working in the northwest frontier where the Taliban are most active. "I [do some] work for Voice of America," one veteran reporter, who requested anonymity, told me in the safety of a hotel room in Islamabad. "Even now, I do not tell [the Taliban he interviews] that. It would mean certain death."
12/04/09
Swat: some questions
The News, Zubair Torwali, December 04, 2009
The assassination of the Awami National Party (ANP) MPA Shamsir Ali raises many questions regarding the Swat operation, largely thought to be successful.
Why has a political figure been targeted instead of the security forces? What, or who, was the actual target of the guerrilla attacks that the Swat Taliban leader Fazalullah threatened in his telephone call to the BBC Urdu Service some weeks ago? The attack indicates a security lapse in the area in question and the people of Swat are not unjustified in their fear that the militant network is still there despite the eight-month-long operation. Those living along the eastern side of Swat River say that less attention is being given to security in Kabal and the neighbouring areas than on the western side.
12/04/09
Anne Patterson's Blackwater-gate
The News, The Pakistan report card, Fasi Zaka, Friday, December 04, 2009
When people would obsess over the supposed clandestine take-over of Pakistan by the security firm formerly known as Blackwater (now Xe), I often wished that they be that animated over the problem of drinking water in our country.
I now feel that my dismissiveness was entirely wrong. It looked like a conspiracy theorist's dream to me initially, a private army outside the remit of the law doing the bidding of the Americans in Pakistan.
Well, the definitive truth is now out; it is present in Pakistan. It may not be doing some of the more ridiculous assertions attributed to its operations in the country by an opportunistic Taliban, like carrying out suicide bombings, but Blackwater is here. It shouldn't be.
12/02/09
Swat attack
dawn.com, Editorial, Wednesday, 02 Dec, 2009
The killing of Shamsher Ali Khan, an ANP member of the NWFP Assembly, in Swat yesterday is a grim reminder that the war against Maulana Fazlullah and his TTP militants has not yet been won.
The problem appears to stem from the security forces’ inability to capture or eliminate the top leadership of the militants in Swat.
Of the 11-member shura that was the governing body of the Swat militants, five members have been captured and one killed. But Maulana Fazlullah and his second in command, Ibne Amin, have not been captured.
12/01/09
Suicide bomber kills ANP lawmaker
dawn.com, Hameedullah Khan, Tuesday, 01 Dec, 2009
A teenaged suicide bomber blew himself up, killing ANP lawmaker Shamsher Ali Khan as he was seeing off guests who had come to his house here to offer Eid greetings on Tuesday. Shamsher Khan’s two brothers and nine other people were injured.
The man with explosives strapped to his body had walked unchallenged into the Hujra of the MPA’s house, witnesses said.
Shamsher Khan died on the spot while his brothers Shaukat Ali Khan and Mohammad Ali Khan were injured.
The other injured were identified as Siddiq Akbar, Mohammad Shah, Rehmani Gul, Amjad, Siraj Khan, Mehar Shah, Shujaat Ali and Rozimand.
11/28/09
Islam's arrested development
guardian.co.uk, Pervez Hoodbhoy, Wednesday 25 November 2009
Islam did ancient science brilliantly, but today Muslims lag behind. To catch up, they must demand the freedom to question
The question: Can Islam be reconciled with science?
Material resources are immaterial to the current sorry state of science in Islam. To do science, it is first necessary to accept the key premises underlying science – causality and the absence of divine intervention in physical processes, and a belief in the existence of physical law. Without the scientific method you cannot have science because science is all about objective and rational thinking. Science demands a mindset that incessantly questions and challenges assumptions, not one that relies upon received wisdom. If this condition is not fulfilled, all the money and machines in the world make no difference.
dawn.com, Nadeem F. Paracha, Sunday, 22 Nov, 2009
RECENTLY I was fortunate enough to be a part of an excellent ten-minute news video prepared by the New York Times’ reporter, Adam Ellick. Tastefully called ‘Tuning out the Taliban,’ the video has created the right buzz amongst young middle-class Pakistanis.
