07/26/10
To calm the north-west
jang.com.pk, Sher M Khan, Monday, July 26, 2010
Charles Lindholm, who is professor of anthropology at Boston University, did his original field research in Swat over thirty years ago, and has since been writing about the area. Dr Sher M Khan is a native of the Swat Valley. He is internationally renowned for his work in nuclear medicine and is in charge of relief efforts by the Red Crescent in Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa (formerly NWFP, or “the Frontier”). The two began this exchange of questions and answers more than two years ago. The results were published in Urdu and English. Their conversation continued a year later. This third instalment was conducted on June 20. The following is its condensed version:
05/11/10
So who’s surprised?
dawn.com.pk, Kamran Shafi, Tuesday, 11 May, 2010
Just as the country was settling down to the usual terrorist attacks on our armed forces and police and the weekly bomb attacks somewhere or other in the Citadel of Islam by the former (?) friends and buddies of our establishment, the self-appointed keeper of this country’s morality and ideology, another jihadi with links to Pakistan, was apprehended in the United States trying to blow up Times Square, New York, New York. Well, surprise, surprise.
This Faisal Shahzad, the son of a retired air vice marshal who is a good man according to those who have known him all his life, has himself said that whilst he was acting alone in planning and executing his botched plan to murder and maim innocents on NYC’s streets, amongst whose number there would have been Pakistani taxi-drivers as friend Dr Omar Ali writing for a website quite poignantly points out, he did visit Waziristan and receive training in making IEDs.
04/19/10
More needs to be done
dawn.com.pk, Editorial, Monday, 19 Apr, 2010
Now that Swat has been more or less cleared of militancy, there is an urgent need to create the conditions necessary for the return of normalcy. It is true that many gains have been made by the state in this context: just a year ago, the region was under the sway of TTP-led militants and the government had been forced to accede to the Nizam-i-Adl agreement.
Chances for the relative peace that Swat enjoys today had then looked dim. Nevertheless, much remains to be done in the post-conflict era.
dawn.com.pk, Monday, 19 Apr, 2010
A year after Pakistan launched a major operation to evict the Taliban from Swat Valley, markets are bustling and girls are back at school, but the root causes of the conflict still fester.
For two years the Taliban paralysed much of the valley by promoting a repressive brand of Islamic law, opposing secular girls' education and beheading opponents until the government ordered in thousands of troops.
At only 125 kilometres (80 miles) northwest of Islamabad, its mountains were once a weekend getaway and ski resort.
As the offensive began, around two million people fled the district but a year later many are back, trying to rebuild their lives.
04/04/10
The Swat flogging video
dailytimes.com.pk, Samar Minallah Sunday, April 04, 2010
At a time when the entire country was under the threat of militants, I not only brought the attention of the country to this video but also condemned it at the risk of my own life. Much to the disappointment of many “professional conspirators”, the video was made by the Taliban and not by me
A year has passed since we heard the screams of a girl from Swat and saw how she was flogged by the Taliban in open view of the public. The Taliban spokesman, Muslim Khan, admitted in clear terms that the Taliban had carried out this act. Not only did he say on international electronic media that the Taliban flogged the girl in public, he also admitted that the case had not been investigated properly before the girl was punished. In addition, he has said it on record that the punishment was not carried out in the manner prescribed by Islam, where a child is supposed to administer the lashes to women.
03/25/10
Judicial reform in Swat
dawn.com.pk, Editorial, 25th March, 2010
In the launch of the drive to reform Swat’s legal system, it is apparent that the state is aware of the sort of steps needed to alter some of the realities that had formerly led the people of the area to extend support to the Taliban before disowning them. For nearly four decades, the area’s judicial system had been notoriously slow-moving and corrupt, leading to the erosion of the residents’ faith in the state. Little wonder then that the Taliban’s promise of a ‘quick, Sharia-based’ justice system resonated with Swat’s people.
dawn.com.pk, Wednesday 24th March, 2010
Swat Valley community policemen show off martial arts skills as regional officials high on the Pakistani Taliban hit list clap at a graduation ceremony.
An anti-aircraft gun taken by the Taliban and then recaptured by Pakistan's army and a heavy dagger used for beheadings are displayed, a chilling reminder of what the militants were capable of when they ruled this bucolic valley northwest of Islamabad.
Recruiting Swat residents into community policing groups such as these graduates is a key aim of local authorities and the Pakistani military, who have vowed to prevent the al-Qaeda-backed Taliban from returning. The graduates are tasked with supporting the regular police force and military.
dawn.com.pk, Tuesday, 23rd March, 2010
Zarbakht Khan is still waiting for Swat Valley's corrupt and slow-moving courts to settle an eight-year land dispute which has drained his bank account and eroded his confidence in the state.
