Civil War is being Incited in Pakistan - a new murderous phase begins

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Saturday, April 18, 2009
16:37 Mecca time, 13:37 GMT   
News CENTRAL/S. ASIA
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2009/04/20094181144454174.html

 
 
Deadly attack on Pakistan convoy 
 
 

 
A suicide bomber has attacked a military convoy killing at least 20 security personnel in a tribal region of northwest Pakistan, police have said.

Fifteen more people were injured in the attack, which was carried out near a checkpoint in the town of Kohat on Saturday.

"The bomber was driving a pick-up truck which he rammed into a convoy passing by a security checkpost," Fareed Khan, a senior police officer, said.

The checkpoint is near the Orakzai tribal region in Pakistan, which has emerged in
recent months as a base for pro-Taliban fighters who have stepped up their battle against the government.

Western nations are pressing Pakistan to take greater action against pro-Taliban forces and al-Qaeda elements in the tribal areas bordering Afghanistan.
 
 Source: Agencies 
 
 

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Suicide bomber kills 20 at Pakistani checkpoint

Pakistani police say suicide car bomb kills 20 at checkpoint in northwest

RIAZ KHAN
AP News

Apr 18, 2009 08:05 EST
http://wire.antiwar.com/2009/04/18/suicide-bomber-kills-20-at-pakistani-checkpoint-2/


A suicide bomber rammed an explosives-laden vehicle into a military checkpoint in Pakistan's troubled northwest on Saturday, killing at least 20 people, officials said.

While militant attacks are spreading across Pakistan, the onslaught remains fiercest near Taliban strongholds along the Afghan border, where al-Qaida fugitives — perhaps including Osama bin Laden — have found sanctuary.

The explosion demolished the checkpoint and severely damaged an adjacent building housing troops and police, said Farid Khan, a senior police official in the nearby town of Hangu.

At least 18 members of the security forces as well as two civilians died, Khan said. More than a dozen other people were wounded, including the local police chief, other officials said.

Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani condemned the attack as a "cowardly act of terrorism" and said the government would use an "iron hand" against terrorists and extremists, his office said in a statement.

Pakistan is under intense international pressure to crack down on an increasingly integrated array of Islamist extremist groups blamed for bloody attacks in Afghanistan, Pakistan and India.

Donors including the U.S, Japan and Saudi Arabia on Friday pledged more than $5 billion to shore up Pakistan's shaky economy and pay for schemes to alleviate poverty and bolster its security forces — twin tracks in a longer-term drive to dry up support for extremism.

Assaults this year in the capital, Islamabad, and on the Sri Lanka cricket team and a police academy in the eastern city of Lahore have fanned fear that militants are expanding across the country and could soon destabilize the state.

The checkpoint hit Saturday is near the Orakzai tribal region, which has emerged in recent months as a major Taliban base. Suicide bombers have targeted community leaders who have sought to rally local tribes against the militants.

An apparent U.S. missile strike reportedly killed 14 suspected militants in Orakzai on April 1, the first such attack in the area since unmanned CIA aircraft stepped up their assault on targets in the tribal belt last year.

Source: AP News

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US-NATO Military Agenda: The Destabilization of Pakistan



By Michel Chossudovsky
 
Global Research, April 17, 2009
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=13228

Author's note:

In an article published in December 2007, following the assassination of Benazir Bhutto, I suggested that the US-NATO course for Pakistan consisted "in  fomenting social, ethnic and factional divisions and political fragmentation, including the territorial breakup of Pakistan."

Recent developments (including the aerial bombardments of Pakistani villages under the auspices of the "war on terrorism") indelibly point to a broadening of the Afghan war theater, which now encompasses parts of Pakistan. The underlying tendency is towards an Afghan-Pakistani war.

Michel Chossudovsky, April 17, 2009


Excerpts of the December 2007 Article

Already in 2005, a report by the US National Intelligence Council and the CIA forecast a "Yugoslav-like fate" for Pakistan "in a decade with the country riven by civil war, bloodshed and inter-provincial rivalries, as seen recently in Balochistan." (Energy Compass, 2 March 2005). According to the NIC-CIA,  Pakistan is slated to become a "failed state" by 2015, "as it would be affected by civil war, complete Talibanisation and struggle for control of its nuclear weapons". (Quoted by former Pakistan High Commissioner to UK, Wajid Shamsul Hasan, Times of India, 13 February 2005):

"Nascent democratic reforms will produce little change in the face of opposition from an entrenched political elite and radical Islamic parties. In a climate of continuing domestic turmoil, the Central government's control probably will be reduced to the Punjabi heartland and the economic hub of Karachi," the former diplomat quoted the NIC-CIA report as saying.

Expressing apprehension, Hasan asked, "are our military rulers working on a similar agenda or something that has been laid out for them in the various assessment reports over the years by the National Intelligence Council in joint collaboration with CIA?" (Ibid)

Continuity, characterized by the dominant role of the Pakistani military and intelligence has been scrapped in favor of political breakup and balkanization. According to the NIC-CIA scenario, which Washington intends to carry out: "Pakistan will not recover easily from decades of political and economic mismanagement, divisive policies, lawlessness, corruption and ethnic friction," (Ibid) . 

This US agenda for Pakistan is similar to that applied throughout the broader Middle East Central Asian region. US strategy, supported by covert intelligence operations, consists in triggering ethnic and religious strife, abetting and financing secessionist movements while also weakening the institutions of the central government.

The broader objective is to fracture the Nation State and redraw the borders of Iraq, Iran, Syria, Afghanistan and Pakistan.

To read the complete December 2007 article, click here:

http://globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=7705


 

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US Drone Strike Kills Eight Civilians in South Waziristan

Posted By Jason Ditz On April 19, 2009 @ 9:08 am

Last Updated 4/19/09 7:15 PM EST



This morning, a US drone attacked an apparent militant hideout in Pakistan’s South Waziristan Agency, triggering a massive series of explosions which local residents eight civilians, including women and children, and injuring at least two others.

Reports on the attack are still not totally clear, with local police insisting first that no one was killed at all in the attack, which evidently started a fire which spread to two explosive-laden vehicles.  Militants cordoned off the area, but it does not appear that any of them were present at the time of the attack.

The attack came just one day after the local Ahmedzai Wazir tribe managed to negotiate a ceasefire across the troubled agency. The Tehreek-e Taliban Pakistan (TTP) and the government forces in the agency agreed to stop attacks, and certain demands of the TTP, including the removal of checkpoints, were reportedly being considered. It is unclear what impact the US attack will have on this deal.

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Article printed from News From Antiwar.com: http://news.antiwar.com

URL to article: http://news.antiwar.com/2009/04/19/us-drone-strike-kills-up-to-eight-in-south-waziristan/

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ANALYSIS-Fears for Pakistan grow as Taliban make gains


Robert Birsel
Reuters North American News Service

http://wire.antiwar.com/2009/04/18/analysis-fears-for-pakistan-grow-as-taliban-make-gains/

Apr 19, 2009 02:36 EST

ISLAMABAD, April 19 (Reuters) - Pakistan has repeatedly vowed action to stop militants but analysts say denial and dithering and a seething resentment of the United States among the Pakistani people have stymied effective policy.

Escalating violence by militants and the consolidation of their grip in some places, and infiltration into others, have raised fears about the spread of Taliban influence.

Nuclear-armed Pakistan falling under the sway of al Qaeda-linked militants is a nightmare scenario for the United States and Pakistan's neighbours, and would doom U.S. efforts to stabilise Afghanistan.

"There's a great sense of angst, a sense of unravelling," said Adil Najam, professor of international relations at Boston University.

"It seems that everyone has lost control, including the military, of where things are going. I don't think they've given up the fight, it's just they don't seem to know what they can do," he said.

President Asif Ali Zardari secured more than $5 billion in aid last Friday after telling allies and aid donors in Tokyo he would step up the fight against militants. The pledges pushed up a stock market that has gained 33 percent this year.

But elsewhere the mood is grim.

Audacious militant attacks in the eastern city of Lahore and blasts elsewhere over recent weeks have sapped confidence. A suicide car-bomber killed 25 soldiers and police and two passers-by in the northwest on Saturday.

As well as across the northwest, the Taliban are infiltrating into Punjab province and Karachi city, analysts say. The release on bail of a cleric who used to run a radical Islamabad mosque has added to a feeling that the militants are on a roll.

FRIGHTENING

Rumours of attacks on schools have spread panic and embassies have warned citizens of the danger of attacks and kidnapping. Members of Pakistan's moderate Muslim majority say they feel intimidated by a vocal and aggressive minority.

Compounding the unease is a sense that the government has been distracted by political wrangling and is in denial.

"The general impression and perception at this stage is the government lacks the will to assert itself," analyst Hasan Askari Rizvi told Dawn television. "They are denying the threat that is moving towards Islamabad."

Policy has been flip-flopping between inconclusive military offensives and peace deals that critics say embolden the militants.

The International Crisis Group think-tank says responsibility for counter-insurgency has to be transferred to civilians from a military that continues to have links with some militant groups it sees as tools in its confrontation with India.

"It's inept in the way it conducts operations, it suffers huge losses, and then it signs peace deals, it appeases the militants," said the group's Pakistan director, Samina Ahmed.

Under the latest peace pact, authorities have virtually handed over the northwestern Swat region to the Taliban to end violence. But the militants have already pushed out and taken over a new area 100 km (60 miles) from the capital.

"The implications of appeasement are obvious," said Ahmed. "Peace deals have been signed from a position of weakness and the militants have gained ground. It is quite frightening."

LOSING THE BATTLE

Optimists had hoped the end of military rule with a general election last year would see public support coalescing around a strong stand against the militants.

But while the Taliban have been taking advantage of grievances against corrupt courts and greedy landlords to win support, they have also been able to capitalise on widespread resentment of the United States exacerbated by its attacks on militants with missiles launched from pilotless drones.

"I'm not sure the drones have actually done anything to reduce militancy but they have strengthened the Taliban argument more than any other thing," Najam said.

"The Taliban have cornered the anti-American message."

Victory over the Taliban hinged on public opinion, he said.

"If ordinary Pakistanis can turn against the Taliban then we can win this. If they don't, if they continue to be lukewarm because the Taliban are supposed to be anti-American and all that, then there's no way you can win this," Najam said.

"The battle is in the hearts and minds of Pakistani society and I think we're losing."

(Editing by Jeremy Laurence)

Source: Reuters North American News Service

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Pakistan: Women, children among eight killed in US drone strike


Online - International News Network
http://www.uruknet.info/?p=m53554&hd=&size=1&l=e


April 20, 2009

WANA: As many as eight people, including women and children were killed and several others injured in the suspected US drone attack on Gangi Khel area of Wana, headquarters of South Waziristan Agency on Sunday morning, locals said.

However, the political administration and other sources denied reports of any loss of lives in the attack, saying no causality happened in the attack but the attack hit an explosive laden vehicle parked inside a house.

According to details, the suspected US drones kept flying over the area the whole night and cause panic in the area but on Sunday’s morning it fired two missiles at a house in Gangi Khel area, damaging two explosive lad vehicles parked in the house, however, no casualty was reported.

Sources of political administration said two explosives laden vehicles were targeted in the attack and caused no casualty.

According to locals, sounds of powerful explosions were echoed after the attacks.

While, according to a private TV channel, the drone targeted a house, located in the area of Taliban commander, Mulla Faqir Mohammad, killing eight persons, women and children among them, and several others injured.

Media reports reaching here said that the attack was carried out in populous region and sounds of explosions heard far away, while locals said they could have never heard such powerful explosions before this and were seen smoke emitting from the site.

A foreign news agency quoted Shahab Ali Shah official of local administration, as saying that drone targeted hideout of suspected militants but did not mention details.

Locals said there was no one at the site during the time of attack.

According to a private TV channel report, fire engulfed the two explosive laden vehicles parked in the house after the attack and also spread to several adjacent houses.

It was claimed in the report that militants used to stay at the site and militants cordoned off the area after the attack and started rescue activities.





 

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25 security personnel among 27 killed in Hangu suicide blast

Sunday April 19, 2009 (1152 PST)

http://paktribune.com/news/index.php?id=213824

Twenty-seven people were killed including 25 security personnel and scores others injured in a suicide attack at a security check post here on Saturday.

According to sources, the suicide bomber rammed his explosives laden vehicle into the security check post near Doaba Police Station, causing a loud blast which was heard in a wide radius.

DSP Hangu, Fareed Khan told Geo News that the security men when tried to stop a suspicious vehicle the suicide attacker driving it rammed his explosives-laden vehicle into the check post. The blast occurred exactly at a time when a convoy of security forces was passing from checkpoint. This resulted in a greater loss of life while 11 vehicles were also destroyed in the attack.

Sixty four people injured in the attack were shifted to CMH Tal and CMH Kohat.

Security forces cordoned off the area after the blast.

However, ISPR has confirmed deaths of only 20 security personnel in the incident.

End.

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Drone attacks on Pakistan’s indigenous tribes 

21/04/2009 10:30:00 PM GMT
http://aljazeera.com/news/articles/39/Drone_attacks_on_Pakistans_indigenous_tribes.html
 
 Since August 2008, nearly 60 drone strikes in tribal areas have massacred over 500 individuals.


(Getty Images) Pakistani mourners carry the coffin of soldier killed in a U.S. air strike, June, 2008

By Ali Khan

In a case filed with the Pakistan Supreme Court, the petitioner states: “The Americans, like in Musharraf’s time, have also been given a free hand by President Zardari and fundamental rights of the (indigenous) people are being violated daily in tribal areas and (in northern areas of) Dir, Swat and Chitral. A large number of (indigenous) people have migrated from these areas and suffered tremendous losses with no hope of returning to their homes because of U.S. drone attacks, but the government is sitting as a silent spectator.”

Since August 2008, nearly 60 drone strikes in tribal and other northern areas have massacred over 500 individuals belonging to a population that qualifies as indigenous people under international law. The majority of victims are poor and frightened men, women, and children. They have little to do with militants who are fighting the NATO occupation forces in Afghanistan.

To escape future drone massacres of their families, thousands of residents living in target areas have left their homes and businesses to seek asylum in other parts of Pakistan. Wretched stories of these internally displaced persons (IDPs) and their trail of tears have made little news in the international media.

After extending a hand of friendship to the Muslim world in his inaugural speech, President Barack Hussein Obama has personally authorized the continuance of drone attacks. In hopes of destroying the nesting places of militancy, the Obama administration is poised to expanding the drone warfare to other parts of Pakistan.

Presuming that Pakistan is secretly supporting drone strikes, the vengeful militants have begun to attack the citadel cities of Lahore and Islamabad. As drone attacks continue to kill and generate the IDPs among the indigenous population and as militants undertake retaliatory measures in major cities, nuclear-armed Pakistan is predicted to plunge into uncontrollable chaos and carnage threatening international peace and security.

Before Pakistan turns into another Iraq, the Obama administration should reconsider the wisdom and legality of drone strikes as a means of fighting the militants in Pakistan.

Self-righteous militarism
For the indigenous people of tribal areas, the drone aircraft has turned into a despised symbol of American militarism, even though the United States armed forces and the CIA have not even once assumed responsibility for drone attacks.

Ironically, in Pakistan, Afghanistan, and other Central Asian Muslim states, the drone has previously been known as a note or chord which is continuously repeated in musical pieces, Sufi songs, most notably in qawwalis. Torn from its musical connotations, the drone is now associated with unmanned aerial vehicles (UAVs) engaged in repeated massacres.

UAVs perform a host of military functions, including intelligence gathering, surveillance, and launching missiles on electronically-nominated targets. For the indigenous people of Pakistan, however, the drone is a white American jahaz (aircraft) that, all too often around the time of morning prayer, sneaks into the tribal airspace, strikes fragile houses and compounds, and murders scores of people in each sortie.

In deploying military might, American policymakers consistently fail to comprehend a simple point: No nation looks forward to foreign military attacks. Be it in the Philippines, Vietnam, Grenada, Panama, Sudan, Iraq, Afghanistan, or Pakistan, the American military is rarely seen as a force of liberation or virtue.

The American armed forces did serve the cause of liberation in the Second World War. Even during the Cold War, the American military retained some of its moral underpinnings. No longer, however, is the American military welcome in developing nations. Ignoring this plain truth, American policymakers, driven by unexamined self-righteousness, continue to impose deadly military solutions over complex geopolitical problems.

The drone attacks in Pakistan, which has been a submissive American ally for more than sixty years, complicate problems and not simplify them. They invite retaliation from militants and sow resentment in the Muslim world. Killing the indigenous people in Pakistan under the Obama flag will be as unsuccessful as has been killing Iraqi people under the Bush flag.

Unlawful collateral damage
Drone attacks are not only unwise, they are also unlawful. Even when perpetrated with Pakistan’s permission, drone attacks are violations of international law because they produce unacceptably high collateral damage. Collateral damage is a military term to describe damage caused to civilians, facilities, equipment, and property while attacking a lawful military target. The damage can occur to friendly, neutral, or enemy forces. “Such damage is not unlawful so long as it is not excessive in light of the overall military advantage anticipated from the attack.”

As a rule, therefore, the military benefit must be much higher than the cost of collateral damage. A military strike is unlawful if the collateral damage exceeds lawful military advantage. In tribal areas, the collateral damage has been egregiously high since drone strikes kill hundreds of civilians in order to neutralize a few militants. On the basis of casualty count alone, the drone attacks are contrary to international law.

These attacks turn blatantly illegal when the collateral damage is fully assessed and aggregated. In addition to causing death and injury to non-combatants, drone attacks degrade the social and economic life of indigenous tribes.

As noted above, hundreds of families have fled targeted areas to seek refuge elsewhere. Small businesses that sustain communities have been disrupted. Facing the uncertainty of drone attacks, parents decline to send children to schools. When American officials threaten to broaden the drone warfare, panic and the consequent social and economic disruptions are further increased. The physical, social, and economic cost inflicted on the tribal areas cannot be justified under the limited military advantage that drone attacks yield to the United States.

Conclusion
If the Obama administration is serious in turning the page in the Muslim world and if the American war on terror, which is shifting from the Middle East to South Asia, is to be conducted under the rule of law, the drone attacks against indigenous populations of Pakistan’s tribal areas must immediately be called off.

-- Ali Khan is professor of law at Washburn University School of Law in Topeka, Kansas, and the author of the book, A Theory of International Terrorism (2006).




-- Middle East Online

 

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Taliban claims victory near Islamabad


Story Highlights:

NEW: Heavily armed men openly patrolled roads in pickup trucks

Last week, Taliban imposed sharia law in Swat Valley as part of government deal

Taliban's return indicates government concessions may have emboldened militants

Pro-Taliban clerics stage rallies in Swat, Islamabad since sharia decision

By Ivan Watson


Pakistani paramilitary troops patrol a street in Islamabad on Tuesday.


ISLAMABAD, Pakistan (CNN) -- Taliban militants who implemented Islamic law in Pakistan's violence-plagued Swat Valley last week have now taken control of a neighboring district.

Control of the Buner district brings the Taliban closer to the capital, Islamabad, than they have been since they started their insurgency. Islamabad is 60 miles (96 km) from the district.

"Our strength is in the hundreds," said Moulana Mohammad Khalil, as heavily armed men openly patrolled the roads in pickup trucks, singing Islamic anthems.

The militants had taken control of the area to ensure that Islamic law, or sharia, is properly imposed, Khalil said.

The government called the advance into Buner a breach of a recently-signed peace agreement.

"Now Taliban are violating the peace agreement, and if they continue the government will take strict action and not allow the Taliban to create a parallel government in that area," said Mian Iftikhar, a spokesman for the regional administration in the North West Frontier Province, where Buner is located.

Last week, the Taliban imposed sharia law in Swat Valley as part of a peace deal with the government. Under the Taliban's strict interpretation, the law prevents women from being seen in public without their husbands or fathers.

Earlier this month, the militant movement made forays into Buner and clashed with locals before withdrawing.

Now the Taliban appear to have returned in force -- a move that indicates the recent government concessions may have emboldened the militants to expand their reach.