Adam treats his report as a way to understand why many educated, westernised and modern Pakistani pop/rock stars and their fans are all gung-ho about anti-Americanism in their songs and beliefs but at the same time keeping quiet about matters such as religious extremism, terrorism and the Taliban.
11/07/09
Waziristan: name the names
thenews.com.pk, Farhat Taj, Saturday, November 07, 2009
The points that Ayaz Wazir (Oct 30) raised in response to my article (Oct 26) endorsed some of the arguments that I have been making in these pages -- i.e., the previous military operations in Waziristan were not targeted and the leadership of the Taliban terrorists was tacitly given safe passages to escape. The operations ended with suspicious "peace deals" with the terrorists in complete disregard to the people of Waziristan, who wished complete elimination of the Taliban. All this has been stage-managed in pursuit of foreign-policy goals in Afghanistan.
I have a comment on Ayaz Wazir's article, and an explanation. The comment is about the questions he raised. Who was responsible for the collapse of the three institutions around which the tribal system revolved? Was it done by the tribesmen themselves? Was it done by a foreign power or non-state actors within the country? Who elevated Nek Mohammad overnight to heights of popularity by entering into a deal with him? Who was threatening Waziristan's Yargulkhail tribe of dire consequences? It certainly was not the tribesmen to be blamed for the collapse of the system.
10/29/09
Attacking our way of life
dawn.com.pk, Murtaza Razvi in Featured Articles, Pakistan, Politics on 28th Oct, 2009
Amidst the mayhem gripping Pakistan today, there is also a deafening silence pervading the corridors of power and the ranks of the opposition on the prevailing security situation. That silence, too, is being heard now. Pakistan is at war, and this is a war that is being fought as much in our cities as on the frontlines in Fata.
Wednesday’s attack on a Peshawar market, selling mostly women’s merchandise, is an attack on our way of life more than anything else. It is not a statement of the Taliban’s anti-Americanism as Hillary Clinton lands in Pakistan, nor is it a sign of their hatred against the Pakistan Army, which is carrying out a military operation in South Waziristan. It is aimed at women, as you see that a big number of those killed in Peshawar are women shoppers; shoppers that the Taliban want confined within the four walls of their homes. It is an attack on our way of life as we have lived it in Pakistan.
10/29/09
The roots of terrorism
dawn.com.pk, I.A. Rehman, Thursday, 29 Oct, 2009
‘The roots of terrorism in Pakistan are indigenous; they lie in the enormous work the state has done, by its acts of omission and commission, to eradicate the ideas of liberal Islam and facilitate the rise of obscurantists leaving the entire area of intra-religious discourse open and clear to utterly conservative and dogmatic twisters of texts and exploiters of the faithful’s vaguely understood belief.’
The reports that the military operation in South Waziristan may be completed sooner than many expected will no doubt assuage the people’s anxieties to some extent. But the question that will continue to worry them is: will the conclusion of this phase of the anti-terrorism drive bring an end to the threat to Pakistani state and society?
10/29/09
IIU, me and you -- II
thenews.com.pk, The Pakistan report card, Fasi Zaka, Thursday, October 29, 2009
In times of unimaginable tragedy, it is hard to judge outpourings of grief. The mind is freckled by floods of angry emotion. After having said this, I still feel disappointed that right after the International Islamic University (IIU) bombings one of the pictures I saw in the press was of a demonstration by the boys of the university upholding banners that were against the Kerry-Lugar bill. It seemed to me the significance of what had happened to these hapless students hadn't yet dawned on them.
The International Islamic University has absolutely nothing to do with the bill, and in any case the Taliban didn't bomb the university because they were convinced that the IIU had drafted it for John Kerry. Even at that time, in the aftermath of a senseless act it was difficult to acknowledge for people that the Taliban were utterly nihilistic in their aims.
washingtonpost.com, Haq Nawaz Khan and Karin Brulliard, Wednesday, October 28, 2009
FEW WILLING TO BACK ARMY
'There is constant fear in our minds'
As Pakistan's army battles with guns and jets to wrest control of the restive South Waziristan region from the Taliban, it remains unclear whether the military will have another kind of ammunition it desperately needs: the support of people who have lived in the militants' grip for years.