Such delays were exploited by Taliban militants, whose promises of swift justice appealed to people when they first took over the region.
Nearly a year after they were driven out by a major military offensive, judicial officials have launched a drive to speed up and reform Swat's legal system, hoping to win support from a population craving stability.
Their efforts may be paying off.
“I am satisfied. My problem will end very soon,” said Khan, whose case dragged on for so long he retired along the way.
The government's resolve wasn't always so strong.
When the Taliban gained the upper hand in the battle with the government, the government allowed them to impose their austere version of Islamic law under a peace deal widely seen as a capitulation.
dawn.com.pk, Ismail Khan, Sunday, 21 Mar, 2010
How does it feel caught in the eye of the storm? For nearly seven years, the people of the NWFP and the adjacent tribal regions and the security forces braved bombings and terrorist attacks, laying down their lives and offering unprecedented sacrifices. That was, when terrorists had turned the NWFP and the tribal regions into killing fields, while those living further a field to the east in the Punjab and Sindh were lived a relatively unscathed life.
The lull in terrorist attacks during the February, 2008 elections and the months afterwards because of the government’s peace-overtures towards the militants, were followed by a dramatic uptick in deadly bombings that exacerbated human toll with every passing day.
Those have been one of the most difficult times in the history of the NWFP, when every new day brought in more blood and gore.
03/20/10
Taliban: the unanswered questions
jang.com.pk, Iqbal Haider, March 20, 2010
The record breaking rise in suicide attacks and the onslaught of repeated explosions all over the country, more recently in Lahore and Mingora, have naturally caused countrywide shock, anxiety and concern. People at large are anxious to find a real effective strategy to eradicate these extremist militant religious forces, their suicide bombers and the unending incidents of terrorism. Some say that the Government should hold negotiations with the Taliban. Some of the bearded or non-bearded leaders of the religious parties have been offering their services for mediating with these terrorists.
AP, Asif Shehzad, 20th March, 2010
Hundreds of tribesmen from Pakistan's semiautonomous regions near the Afghan border ended a rare tribal council meeting Saturday with a declaration calling for the army to crush the Taliban.
The meeting, held in the northwestern city of Peshawar, was called by an umbrella group of aid organizations and political parties in an effort to bring together people from the violence-battered region.
Participants called for the army to escalate its attack against the network of Islamist militants across the tribal regions, dismissing Pakistan's earlier offensives as "military dramas."
"It should be a genuine military operation like the Sri Lankans did against the Tamil Tigers," said Sayd Alam Mehsud, a powerful tribal leader, referring to the brutal military campaign that destroyed the separatist Tamil army in Sri Lanka.
They also called for more power for traditional councils.
"If we strengthen these councils and make them more functional, I believe it will win us half of the war," said one participant, Salar Amjad Ali, 34. "We, the Pashtuns, live for our culture and tradition and we die for it."
dawn.com.pk, Wednesday, 17 Mar, 2010
Pakistani security forces on Wednesday killed five militants including two Taliban commanders who were wanted over an uprising in the northwestern Swat valley, the military said.
Bakht Farzand and Mian Gul who had a ten-million rupee reward on their heads, were killed along with three other militants in a clash in Pattan town, it said.
They were killed in a “joint operation launched by Pakistan army and police in Pattan,” the military’s media centre in Swat said.
dawn.com.pk, Hameedullah Khan Sunday, 14 Mar, 2010
Thirteen people were killed and 53 others injured in a suspected suicide blast at a security checkpoint here on Saturday.
The checkpoint, near the Circuit House on Saidu Sharif Road, was being jointly manned by army and police personnel.
Swat district police chief Qazi Ghulam Farooq said a suicide bomber driving a rickshaw set off explosives strapped to his body. Two soldiers and two policemen were among the dead and 10 vehicles were destroyed.
“After stepping off the rickshaw the bomber started moving towards security personnel. Soldiers warned him, but he did not stop and then several shots were fired at him,” the police official said.
dawn.com.pk, 13th March, 2010
At least 10 people were killed in a suicide attack in Pakistan's Swat valley on Saturday, a day after a series of bombings brought chaos and bloodshed to the city of Lahore, police said.
The bomber blew himself up in Saidu Sharif, on the southern outskirts of Mingora, the main town of Swat, where the military said several months ago it had quelled a Taliban uprising.
“A total of 10 people have been killed and 37 were wounded. It was a suicide attack,” senior police official Qazi Jamil told AFP by telephone. Three security personnel and a nine year old child were also among the dead.
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?
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