The Pakistani government appears unable or unwilling to stop the Taliban's steady advance deeper into the territory of this nuclear-armed country.

In the days after the government's April 13 decision to implement sharia law in Swat, pro-Taliban clerics have staged rallies in Swat and Islamabad. They have demanded the imposition of Islamic law across Pakistan and beyond.

Speaking before an audience of tens of thousands in the Swat Valley town of Mingora on Sunday, cleric Sufi Muhammed declared democracy and Pakistan's judicial system "un-Islamic."

A Taliban spokesman in Swat went a step further Tuesday, calling anyone opposed to his strict interpretation of Islam a non-Muslim. IReport:Should the U.S. interfere in Pakistan?

"Let the judges and the lawyers go to Islamic university," Muslim Khan said. After "they learn Islamic rules, Islamic regulation, they can continue to work."

The rise of the Taliban in Swat has alarmed and frightened some members of local civil society there.

"This is a time bomb for the country," said Aftab Alam, the head of the lawyers' association in Swat district.

Meanwhile, in another Taliban-run region called Orakzai, details emerged of militants forcing a small community of Sikhs to pay a jaziya, or "minority tax," of 10.5 million rupees (roughly $130,000) earlier this month.

Khan said if his vision of an Islamic society is fulfilled in Pakistan, terror mastermind Osama Bin Laden will be welcome to travel and live openly here. "Sure, he's a Muslim, he can go anywhere," Khan said.

Khan added that he would like to see sharia law implemented beyond Pakistan, even in America, a country he knows intimately. For four years, the Taliban spokesman lived in the United States, working as a painter near Boston, Massachusetts.
 

 
 
 
Links referenced within this article

Taliban
http://topics.edition.cnn.com/topics/The_Taliban
Should the U.S. interfere in Pakistan?
http://www.ireport.com/docs/DOC-246869/
Pakistan
http://topics.edition.cnn.com/topics/Pakistan

 

 
Find this article at:
http://edition.cnn.com/2009/WORLD/asiapcf/04/22/pakistan.taliban/index.html 
 

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Thursday, April 23, 2009
17:24 Mecca time, 14:24 GMT   
News CENTRAL/S. ASIA 
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2009/04/200942217162264694.html

 
Pakistan 'abdicating to Taliban' 


 
Despite her criticism, Clinton said Pakistan shared the White House's goal of fighting 'terrorism' [AFP]

 
Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, has accused Pakistan's government of "abdicating to the Taliban" by agreeing to the enforcement of Islamic law in part of the country.

Clinton's criticism came in comments to the US House Foreign Affairs Committee on Wednesday.

"I think that the Pakistani government is basically abdicating to the Taliban and to the extremists," she said.

Pakistan's government agreed to the enforcement of the Taliban's interpretation of sharia, or Islamic law, in Pakistan's northwestern Swat valley in exchange for a ceasefire with the group.

Asif Ali Zardari, Pakistan's president, signed the deal into law earlier in April.

Later in her testimony, Clinton said that the US administration believes the Pakistani government shares Washington's goal of fighting "terrorism".

Taliban advance

Responding to Clinton's comments, Yusuf Raza Gilani, Pakistan's prime minister, said that the deal allowing sharia to be implemented in Swat was aimed at promoting peace in that region.

"Agreements are made so that both sides are bound by it. We have a minimum understanding that needs to be adhered to," he said.

In depth :

Video: Turning to the Taliban :
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2009/04/2009418113738662194.html

 Media vaccum in Swat valley :
http://english.aljazeera.net/programmes/listeningpost/2009/03/200937114151666838.html

 Swat: Pakistan's lost paradise :
http://english.aljazeera.net/focus/2009/01/200912512351598892.html

 Talking to the Taliban ;
http://english.aljazeera.net/focus/2009/03/200939102529353355.html

 Pakistan's war :
http://english.aljazeera.net/programmes/general/2008/12/200812211123302404.html


 
"Our agreement was that there will be peace in Swat and in return we would give them speedy justice. We have said we will take part in political dialogue with those who put down their weapons and the writ of the government. But if those agreements are broken then we reserve the right for other options as well."

Earlier, Pakistani officials said that Taliban fighters in Swat had moved into a neighbouring district in what appeared to be a move to expand the region of its control, despite the Swat peace deal.

Hundreds of armed Taliban entered Buner district, only 110km from Islamabad, setting up checkpoints, occupying mosques and ransacking the offices of non-governmental organisations, a local official said.

"The Taliban who have arrived from Swat have increased patrolling, banned music in public transport and rampaged [through] the offices of NGOs and taken their vehicles," Rashid Khan, a government official, said.

A Taliban commander said that they would set up sharia courts in Buner - as they have done in Swat - to end a "sense of deprivation", but would not interfere with police work.

"We will soon establish our radio station. Our Qazis [Islamic judges] will also start holding courts in Buner soon," Mohammad  Khalil, a Taliban commander, said.

Muslim Khan, a spokesman for the Pakistani Taliban, speaking from Swat, denied that the government was being challenged in Buner saying that the Taliban was not creating "any hurdle in the administration's work".

Residents 'scared'

But several residents said they felt "scared" and planned to leave the Buner area, fearing similar violence to that in Swat. 




The development is likely to trigger further criticism of the government's agreement with fighters in Swat.

In an interview published in the US newspaper USA Today, Nawaz Sharif, a former Pakistani prime minister, said: "They are now threatening to get out of Swat and take other areas into their custody. So we've got to avoid that situation."

The Pakistani authorities lost control in Swat, a former ski resort and a major tourist attraction, after a two-year campaign by fighters to enforce the Taliban's interpretation of Islamic law.

In its deal with the Taliban, the government allowed sharia courts in Malakand, a district of about three million people in North West Frontier Province that includes the Swat valley, in order to halt the unrest.

But the Taliban has yet to disarm and its fighters appear to be trying to expand their control.

Meanwhile, in neighbouring Dir district, a senior administration official was kidnapped by "unknown" people, according to another official.
 
 Source: Al Jazeera and agencies 
 
 

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Thursday, April 23, 2009
17:24 Mecca time, 14:24 GMT   
News CENTRAL/S. ASIA 
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2009/04/200942217162264694.html

 
Pakistan 'abdicating to Taliban' 


 
Despite her criticism, Clinton said Pakistan shared the White House's goal of fighting 'terrorism' [AFP]

 
Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, has accused Pakistan's government of "abdicating to the Taliban" by agreeing to the enforcement of Islamic law in part of the country.

Clinton's criticism came in comments to the US House Foreign Affairs Committee on Wednesday.

"I think that the Pakistani government is basically abdicating to the Taliban and to the extremists," she said.

Pakistan's government agreed to the enforcement of the Taliban's interpretation of sharia, or Islamic law, in Pakistan's northwestern Swat valley in exchange for a ceasefire with the group.

Asif Ali Zardari, Pakistan's president, signed the deal into law earlier in April.

Later in her testimony, Clinton said that the US administration believes the Pakistani government shares Washington's goal of fighting "terrorism".

Taliban advance

Responding to Clinton's comments, Yusuf Raza Gilani, Pakistan's prime minister, said that the deal allowing sharia to be implemented in Swat was aimed at promoting peace in that region.

"Agreements are made so that both sides are bound by it. We have a minimum understanding that needs to be adhered to," he said.

In depth :

Video: Turning to the Taliban :
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2009/04/2009418113738662194.html

 Media vaccum in Swat valley :
http://english.aljazeera.net/programmes/listeningpost/2009/03/200937114151666838.html

 Swat: Pakistan's lost paradise :
http://english.aljazeera.net/focus/2009/01/200912512351598892.html

 Talking to the Taliban ;
http://english.aljazeera.net/focus/2009/03/200939102529353355.html

 Pakistan's war :
http://english.aljazeera.net/programmes/general/2008/12/200812211123302404.html


 
"Our agreement was that there will be peace in Swat and in return we would give them speedy justice. We have said we will take part in political dialogue with those who put down their weapons and the writ of the government. But if those agreements are broken then we reserve the right for other options as well."

Earlier, Pakistani officials said that Taliban fighters in Swat had moved into a neighbouring district in what appeared to be a move to expand the region of its control, despite the Swat peace deal.

Hundreds of armed Taliban entered Buner district, only 110km from Islamabad, setting up checkpoints, occupying mosques and ransacking the offices of non-governmental organisations, a local official said.

"The Taliban who have arrived from Swat have increased patrolling, banned music in public transport and rampaged [through] the offices of NGOs and taken their vehicles," Rashid Khan, a government official, said.

A Taliban commander said that they would set up sharia courts in Buner - as they have done in Swat - to end a "sense of deprivation", but would not interfere with police work.

"We will soon establish our radio station. Our Qazis [Islamic judges] will also start holding courts in Buner soon," Mohammad  Khalil, a Taliban commander, said.

Muslim Khan, a spokesman for the Pakistani Taliban, speaking from Swat, denied that the government was being challenged in Buner saying that the Taliban was not creating "any hurdle in the administration's work".

Residents 'scared'

But several residents said they felt "scared" and planned to leave the Buner area, fearing similar violence to that in Swat. 




The development is likely to trigger further criticism of the government's agreement with fighters in Swat.

In an interview published in the US newspaper USA Today, Nawaz Sharif, a former Pakistani prime minister, said: "They are now threatening to get out of Swat and take other areas into their custody. So we've got to avoid that situation."

The Pakistani authorities lost control in Swat, a former ski resort and a major tourist attraction, after a two-year campaign by fighters to enforce the Taliban's interpretation of Islamic law.

In its deal with the Taliban, the government allowed sharia courts in Malakand, a district of about three million people in North West Frontier Province that includes the Swat valley, in order to halt the unrest.

But the Taliban has yet to disarm and its fighters appear to be trying to expand their control.

Meanwhile, in neighbouring Dir district, a senior administration official was kidnapped by "unknown" people, according to another official.
 
 Source: Al Jazeera and agencies 
 
 

[Biggs]

Pakistani forces kill 38 militants in an operation

Military and Security    4/23/2009 6:44:00 PM
 
http://www.kuna.net.kw/NewsAgenciesPublicSite/ArticleDetails.aspx?id=1992777&Language=en

ISLAMABAD, April 23 (KUNA) -- Pakistani security forces Thursday said that about 38 militants have been killed in a military operation in a tribal agency near Afghan border.
About 38 militants were killed and their 11 hideouts were destroyed in Orakzai tribal agency, military spokesman, Ather Abbass, said in a press statement.
Military launched the operation against local militants two days back after rising attacks on security forces.
The spokesman said that in Thursdays operation, 11 more militants were killed rising the death toll to 38. (end) amn.rk KUNA 231844 Apr 09NNNN

[David Rothscum]

The collapse of Pakistan has been planned years in advance
http://davidrothscum.blogspot.com/2009/04/collapse-of-pakistan-has-been-planned.html

Thursday, April 23, 2009
The collapse of Pakistan has been planned years in advance
Now that the Taliban have taken up positions only 60 miles removed from Pakistan's Capital, the mainstream media is getting us used to the idea that Pakistan's government may collapse any moment now. Hillary Clinton accused the Pakistani government of allowing the Taliban to take over the entire country.

What nobody outside of Pakistan ever seems to want to talk about is that the US has planned for this to happen for years now and actively worked to ensure it would.
Back in January of 2005, a senior Pakistani Diplomat, Wajid Shamsul Hasan, who has served as Pakistan's envoy to the UK, reported on a CIA document that predicted a lot of what we are currently seeing. He wrote:

    This brings out of me the apprehension: are our military rulers working on an a similar agenda or something that has been laid out for them in the various assessment reports over the years by the National Intelligence Council (NIC) in joint collaboration with CIA. It was poor Miraj Khalid who as interim prime minister in early 1997 had dared to confide to the Pakistanis that CIA had forecast Pakistan's denouement by the year 2015.

    In the previous edition of its Global Futures assessment the NIC report cast a dark shadow on Pakistan's future five years ago. It said that by the year 2015 Pakistan would be a failed state, ripe with civil war, bloodshed, inter-provincial rivalries and a struggle for control of its nuclear weapons and its complete Talibanization. It had predicted, "Pakistan will not recover easily from decades of political and economic mismanagement, divisive policies, lawlessness, corruption and ethnic friction.

    Nascent democratic reforms will produce little change in the face of opposition from an entrenched political elite and radical Islamic parties. Further domestic decline would benefit Islamic political activists, who may significantly increase their role in national politics and alter the makeup and cohesion of the military, once Pakistan's most capable institution.

    In a climate of continuing domestic turmoil, the central government's control probably will be reduced to the Punjabi heartland and the economic hub of Karachi."

    (...)

    In the context of Balochistan, one would like to refer back to the 2015 NIC report. It forecast a Yugoslavia-like fate for Pakistan. The military operation that has been put in motion would further distance Baloch people from rest of the country. That perhaps is the plan. This brings me to an interesting observation in a book by Abul Maali Syed "The Twin Era of Pakistan-Democracy and Dictatorship" (1992). The caption of his First Chapter is 2006 and its opening para is as follows: "Who would have believed that Balochistan, once the least-populated and poorest province of Pakistan, would become independent and the third richest oil-producing country after Saudi Arabia and Kuwait".

A look at American government websites shows that Mr. Wajid Shamsul Hasan claims can easily be verified.
In December 2000, even before 9/11 and the subsequent invasion of Afghanistan, the National Intelligence Council published a document called "GLOBAL TRENDS 2015: A Dialogue About the Future With Nongovernment Experts". About Pakistan it has the following to say:

    Pakistan in 2015. Pakistan, our conferees concluded, will not recover easily from decades of political and economic mismanagement, divisive politics, lawlessness, corruption and ethnic friction. Nascent democratic reforms will produce little change in the face of opposition from an entrenched political elite and radical Islamic parties. Further domestic decline would benefit Islamic political activists, who may significantly increase their role in national politics and alter the makeup and cohesion of the military—once Pakistan's most capable institution. In a climate of continuing domestic turmoil, the central government's control probably will be reduced to the Punjabi heartland and the economic hub of Karachi.

These reports are all very reminiscent of what American General Ralph Peters wrote for a military journal. In 2006 he advocated a complete change of borders in the Middle East. He had also made the following maps about how the new Middle East should look:



Although these plans might sound far fetched, parts are already becoming reality. In Saudi Arabia, a growing number of members of the Shiite population that lives on top of most of the oil want their region to become independent. America's current Vice President, Joe Biden proposed in 2006 to divide Iraq into three different regions.

A look at other documents from the same website shows a possible motive for the destruction of Pakistan. A document from April of 2002 mentions:

    Some participants felt
    that the price India would force China to pay
    in order to slow down US-Indian relations
    would be to “cut loose” Pakistan as a strategic
    ally of China. Once severed from Chinese aid
    and political support, Pakistan would be
    increasingly vulnerable to Indian political
    coercion and conventional military pressure.
    Many participants felt that China could not
    accept this result, because without Pakistan as
    a strategic distraction to India Chinese
    security would rest primarily on Indian good
    will rather than on a balance of power. Other
    participants noted that China probably has
    alternatives to giving up on Pakistan, but
    participants disagreed over whether India
    would accept any concessions.

This is in line with what others have said about larger US plans for the region. Webster Tarpley wrote:

    The playbook for the Principals is the Brzezinski Plan, with its focus on working towards a global showdown with Russia and China. A US-UK attack on Iran is now virtually excluded, but instead large-scale bombing and preparations for a land invasion of northwest Pakistan are proceeding apace. The pretext cited here is the search for Bin Laden and the need to combat the Taliban, but the real goal is to start the breakup of Pakistan into five or six petty states ­ because Pakistan is a Chinese ally, and all allies and trading partners of China are presently being targeted for regime change, destabilization, and Balkanization, from Sudan to Zimbabwe to Burma to Venezuela to Pakistan.

All evidence points towards China and Pakistan being close allies, while the United States and India are allies against Pakistan and China. China has recently paid to install new nuclear reactors in Pakistan for example. This came after India bought nuclear reactors from the US.
At the same time American companies are providing India with new fighter jets.
The excuse the Pentagon gives for this is that:

    "China's massive military build-up poses a ''long-term threat'' to regional powers such as India and Japan, besides to Taiwan and the American forces in the Pacific"

As I showed in an earlier report, Webster Tarpley can be proven right about Sudan as well, where Israel is funding rebel groups that attack Chinese oil rigs in the country.

There is plenty of evidence to suggest that the US is actively pursuing this plan to destroy Pakistan. For example, in 2001, many of the Taliban forces that were defeated in Afghanistan were allowed to flee to Pakistan.
More importantly, the United States funds Jundullah, a Baluchi seperatist group, to destabilize Iran. This is confirmed by the former Army Chief of Pakistan, Mirza Aslam Baig. The Baluch are a people that live in the region where Pakistan, Iran and Afghanistan border eachother. This region is shown in Ralph Peter's map as becoming an independent nation. But it's important to note that Jundullah is also active in Pakistan. In 2004 they were involved in an unsuccesful attempt to assasinate a General of Pakistan, in which 10 people died.
Jundullah members are trained in South Waziristan by members of Al Qaeda.

Another method to destabilize Pakistan are the constant bombings of Pakistan under Bush and Obama. While Obama claimed these attacks would be used to kill senior Al Qaeda members, they've only angered the population and helped strengthen the Taliban. The Pakistani public has every reason to be angry. Between January 14, 2006 and April 8, 2009, the total number of 60 cross border strikes that the US carried out killed 14 al-Qaeda leaders, and 687 innocent Pakistani civilians, according to Pakistani officials. The US government must know the effects of it's indiscriminate slaughter in Pakistan. Back in November of 2008 Pakistan warned the US that it's missile attacks were counterproductive in it's war against terrorism, but Obama only increased the frequency of attacks.

It's admitted by the CIA that these attacks serve to provoke more attacks by forces in Pakistan.
Michael Hayden for example said:

    "We use military operations to excite the enemy, prompting him to respond. In that response we learn so much''

These attacks will just continue because they hasten the larger US plan for the region: To destroy Pakistan to aid the main opposition to China in the region, India.

[bigron]

The Destabilization of Pakistan: Finding Clarity in the Baluchistan Conundrum

Talha Mujaddidi, Axis of Logic



April 24, 2009



As in all of his analyses of the battle for Pakistan, Talha Mujaddidi provides a rare look into the internal struggle of the Pakistan people and the interference in their domestic affairs by the United States, India and other foreign elements. For those who are unfamiliar with the terms, places and names in this report, Talha provides a glossary at the end of the article. It is especially important that we learn and understand what is happening in Pakistan as Washington is opening up a new front in this country in their "war on terror". - Les Blough, Axis of Logic Editor





 
 
(Source: PNAC)
 


April 23, 2009

Excerpt: "The problem for US is that BLA alone is not able to break away Baluchistan from Pakistan. Of the 5% population of Baluchistan they don’t even have support of 10% Balochi population. The Pakistan Army and ISI are resisting the assault in national and strategic interests of Pakistan. The Great Game of Brzezinski will surely continue in Baluchistan and rest of Pakistan, the people of Pakistan are ready to counter this great game now we need leadership and some courage. It will take some time to achieve courage and leadership but it will come eventually. Street revolutions are easy to carry out the hard part is the mental revolution. That is what is required right now to challenge the US global hegemony."

Baluchistan is strategically located East of Iran and to the South of Afghanistan. It has a port at Gwadar that was built by China. Gwadar lies at the opening of Strait of Hormuz. Baluchistan has huge quantities of natural gas, and unexplored oil reserves. More importantly US wants to control the port of Gwadar, and eventually start their dream oil pipeline from Central Asia, through Afghanistan into Baluchistan and Gwadar. Baluchistan is the largest province of Pakistan in terms of area and it covers almost 48% of Pakistan’s area. But its population accounts for only 5% of the total population of Pakistan. Ethnically Baluchistan is divided into Balochs, and Pathans, followed by other small minorities. The state capital is Quetta, (recently termed as nerve center of Taliban by US Generals).