Among refugees who were jostling for donated blankets last week in this dusty town in North-West Frontier Province, few dared to discuss the Taliban fighters controlling their villages. Several whispered that there was no graver offense than speaking against the Taliban and seemed fearful that breaching that rule would cost them once the offensive -- which several referred to as an artificial "drama" cooked up to satisfy the United States -- was over.
"The operation is a joke just to please the foreign masters," said Saidalam Mehsud, 59, a burly driver. "Whenever the dollars are floating into Pakistan, such operations are carried out."
guardian.co.uk, Declan Walsh, Wednesday 28 October 2009
Dozens killed as terrorist strike in Peshawar coincides with visit to Islamabad by US secretary of state
The US vowed to stand "shoulder to shoulder" with Pakistan after an explosion in a crowded Peshawar market killed at least 100 people, many women and children, in the country's worst Taliban-engineered atrocity in two years.
The suspected car bomb in Peshawar's old city flattened shops and a mosque, scattered body parts and filled the streets with blood and burning rubble in a grim scene that one resident likened to "doomsday".
dawn.com.pk, Wednesday, 28 Oct, 2009
After summer's paralysing heat, most Pakistanis look forward to autumn's balmy weather as a traditional time for picnics, leisurely meals and going out.
But the recent wave of suicide attacks and terror alerts is making families and shopkeepers nervous that their next visit to a restaurant or market in Pakistan's capital could end in carnage.
‘We don't go anywhere, this is not a situation for moving around or going to markets and other public places,’ said Bushra Tayyeb, a housewife in Islamabad.
‘We can't go out to eat, to the cinema or for a picnic. My kids are getting bored at home, we're thinking of moving abroad,’ she said.
10/28/09
Civilians in the war zone
dawn.com.pk, Zubeida Mustafa, Wednesday, 28 Oct, 2009
We are constantly being exhorted to treat the war on terror as our own war and not theirs (the Americans’). We are told to own it. From that one deduces that we should make our due contribution to the war effort. One would not argue with that line of thinking — no, not at this stage.
Now that Pakistanis find themselves caught in this quagmire of conflict they do not have much of a choice except to try and wade their way out. For this they are extending full support to the army and the government.
But through the pall of gloom that has descended on the entire nation, we must not lose sight of the most wretched victims of the war — the civilians trapped in an anguished existence in the conflict zone. They are not responsible for this tragedy that has unfolded and which is not of their making. Can you tell the little child writhing in pain from his injuries caused by a bomb that he invited this disaster?
dawn.com.pk, Wednesday, 28 Oct, 2009
Pakistan must ‘destroy’ militant groups operating on its soil, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh said Wednesday during a visit to the disputed region of Kashmir.
With security tightened across the Kashmir valley for his trip, Singh also reiterated his government's willingness to hold talks with all political parties in the region, including separatist groups opposed to Indian rule.
India and Pakistan have fought two wars over divided Kashmir and Singh said it was time for Islamabad to wipe out the militants.
‘It is the solemn duty of the government of Pakistan to bring them to book, to destroy their camps and to eliminate their infrastructure,’ he said at a ceremony to inaugurate a railway line in the southern Kashmiri district of Anantnag.
10/27/09
Ideas can win the war
dawn.com.pk, Shahid Javed Burki, Tuesday, 27 Oct, 2009
Now that the military has begun its Rah-i-Nijat operation in South Waziristan, the question has begun to be asked whether it will succeed. We will not know the answer for several weeks, perhaps not even then.
The real victory will come only when the people not just in the tribal areas but in all parts of the country decide that they have been misled by a small of group of extremists.
The people must make clear that they don’t see their country and religion being under assault by the West, in particular the United States, and that it is their own people who are attacking them. In addition to the use of military power, what is required is the use of people’s power. The war being fought in the hills of South Waziristan is not simply a military war; it is more a war of ideas.