Like all histories in South Asia, or Middle East, the history of Baluchistan is long, complex, and would require a long article to cover all the details. So a brief synopsis is sufficient to get us rolling before we come to the point.

"Baluchistan has the worst human rights record out of all the provinces of Pakistan."

Baluchistan like, Afghanistan and Tribal Areas of Pakistan is a tribal society. Many different Sardars (tribal chiefs), rule their respective tribes, often with serious disregard for human rights. Development wise, Baluchistan is the most backward province in Pakistan. There may be some weight in the argument that the federal government in Pakistan has neglected the development of Baluchistan, but equal responsibility lies with the Sardars of Baluchistan who enjoy immense power in their tribes. They are unwilling to come into the main stream society, have monopoly over the laws and regulations of the state, while they themselves sit in provincial and national parliaments, yet they don’t work for the development of their own people.

Baluchistan has the worst human rights record out of all the provinces of Pakistan. Every time horrific human rights atrocities are committed in Baluchistan tribal chiefs defend the abuses by claiming them to be part of their tribal cultural norms. Since the independence of Pakistan, most of the tribes have accepted Pakistan as their homeland and have tried to come into the mainstream Pakistani society. But Bugti and Marri tribal leaders have always been a source of trouble for Pakistan. Currently Brahamdagh Bugti (grandson of former Bugti tribe leader and former chief minister of Baluchistan, Nawab Akbar Bugti5 is the leader of a runaway terrorist group, the Baloch Liberation Army (BLA)4 operating out of Kandhar, Afghanistan. Before Brahamdagh, Balach Marri, son of Nawab Khair Baksh Marri, was leader of BLA, and he was killed in Afghanistan in 2007. 

Covert Operations against Pakistan

A new dirty game of geo-politics has already started in Baluchistan, Pakistan. To understand the recent wave of violence in Baluchistan we must understand the vested interests in Baluchistan. The root cause of violence in Baluchistan is not internal poverty or lack of development but the covert operations of foreign intelligence agencies. Internal issues might act as catalysts to inflame the situation but the root cause is foreign interference in internal affairs of Baluchistan. The main group responsible for violence in Baluchistan is the BLA4. Chief of the BLA Brahamdagh Bugti, in his recent interview with Pakistani news channel AAJ TVm declared that he will attack and kill non Baloch population of Baluchistan. In other words he threatened killing of innocent Pakistani civilians on ethnic lines. This is just taking words out of Col Ralph Peter’s plan for balkanization of Pakistan, along the lines of Yugoslavia (June 2006 issue of The Armed Forces Journal). Bugti also asked for support of India and other powers to help him break away Pakistan’s Baluchistan. (For related news read two of my older articles on Axis of Logic, Playing with Fire in Pakistan, - and Now or Never. Pakistan must change its policy in war on terror).

According to Global Research scholar, Michel Chossudovsky:

"In the current geopolitical context, the separatist movement is in the process of being hijacked by foreign powers. British intelligence is allegedly providing covert support to Baluchistan separatists (which from the outset have been repressed by Pakistan's military). In June 2006, Pakistan's Senate Committee on Defense accused British intelligence of "abetting the insurgency in the province bordering Iran" [Baluchistan]..(Press Trust of India, 9 August 2006). Ten British MPs were involved in a closed door session of the Senate Committee on Defense regarding the alleged support of Britain's Secret Service to Baloch separatists (Ibid). Also of relevance are reports of CIA and Mossad support to Baloch rebels in Iran and Southern Afghanistan."

 In a 2006 research article on Baluchistan which was published in Pak Tribune in 2006, Farzana Shah, a current affairs analyst for BrassTacks, a think tank based in Islamabad, highlighted the role which is being played by a British think tank against Baluchistan. Shah writes, 

"In this regard the Foreign Policy Centre (FPC) United Kingdom arranged a seminar on Baluchistan province of Pakistan in collaboration with the so-called Baluchistan Rights Movement on 27th June 2006 in the House of Commons, London. It was highly disappointing as it was abashedly a one-sided cheap propaganda rather than discussing the real situation. By a mere look at the panel of the participants of the seminar one could easily figure out that it consisted of only anti-Pakistan elements and some self-styled activists advocating terrorism in the province. There were no representatives from government of Pakistan or even from the elected provincial government of Baluchistan in the seminar. It is just unfortunate that the Foreign Policy Centre which is expected to present fair suggestions to the British government to engage a country of their concern for important issues, indulged in such a blatant one-sided propaganda against Pakistan through the said seminar."

Shah also points out in the article how a Government of Baluchistan is setup in exile in Jerusalem, Israel. She gives the details in her article.



Two Indian assets: Brahamdagh Bugti & Balach Marri (R). Marri died in an ambush in 2007 while crossing from Afghanistan to Pakistan after meeting his sponsors there.

The question is, what is the role of US, Afghanistan, India, and Iran in Baluchistan quagmire and what is at stake for these countries? 

Afghanistan

"Afghanistan’s soil has been used again and again to cause trouble inside Pakistan." 

Afghanistan was the only country that did not welcome Pakistan in 1947 at the time of our independence. The only time when there was no trouble inside Pakistan from Afghanistan was during the time of Taliban rule in Afghanistan. Taliban being Pukhtoon cleaned Afghanistan of Indian and Iranian assets (both India and Iran supports Northern Alliance, which is in government right now in Afghanistan). Afghanistan’s soil has been used again and again to cause trouble inside Pakistan. Currently BLA is operating from Kandahar, Afghanistan. BLA enjoys support from Indian RAW in terms of finances, logistics, and weapons. Recent report of Foreign Affairs, by Christine Fair of RAND Corporation gives us the inside.

"Having visited the Indian mission in Zahedan, Iran, I can assure you they are not issuing visas as the main activity! Moreover, India has run operations from its mission in Mazar, Afghanistan (through which it supported the Northern Alliance) and is likely doing so from the other consulates it has reopened in Jalalabad and Qandahar along the border. Indian officials have told me privately that they are pumping money into Baluchistan. Kabul has encouraged India to engage in provocative activities such as using the Border Roads Organization to build sensitive parts of the Ring Road and use the Indo-Tibetan police force for security. It is also building schools on a sensitive part of the border in Kunar--across from Bajaur (Pakistan’s Tribal Area where Pakistan Army had to carry out a major operation to eliminate TTP6 militants).

"Kabul's motivations for encouraging these activities are as obvious as India's interest in engaging in them. Even if by some act of miraculous diplomacy the territorial issues were to be resolved, Pakistan would remain an insecure state. Given the realities of the subcontinent (e.g., India's rise and its more effective foreign relations with all of Pakistan's near and far neighbors), these fears are bound to grow, not lessen. This suggests that without some means of compelling Pakistan to abandon its reliance upon militancy, it will become ever more interested in using it -- and the militants will likely continue to proliferate beyond Pakistan's control."

Iran

Iran historically has enjoyed good relations with its neighbors including Pakistan during the time of Shah of Iran, but since then their relationship with Pakistan and Arab world has deteriorated. Strategically, Iran would like to maintain balance of power tipped in its favor in the region, this means the Pakistan’s strategic interests should be undermined, as they are at the moment. Taliban, Iran’s nemesis in Afghanistan is no longer in power, India, Iran’s ally and Pakistan’s arch enemy is enjoying a strong foothold in Afghanistan at the moment. Iran is also afraid of Jandullah’s covert operations against Iran, from Baluchistan. According to an April 2007 report by Brian Rossand and Christopher Isham of ABC News, the United States governmenthad been secretly encouraging and advising the Jandullah in its attacks.

Jandullah is a terrorist group that was created by CIA, and is responsible for terrorist activities inside Iran. Iran has spent a lot of money developing its Chabahar port, which is just 100 miles from Gwadar port of Pakistan. Gwadar port was built by China. Iran does not want Gwadar to become prominent and Chabahar to be sidelined, especially since Iran is isolated in the world at the moment. Iran has huge reserves of gas and it would like India to gain access to these reserves since India is its ally and Iran-India friendship will grow if India can gain access to Iranian gas reserves. Iran would also like trade with India to increase in future.





TAPI: Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India
 



 
IPI: Iran, Pakistan, India
 

India

  "India also believes that an independent Baluchistan will likely become a proxy of Iran, India and Afghanistan."

India is Pakistan arch enemy, first of all India has never accepted Pakistan as an independent sovereign nation. India was directly responsible for breakup of East Pakistan and formation of Bangladesh. India and Pakistan have fought three wars with each other. India is at the moment chief regional ally of US, and NATO. India believes that Pakistan is at the brink of break up and India must focus on building its relationship with Central Asia, Iran, and Afghanistan, and capture oil and gas reserves from Central Asia and Iran, through Afghanistan and Pakistan. India also believes that an independent Baluchistan will likely become a proxy of Iran, India and Afghanistan. Capt (r) Bharat Verma of Indian Defense Review, writes,
"That New Delhi is its own enemy became obvious, when it permitted the creation of a pure Islamic State on its borders. This nation-state contradicts every democratic and multi-cultural value dear to India. Therefore, if New Delhi has not slept a wink since the creation of Pakistan, it has no one except itself to blame! Many conveniently propose the myth that a stable Pakistan is in India’s interest. This is a false proposition. The truth is that Pakistan is bad news for the Indian Union since 1947-stable or otherwise. With Pakistan on the brink of collapse due to massive internal as well as international contradictions, it is matter of time before it ceases to exist. Multiple benefits will accrue to the Union of India on such demise."

Verma Continues ...

"If ever the national interests are defined with clarity and prioritized, the foremost threat to the Union (and for centuries before) materialized on the western periphery, continuously. To defend this key threat to the Union, New Delhi should extend its influence through export of both, soft and hard power towards Central Asia from where invasions have been mounted over centuries. Cessation of Pakistan as a state facilitates furtherance of this pivotal national objective.

"The self-destructive path that Islamabad chose will either splinter the state into many parts or it will wither away-a case of natural progression to its logical conclusion. In either case Baluchistan will achieve independence. For New Delhi this opens a window of opportunity to ensure that the Gwadar port does not fall into the hands of the Chinese. In this, there is synergy between the political objectives of the Americans and the Indians. Our existing goodwill in Baluchistan requires intelligent leveraging."

India does not have natural gas reserves, and it desperately needs gas from Iran. But US is against Iran-Pakistan-India (IPI) pipeline. If IPI project comes through than the stability and security of Iran, Pakistan and India will be in the interest of these respective countries. US would not like this, since it takes away an important leverage from a superpower, that of playing one nation against another. US have proposed the idea of Independent Baluchistan, which India does not mind at all. India has gained strong foot hold inside Afghanistan. A road link connects Iranian port of Chabahar to Afghanistan. India has built a ring-road inside Afghanistan linking Iran to Afghanistan. With back channel diplomacy going on between Iran and US, India and Iran both would like NATO and US supplies to go through Chabahar, Iran rather than Karachi, Pakistan. India strongly believes that Independent Baluchistan is inevitable and is casting all its bets on this deal.




 
Road link from Iran into Afghanistan
(see checkered line, lower left arrow)
 

Washington's interest in Baluchistan

"It is imperative the Baluchistan, an energy rich province must not come under control of China."


According to a study titled "Baloch Nationalism and the energy politics of energy resources: the changing context of separatism in Pakistan", by Robert G.Wirsing, of Strategic Studies Institute, a think tank of U.S army, it is imperative the Baluchistan, an energy rich province must not come under control of China. China built Gwadar port, and would like to expand more trade and energy routes through Pakistan via Baluchistan.

To begin with China is interested in a gas pipeline from Iran through Pakistan’s into Western China. This is something that is not acceptable to US. China could station some of its naval ships at Gwadar in future should the need arise to provide security to its cargo; this is again something that is not acceptable to US. On the list of US agenda is to secure the Indian Ocean and its strategic routes, and Gwadar right at the mouth of Strait of Hormuz is one of those routes. As mentioned before US is using Baluchistan as a base to carry out covert operations against Iran using Jandullah. After 9/11 US is also using an airfield of Pakistan Air force in Baluchistan for its operations in war on terror.

The U.S. is looking into taking direct control of Gwadar, possibly by capturing Gwadar port, so that they can make a land route through Baluchistan into Southern Afghanistan, this will give them an alternate supply route for their troops. Baluchistan must be under US control so that gas pipelines from Central Asia can pump gas through Afghanistan into coast of Baluchistan. The US believes that Balkanization of Pakistan and setup of independent Baluchistan will dismantle the hope of resurgent Pakistan in the near future, paving the way for a dominant Iran taking control of Middle East while India will be able to take control of South Asia including Afghanistan. Brzezinski believes that Iran not Arab world is the natural ally of US in the Middle East. The current US government is using the foreign policy ideals of Brzezinski, which calls for using Islamic militant and Iran against China and Russia.

Conclusion

  "The solution of Baluchistan lies with a strong government in Islamabad that is a nationalist government and not a puppet of IMF/WB/CIA."

Current Pakistani government is not able to safeguard Pakistan’s national interests. When Zardari3 became president he authorized release of many BLA terrorist who were held up by security forces in detention. BLA has gotten ample time to regroup and re-arm during the last few months. It is very interesting that the current Chief Minister of Baluchistan, Nawab Aslam Raisani before becoming CM, said in an interview, "We will not go for any type of compromise," says Nawab Raisani. "We want total autonomy."

According to author of bestselling book, 'The Way of the World’, Ron Suskind, Raisani is on the payroll of top western intelligence agencies. Given the level of US penetration in Pakistan’s domestic politics it is no surprise. 

The solution of Baluchistan lies with a strong government in Islamabad that is a nationalist government and not a puppet of IMF/WB/CIA. There should be no doubt in anyone’s mind that BLA does not represent the aggrieved Baloch people. BLA is a terrorist outfit and it must be dealt with accordingly. We need to get rid of this government that is working nothing like a democracy. Key decisions are taken by either Zardari or his important Washington approved advisors. We need a new setup of nationalist that are willing to stand up to US and make independent policy decision in the best interest of Pakistan. To counter the growing influence of India, Iran and US in Baluchistan it is a must that old contracts with China be renewed and new development projects must be initiated with Chinese help. The local population of Baluchistan must be given more shares in jobs and resources. This is only achievable if we have patriots in the provincial government of Baluchistan, not scoundrels who are abusing patriotism for their personal greed.

The problem for US is that BLA alone is not able to break away Baluchistan from Pakistan. Of the 5% population of Baluchistan they don’t even have support of 10% Balochi population. The Pakistan Army and ISI are resisting the assault in national and strategic interests of Pakistan. The Great Game of Brzezinski will surely continue in Baluchistan and rest of Pakistan, the people of Pakistan are ready to counter this great game now we need leadership and some courage. It will take some time to achieve courage and leadership but it will come eventually. Street revolutions are easy to carry out the hard part is the mental revolution. That is what is required right now to challenge the US global hegemony. 

Glossary of Terms and people mentioned

1. Pervaiz Musharraf is former dictator-turned- president of Pakistan. He was forced out of office due to the assassination of Benazir Bhutto and his loss of support by his former sponsor, the U.S. government.

2. The Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) is the ruling political party under President Zardari.

3. Asif Ali Zardari is the current president of Pakistan. He is the former husband of Benazir Bhutto and came into power on her coat tails after she was assassinated. He is also the son of veteran politician Mr. Hakim Ali Zardari. Mr. Zardari is commonly known in Pakistan as "Mr. Ten Percent" due to his well-known cuts on various government deals.

4. BLA is Baloch Liberation Army, officially declared a terrorist outfit by Pakistan, US and UK. Is responsible for various terrorist activities in Pakistan that includes killing civilians, security forces, and blowing up natural gas pipelines.

5. Nawab Akbar Bugti was former head of the Bugti tribe of balochistan, also 13th governor of Baluchistan and the 5th Chief Minister of the province. He and his family favored creation of Pakistan. Bugti was killed on Aug 26th 2006 in a military operation when he was surrounded in a remote hill in Baluchistan.

6. Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) is the main anti-government party in Pakistan at the moment. Because the TTP bears the name "Taliban" the western media often confuses them with the Taliban in Afghanistan. This is a grave mistake. The Afgan Taliban rejects the TTP. The TTP views the ANP to be pro-US and part of the pro-US Pakistan government. The TTP is a group based on Takfiri ideology (a Muslim who believes that all other Muslims, even orthodox Muslims are not true Muslims. They view all others as collaborators with the West. All Muslim scholars are unanimous in declaring Takfiris 'heretics of Islam

Maps taken from Strategic Studies Institute Report on Baluchistan.

Talha Mujaddidi is a writer/analyst, living in Pakistan and a columnist for Axis of Logic.
 

[Biggs]

The collapse of Pakistan has been planned years in advance
http://davidrothscum.blogspot.com/2009/04/collapse-of-pakistan-has-been-planned.html

great work, you should post this in the PP Forum Journalism section as well

[Anti_Illuminati]

http://www.upiasia.com/Security/2009/04/24/an_india-pakistan_anti-terror_alliance/1492/

An India-Pakistan anti-terror alliance?

By Hari Sud
Column: Abroad View
Published: April 24, 2009

Toronto, ON, Canada, — A new scenario is emerging in South Asia at the instigation of the United States. In U.S. eyes it looks like this: the Pakistani army curtails the operations of its spy agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence. India withdraws a significant number of its forces from the border with Pakistan, which in turn takes similar steps, moving its border troops to its own troubled North West Frontier Province.

Pakistan urgently needs 100,000 troops in this vast stretch of mountains to deal with the Afghan Taliban, al-Qaida and now a more deadly Pakistani Taliban. India could heave a sigh of relief with the ISI off its back, and the United States would get its wish in cleansing the area of terrorists. The Pakistani army would also get its wish in dealing a deathblow to terrorists plotting their way into cities. This would also curtail the need for U.S. drone attacks in Pakistan’s frontier areas.

It would be quite a trick if the United States could pull this off. However, the ISI is too clever to let it happen, given its twin objectives of occupying Kashmir and gaining control of Afghanistan.

The ISI was modeled on the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency of the 1960s. The CIA trained and equipped anti-Castro, anti-Soviet and pro-U.S. agent provocateurs throughout the world in that decade. Since then the CIA has become more sophisticated, but the ISI is still using that model to keep its pots boiling in Afghanistan and Kashmir.

Terrorists trained by the ISI are training more terrorists, who are appearing all over the Western world and in India. Britain recently arrested 12 alleged terrorists after its intelligence agency found they had faked their identities as Pakistani students. In the last month several attempts were made to infiltrate terrorists into India to disrupt the country’s general elections.

The current situation in Pakistan is of its own making. It has transformed from a stable and prosperous agrarian state to a den of terror in just 20 years. Its leaders threw their support behind the Cold War strategy of defeating the Soviets in Afghanistan and are now paying a heavy price for it – thank to the Americans, who freely distributed too many guns, and the Saudi Arabian money that has converted young minds into fundamentalists, all with ISI help.

Former Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf took advantage of the situation to arm the country at the expense of the United States and then double-talked the Americans into believing that he would capture al-Qaida mastermind Osama bin Laden and other Taliban leaders and end their terror activities. Rather, he was helping them all along by creating safe sanctuaries and offering technical help for their activities.

Musharraf did not realize that the Taliban in the frontier provinces was a cancer likely to consume Pakistan. Seven years of his lies came to the world’s notice when a new breed of Taliban leaders in Pakistan assassinated beloved leader and former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto in December 2007. Prior to that they had mounted several attacks in different cities and on security forces but none were as imaginative as blowing up Bhutto’s motorcade.

Only after the deadly attack on Bhutto did the Pakistani civilian leadership become aware of the growing influence of the Taliban and the support provided it by the rogue security agency. To divert people’s attention in Pakistan, a separate attack was planned by the ISI on the Indian port city of Mumbai. To undertake this, the ISI had previously created a separate Punjabi terror outfit, the Lashkar-e-Toiba. The Mumbai attack brought worldwide condemnation of Pakistan and created a threat of war in the subcontinent.

The United States is now very worried that it has been deceived. Dumping the past, President Barack Obama’s administration is examining ways and means to sanitize the Pakistani army of its jihadi strain, including curtailing the ISI’s activities. While such reviews were progressing, a visiting Sri Lankan cricket team was attacked in broad daylight in the city of Lahore. The team quickly packed up and left the country.

Intelligent Pakistanis are beginning to comprehend the extent of the terror in their midst. Previously, they had enjoyed news of attacks on India and applauded them. Now, terror has come full circle and is hitting Pakistan itself.

The reason for the Taliban to escalate violence in Pakistani cities is simple: the U.S. drone attacks are making life miserable for them. It is believed that the Taliban have told their ISI interlocutors that attacks on Pakistani cities would continue if the United States did not stop its drone attacks.

Pakistan’s army chief General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani was summoned to Washington in February, where he met with a number of Pentagon staff officers and the chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, Admiral Michael Mullen. This was followed by visits to Pakistan in March by CIA Director Leon Panetta and Federal Bureau of Investigations Director Robert Mueller.

Two weeks later, Mullen and the U.S. Special Representative for Pakistan and Afghanistan Richard Holbrooke visited Rawalpindi and read out the riot act to the Pakistani army chief. It was a stern warning, but the belligerent Pakistani military leadership did not listen and the ISI chief refused to hold a meeting with them.

Mullen and Holbrooke then arrived in India and held an angry press conference at which they outlined their new policy on Pakistan and asked India for help. The idea floating in U.S. policy circles for the past two months was outlined to a cautious Indian National Security Advisor M.K. Narayanan, as Prime Minister Manmohan Singh was busy electioneering.

India has not reacted to the U.S. proposals on Pakistan. Such decisions can be taken only after the general elections are over in May, and a new and credible government is formed.

However, Pakistan has reacted unfavorably to all U.S. proposals. They want no mention of an Indian role in Afghanistan. Pakistan, however, is in no position to dictate terms, as it needs the US$6 billion in economic and military aid immediately.

Does India have anything to gain from the U.S.-Pakistan-Afghanistan imbroglio? It seems that the United States has suddenly realized India’s importance and is dragging it into the conflict, without any significant compensation. Even if the United States tries to strike a deal with the Pakistani army, it will not relent on India.

If India refuses to play ball, it will find itself back on the U.S. “unimportant” list. A political gift is being asked of India, which is outside the negotiating power of both Holbrooke and Mullen and cannot be achieved without U.S. politicians dealing directly with their Indian counterparts. In exchange for Indian action the United States must offer a lot more. But India must be cautious about terror attacks on its soil irrespective of U.S. or Pakistani promises.

A good question is, why didn’t Obama or U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton spend more time with Manmohan Singh at the recent G-20 meeting? What was so pressing in Eastern Europe or Turkey that they gave up the opportunity to discuss Afghanistan with Singh? If the United States seriously wants India’s cooperation, shouldn’t Clinton be heading to New Delhi immediately?

Pakistan is rapidly falling into chaos, thanks to the terror network of its own creation. The United States is stuck in Afghanistan, and no peace is possible without dealing with the terror hideouts in Pakistan. This is possible only if a large number of Pakistani troops are deployed quickly; if Indian help is needed, then the Pakistanis should ask for it.

[bigron]

Sunday, April 26, 2009
13:31 Mecca time, 10:31 GMT   
News CENTRAL/S. ASIA 
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2009/04/20094267518250384.html


 
Pakistan blast hits family of 10 

 
An earlier attack on Saturday saw 12 children die after a bomb was planted in a football [REUTERS]

 
Six family members have been killed after a hand-grenade exploded in a pick-up truck in Pakistan's northwest border region with Afghanistan.

Both parents and four of their children were killed and four other siblings were wounded in the blast near the village of Asar Madakhel, about 45kms west of Miranshah, the main town of the restive North Waziristan tribal district late on Saturday.

The grenade exploded in a pick-up truck transporting passengers from the village of Lawara Mandi to Miranshah, but it was not known whether the parents had been carrying the grenade or if it had been planted, officials said.

"I saw the bodies of a husband, wife and their four children, and also four injured at the hospital," Niaz Gul, a local administration official, said.

"It is not clear how the grenade exploded," he said, but added that it is not uncommon for tribesmen to carry guns and hand grenades.

Children killed

Mir Aslam Khan, a tribesman injured in the blast, confirmed that some of the passengers were armed.

"We were travelling and suddenly there was blast," he said.

The deaths came after 12 children were killed after a bomb planted in a football exploded earlier on Saturday in Lower Dir, 260km east of Miranshah.

The area is in the Malakand division of North West Frontier Province (NWFP) where the Pakistani government recently allowed a strict form of sharia (Islamic law) to be implemented as part of a deal to gain tribal support against Taliban fighters operating in the Swat valley region.

Taliban and al-Qaeda fighters have gained increased prominence in NWFP and North Waziristan this year, from where they have launched attacks both within Pakistan and neighbouring Afghanistan.

The Pakistan government is under pressure to gain control of the situation, seen by western nations as being crucial to securing Pakistan and improving conditions in Afghanistan, where US and Nato-led forces have been operating since the US-led invasion of late 2001.
 
 Source: Agencies 
 
 
 
 
 

[bigron]

US escalates threats against Pakistan


By Keith Jones


http://www.uruknet.info/?p=m53707&hd=&size=1&l=e


25 April 2009

US Defence Secretary Robert Gates has warned Pakistani authorities that US-Pakistan relations will be imperiled unless Islamabad heeds Washington’s admonitions and bloodily suppresses a growing Islamacist insurgency that has been fueled by the US occupation of Afghanistan.

Speaking Thursday at North Carolina’s Camp Lejeune, Gates declared, "It is important that they not only recognize it [the threat], but take appropriate actions to deal with it." Action against the Islamacist militia, said Gates, is "central to our future partnership with the government in Islamabad."

Gates’s remarks were part of a flurry of statements this week from Obama administration officials, Pentagon generals, and US Congressional leaders accusing Pakistan’s government and military of appeasing the Taliban.

The immediate trigger for the ratcheting up of pressure on Islamabad was the Pakistani government’s loss of control over the North-West Frontier Province district of Buner, which lies only 100 kilometers (70 miles) northwest of Islamabad, to four to five hundred Islamacist insurgents. But US officials, beginning with President Obama himself, have for months been pressing Pakistani authorities to do more to support the pacification of Afghanistan, claiming that Pakistan’s border regions constitute a "safe-haven" for the Taliban and that if the US is to prevail in the Afghan war, it must be extended into Pakistan. A key concern for the Pentagon is the mounting number of attacks on the Pakistani supply routes that carry 80 percent of the food, fuel and arms consumed by the US occupation force in Afghanistan.

On Wednesday US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton rebuked Pakistan’s government for "abdicating to the Taliban and the extremists."

"(We) cannot underscore the seriousness of the existential threat posed to the state of Pakistan by the continuing advances now within hours of Islamabad that are being made by a loosely confederated group of terrorists and others who are seeking the overthrow of the Pakistani state," Clinton told the US House of Representatives’ Foreign Affairs Committee.

On Thursday morning, Obama held an emergency meeting attended by Clinton, Vice-President Joe Biden, and Richard Holbrooke, the US’s special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan, to discuss US-Pakistan relations and recent developments in Pakistan.

Speaking to reporters following the meeting, White House Press Secretary Robert Gibbs said the administration was "extremely concerned," adding that Pakistan "is something that takes a lot of the president’s time." "What is happening in Pakistan and Afghanistan," said Gibbs, "is the central foreign policy focus of this administration."

Continuing a strategy of illegal, unilateral aggression begun under the Bush administration, Washington is regularly mounting drone missile strikes within Pakistan. Earlier this month, Holbrooke and the head of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, Admiral Mike Mullen, unsuccessfully pressed Islamabad to agree to joint operations with US forces inside Pakistan.

According to Holbrooke, Pakistan and not Afghanistan will now be at the top of the agenda when Obama hosts a trilateral summit of the presidents of the US, Afghanistan and Pakistan May 6-7. The summit, said Holbrooke, "was conceived in an atmosphere that has now changed significantly, and the focus is increasingly on Pakistan.

In recent weeks Obama administration insiders, Pentagon generals, and longtime strategists of US imperialism like Henry Kissinger and Zbigniew Brzezinski have been making increasingly apocalyptic statements about Pakistan’s future. It has been repeatedly suggested that the nuclear-armed state of 170 million could soon break up along national-ethnic lines or fall in large part, if not wholly, under the control of anti-US Islamic fundamentalists.

Born of the reactionary, British imperialist-instigated communal partition of the Indian subcontinent, Pakistan is indeed beset by multiple, interconnected crises—crises that the rapacious policies of US imperialism are enormously exacerbating.

Determined to prevail in the Afghan war, so as to assert US dominance in oil-rich Central Asia, Washington is demanding that Islamabad subordinate its interests ever-more completely to those of the US. To the Pakistani elite this represents a double threat: the policies the US has imposed on Pakistan are highly unpopular, further discrediting a corrupt and fundamentally undemocratic political system and fueling social unrest; they also are at odds with important elements of Pakistan’s strategy for contending with arch-rival India.

The occupation of Afghanistan is rightly opposed by the majority of the Pakistani people as a predatory war—they only have to remember the Bush administration’s enthusiastic support for the dictator General Prevez Musharraf. Yet Washington is insisting that the Pakistani military place the country’s border regions under an ever-tighter military occupation. The brutal, colonial-style pacification methods the Pakistani military has employed in repeated offensives in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) have only inflamed the local populace, stoked Pashtun nationalism, and caused serious rifts within the ranks of the army, many of whose soldiers are drawn from the Pashtun peasantry.

Washington is also fully supporting IMF-dictated measures to "stabilize" the Pakistani economy, including the elimination of energy subsidies, social spending cuts, and privatization, which will only increase the suffering of the country’s toilers.

The US media is forced to concede that Washington is reviled by the Pakistani people, but of course they cannot and will not explain why: the US’s sponsorship of a succession of right-wing military dictatorships; its use of Pakistan as a pawn in its geo-political strategy, stretching back to the early days of the Cold War; its cynical manipulation of aid dollars, bullying and threats; and its relentless pressure for a large-scale counter-insurgency war in wide swathes of Pakistan.

Hillary Clinton in her testimony to the House Foreign Relations Committee last Wednesday did make oblique reference to the grossly unequal social order that the US has helped sustain in Pakistan and that is helping fuel the anti-US and anti-government insurgency in the country’s impoverished Afghan border region. "The government of Pakistan," said Clinton, "... must begin to deliver government services, otherwise they are going to lose out to those who show up and claim that they can solve people’s problems ..."

Pakistani authorities initially played down the "Talibanization" of Buner. Only last week, the Pakistani National Assembly voted unanimously in favor of a "peace deal" with Islamacist militia, which for two years had fought intermittently with Pakistani security forces in the adjacent Swat Valley. Under this agreement, in six districts of the Malkand Division of the North-West Frontier Province, including Buner, a strict, Islamic fundamentalist form of sharia law is to be enforced. The agreement calls for the Islamacist militiamen in the Swat Valley to hand their weapons over to authorities. Instead many moved into Buner beginning this Wednesday, forcing local policemen to seek refuge in police stations, and taking control of an important shrine.

In response, the Pakistani government dispatched less than 150 Frontier Constabulary. The first contingent was forced to retreat after coming under fire in an ambush that killed two constables.

But by Thursday, in response to the US pressure, the government and military were vowing that they would not allow the writ of the Pakistani government to be challenged. Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani said that Swat Valley agreement would be reviewed if the challenges to the government’s authority continued. "We reserve the right to go for other options if Talibanization continues," said Gilani.

Army chief General Ashfaq Kiyani vowed that the military "will not allow the militants to dictate terms to the government or impose their way of life on the civil society of Pakistan" and said the pause in army operations against the Islamacist militia was aimed at giving "reconciliatory forces a chance [and] must not be taken for a concession to the militants."

At the same time, Kiyani denounced the "pronouncements by outside powers raising doubts on [the] future of Pakistan."

The Pakistani Taliban said Friday that it was withdrawing from Buner, and Pakistani television broadcast video of them pulling out.

There are reports that the Pakistani military will, nevertheless, soon be ordered to disarm the pro-Taliban militia or drive it out of the Swat Valley.

Tensions between the US and Pakistani elite will, however, continue to boil. The Obama administration’s "Afghan surge"—the near doubling to 65,000 of the US military in Afghanistan—will result in a massive escalation of the bloodletting in Afghanistan that will inevitably spill over into Pakistan and incite further opposition among the Pakistani people.

The Pakistani elite, meanwhile, bitterly resents the burgeoning strategic partnership between the US and India. This partnership has involved increasing sales of advanced military equipment to India and Washington’s lifting of an international embargo on international civilian nuclear trade with India, which will allow India to concentrate the resources of its indigenous nuclear program on weapons development.

Obama administration officials have repeatedly demanded that Islamabad shift troops from its eastern border with India to its Afghan border regions, while very publicly repudiating earlier suggestions that they might press India to make concessions to Pakistan over Kashmir.

To Islamabad’s chagrin, India, with Washington’s full support, has emerged as a key provider of economic aid and military training to the US-imposed Afghan government. In a statement that could only have enraged the Pakistani elite, Clinton asserted Wednesday that India has a pivotal role to play in assisting the US in Afghanistan and Pakistan. "The US," she told the House Foreign Relations Committee, "is advancing its relationship with India as part of a wide-ranging diplomatic agenda to meet today’s daunting challenges topped by the situation in Pakistan and Afghanistan."





 

[Biggs]

The Destabilization of Pakistan: Finding Clarity in the Baluchistan Conundrum

by Talha Mujaddidi


Global Research, April 24, 2009
Axis of Logic - 2009-04-23
http://www.globalresearch.ca/index.php?context=va&aid=13325

         


As in all of his analyses of the battle for Pakistan, Talha Mujaddidi provides a rare look into the internal struggle of the Pakistan people and the interference in their domestic affairs by the United States, India and other foreign elements. For those who are unfamiliar with the terms, places and names in this report, Talha provides a glossary at the end of the article. It is especially important that we learn and understand what is happening in Pakistan as Washington is opening up a new front in this country in their "war on terror". - Les Blough, Axis of Logic Editor





(Source: PNAC)

April 23, 2009

Excerpt: "The problem for US is that BLA alone is not able to break away Baluchistan from Pakistan. Of the 5% population of Baluchistan they don’t even have support of 10% Balochi population. The Pakistan Army and ISI are resisting the assault in national and strategic interests of Pakistan. The Great Game of Brzezinski will surely continue in Baluchistan and rest of Pakistan, the people of Pakistan are ready to counter this great game now we need leadership and some courage. It will take some time to achieve courage and leadership but it will come eventually. Street revolutions are easy to carry out the hard part is the mental revolution. That is what is required right now to challenge the US global hegemony."

Baluchistan is strategically located East of Iran and to the South of Afghanistan. It has a port at Gwadar that was built by China. Gwadar lies at the opening of Strait of Hormuz. Baluchistan has huge quantities of natural gas, and unexplored oil reserves. More importantly US wants to control the port of Gwadar, and eventually start their dream oil pipeline from Central Asia, through Afghanistan into Baluchistan and Gwadar. Baluchistan is the largest province of Pakistan in terms of area and it covers almost 48% of Pakistan’s area. But its population accounts for only 5% of the total population of Pakistan. Ethnically Baluchistan is divided into Balochs, and Pathans, followed by other small minorities. The state capital is Quetta, (recently termed as nerve center of Taliban by US Generals).

Like all histories in South Asia, or Middle East, the history of Baluchistan is long, complex, and would require a long article to cover all the details. So a brief synopsis is sufficient to get us rolling before we come to the point.

"Baluchistan has the worst human rights record out of all the provinces of Pakistan."

Baluchistan like, Afghanistan and Tribal Areas of Pakistan is a tribal society. Many different Sardars (tribal chiefs), rule their respective tribes, often with serious disregard for human rights. Development wise, Baluchistan is the most backward province in Pakistan. There may be some weight in the argument that the federal government in Pakistan has neglected the development of Baluchistan, but equal responsibility lies with the Sardars of Baluchistan who enjoy immense power in their tribes. They are unwilling to come into the main stream society, have monopoly over the laws and regulations of the state, while they themselves sit in provincial and national parliaments, yet they don’t work for the development of their own people.


Baluchistan has the worst human rights record out of all the provinces of Pakistan. Every time horrific human rights atrocities are committed in Baluchistan tribal chiefs defend the abuses by claiming them to be part of their tribal cultural norms. Since the independence of Pakistan, most of the tribes have accepted Pakistan as their homeland and have tried to come into the mainstream Pakistani society. But Bugti and Marri tribal leaders have always been a source of trouble for Pakistan. Currently Brahamdagh Bugti (grandson of former Bugti tribe leader and former chief minister of Baluchistan, Nawab Akbar Bugti5 is the leader of a runaway terrorist group, the Baloch Liberation Army (BLA)4 operating out of Kandhar, Afghanistan. Before Brahamdagh, Balach Marri, son of Nawab Khair Baksh Marri, was leader of BLA, and he was killed in Afghanistan in 2007. 

Covert Operations against Pakistan

A new dirty game of geo-politics has already started in Baluchistan, Pakistan. To understand the recent wave of violence in Baluchistan we must understand the vested interests in Baluchistan. The root cause of violence in Baluchistan is not internal poverty or lack of development but the covert operations of foreign intelligence agencies. Internal issues might act as catalysts to inflame the situation but the root cause is foreign interference in internal affairs of Baluchistan. The main group responsible for violence in Baluchistan is the BLA4. Chief of the BLA Brahamdagh Bugti, in his recent interview with Pakistani news channel AAJ TVm declared that he will attack and kill non Baloch population of Baluchistan. In other words he threatened killing of innocent Pakistani civilians on ethnic lines. This is just taking words out of Col Ralph Peter’s plan for balkanization of Pakistan, along the lines of Yugoslavia (June 2006 issue of The Armed Forces Journal). Bugti also asked for support of India and other powers to help him break away Pakistan’s Baluchistan. (For related news read two of my older articles on Axis of Logic, Playing with Fire in Pakistan, - and Now or Never. Pakistan must change its policy in war on terror).

According to Global Research scholar, Michel Chossudovsky:

“In the current geopolitical context, the separatist movement is in the process of being hijacked by foreign powers. British intelligence is allegedly providing covert support to Baluchistan separatists (which from the outset have been repressed by Pakistan's military). In June 2006, Pakistan's Senate Committee on Defense accused British intelligence of "abetting the insurgency in the province bordering Iran" [Baluchistan]..(Press Trust of India, 9 August 2006). Ten British MPs were involved in a closed door session of the Senate Committee on Defense regarding the alleged support of Britain's Secret Service to Baloch separatists (Ibid). Also of relevance are reports of CIA and Mossad support to Baloch rebels in Iran and Southern Afghanistan."

 In a 2006 research article on Baluchistan which was published in Pak Tribune in 2006, Farzana Shah, a current affairs analyst for BrassTacks, a think tank based in Islamabad, highlighted the role which is being played by a British think tank against Baluchistan. Shah writes, 

“In this regard the Foreign Policy Centre (FPC) United Kingdom arranged a seminar on Baluchistan province of Pakistan in collaboration with the so-called Baluchistan Rights Movement on 27th June 2006 in the House of Commons, London. It was highly disappointing as it was abashedly a one-sided cheap propaganda rather than discussing the real situation. By a mere look at the panel of the participants of the seminar one could easily figure out that it consisted of only anti-Pakistan elements and some self-styled activists advocating terrorism in the province. There were no representatives from government of Pakistan or even from the elected provincial government of Baluchistan in the seminar. It is just unfortunate that the Foreign Policy Centre which is expected to present fair suggestions to the British government to engage a country of their concern for important issues, indulged in such a blatant one-sided propaganda against Pakistan through the said seminar.”

Shah also points out in the article how a Government of Baluchistan is setup in exile in Jerusalem, Israel. She gives the details in her article.


Two Indian assets: Brahamdagh Bugti & Balach Marri (R). Marri died in an ambush in 2007 while crossing from Afghanistan to Pakistan after meeting his sponsors there.