10/24/09
Culture makes a comeback in Swat
bbc.co.uk, Saturday, 24 October 2009
Before the arrival of the Taliban, the north-western Pakistani valley of Swat was a centre of Pashtun music and culture. But under the militants a ban was imposed on all forms of artistic expression. Now that the Taliban are no longer a force in Swat, things are changing, says the BBC Pashto's Shaheen Buneri.
With the end of the war, a gradual transformation is taking place in the Swat valley.
Cinemas have re-opened and newly-built music shops full of CDs and romantic Pashto and Indian movies have become favourite spots for young people.
"They come here to enjoy, to interact and to feel freedom," says Usman Khyali, 38, owner of a music CD store in Mingora.
Mr Khyali has rebuilt his shop which was blown up by the militants.
The News, Islamabad Diary, Ayaz Amir, Friday, October 23, 2009
Kashmir 1947-48 was the only necessary war we fought. It gave us the parts of Kashmir now in our possession. The 1965 war was a delusional general's supreme folly. The 1971 war was a strategic black hole created by our political failures. Kargil should never have happened. If Pervez Musharraf deserves to be put in the stocks it is for that misconceived adventure.
The war our army is now engaged in is more full of meaning than anything attempted in the past. It is not about territory but the soul and meaning of Pakistan. Iqbal and Jinnah would have been unable to make any sense of bin Laden, Mullah Omar or Ayman Al-Zawahiri. How on earth did Pakistan allow itself to become a playground for characters out of mediaeval history? Our paladins -- mostly in uniform -- told us we were pursuing strategic depth. What we harvested was strategic disaster.
10/22/09
IIU, me and you
The News, Thursday, October 22, 2009 Fasi Zaka
Several months ago, I was invited to speak at a seminar at the women's campus of the International Islamic University (IIU). It was, to say at the least, a memorable experience. I came to the unfortunate realisation that I too was a prejudiced individual after I compared my expectations to what I saw there.
I expected a strict, stifling academic atmosphere that would be pervading the air in a sea of burqas. It was none of those things; the only cliché present was my pre-conceived notion, sadly with what could be called new neo-colonial mindset of the modernist Muslim despite his/her good intentions. The female students there were animated, gutsy and held intellectual discourse with vigour.
10/20/09
Who are the Taliban?
bbc.co.uk, Tuesday, 20 October 2009
Recent years have seen the re-emergence of the hardline Islamic Taliban movement as a fighting force in Afghanistan and a major threat to its government.
They are also threatening to destabilise Pakistan, where they control areas in the north-west and are blamed for a wave of suicide bombings and other attacks.
The Taliban emerged in the early 1990s in northern Pakistan following the withdrawal of Soviet troops from Afghanistan.
A predominantly Pashtun movement, the Taliban came to prominence in Afghanistan in the autumn of 1994.
It is commonly believed that they first appeared in religious seminaries - mostly paid for by money from Saudi Arabia - which preached a hard line form of Sunni Islam.
10/19/09
What is the army’s role?
dawn.com.pk, Shandana Khan Mohmand, Monday, 19 Oct, 2009
The Kerry Lugar bill, its conditionalities and the controversy it has created have all received excellent attention in these pages over the last few days. Most of the points about the country being misled in understanding the bill by a frenzied media have also been made.
However, two key questions remain: what are the citizens of this country thinking when they give in to this media frenzy or to the army’s self-interested rhetoric? And why, after all these years, are we not able to differentiate between the army’s rightful role as defenders of Pakistanis, and its wrongful role as a political force?
We recently shunned the army after it had spent nine years in power and after it had brought us to the economic and security crisis in which we find ourselves today. Many at that point said that our memory would be short as always, that we would soon forget all the harm that had been inflicted upon us by Musharraf’s regime, and that we would soon be making arguments again in favour of army rule.
dawn.com.pk, Nadeem F. Paracha, Sunday, 18 Oct, 2009
There’s a telling photograph accompanying columnist Salman Masood’s article on the Kerry-Lugar Bill in the October 8 issue of New York Times. The piece is on how Pakistanis have been reacting to the supposedly controversial aid bill.