The question is, what is the role of US, Afghanistan, India, and Iran in Baluchistan quagmire and what is at stake for these countries? 


Afghanistan

"Afghanistan’s soil has been used again and again to cause trouble inside Pakistan."

Afghanistan was the only country that did not welcome Pakistan in 1947 at the time of our independence. The only time when there was no trouble inside Pakistan from Afghanistan was during the time of Taliban rule in Afghanistan. Taliban being Pukhtoon cleaned Afghanistan of Indian and Iranian assets (both India and Iran supports Northern Alliance, which is in government right now in Afghanistan). Afghanistan’s soil has been used again and again to cause trouble inside Pakistan. Currently BLA is operating from Kandahar, Afghanistan. BLA enjoys support from Indian RAW in terms of finances, logistics, and weapons. Recent report of Foreign Affairs, by Christine Fair of RAND Corporation gives us the inside.


“Having visited the Indian mission in Zahedan, Iran, I can assure you they are not issuing visas as the main activity! Moreover, India has run operations from its mission in Mazar, Afghanistan (through which it supported the Northern Alliance) and is likely doing so from the other consulates it has reopened in Jalalabad and Qandahar along the border. Indian officials have told me privately that they are pumping money into Baluchistan. Kabul has encouraged India to engage in provocative activities such as using the Border Roads Organization to build sensitive parts of the Ring Road and use the Indo-Tibetan police force for security. It is also building schools on a sensitive part of the border in Kunar--across from Bajaur (Pakistan’s Tribal Area where Pakistan Army had to carry out a major operation to eliminate TTP6 militants).

"Kabul's motivations for encouraging these activities are as obvious as India's interest in engaging in them. Even if by some act of miraculous diplomacy the territorial issues were to be resolved, Pakistan would remain an insecure state. Given the realities of the subcontinent (e.g., India's rise and its more effective foreign relations with all of Pakistan's near and far neighbors), these fears are bound to grow, not lessen. This suggests that without some means of compelling Pakistan to abandon its reliance upon militancy, it will become ever more interested in using it -- and the militants will likely continue to proliferate beyond Pakistan's control.”

Iran

Iran historically has enjoyed good relations with its neighbors including Pakistan during the time of Shah of Iran, but since then their relationship with Pakistan and Arab world has deteriorated. Strategically, Iran would like to maintain balance of power tipped in its favor in the region, this means the Pakistan’s strategic interests should be undermined, as they are at the moment. Taliban, Iran’s nemesis in Afghanistan is no longer in power, India, Iran’s ally and Pakistan’s arch enemy is enjoying a strong foothold in Afghanistan at the moment. Iran is also afraid of Jandullah’s covert operations against Iran, from Baluchistan. According to an April 2007 report by Brian Rossand and Christopher Isham of ABC News, the United States governmenthad been secretly encouraging and advising the Jandullah in its attacks.

Jandullah is a terrorist group that was created by CIA, and is responsible for terrorist activities inside Iran. Iran has spent a lot of money developing its Chabahar port, which is just 100 miles from Gwadar port of Pakistan. Gwadar port was built by China. Iran does not want Gwadar to become prominent and Chabahar to be sidelined, especially since Iran is isolated in the world at the moment. Iran has huge reserves of gas and it would like India to gain access to these reserves since India is its ally and Iran-India friendship will grow if India can gain access to Iranian gas reserves. Iran would also like trade with India to increase in future.




TAPI: Turkmenistan, Afghanistan, Pakistan, India




IPI: Iran, Pakistan, India


India"India also believes that an independent Baluchistan will likely become a proxy of Iran, India and Afghanistan."

  "India also believes that an independent Baluchistan will likely become a proxy of Iran, India and Afghanistan."

India is Pakistan arch enemy, first of all India has never accepted Pakistan as an independent sovereign nation. India was directly responsible for breakup of East Pakistan and formation of Bangladesh. India and Pakistan have fought three wars with each other. India is at the moment chief regional ally of US, and NATO. India believes that Pakistan is at the brink of break up and India must focus on building its relationship with Central Asia, Iran, and Afghanistan, and capture oil and gas reserves from Central Asia and Iran, through Afghanistan and Pakistan. India also believes that an independent Baluchistan will likely become a proxy of Iran, India and Afghanistan. Capt (r) Bharat Verma of Indian Defense Review, writes,


“That New Delhi is its own enemy became obvious, when it permitted the creation of a pure Islamic State on its borders. This nation-state contradicts every democratic and multi-cultural value dear to India. Therefore, if New Delhi has not slept a wink since the creation of Pakistan, it has no one except itself to blame! Many conveniently propose the myth that a stable Pakistan is in India’s interest. This is a false proposition. The truth is that Pakistan is bad news for the Indian Union since 1947-stable or otherwise. With Pakistan on the brink of collapse due to massive internal as well as international contradictions, it is matter of time before it ceases to exist. Multiple benefits will accrue to the Union of India on such demise.”

Verma Continues ...

“If ever the national interests are defined with clarity and prioritized, the foremost threat to the Union (and for centuries before) materialized on the western periphery, continuously. To defend this key threat to the Union, New Delhi should extend its influence through export of both, soft and hard power towards Central Asia from where invasions have been mounted over centuries. Cessation of Pakistan as a state facilitates furtherance of this pivotal national objective.

“The self-destructive path that Islamabad chose will either splinter the state into many parts or it will wither away-a case of natural progression to its logical conclusion. In either case Baluchistan will achieve independence. For New Delhi this opens a window of opportunity to ensure that the Gwadar port does not fall into the hands of the Chinese. In this, there is synergy between the political objectives of the Americans and the Indians. Our existing goodwill in Baluchistan requires intelligent leveraging.”

India does not have natural gas reserves, and it desperately needs gas from Iran. But US is against Iran-Pakistan-India (IPI) pipeline. If IPI project comes through than the stability and security of Iran, Pakistan and India will be in the interest of these respective countries. US would not like this, since it takes away an important leverage from a superpower, that of playing one nation against another. US have proposed the idea of Independent Baluchistan, which India does not mind at all. India has gained strong foot hold inside Afghanistan. A road link connects Iranian port of Chabahar to Afghanistan. India has built a ring-road inside Afghanistan linking Iran to Afghanistan. With back channel diplomacy going on between Iran and US, India and Iran both would like NATO and US supplies to go through Chabahar, Iran rather than Karachi, Pakistan. India strongly believes that Independent Baluchistan is inevitable and is casting all its bets on this deal.



Road link from Iran into Afghanistan
(see checkered line, lower left arrow)


Washington's interest in Baluchistan

"It is imperative the Baluchistan, an energy rich province must not come under control of China."

According to a study titled “Baloch Nationalism and the energy politics of energy resources: the changing context of separatism in Pakistan”, by Robert G.Wirsing, of Strategic Studies Institute, a think tank of U.S army, it is imperative the Baluchistan, an energy rich province must not come under control of China. China built Gwadar port, and would like to expand more trade and energy routes through Pakistan via Baluchistan.


To begin with China is interested in a gas pipeline from Iran through Pakistan’s into Western China. This is something that is not acceptable to US. China could station some of its naval ships at Gwadar in future should the need arise to provide security to its cargo; this is again something that is not acceptable to US. On the list of US agenda is to secure the Indian Ocean and its strategic routes, and Gwadar right at the mouth of Strait of Hormuz is one of those routes. As mentioned before US is using Baluchistan as a base to carry out covert operations against Iran using Jandullah. After 9/11 US is also using an airfield of Pakistan Air force in Baluchistan for its operations in war on terror.

The U.S. is looking into taking direct control of Gwadar, possibly by capturing Gwadar port, so that they can make a land route through Baluchistan into Southern Afghanistan, this will give them an alternate supply route for their troops. Baluchistan must be under US control so that gas pipelines from Central Asia can pump gas through Afghanistan into coast of Baluchistan. The US believes that Balkanization of Pakistan and setup of independent Baluchistan will dismantle the hope of resurgent Pakistan in the near future, paving the way for a dominant Iran taking control of Middle East while India will be able to take control of South Asia including Afghanistan. Brzezinski believes that Iran not Arab world is the natural ally of US in the Middle East. The current US government is using the foreign policy ideals of Brzezinski, which calls for using Islamic militant and Iran against China and Russia.

Conclusion
  "The solution of Baluchistan lies with a strong government in Islamabad that is a nationalist government and not a puppet of IMF/WB/CIA."


Current Pakistani government is not able to safeguard Pakistan’s national interests. When Zardari3 became president he authorized release of many BLA terrorist who were held up by security forces in detention. BLA has gotten ample time to regroup and re-arm during the last few months. It is very interesting that the current Chief Minister of Baluchistan, Nawab Aslam Raisani before becoming CM, said in an interview, "We will not go for any type of compromise," says Nawab Raisani. "We want total autonomy."


According to author of bestselling book, ‘The Way of the World’, Ron Suskind, Raisani is on the payroll of top western intelligence agencies. Given the level of US penetration in Pakistan’s domestic politics it is no surprise. 

The solution of Baluchistan lies with a strong government in Islamabad that is a nationalist government and not a puppet of IMF/WB/CIA. There should be no doubt in anyone’s mind that BLA does not represent the aggrieved Baloch people. BLA is a terrorist outfit and it must be dealt with accordingly. We need to get rid of this government that is working nothing like a democracy. Key decisions are taken by either Zardari or his important Washington approved advisors. We need a new setup of nationalist that are willing to stand up to US and make independent policy decision in the best interest of Pakistan. To counter the growing influence of India, Iran and US in Baluchistan it is a must that old contracts with China be renewed and new development projects must be initiated with Chinese help. The local population of Baluchistan must be given more shares in jobs and resources. This is only achievable if we have patriots in the provincial government of Baluchistan, not scoundrels who are abusing patriotism for their personal greed.

The problem for US is that BLA alone is not able to break away Baluchistan from Pakistan. Of the 5% population of Baluchistan they don’t even have support of 10% Balochi population. The Pakistan Army and ISI are resisting the assault in national and strategic interests of Pakistan. The Great Game of Brzezinski will surely continue in Baluchistan and rest of Pakistan, the people of Pakistan are ready to counter this great game now we need leadership and some courage. It will take some time to achieve courage and leadership but it will come eventually. Street revolutions are easy to carry out the hard part is the mental revolution. That is what is required right now to challenge the US global hegemony. 

Glossary of Terms and people mentioned

1. Pervaiz Musharraf is former dictator-turned- president of Pakistan. He was forced out of office due to the assassination of Benazir Bhutto and his loss of support by his former sponsor, the U.S. government.

2. The Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) is the ruling political party under President Zardari.

3. Asif Ali Zardari is the current president of Pakistan. He is the former husband of Benazir Bhutto and came into power on her coat tails after she was assassinated. He is also the son of veteran politician Mr. Hakim Ali Zardari. Mr. Zardari is commonly known in Pakistan as "Mr. Ten Percent" due to his well-known cuts on various government deals.

4. BLA is Baloch Liberation Army, officially declared a terrorist outfit by Pakistan, US and UK. Is responsible for various terrorist activities in Pakistan that includes killing civilians, security forces, and blowing up natural gas pipelines.

5. Nawab Akbar Bugti was former head of the Bugti tribe of balochistan, also 13th governor of Baluchistan and the 5th Chief Minister of the province. He and his family favored creation of Pakistan. Bugti was killed on Aug 26th 2006 in a military operation when he was surrounded in a remote hill in Baluchistan.

6. Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) is the main anti-government party in Pakistan at the moment. Because the TTP bears the name "Taliban" the western media often confuses them with the Taliban in Afghanistan. This is a grave mistake. The Afgan Taliban rejects the TTP. The TTP views the ANP to be pro-US and part of the pro-US Pakistan government. The TTP is a group based on Takfiri ideology (a Muslim who believes that all other Muslims, even orthodox Muslims are not true Muslims. They view all others as collaborators with the West. All Muslim scholars are unanimous in declaring Takfiris ‘heretics of Islam

Maps taken from Strategic Studies Institute Report on Baluchistan.

Talha Mujaddidi is a writer/analyst, living in Pakistan and a columnist for Axis of Logic.

[bigron]

From The Sunday TimesApril 26, 2009
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/asia/article6168940.ece



‘Stop the Taliban now – or we will’
The US got tough with Pakistan as terrorists moved to within 60 miles of the capital



Pakistani Taliban fighters sit in the back of a truck with their weapons in Buner

Christina Lamb in Washington and Daud Khattak in Buner


AMERICA made clear last week that it would attack Taliban forces in their Swat valley stronghold unless the Pakistan government stopped the militants’ advance towards Islamabad.

A senior Pakistani official said the Obama administration intervened after Taliban forces expanded from Swat into the adjacent district of Buner, 60 miles from the capital.

The Pakistani Taliban’s inroads raised international concern, particularly in Washington, where officials feared that the nuclear-armed country, which is pivotal to the US war against the Taliban in Afghanistan and against Al-Qaeda, was rapidly succumbing to Islamist extremists.

“The implicit threat - if you don’t do it, we may have to - was always there,” said the Pakistani official. He said that under American pressure, Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency told the Taliban to withdraw from Buner on Friday.

However, reports yesterday indicated that the Taliban withdrawal was less than total. As a result, hundreds of thousands of people in the district were still at the mercy of armed militants and their restrictive interpretation of Islamic law.

American military and intelligence forces already run limited ground and air operations on Pakistani soil along the border with Afghanistan. But an overt military operation such as that threatened in Swat, away from the border, would mark a major escalation.

The official said last week’s outspoken remarks by Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, were “calculated to ramp up the pressure on Pakistan” to take action. Clinton warned that the terrorists’ advance had created a “mortal threat” to world security.

She was one of several American political and military leaders to use unusually strong language about Pakistan’s failure to curb the Taliban. Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, who visited Pakistan, said he was “extremely concerned” about the developments and that the situation was “definitely worse” than two weeks ago.

General David Petraeus, of US Central Command, which oversees Afghanistan - to which America is about to commit 17,000 more troops - said Al-Qaeda and Taliban extremists in Pakistan posed an “ever more serious threat to Pakistan’s very existence”.

These remarks have stung Pakistan. Husain Haqqani, the ambassador to Washington, accused the Obama administration of making it harder for his country to fight the Taliban.

“The US needs to relate its comments to the ground realities in Pakistan instead of the mood in Washington,” he said. “Most Pakistanis are not supportive of the Taliban way of life, but at the same time widespread anti-Americanism confuses many Pakistanis into having a conflicting view.

“We want to turn that view around but the US and its leaders must help us to do that.”

The latest crisis stems from a controversial ceasefire the government signed in February to end months of vicious fighting between the Taliban and the army in Swat that caused significant loss of life and an exodus from what had once been a tourist centre. Some 500,000 now live outside Swat, a third of them in camps that used to shelter refugees from the fighting in Afghanistan.

In return for the imposition of sharia [Islamic law] in Swat, the Taliban agreed to disengage, disarm and stop menacing people. But it was from Swat last week that their fighters overran Buner with about 500 well-armed men under a hardline commander, Maulvi Khalil.

As in Swat, once his forces had established themselves, Khalil began to impose the movement’s repressive rules on what had once been a peaceful valley. He ordered girls over seven to wear veils and directed men to keep their women inside and to grow beards. He banned music. In several villages the Taliban were snatching mobile phones on the pretext that they had musical ring tones or photos of women on them.

The Taliban stole livestock, took vehicles belonging to government officials and ransacked the offices of some local nongovernment organisations. In a phone call, Khalil denied the Taliban were terrorists. He said: “We’ve raised the arms to spread the message of Allah. This is the responsibility of each and every Muslim.” But residents fear it is just a matter of time before their daughters are forced to marry Taliban commanders, a process that has begun already in Swat, along with public floggings.

On Friday, in a much publicised agreement with the government, Khalil agreed to withdraw. Local residents said the withdrawal was incomplete. He had left men behind to supplement local armed Taliban groups and newly recruited sympathisers.

“There is a collective holding of breath,” said Sam Zarifi, Amnesty International’s Asia director, from Islamabad. “The Taliban edicts are still in force and the dismantling of the civilian infrastructure is still very much in effect, so a lot of doctors, midwives, civil servants have left and people are hunkering down because they fear an army operation.”

The government sent a few hundred paramilitaries to Buner last week but they kepta low profile. It has not sent any troops. The Americans want the government to shift troops from the India-Pakistan border to meet the Taliban threat, but frightened residents of Buner fear an army operation would cause civilian casualties.

[bigron]

Sunday, April 26, 2009
16:49 Mecca time, 13:49 GMT   
News CENTRAL/S. ASIA 
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2009/04/2009426124745172877.html



 
Pakistan battles Taliban near Swat 



   
Fighters from Swat briefly took over the district of Buner and pulled out later [EPA]

 
 
Pakistan's military has launched an operation against Taliban fighters in a district adjoining the Swat valley, threatening a truce  between the government and  anti-government fighters in the troubled region.

The army said in a statement on Sunday that they had killed "scores" of fighters in the operation in Lower Dir, and that at least one soldier had been killed.

There was no way to immediately verify the military statement but the Reuters news agency quoted a military spokesman as saying an "intense exchange of fire is going on in Lower Dir".

But officials said that the Swat peace deal was still intact, despite the operation.

"The peace deal is intact - the government has not revoked the peace deal," Farhatullah Babar, a spokesman for Asif Ali Zardari, Pakistan's president, said.

"At the same time the government is determined to root out the militants hell-bent on destroying the law and order situation."

Military operation

The government agreed a deal with the Taliban in Swat in February that has seen an end to fighting there in return for the enforcement of the Taliban's strict interpretation of sharia, or Islamic law.

+++

In depth :

 Video: Turning to the Taliban:
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2009/04/2009418113738662194.html

 Media vacuum in Swat valley:
http://english.aljazeera.net/programmes/listeningpost/2009/03/200937114151666838.html

 Swat: Pakistan's lost paradise:
http://english.aljazeera.net/focus/2009/01/200912512351598892.html

 Talking to the Taliban:
http://english.aljazeera.net/focus/2009/03/200939102529353355.html

 Pakistan's war :
http://english.aljazeera.net/programmes/general/2008/12/200812211123302404.html

+++
 
Babar said that the government would fulfil its pledge under the peace deal - which covers the Swat valley and the surrounding districts that make up Malakand division -  to establish Islamic courts in the area.

But he said that the government would not permit the fighters to spread their area of influence.

In recent days, fighters from Swat began entering another district, Buner, which lies just just 100km from Islamabad, the Pakistani capital.

Later reports suggested that the fighters had begun to pull out after military action was threatened.

"The operation that got under way this morning got under way in an area called Dir, which is adjacent to Swat," Kamal Hyder, Al Jazeera's Pakistan correspondent, said.

"The military moved in, but they have of course been using maximum restraint because they want this peace deal [in Swat] to work.

"We also got reports today that the military arrested at least five Taliban who were violating the accord - they were toting weapons in an area of Swat."

'Syndicated extremists'

Critics of Pakistan's deal with fighters in Swat say that it has only emboldened the Taliban and  in recent days, the US has increased pressure on Pakistan to confront fighters on its soil.

General David Petraeus, the head of US central command, said Pakistan's leaders should focus on the looming threat posed by fighters within their borders.

"The most important, most pressing threat to the very existence of their country is the threat posed by the internal extremists and groups such as the Taliban and the syndicated extremists," he said.

Across Pakistan, more than 1,800 people have been killed in a wave of al-Qaeda and Taliban-linked attacks since July 2007.
 
 Source: Al Jazeera and agencies 
 
 
 
 
 

[bigron]

'U.S. behind hike in Iraq violence' 


26/04/2009 05:35:00 PM GMT
http://aljazeera.com/news/articles/34/_US_behind_hike_in_Iraq_violence_.html
 
 

(press tv) The U.S. is fueling insecurity in Iraq to justify a longer stay.


The head of an Islamic community in Pakistan accuses the U.S. of fueling insecurity in Iraq to justify a longer stay in the oil-rich country.

Blaming Washington for the recent hike in Iraq violence, Sajid Ali Naqvi, leader of the Shia Tehrik-e-Jafria Pakistan, told IRNA Sunday that Washington is employing nefarious methods, including creating an artificial aura of insecurity and sacrificing civilians in order to prolong their stay in the country.

He made the remarks after more than 150 people were killed and many others wounded in bomb attacks across Iraq over the past two days. Fifty three of the dead were Iranian pilgrims.

Sajid Ali Naqvi continued that a longer stay of U.S. troops in Iraq “will lead to increased insurgency and acts of terrorism particularly against shias”.

He said that Washington's incorrect policies toward Iraq, Afghanistan and Pakistan has created many problems for the Muslims and called on the new U.S. administration to respect countries' sovereignty and to avoid interfering in the internal affairs of sovereign states.


-- Press TV

 

[Biggs]

Pakistan launches Taleban strikes

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/8022891.stm

Thousands of people have begun to flee their homes in Lower Dir



Pakistan has launched air strikes against suspected Taleban hideouts in Buner district, less than 100km (67 miles) from the capital, Islamabad.

The aerial attack in Buner comes as tens of thousands of people have fled their homes in Lower Dir, another area which is seeing heavy fighting.

Hundreds of militants have moved into adjacent regions recently from the Swat Valley, an area they largely control.

Western politicians have expressed concern over Taleban activity there.

Withdrawal

The air force's move into Buner marks a widening of the government's offensive against the Taleban.

Military spokesman Athar Abbas said their mission in Buner was to "eliminate and expel" the Taleban from the district.

See a map of the region


Maj Gen Abbas said there were about 450 to 500 militants in Buner, in breach of a peace agreement between the government and the Taleban.

Last Friday the Taleban announced they were withdrawing from Buner and have said that there are few fighters left.
   

In pictures: Militants targeted


Meanwhile in Dir, Gen Abbas said the military had killed about 75 militants since Sunday and described the operation as a success.

The BBC's Mark Dummett in Islamabad says the government is complaining that the militants are trying to take over the areas bordering the Swat Valley.

The Taleban denies the government claims.

In Swat itself the Taleban have now spread northwards.

A peace deal between the two sides this year allowed Sharia law to be adopted in large parts of the region in return for the Taleban laying down arms.

Western politicians - particularly in the US - were highly critical of the agreement.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said the Pakistani government was "basically abdicating to the Taleban and the extremists".

Both the Taleban and the government say they remain committed to the peace deal, which was designed to end a bloody 18-month insurgency.

But the Taleban says it has suspended talks with the government because of the military action in Lower Dir

[Satyagraha]

We've become used to issues in the northwest frontier provinces; the SWAT valley, and northern Punjab (islamabad, Lahore); today news is of violence in Karachi, the largest city on the southern coast of Pakistan:

http://www.geo.tv/4-29-2009/40997.htm


KARACHI: At least 23 people were killed and 22 others wounded as violence broke out in different parts of Karachi on Wednesday.

While enraged people torched several vehicles in various parts of the city.

Shops and markers started to close early as the violence spread from one place to other.

The process of unending firing erupted in North Karachi where two activists of Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) were found shot dead. The police and rangers personnel, who reached the scene to calm down the situation, also caught up in the firing in which a Sub-inspector Moinur Rehman, Head Constable Sajjad and six others were injured.

In another incident, unknown persons set 10 vehicles ablaze in Bilal Colony while a 40-year-old Juma Khan was also gunned down.

In Sarjani Town and Shah Faisal Colony, unidentified gunmen shot dead two more persons, yet to be identified.

Security forces arrested 21 persons during a search operation launched in Khawaja Ajmir Nagri. Besides, more violence incidents were reported in Samanabad, Al-Asif Square and Hyderi.
--------------------------------

People are blaming the Zardari government.
 

[bigron]

Saturday, May 02, 2009
12:42 Mecca time, 09:42 GMT   
News CENTRAL/S. ASIA 
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2009/05/20095265816730115.html
 
Many dead in Pakistan clashes 

 
Pakistani soldiers are battling pro-Taliban fighters despite a deal aimed at ending the dispute [AFP]
 
At least 18 people have been killed in heavy clashes between Pakistani troops and pro-Taliban fighters in northwest Pakistan.

The deaths followed an attack on a security checkpoint in the Mohmand tribal region along the border with Afghanistan early on Saturday.

"The Taliban attack was launched before dawn, troops retaliated and heavy fighting continued until early this morning," Major Fazal Khan, a local military spokesman, said.

Officials said that the dead included at least 16 fighters and two paramilitary soldiers.

In the neighbouring district of Bajaur, armed men took over a house killing at least one civilian and injuring several women, security sources said.

The clashes in the tribal areas come as soldiers in Buner district, just 100km northwest of the capital, Islamabad, battled pro-Taliban fighters.

Buner curfew

A curfew is in place in the region after about 100 people were killed in a four-day period up to Friday. Hundreds of civilians have fled the area.

Al Jazeera's Sohail Rahman, reporting from Islamabad, said: "Large groups of civilians are getting out of there if they can ... to two camps that have been set up in the south of Buner district out of the main conflict zone.

"We have to defeat these negatives forces, the forces of terror and those forces who are creating chaos among us"
said  Shah Mehmoud Qureshi, Pakistani foreign minister
 

"The army has raised the ante over the past 72 hours," he said.

"We have seen heavy artillery, tanks and helicopter gunships encircling the areas of Swat, Dir and Buner - and as that military offensive continues it can be expected that those sympathetic to the Taliban will attack the military."

Pakistan's army said on Friday that it had fought its way over a mountain pass into Buner, a hilly farming district beside the Indus River, and was
bombing the fighters' bases further north. 

The fighters moved into Buner after an agreement between the government and pro-Taliban groups to allow a stricter implementation of sharia (Islamic law) in the Malakand Division - which includes Swat, Lower Dir and Buner - in exchange for peace.

Sufi Muhammad, an influential local scholar, was meeting officials on Saturday to discuss the deal, which Pakistani military officials say has been broken by the continuing violence.
 
Shah Mehmood Qureshi, Pakistan's foreign minister, has urged religious scholars to help end the violence by opposing pro-Taliban fighters.

"We have to defeat these negatives forces, the forces of terror and those forces who are creating chaos among us," he said in the central city of Multan.

"We will confront you at every hill, we will face [you] at every ideological trench and, God willing, we will defeat you."

'Prudent move'

Meanwhile, The New York Times newspaper reported on Saturday that the administration of Barack Obama, the US president, had reached out to Nawaz Sharif, a prominent Pakistani opposition leader, in an attempt to improve security.

Citing unnamed administration officials, the newspaper said on its website the move reflected heightened concern in the White House about the ability of the Pakistani government to survive in the faltering security situation.

Talat Masood, an Islamabad-based political analyst and former Pakistani general, told Al Jazeera that it would be "a very prudent move".

"It is very important that if you want to fight this war on terror you have to get [Sharif] on the right side," he said.

"He is in control of the province of Punjab which is the most important and vital province of Pakistan ... I think that the Americans are doing a very wise thing because if he stays out I think it will be very difficult to win this war against the Taliban."

The report came before a planned meeting between Obama, Hamid Karzai, the Afghan president, and Asif Ali Zardari, his Pakistani counterpart, on Wednesday.

Robert Gibbs, the White House spokesman, said: "The president looks forward to discussing with these two democratically elected leaders how we can work together to enhance our co-operation in this important part of the world as the United States implements a new strategy."
 
 Source: Al Jazeera and agencies 
 
 
 
 
 

[bigron]

Sunday, May 03, 2009
13:22 Mecca time, 10:22 GMT   
News CENTRAL/S. ASIA 
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2009/05/200952184624572207.html

 
Pakistan region gets sharia court 


 Taliban loyalists have been fighting for a higher sharia court in Malakand [AFP]

 
Pakistan's North West Frontier Province has announced the formation of a higher appellate court for Islamic law in the Malakand division, marking a potential breakthrough in stalled talks with the Taliban.

The ruling by the NWFP government will be implemented immediately, Mian Iftikhar Hussain, the province's information minister, said on Saturday.

"Qazis (judges) have been appointed according to the sharia in line with the demands of Tehrik Nifaz Shariat-e-Muhammadi," a group led by Sufi Muhammad, an influential local religious leader, Hussain said.

The ruling comes after days of clashes between the Pakistani military and Taliban fighters in Dir and Buner, two districts in Malakand.

There have been differences between the two sides over the extent to which the Taliban would implement a previous deal allowing them to enforce their own interpretation of sharia in Malakand, in exchange for peace with Islamabad.

Potential 'insurgent'

While making the announcement on the sharia court, known locally as Dar-ul-Qaza, Hussain quoted Muhammad as saying that anyone who continues to hold arms after the new regulations will be considered an insurgent.

"Now anyone carrying arms would be treated as a rebel and would be prosecuted in the Qazi courts," Hussain said.



In depth :    (visit page)

 Video: Obama says Pakistan is toughest US challenge
 Video: Turning to the Taliban
 Video: Thousands flee Pakistan Taliban clashes
 Media vacuum in Swat valley
 Swat: Pakistan's lost paradise
 Talking to the Taliban
 Pakistan's war
 
He said two judges have been appointed so far to the panel, and more will be named later. Several judges trained in sharia have been hearing routine cases in Swat since the deal was struck.

Al Jazeera's Kamal Hyder in Islamabad said: "The important thing that is going to come out of this is that the government has said it will deal sternly with anyone and everyone who violates the accord with weapons."

It remains to be seen whether the NWFP government's move to allow Dar-ul-Qaza in Malakand will lead to the end of hostilities between the Pakistani military and Taliban fighters in the province, he said.

"The provincial government has put the onus of responsibility on the soldiers of Sufi Muhammad. The key demand of the Pakistani Taliban was the establishment of the Dar-ul-Qaza; many people said they would even lay down their weapons in front of the Dar-ul-Qaza when it was instituted.

"There are fears that the whole thing could collapse if not handled carefully; we  have reports that the military and the Pakistani Taliban have been beefing up their positions in Swat valley district as well [as Buner and Dir]."

Deadly clashes

The NWFP decision was announced on a day at least 18 people were killed in fresh clashes in the country's northwest.

The deaths followed an attack by pro-Taliban fighters on a Pakistani security checkpoint in the Mohmand tribal region, along the border with Afghanistan, early on Saturday.

"The Taliban attack was launched before dawn, troops retaliated and heavy fighting continued until early this morning," Major Fazal Khan, a local military spokesman, said.

Officials said that the dead included at least 16 fighters and two paramilitary soldiers.

Separately, in the neighbouring Bajaur district, armed men took over a house killing at least one civilian and injuring several women, security sources said.
 
 Source: Al Jazeera and agencies 
 
 
 
 
 

[bigron]

Militants refuse to down arms despite Sharia deal

Pakistan has made further concessions to the Taliban despite a continuing military offensive to push them out of the troubled Buner region.


TALIBAN continues fight despite concessions.


By Isambard Wilkinson in Islamabad
Last Updated: 2:54PM BST 03 May 2009
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/asia/pakistan/5267799/Militants-refuse-to-down-arms-despite-Sharia-deal.html

The government has strengthened Islamic law by establishing an Islamic appeal court, even though the militants have refused to lay down their arms.

But as the government made yet more concessions, Sufi Mohammed, a former militant and leader of the Islamist Tehrik- Nifaz-i-Shariat Mohammed (TNSM), rejected the Sharia high court saying he wanted his own men established as judges.


Muslim Khan, a Taliban spokesman, said that the militants refused to lay down their weapons because guns were "the ornaments of Muslims".

The army accused the Taliban of acting in "gross violation" of the peace accord in the Swat Valley and committing several violent acts over the weekend, including beheadings, attacking security forces and destroying a bridge and a government school.

Iftikhar Hussain, the information minister for the North West Frontier Province (NWFP), said the government had fulfilled its part of the bargain and that militants must now disarm.

Officials insist that by carrying out their part of the agreement, the government can gain more support from the public to take action against the Taliban if the militants violate the pact.

But national and international patience with the government's faltering approach to dealing with militants is running out.

Lt Gen Talat Masood, a retired Pakistani army officer and defence analyst said: "There is confusion as the government is negotiating with the militants even as they continue to fight them.

"The militants are saying they will abide by the agreement but the clearly they are doing another thing."

Last week the Pakistan's army launched operations in districts of Buner and Dir, next to Swat, after militants overran territory 60 miles from the capital, Islamabad.

Pakistanis have also expressed concern with the army's apparent reticence to tackle the militants, some accusing the army of letting the problem fester in order to attract more American military aid.

A letter was circulated last month by prominent Pakistanis calling upon politicians and the army to save the country. It expressed "anger and dismay at the abject capitulation of the state of Pakistan before the Taliban insurgents in Swat".

Critics have questioned the peace deal and worry Swat will turn into a haven for militants near Afghanistan, where coalition troops are battling a Taliban insurgency.

The crisis in Pakistan will be the focus of a meeting between President Asif Ali Zardari, his Afghan counterpart, Hamid Karzai, and Barack Obama, in Washington this week.

Washington has accused Islamabad of "abdicating to the Taliban" and last week President Barack Obama described the government of President Asif Zardari as "very fragile" and that it did not "seem to have the capacity to deliver basic services".

[bigron]

Published on Sunday, May 3, 2009 by Asia News International


Advisor: ‘US Needs to Call off Drone Strikes in Pak’


by Asia News International


Lahore - The top adviser to the US army chief in Afghanistan, David Kilcullen, has observed that the US drone strikes in Pakistan are creating more enemies than eliminating them, and hence, needed to be "called off."

Responding to a congressman on what the US government should do in Pakistan, he said: "We need to call off the drones."

The Daily Times quoted Kilcullen, as saying that he has no objection to killing "bad guys" in Pakistan.

However, he added that the strikes were creating more enemies than they eliminate.

Kilcullen said that the drone strikes, which were "highly unpopular", gave rise to a feeling of anger that unites the population with the Taliban and could lead to "loss of Pakistani government control over its own population".

He said that insurgents used the drone strikes to stir up anti-Western and anti-government sentiment.

Another problem, Kilcullen noted, was "using robots from the air looks both cowardly and weak".

© 2009 ANI

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Article printed from www.CommonDreams.org

URL to article: http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/05/03-1

[bigron]

Monday, May 04, 2009
08:33 Mecca time, 05:33 GMT   
News CENTRAL/S. ASIA 
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/asia/2009/05/200953134926978319.html

 
Pakistan Taliban pact under strain 


Officials say a newly created sharia court meets a major demand of the Pakistani Taliban groups [EPA]
 
The Taliban in Pakistan has beheaded two government officials in Swat valley in the North West Frontier Province - revenge for the killing of two commanders, police say.

The announcement was made as Pakistani authorities appealed on Sunday to Taliban fighters to lay down their weapons.

The government said the establishment of the higher appellate court for Islamic law, or Dar-ul-Qaza, announced by the NWFP authorities on Saturday, fulfils the final part of a deal demanded by the Taliban in exchange for peace.

The creation of the sharia court was among the demands of the Tehrik Nifaz Shariat-e-Muhammadi, a group led by Sufi Muhammad, an influential local religious leader.

The court will have jurisdiction over the Malakand division, which includes Swat, Dir and Buner - the scene of recent fighting between the Taliban and government forces.

An initial deal signed in February, allowing the Taliban to enforce its own interpretation of sharia in Malakand in exchange for peace, has failed to end hostilities.

Continued tensions

The killing of the two government workers on Sunday is sure to raise more doubts about the policy of engagement with the Taliban.

+++

In depth :

 Video: Obama says Pakistan is toughest US challenge
 Video: Turning to the Taliban
 Video: Thousands flee Pakistan Taliban clashes
 Media vacuum in Swat valley
 Swat: Pakistan's lost paradise
 Talking to the Taliban
 Pakistan's war

+++
 
The Taliban has refused to disarm and continue to pour out of Swat into neighbouring districts.

They resumed armed patrols on Sunday in Mingora, the valley's main town, according to Pakistani officials.

A curfew was ordered overnight and officials said they were discussing what to do if the Taliban violated the order.

Al Jazeera's Kamal Hyder, reporting from Islamabad, said on Monday: "This is the first time since the deal was first negotiated in February that the authorities have enforced curfew in Mingora.

"Despite the curfew residents saw armed Taliban on the street which is a clear violation of the peace deal.

"The deal is under tremendous strain and a lot of people have fears that it will not last."

'Gross violation'

Separately, Pakistan's army accused the fighters on Sunday of "gross violation" of the peace pact, blaming them for several acts of violence over the weekend in Swat, including the destruction of a bridge.

Al Jazeera's Sohail Rahman in Islamabad said: "The government went out on a limb last night. They said 'we are setting up those eight courts and we will appoint the judges'.

"[However], at the moment Sufi Muhammad's spokesperson is saying that they [the fighters] were not taken into confidence, so read into that what you will."

While making the Dar-ul-Qaza announcement on Saturday, Mian Iftikhar Hussain, the NWFP information minister, quoted Sufi Muhammad as saying that anyone who continues to hold arms after the new regulations would be considered an insurgent.

"Now anyone carrying arms would be treated as a rebel and would be prosecuted in the qazi courts," Hussain said.
 
 Source: Al Jazeera and agencies 
 
 
 
 
 

[bigron]

Published on Tuesday, May 5, 2009 by The Independent/UK
Pakistan's Forgotten Casualties of War
Thousands of civilians flee fighting between the military and the Taliban
by Omar Waraich in Chingalai, Buner

Shafiq Ullah vividly recalls the night he fled his home. "The helicopters came close over us, growing louder," the silver-bearded farmer says, in quick, panicked breaths. "I could see the bombs firing from cannons come down on the nearby houses. I saw one house destroyed completely. We waited at first, but then decided to leave. It was dangerous, but we had no choice. I was too afraid to stay there."

A Pakistani policeman searches the belongings of displaced people from the Buner district at a make shift camp in Mardan. Hundreds of thousands of panicked civilians are fleeing Pakistan's Swat district as clashes with Taliban fighters heighten fears that a peace deal is about to collapse. (AFP/Hasham Ahmed)Clasping the hands of his children, Mr Ullah walked for two hours from his home in Ambela - the scene of some of the fiercest fighting between Pakistani forces and Taliban fighters - to the relative safety of a mosque in Goga village. Along the way, they encountered scenes that still haunt him. "It was awful. I saw pregnant women losing their babies, at least three of them. There were also ordinary people's dead bodies lying on the road, and dogs eating their flesh."

Mr Ullah is not alone. With the Pakistani military locked in a crucial battle against hundreds of Taliban fighters, tens of thousands of civilians are estimated to have fled the fighting. The militants have been emboldened by a truce that was struck with the Pakistani government in February, and have used their base in the Swat Valley as a staging ground for further incursions. When they reached the scenic valley of Buner, just 60 miles from Islamabad, the rest of the world sat up and took notice. But while President Asif Ali Zardari - who meets US President Barack Obama in Washington tomorrow - has resolved to push back against the Taliban advance, there are fears that the plight of a total of one million people now displaced by fighting across the North-west is being overlooked.

Among the displaced, there is little sympathy for the militants who seized Buner last month, looting properties, occupying marble factories, and barring women from public spaces as they sought to impose their own brutal brand of Islam on the area. But many residents complain that they were given no warning to leave the area before the military counter-offensive was launched. They accuse the army of damaging homes and inflicting mounting civilian casualties.

The village of Chingalai, on the edge of Buner, serves as a stopover before the refugees pile into trucks and are driven along a winding and bumpy road out of the valley to half a dozen camps where they will remain until the fighting is over. Wealthier residents of Buner have already fled to the homes of relatives, or distant cities. The very poorest simply cannot afford to leave. As harried-looking refugees arrive, locals hasten toward them with cups of water and an offer of food. Under a tin awning on the side of the dirt track, bags of rice and lentils are being prepared by volunteers. The conditions are squalid. Flies swarm in their dozens, and wild dogs scour the sides of the road.