There was nothing new about the reactions that Masood gathered, with most of the respondents dishing out the usual top-of-mind rhetoric about ‘sovereignty’ and all that, but it was the picture that was worth a thousand, nay, a million words. It showed two trendy young men sitting with the plastic replica of Rodney McDonald outside a McDonald’s joint in Islamabad. According to Masood, both men vehemently opposed the bill, saying that it ‘undermines Pakistan’s sovereignty’.
The picture is a classic case of the stinging socio-political contradiction that Pakistan has become. Its people and politicians, its army and holy men can be seen lovingly engaging with the most ubiquitous symbols, gadgets and concepts of what we all instantly ridicule as ‘western materialism/imperialism’, and yet without even blinking for a second, many Pakistanis can be expected to roll out high and mighty examples of thoughtless oratory about political and cultural sovereignty.
10/11/09
Can beggars be choosers?
dawn.com.pk, Ardeshir Cowasjee, Sunday, 11 Oct, 2009
THE news as far as our media is concerned has been subsumed by the outcry, somewhat comically national, against the Kerry-Lugar bill and the perceived conditions it seeks to impose upon this client country.
It has taken over and it seems will not die until some resolution is found — grumble but accept it under protest, or return to sender.
There have been the usual fatal bomb blasts here and there, the continuing rape of minors, the Americans and British bewilderment over how to stay in or get out of Afghanistan, and a rallying cry from some responsible women parliamentarians, one being Sherry Rehman, asking that the noxious blasphemy laws be repealed.
10/11/09
Are we too quick to judge?
dawn.com, by Sana Saleem in Featured Articles, Pakistan on 10 7th, 2009
On the news of the IDPs’ return home to the Swat Valley, I had mixed feelings, both elation and concern. The joy of people finally returning to their houses was overwhelming. However, increasing fears of backlash overshadowed enthusiasm and questions about the rehabilitation of these people – along with the need to continue aid indefinitely – were frequently debated. It would have been naïve to assume that all would be well and good from here. We can only imagine walking into ruins of shattered houses, burned streets, and luscious valleys reeking of gunpowder.
dawn.com.pk, Waseem Ahmad Shah, Thursday, 08 Oct, 2009
Former Malakand commissioner released
Former divisional commissioner of Malakand, Syed Muhammad Jawed, who was allegedly taken into custody by intelligence agencies for his suspected links with militants, was released on Thursday after remaining in captivity for over four months.
Sources informed Dawn that he was kept well and not tortured during custody.
dawn.com.pk, Wednesday, 07 Oct, 2009
Pakistan's army Wednesday said it had killed a top aide of fugitive Swat Taliban commander Mullah Fazlullah, as they continued their hunt for militant chieftains in the northwest valley.
Nisar, also known as Ghazi Baba, one of 15 Swat insurgents commanding a 10 million rupee (120,000 dollar) bounty offered by authorities in May, was killed in a clash just outside Swat's main town Mingora on Wednesday, the army said.
‘Nisar, alias Ghazi Baba, was killed in an encounter. His son was arrested by the security forces,’ Mushtaq Khan, a spokesman for the army-run Swat Media Centre, told AFP by telephone.
10/03/09
The legal challenge
dawn.com, Ahmer Bilal Soofi, Saturday, 03 Oct, 2009
Let’s reflect on a likely situation during military operations. Take the Rah-i-Rast operation in the north-west as a case in point — military personnel advance to gain control of a compound. They enter the premises after much carnage and cross-fire to finally take the militants into custody. The question is: what should now be done with these militants who either surrendered or were arrested while attempting escape?
Guardian.co.uk, Declan Walsh in Matta Swat Valley, guardian.co.uk, Friday 2 October 2009
Dr Naeem Khan was taking no chances. Walking through streets once filled with Taliban gunmen, the amiable country doctor looked ready for battle – an AK-47 in his hand, ammunition across his chest, and a chunky dagger tucked into his pocket.
He patted his weapon fondly. "This has become part of our everyday life now, like lunch and dinner," he said as he entered the small hospital where he works.
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