"We need peace," says Jahangir Shah, a 20-year-old from Shamla village. "When the Taliban arrived in my village 15 days ago, they had guns with them. Sometimes they would go to the shops to buy food and mobile phone cards. They began digging trenches, telling people to pray, and preaching for the rule of Islam." All devout Muslims, he insists, want to live under Islam but he is scornful of the Taliban's claim that they came to Buner to deliver Islamic law. "This sharia issue is totally a drama," he said. "It was already as if we naturally followed sharia. No one watched television here, people prayed, women covered themselves. The Taliban has just used this sharia issue for their own interests."

Another man, Bashir Zada, edges into the conversation. "The Taliban came to my village, but they did not hurt us," he says. "There was just one incident where a boy was disturbing a young girl. She told the Taliban about this. So they dragged him out of a car, took him to the mosque and whipped him."

Mr Zada blames the army for breaking the peace, winning nods of agreement from some of those gathered. But that comment upsets Mr Shah. "The Taliban broke their agreement," he says. "They should never have entered Buner." Yet he also has misgivings about the military's actions. "I myself have seen three houses destroyed by artillery fire. Cows and goats were killed. My sister and her two children are missing." Tomorrow, however, he will be joining the troops fighting the militants. "I am prepared to die for my country," he declares. "But people here are dying of thirst and hunger."

Between Chingalai and the refugee camps, there is no government relief operation. Instead, political parties and Muslim charities have stepped in to the vacuum. A steady flow of white pick-ups shuttling refugees is operated by Imran Khan's Justice party, with large portraits of the former cricketer turned politician emblazoned on the sides of the trucks. "It's a sure way of winning the hearts of our people, if not their votes," says Sajid Majeed of Nawagai village, before clambering abroad.

The refugees are first taken to a medical camp, half an hour's drive away, which has been set up by the Ummah Welfare Trust, a UK-based Islamic charity. There, volunteer doctors provide temporary shelter and health check-ups. Common ailments include stomach flu and respiratory infections, caused by the whirling dust, but there are also many psychological problems.

After that the refugees are driven on to the town of Swabi, about 90 minutes from Islamabad, where basic supplies are being distributed. Each family from Buner is entitled to a 40kg bag of flour, from the World Food Programme, the government of Punjab or USAID. "A gift from the American people," reads a message printed in English on some of the bags. Ekmeen Khan, a refugee from Babaji Gandau, is not impressed. "There aren't enough rations for all of us," he says. "This is the result of the war between the Taliban and the government. We poor people are stuck in the middle."

Copyright 2009 Independent News and Media Limited

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Article printed from www.CommonDreams.org

URL to article: http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/05/05-2

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REBRANDING THE LONG WAR, Part 1

Obama does his Bush impression

By Pepe Escobar

http://www.uruknet.info/?p=m54054&hd=&size=1&l=e

May 7, 2009


The "lasting commitment" Washington war-time summit/photo-op between United States President Barack Obama and the AfPak twins, "Af" President Hamid Karzai and "Pak" President Asif Ali Zardari was far from being an urgent meeting to discuss ways to prevent the end of civilization as we know it. It has been all about the meticulous rebranding of the Pentagon's "Long War".

In Obama's own words, the "lasting commitment" is above all to "defeat al-Qaeda". As an afterthought, the president added, "But also to support the democratically elected, sovereign governments of both Pakistan and Afghanistan." To have George W Bush's man in Kabul and former premier Benazir Bhutto's widow defined as "sovereign", one would be excused for believing Bush is still in the White House.

In yet another deployment of his impeccable democratic credentials, Karzai has just picked as one of his vice presidential running mates none other than former Jamiat-e-Islami top commander and former first vice president Mohammad Fahim, a suspected drug warlord and armed militia-friendly veteran whom Human Rights Watch deplores as a systematic human-rights abuser. Faheem is Tajik; Karzai is Pashtun (from a minor tribe). Karzai badly needs the Tajiks to win a second presidential term in August.

Possibly moved by the obligatory "deep regret" expressed by Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, Karzai refrained from throwing a tantrum in Washington concerning the latest "precise" US air strike in ultra-remote Farah province in western Afghanistan which, according to local sources, may have incinerated over 100 Afghans, 70% of them women and children. Context is key: it was the inept, corrupt, dysfunctional Karzai administration - monopolized by warlords and bandits - which made so much easier the return of the Taliban in full force.

Obama's opium war

By now it's clear that the upcoming, Pentagon-enabled, summer surge in the "Af" section of Obama's war in AfPak will be deployed essentially as Obama's new opium war. In a spicy historic reversal, the British Empire (which practically annexed Afghanistan) wanted the Chinese to be hooked on its opium, while now the American empire wants Afghans to stop cultivating it.

The strategy boils down to devastating the Pashtun-cultivated poppy fields in southern Helmand province - the opium capital of the world. In practice, this will be yet another indiscriminate war against Pashtun peasants, who have been cultivating poppies for centuries. Needless to say, thousands will migrate to the anti-occupation rainbow coalition/motley crew branded as "Taliban".

Destroying the only source of income for scores of poor Afghans means, in Pentagon spin, "to cut off the Taliban's main source of money", which also happens to be the "main source of money" for a collection of wily, US-friendly warlords who will not resign themselves to being left blowing in the wind.

The strategy is also oblivious to the fact that the Taliban themselves receive scores of funding from pious Gulf petro-monarchy millionaires as well as from sections in Saudi Arabia - the same Saudi Arabia that Pentagon supremo Robert Gates is now actively courting to ... abandon the Taliban. Since the Obama inauguration in January, Washington's heavy pressure over Islamabad has been relentless: forget about your enemy India, we want you to fight "our" war against the Taliban and "al-Qaeda".

Thus, expect any Pashtun opium farmer or peasant who brandishes his ax, dagger, matchlock or rusty Lee-Enfield rifle at the ultra-high tech incoming US troops to be branded a "terrorist". Welcome to yet one more chapter of the indeed long Pentagon war against the world's poorest.

You're finished because I said so

As for the "Pak" component of AfPak, it is pure counter-insurgency (COIN). As such, His Master's Voice has got to be Central Command commander and surging General David "I'm always positioning myself for 2012" Petraeus.

Enter the Pentagon's relentless PR campaign. Last week, Gates warned the US Senate Appropriations Committee that without the approval of a US$400 million-worth Pakistan Counter-insurgency Capability Fund (itself part of a humongous, extra $83.5 billion Obama wants to continue prosecuting his wars), and under the "unique authority" of Petraeus, the Pakistani government itself could collapse. The State Department was in tune: Clinton said Pakistan might collapse within six months.

Anyone is excused for believing this tactic - just gimme the money and shut up - is still Bush "war on terror" territory; that's because it is (the same extraordinary powers, with the State Department duly bypassed, just as with the Bush administration). The final song, of course, remains the same: the Pentagon running the show, very tight with the Pakistani army.

For US domestic consumption purposes, Pentagon tactics are a mix of obfuscation and paranoia. For instance, Pentagon spokesman Geoff Morrell says, about Pakistan, "This is not a war zone for the US military." But then Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff - who's been to Pakistan twice in the past three weeks - says the Taliban in AfPak overall "threaten our national interests in the region and our safety here at home".

He was echoing both Clinton and Gates, who had said that the Taliban are an "existential threat" to Pakistan. Finally, Petraeus closes the scare tactics circle - stressing in a letter to the House Armed Services Committee that if the Pakistani Army does not prevail over the Taliban in two weeks, the Pakistani government may collapse.

That unveils the core of Pentagon's and David "COIN" Petraeus' thinking: they know that for long-term US designs what's best is yet another military dictatorship. Zardari's government is - rightfully - considered a sham (as Washington starts courting another dubious quantity, former premier Nawaz Sharif). Petraeus' "superior" man (his own word) couldn't be anyone but Army Chief of Staff General Ashfaq Kiani.

And that's exactly how Obama put it in his 100-day press conference last week, stressing the "strong military-to-military consultation and cooperation" and reducing Zardari to smithereens ("very fragile" government, lacking "the capacity to deliver basic services" and without "the support and the loyalty of their people"). Judging by his body language, Obama must have repeated the same litany to Zardari yesterday, live in Washington.
The money quote still is Obama's appraisal of Pakistan: "We want to respect their sovereignty, but we also recognize that we have huge strategic interests, huge national security interests in making sure that Pakistan is stable and that you don't end up having a nuclear-armed militant state."

Pakistani "sovereignty" is a joke; Pakistan is now openly being run from Washington. "We want to respect their sovereignty" does not mean "we" actually will. Obama and the Pentagon - which for all practical purposes treat Pakistan as a pitiful colony - would only be (relatively) comfortable with a new Pakistani military dictatorship. The fact that Pakistani public opinion overwhelmingly abhors the Taliban as much as it abhors yet another military dictatorship (see the recent, massive street demonstrations in favor of the Supreme Court justices) is dismissed as irrelevant.

The Swat class struggle

In this complex neo-colonial scenario Pakistan's "Talibanization" - the current craze in Washington - looks and feels more like a diversionary scare tactic. (Please see The Myth of Talibanistan, Asia Times Online, May 1, 2009. ) On the same topic, a report on the Pakistani daily Dawn about the specter of Talibanization of Karachi shows it has more to do with ethnic turbulence between Pashtuns and the Urdu-speaking, Indian-origin majority than about Karachi Pashtuns embracing the Taliban way.

The original Obama administration AfPak strategy, as everyone remembers, was essentially a drone war in Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) coupled with a surge in Afghanistan. But the best and the brightest in Washington did not factor in an opportunist Taliban counter-surge.

The wily Tehrik-e-Nifaz-e-Shariat-e-Mohammadi (TNSM - Movement for the Enforcement of Islamic Law), led by Sufi Muhammad, managed to regiment Swat valley landless peasants to fight for their rights and "economic redistribution" against the usual wealthy, greedy, feudal landlords who happened to double as local politicians and government officials.

It's as if the very parochial Taliban had been paying attention to what goes on across South America ... Essentially, it was the appropriation of good old class struggle that led to the Taliban getting the upper hand. Islamabad was finally forced to agree on establishing Nizam-e-Adl (Islamic jurisprudence) in the Swat valley.

So what happened in Swat is that it moved beyond a - corrupt - state, and neo-colonial control. Washington's enemy suddenly swelled to part of the 1.3 million people in the area whose only means of protection are armed militias - what the West bundles up as "Taliban".

It's always crucial to remember that the "Taliban" have all sorts of agendas, from armed resistance to US occupation in Afghanistan to armed resistance to Pakistani army incursions. What they all want is basically the end of Washington's drone war, the end of Pakistan's support for the "war on terror" in AfPak, or at least for the inept, corrupt Pakistani state to leave them alone.

It's true that over the past few weeks Pakistani public opinion as a whole shot up to around 95% against the Taliban because Sufi Muhammad said democracy is an infidel thing; and because videos of Taliban floggings for the fist time were all over Pakistani media.

But the solution is obviously not a war in Swat. It would be, for instance, a concerted, long-term government policy to defuse the network of at least 45,000 madrassas (seminaries) with nearly 2 million students all over the country. And to defuse anti-democratic, sectarian outfits like Lashkar-e Toiba and Sipah-e Sahaba.

It won't happen. And Washington does not care. What matters for the Pentagon is that the minute any sectarian outfit or bandit gang decides to collude with the Pentagon, it's not "Taliban" anymore; it magically morphs into a "Concerned Local Citizens" outfit. By the same token any form of resistance to foreign interference or Predator hell from above bombing is inevitably branded "Taliban".

Left to its own devices, the Pentagon solution for Swat would probably be some form of ethnic cleansing. Predictably, what Obama and the Pentagon are in fact doing - part of their cozying up with the Pakistani army - is to side with the feudal landlords and force a return to the classic Pakistani status quo of immense social inequality. Thus virtually every local who has not become a refugee (as many as 5000,000 already did, leading to a huge humanitarian crisis) has been duly branded a "terrorist". Locals are caught between a rock (the Taliban) and a hard place (the US-supported Pakistani military).

The Pentagon does not do "collateral damage". The only consideration is the US Army becoming partially exposed in neighboring Afghanistan. After all, the key AfPak equation for the Pentagon is how to re-supply US troops involved in OCO ("overseas contingency operations").

The Swat tragedy is bound to get bloodier. As Steve Clemons from The Washington Note blog has learned in a conference in Doha, Obama and Petraeus are forcing the Pakistani army to crush Swat. Once again the imperial "fire on your own people" logic. Predictably, Zardari and the Pakistani army are still against it. But if they accept - that would be a tangible result from the Washington photo-op on Wednesday - the prize will be a lot of money and loads of precious helicopter gun ships.

Madmen on the loose

The Obama administration not only has rebranded the Bush "global war on terror" (GWOT) as the subtly Orwellian "overseas contingency operations" (OCO). The key component of OCO - the AfPak front - is now being actively rebranded, and sold, not as an American war but a Pakistani war.

Zardari plays his pitiful bit part; alongside Obama, the Pentagon and the State Department, he has been convincing Pakistani public opinion to fight Washington's OCO, defending the Predator bombing of Pashtun civilians in Pakistani land. It ain't easy: at least 20% of Pakistani army soldiers are Pashtun - now forced to fight their own Pashtun cousins.

As for the "Af" element of AfPak, the war against occupation in Afghanistan has "disappeared" from the narrative to the benefit of this Pakistani "holy war" against Talibanization. What has not disappeared, of course, is US bombing of Afghan peasants (with attached Hillary "regrets") plus the Predator war in FATA.

The question is: How far will the Obama, the Pentagon and Zardari collusion go in terms of wiping out any form of resistance to the US occupation of Afghanistan and the drone war against Pashtun peasants in FATA?

The relentless warnings on the collapse of Pakistan may become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Were it to happen, the balkanization of Pakistan would do wonders for the Pentagon's long-term strategy in the "arc of instability".

From a Pentagon dream scenario point of view, the balkanization of Pakistan would mean dismantling a "Terrorist Central" capable of contaminating other parts of the Muslim world, from Indian Kashmir to the Central Asian "stans". It would "free" India from its enemy Pakistan so India can work very closely with Washington as an effective counter power to the relentless rise of China.

And most of all, this still has to do with the greatest prize - Balochistan, as we'll see in part 2 of this report on Friday. Desert Balochistan, in southwest Pakistan, is where Washington and Islamabad clash head on. From a Washington perspective, Balochistan has to be thrown into chaos. That's about the only way to stop the construction of the Iran-Pakistan-India (IPI) gas pipeline, also known as the "peace pipeline", which would traverses Balochistan.

In a dream Washington scenario of balkanization of Pakistan, the US could swiftly take over Balochistan's immense natural wealth, and promote the strategic port of Gwadar in Balochistan not to the benefit of the IPI pipeline, but the perennially troubled Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India (TAPI) pipeline - Caspian gas wealth flowing under US, and not Russian or Iranian, control.

As for the Taliban, whether in FATA or Swat or anywhere else, they are no threat to the US. Usman Khalid, secretary general of the Rifah party in Pakistan, has nailed it, "The population dread the Taliban-style rule but they dread being split into four countries and to go under Indian suzerainty even more. The Taliban appear to be the lesser evil just as they were in Afghanistan."

History once again does repeat itself as farce: in fact the only sticking point between the Taliban and Washington is still the same as in August 2001 - pipeline transit fees. Washington wouldn't give a damn about sharia law as long as the US could control pipelines crossing Afghanistan and Balochistan.

Yes, Pipelineistan rules. What's a few ragged Pashtun or Balochis in Washington's way when the New Great Game in Eurasia can offer so many opportunities?

Part 2: Balochistan - the ultimate prize

Pepe Escobar is the author of Globalistan: How the Globalized World is Dissolving into Liquid War (Nimble Books, 2007) and Red Zone Blues: a snapshot of Baghdad during the surge. His new book, just out, is Obama does Globalistan (Nimble Books, 2009).

He may be reached at pepeasia@yahoo.com.

(Copyright 2009 Asia Times Online





 

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REBRANDING THE LONG WAR, Part 2

Balochistan is the ultimate prize


By Pepe Escobar
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/KE09Df03.html

PART 1: Obama does his Bush impression :
http://atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/KE08Df02.html


It's a classic case of calm before the storm. The AfPak chapter of Obama's brand new OCO ("Overseas Contingency Operations"), formerly GWOT ("global war on terror") does not imply only a surge in the Pashtun Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA). A surge in Balochistan as well may be virtually inevitable.

Balochistan is totally under the radar of Western corporate media. But not the Pentagon's. An immense desert comprising almost 48% of Pakistan's area, rich in uranium and copper, potentially very rich in oil, and producing more than one-third of Pakistan's natural gas, it accounts for less than 4% of Pakistan's 173 million citizens. Balochs are the majority, followed by Pashtuns. Quetta, the provincial capital, is considered Taliban Central by the Pentagon, which for all its high-tech wizardry mysteriously has not been able to locate Quetta resident "The Shadow", historic Taliban emir Mullah Omar himself.

Strategically, Balochistan is mouth-watering: east of Iran, south of Afghanistan, and boasting three Arabian sea ports, including Gwadar, practically at the mouth of the Strait of Hormuz.

Gwadar - a port built by China - is the absolute key. It is the essential node in the crucial, ongoing, and still virtual Pipelineistan war between IPI and TAPI. IPI is the Iran-Pakistan-India pipeline, also known as the "peace pipeline", which is planned to cross from Iranian to Pakistani Balochistan - an anathema to Washington. TAPI is the perennially troubled, US-backed Turkmenistan-Afghanistan-Pakistan-India pipeline, which is planned to cross western Afghanistan via Herat and branch out to Kandahar and Gwadar.

Washington's dream scenario is Gwadar as the new Dubai - while China would need Gwadar as a port and also as a base for pumping gas via a long pipeline to China. One way or another, it will all depend on local grievances being taken very seriously. Islamabad pays a pittance in royalties for the Balochis, and development aid is negligible; Balochistan is treated as a backwater. Gwadar as the new Dubai would not necessarily mean local Balochis benefiting from the boom; in many cases they could even be stripped of their local land.

To top it all, there's the New Great Game in Eurasia fact that Pakistan is a key pivot to both NATO and the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), of which Pakistan is an observer. So whoever "wins" Balochistan incorporates Pakistan as a key transit corridor to either Iranian gas from the monster South Pars field or a great deal of the Caspian wealth of "gas republic" Turkmenistan.

The cavalry to the rescue
Now imagine thousands of mobile US troops - backed by supreme air power and hardcore artillery - pouring into this desert across the immense, 800-kilometer-long, empty southern Afghanistan-Balochistan border. These are Obama's surge troops who will be in theory destroying opium crops in Helmand province in Afghanistan. They will also try to establish a meaningful presence in the ultra-remote, southwest Afghanistan, Baloch-majority province of Nimruz. It would take nothing for them to hit Pakistani Balochistan in hot pursuit of Taliban bands. And this would certainly be a prelude for a de facto US invasion of Balochistan.

What would the Balochis do? That's a very complex question.

Balochistan is of course tribal - just as the FATA. Local tribal chiefs can be as backward as Islamabad is neglectful (and they are not exactly paragons of human rights either). A parallel could be made with the Swat valley.

Most Baloch tribes bow to Islamabad's authority - except, first and foremost, the Bugti. And then there's the Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) - which both Washington and London brand as a terrorist group. Its leader is Brahamdagh Bugti, operating out of Kandahar (only two hours away from Quetta). In a recent Pakistani TV interview he could not be more sectarian, stressing the BLA is getting ready to attack non-Balochis. The Balochis are inclined to consider the BLA as a resistance group. But Islamabad denies it, saying their support is not beyond 10% of the provincial population.

It does not help that Islamabad tends to be not only neglectful but heavy-handed; in August 2006, Musharraf's troops killed ultra-respected local leader Nawab Akbar Bugti, a former provincial governor.

There's ample controversy on whether the BLA is being hijacked by foreign intelligence agencies - everyone from the CIA and the British MI6 to the Israeli Mossad. In a 2006 visit to Iran, I was prevented from going to Sistan-Balochistan in southeast Iran because, according to Tehran's version, infiltrated CIA from Pakistani Balochistan were involved in covert, cross-border attacks. And it's no secret to anyone in the region that since 9/11 the US virtually controls the Baloch air bases in Dalbandin and Panjgur.

In October 2001, while I was waiting for an opening to cross to Kandahar from Quetta, and apart from tracking the whereabouts of President Hamid Karzai and his brother, I spent quite some time with a number of BLA associates and sympathizers. They described themselves as "progressive, nationalist, anti-imperialist" (and that makes them difficult to be co-opted by the US). They were heavily critical of "Punjabi chauvinism", and always insisted the region's resources belong to Balochis first; that was the rationale for attacks on gas pipelines.

Stressing an atrocious, provincial literacy rate of only 16% ("It's government policy to keep Balochistan backward"), they resented the fact that most people still lacked drinking water. They claimed support from at least 70% of the Baloch population ("Whenever the BLA fires a rocket, it's the talk of the bazaars"). They also claimed to be united, and in coordination with Iranian Balochis. And they insisted that "Pakistan had turned Balochistan into a US cantonment, which affected a lot the relationship between the Afghan and Baloch peoples".

As a whole, not only BLA sympathizers but the Balochis in general are adamant: although prepared to remain within a Pakistani confederation, they want infinitely more autonomy.

Game on
How crucial Balochistan is to Washington can be assessed by the study "Baloch Nationalism and the Politics of Energy Resources: the Changing Context of Separatism in Pakistan" by Robert Wirsing of the US Army think-tank Strategic Studies Institute. Predictably, it all revolves around Pipelineistan.

China - which built Gwadar and needs gas from Iran - must be sidelined by all means necessary. The added paranoid Pentagon component is that China could turn Gwadar into a naval base and thus "threaten" the Arabian Sea and the Indian Ocean.

The only acceptable scenario for the Pentagon would be for the US to take over Gwadar. Once again, that would be a prime confluence of Pipelineistan and the US empire of bases.

Not only in terms of blocking the IPI pipeline and using Gwadar for TAPI, control of Gwadar would open the mouth-watering opportunity of a long land route across Balochistan into Helmand, Nimruz, Kandahar or, better yet, all of these three provinces in southwest Afghanistan. From a Pentagon/NATO perspective, after the "loss" of the Khyber Pass, that would be the ideal supply route for Western troops in the perennial, now rebranded, GWOT ("global war on terror").

During the Asif Ali Zardari administration in Islamabad the BLA, though still a fringe group with a political wing and a military wing, has been regrouping and rearming, while the current chief minister of Balochistan, Nawab Raisani, is suspected of being a CIA asset (there's no conclusive proof). There's fear in Islamabad that the government has taken its eye off the Balochistan ball - and that the BLA may be effectively used by the US for balkanization purposes. But Islamabad still seems not to have listened to the key Baloch grievance: we want to profit from our natural wealth, and we want autonomy.

So what's gonna be the future of "Dubai" Gwadar? IPI or TAPI? The die is cast. Under the radar of the Obama/Karzai/Zardari photo-op in Washington, all's still to play in this crucial front in the New Great Game in Eurasia.

Pepe Escobar is the author of Globalistan: How the Globalized World is Dissolving into Liquid War (Nimble Books, 2007) and Red Zone Blues: a snapshot of Baghdad during the surge. His new book, just out, is Obama does Globalistan (Nimble Books, 2009).

He may be reached at pepeasia@yahoo.com.

(Copyright 2009 Asia Times Online (Holdings) Ltd. All rights reserved. Please contact us about sales, syndication and republishing.)

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Weekend Edition
May 8-10, 2009
http://www.counterpunch.org/porter05082009.html

Resisting U.S. Priorities

The Pakistan Conundrum

By GARETH PORTER

The advances of the Taliban insurgents beyond the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) in recent weeks and the failure of the Pakistani military to counter them have brought a rare moment of truth for top national security officials of the Barack Obama administration.

Accustomed to making whatever assumptions are necessary to support ambitious administration policies in the Middle East, those officials have now been forced to face the reality that the Pakistani military leadership simply does not share the U.S. view that the radical Islamist threat should be its top national security priority and that the divergence is not going to change anytime soon.

U.S. officials have largely responded to the dawning realisation with statements reflecting anger and peremptory demands, but at least one key policymaker - Defence Secretary Robert Gates - is hinting that there are strict limits on the U.S. power to change Pakistan’s strategic assessment of its security interests.

The George W. Bush administration grimly sought to deny that divergence of security interests, assuming that the Pervez Musharraf regime had made a fundamental decision to side with the United States against its enemies in Afghanistan and Pakistan. The Obama administration inherited that premise, despite the considerable evidence to the contrary.

After the terrorist attacks in Mumbai last November and the rise in Pakistani-Indian tensions, it was clear that Pakistan was not interested in shifting its attention away from the threat from India to the Taliban.

Nevertheless, the top U.S. military leader, Joint Chiefs of Staff Chairman Adm. Mike Mullen, has been arguing for months that the Pakistanis were making a transition to refocus their resources on the Taliban, according to a source close to Mullen. Mullen had been told by his Pakistani counterpart, Army Chief of Staff Gen. Ashfaq Kiyani, that Pakistan was going to shift troops from the Indian front to deal with the Taliban.

But when the Pakistani army seemed unable or unwilling to resist the Taliban control of the Swat valley in April, those assurances suddenly began to ring hollow in Washington. During a trip to Pakistan in early April, Mullen himself was apparently shaken by the lack of determination on the part of the Pakistani government on the Swat valley. Mullen was "as grave as I have ever seen him," said the source close to the chairman.

The rhetoric from top administration officials quickly became nearly apocalyptic. On Apr. 24, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton accused the Pakistani government of "abdicating to the Taliban" and warned that the deterioration of security in the country poses a "mortal threat" to the U.S. and the world.

In an interview with Fox News, Clinton invoked the threat of the Taliban getting control of the "the keys to the nuclear arsenal of Pakistan" and warned, "We can’t even contemplate that. We cannot let this go any further..."

The same day, Gen. David Petraeus demanded that Pakistan reconfigure its military forces to deal with counterinsurgency operations rather than to continue its traditional focus on rival India.

Also on Apr. 24, however, Gates implied that the Pakistanis did not share the U.S. view of what their priorities should be.

"My hope is that there will be an increasing recognition on the part of the Pakistani government that the Taliban in Pakistan are in fact an existential threat to the democratic government of that country," said Gates, making it clear that no such recognition was yet apparent.

Then, on Apr. 30, Petraeus seemed to threaten dramatic changes in U.S. policy if the Pakistani government and military did not take more concrete action within two weeks.

The administration also continued to raise the issue of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons being at risk. On May 4, National Security Adviser Gen. James Jones declared in an interview with BBC that if the Pakistanis were "not successful" in the fight against the Taliban, "obviously the nuclear question comes into view". He said Pakistan’s nuclear weapons falling into the hands of the Taliban would be "the very, very worst case scenario".

But the effect of Obama administration heated rhetoric was to further distance the leadership of Pakistan’s military from the strategic interests of the United States.

In a highly unusual public statement on Apr. 24, Army Chief of Staff Kayani "condemned pronouncement by outside powers raising doubts on the future of the country".

The next day, Chief of Air Staff Marshal Rao Qamar Suleman said the Pakistan Air Force would "continue to maintain its optimum readiness to undertake all types of missions against all internal and external threats". That was a clear reference to the threat from India, which the United States was trying to get Pakistan to downgrade.

Finally, after Petraeus’s statement giving Pakistan two weeks to shape up or face some unspecified consequences, the military leadership held a meeting May 1, which the chairman of Pakistan’s Joint Chiefs of Staff, Gen. Tariq Majeed, later said "took place against the backdrop of widespread propaganda unleashed by the western media about the safety of Pakistan’s nuclear weapons."

That extraordinary series of statements indicated that the Pakistani military had no intention of caving in to overt pressure from Washington.

The negative effect of the administration’s rhetoric did not escape Mullen, who has traveled to the country 11 times since becoming Joint Chiefs chairman in 2007. In an interview with David Ignatius of the Washington Post published May 3, Mullen said, "My experience is that knocking them hard isn’t going to work. The harder we push, the further away they get."

Mullen’s dismissal of the idea that tough words were going to move the Pakistanis in the direction desired by the administration were followed by a May 5 interview by Gates with CNN’s Fareed Zakaria in which Gates talked openly about the conflict between Pakistani and U.S. priorities.

Responding to Zakaria’s point that the Pakistani Army has thus far shifted only 6,000 troops from its border with India out of an army of about a half million, Gates acknowledged that the Pakistani strategic focus is overwhelmingly still on India.

"For 60 years Pakistan has regarded India as its existential threat, as the main enemy," he said. "And its forces are trained to deal with that threat. That's where it has the bulk of its army and the bulk of its military capability."

Gates also suggested that the Pakistanis were not particularly worried about the Islamist threat from the Pashtun region, because they count on the fact that the largest ethnic group, the Punjabis, "so outnumber the Pashtuns that they've always felt that if it really got serious, it was a problem they could take care of".

Having essentially explained that Pakistan has a completely different set of strategic interests from the United States, Gates repeated the standard administration line that "the movement of the Taliban so close to Islamabad was a real wake-up call for them".

Gates and other administration officials are certain to continue suggesting that the Pakistani government and military really do share the U.S. urgency now about the threat of Islamic radicalism. But for the first time they are questioning the basic premise of the whole "AfPak" strategy, which is that the United States can somehow induce Pakistan to fundamentally change its view of its strategic interests.

Gareth Porter is an investigative historian and journalist with Inter-Press Service specialising in U.S. national security policy. The paperback edition of his latest book, "Perils of Dominance: Imbalance of Power and the Road to War in Vietnam", was published in 2006.

 

[Biggs]

WHO ARE THE PAKISTANI TALIBAN AND WHAT DO THEY REALLY WANT ??

Posted By: Patriotlad <Send E-Mail>
Date: Friday, 8-May-2009 10:13:45

http://www.rumormillnews.com/cgi-bin/forum.cgi?read=146485

Reporting by Zeeshan Haider for Reuters.com --

Pakistani security forces are battling Taliban militants in their Swat valley bastion just 130 km (80 miles) northwest of Islamabad after a pact aimed at ending violence in the region collapsed.


THE TALIBAN GO OFF TO WAR IN SANDALS

Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani had said in a televised address late on Thursday that extremists were trying to hold the country hostage at gunpoint, and ordered the military "to eliminate the militants and terrorists."

 


WHO ARE THE PAKISTANI TALIBAN?

Most Pakistani Taliban fighters are ethnic Pashtuns from northwestern regions on the Afghan border. They support the Afghan Taliban, most of whom are also Pashtun and many of whom fled to the Pakistani Pashtun lands after U.S.-led forces ousted Afghanistan's Taliban government in late 2001.

Thirteen factions based in different parts of northwest Pakistan have formed a loose umbrella group, the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), or Taliban Movement of Pakistan, led by Baitullah Mehsud, based in South Waziristan on the Afghan border.

The United States in March announced a reward of $5 million for information leading to Mehsud's location or arrest.

Mehsud has been accused by Pakistani officials of being behind a wave of suicide attacks across Pakistan since the army stormed Islamabad's Red Mosque in July 2007 to crush a militant movement based there.

But it was when government officials named Mehsud as the prime suspect in the assassination of former prime minister Benazir Bhutto in a gun and bomb attack in the city of Rawalpindi in December 2007 that Mehsud's notoriety rocketed.

The Taliban fighting in Swat are part of the TTP and are led by a commander called Fazlullah, the son-in-law of a pro-Taliban cleric who led thousands of tribesmen to Afghanistan to fight alongside Taliban after the U.S. invasion in 2001.

While many senior Taliban are veterans of Afghan fighting, they have been able to exploit poverty, frustration over an ineffective judiciary, anger against landlords and widespread anti-U.S. feelings to attract recruits. Intelligence officials say they also press families to send sons to fight.

ARE THE PAKISTANI TALIBAN LINKED TO AL QAEDA?

Intelligence officials and security experts say Mehsud is an al Qaeda ally. He has given refuge to a large number of foreign militants, including Arabs and Central Asians, but the nature of his links with al Qaeda's leaders, believed to be hiding along the Afghan-Pakistani border, is not clear.

WHAT IS THE RELATIONSHIP WITH THE AFGHAN TALIBAN?

The TTP swears allegiance to Mullah Omar, chief of the Taliban movement in Afghanistan, and acknowledges sending fighters across the border to Afghanistan where they aim to fight and expel what they call Western "occupation" forces.

However, there are differences between the groups on whether to fight Pakistani security forces. Some groups oppose violence in Pakistan and want all Taliban to focus on fighting in Afghanistan.

However, groups such as those headed by Mehsud and Fazlullah argue that fighting Pakistani security forces is justified because of Pakistan's support for the U.S.-led campaign against al Qaeda and the Afghan Taliban.

Militant groups focused on fighting in Afghanistan recently set up the Ittehad-e-Shura-e-Mujahideen, or Union of the Consultative Council of Mujahideen, with the TTP. Analysts saw the move as aimed at forging unity among all factions in the face of a sharp build-up of U.S. forces in Afghanistan.


RECENT TALIBAN ATTACK THAT DESTROYED MASSIVE AMOUNTS OF SUPPLIES AND U.S.-PROVIDED EQUIPMENT

ANY LINKS WITH OTHER MILITANT GROUPS?


Intelligence officials say the Pakistani Taliban have also forged links with militants groups mainly drawn from central Punjab province, giving the militants the ability to expand their influence out of the Pashtun-dominated northwest. One of these groups, the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ), a Sunni Muslim militant group, is regarded as one of al Qaeda's main fronts in Pakistan.

The LeJ specializes in targeting minority Shi'ite Muslims but graduated to high-profile attacks. It is suspected of organizing a suicide truck bombing of Islamabad's Marriott Hotel last year, that killed 55 people.

< SNIP >

ALL THE IMAGES FROM REUTERS.COM PROVIDED FOR REVIEW PURPOSES ONLY

( Editing by Robert Birsel and Jerry Norton )



http://www.reuters.com/article/worldNews/idUSTRE5461TM20090508?sp=true

[bigron]

Published on Friday, May 8, 2009 by The Telegraph/UK


More Than One Million Flee Pakistan Fighting, Says UN

The United Nations has said that more than a million people have fled fighting in northern Pakistan as the government struggles to deal with an exodus of refugees.


by Isambard Wilkinson in Islamabad

A spokesman for the UN High Commissioner for Refugees says the fighting between Pakistani security forces and the Taliban has led to massive displacement in the area.

 Internally displaced children, fleeing military operations in Buner, try to get free food at a UNHCR camp  (Photo: REUTERS)At least half a million people have fled fighting in Swat Valley, where a peace deal broke down earlier this week, bringing the total displaced in recent months to 1 million.

A UNHCR spokesman said that up to 200,000 people have arrived in safe areas in the past few days. Another 300,000 are on the move or are about to flee.

Military operations are taking place in three neighbouring districts, Swat, Dir and Buner, which stretch over some 400 square miles.

Pakistani aircraft continued to bomb Taliban positions in the militants' bastion in Swat valley bastion today, a day after the prime minister ordered the military to "eliminate terrorists".

President Asif Ali Zardari, in Washington for talks aimed at quelling the chronic unrest that has alarmed the United States, vowed military operations would last until "normalcy" had returned to Swat.

Authorities agreed in February to a Taliban demand for the introduction of Islamic sharia law in the valley but the militants refused to disarm, and pushed out of Swat closer to the capital.

Helicopter gunships, fighters and troops were all involved in operations in Swat, and up to 12 militants were killed after as many as 55 were killed the previous day, said Major Nasir Khan, a military spokesman in Swat.

Salman Khan, speaking from Saidu Sharif, neighbouring Swat's capital, Mingora, said two children were killed and five others wounded when two mortar shells hit a house in his neighbourhood.

Tens of thousands of civilians have fled the fighting this week. The International Committee of the Red Cross said a humanitarian crisis was intensifying.

Desperate Swat residents appealed for a pause in the fighting so they could escape, saying the Taliban were not allowing them to leave, perhaps because they want to use them as "human shields" and make the army unwilling to use force.

"We want to leave the city, but we cannot go out because of the fighting," said one resident, Hidayat Ullah. "We will be killed, our children will be killed, our women will be killed and these Taliban will escape."

"Kill terrorists, but don't harm us," he pleaded.

Although many Pakistanis have had doubts about the need to fight the militants, the mood among at least some seemed to be shifting.

"If the government is serious in eliminating militants from Swat then we will support the military operation," said Khalid Khan, a social worker and resident of the Dheri Baba area in Swat.

However Pakistani forces came under intense fire from militants, mostly young men who are highly motivated ideologically and frequently better paid than soldiers.

A teacher joining the streams of refugees fleeing Mingora said it was completely under Taliban control.

© Copyright of Telegraph Media Group Limited 2009

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Article printed from www.CommonDreams.org

URL to article: http://www.commondreams.org/headline/2009/05/08-4

[Optimus]

Pakistan president sees 'war' against Taliban 
http://www.breitbart.com/article.php?id=CNG.00a674d289face7d4797ee8f436208a6.3d1&show_article=1&catnum=0
May 8 10:09 PM US/Eastern

Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari has pledged to mount an all-out war against Taliban extremists, vowing to kill the militants in a military offensive.

"This is an offensive -- this is war. If they kill our soldiers, then we do the same," Zardari told PBS public television Friday, during a visit to Washington.

Pressed on whether Pakistan's stated goal of "eliminating" militants meant killing them, Zardari replied in the affirmative.

"Eliminate means exactly what it means," he said.

Warplanes were bombing rebel hideouts in the northwestern Swat valley, where up to 15,000 security forces are deployed under orders to wipe out extremists.

The military said that more than 140 militants were killed.

People fleeing the area, however, have accused the military of also killing civilians in the fierce bombardment.

The UN refugee agency has warned up to one million people have been displaced in northwest Pakistan, with tens of thousands streaming out of Buner, Lower Dir and Swat, registering in camps or sheltering with families.

The government has said it is bracing to cope with half a million people displaced by the fighting.

Zardari was in Washington for talks Wednesday with US President Barack Obama and Afghan President Hamid Karzai on stepping up the fight against extremists seen as a growing threat in both countries.

Zardari also said Islamabad has shifted an unspecified number of troops from its border with India to fight against the Taliban, largely holed up in Pakistan's porous western border region with Afghanistan.

"We have already done so," Zardari said when asked why Pakistan would not move troops from the eastern front.

The fighting has sunk a controversial February deal between the government and an Islamist hardliner that aimed to put three million people under sharia law in a bid to end the Taliban uprising.

Critics said the February deal emboldened the Taliban, and have welcomed the renewed military offensive, which also has broad public support.

They have warned that Pakistan must move to rebuild lives shattered by the offensive if it is to be a success.

In Washington Zardari also renewed his pledge to work for better relations with India, with which Pakistan has fought three full-fledged wars since the two countries' separation at birth in 1947.

"I've always considered India a neighbor which we want to improve our relationship with," Zardari said. "We've had some cold times and we've had some hot times with them, but democracies are always trying to improve relationships."


 
 

[Biggs]

Pakistan moves against Swat militants, civilians flee
Fri May 8, 2009 11:22am EDT
 
http://ca.reuters.com/article/topNews/idCATRE5441RW20090508

By Junaid Khan

MINGORA, Pakistan (Reuters) - Pakistani forces attacked Taliban militants in the Swat valley on Friday as concern grew about the fate of nearly a million people displaced by an upsurge in violence.

The military said 143 militants had been killed in the Islamist bastion of Swat over the past 24 hours. There was no independent confirmation. Seven soldiers had been killed, an army spokesman said.

The struggle in the scenic northwestern valley 130 km (80 miles) from Islamabad and a former center for tourism has become a test of Pakistan's resolve to fight a growing Taliban insurgency that has alarmed the United States.

Civilians have poured out of the valley since fighting intensified on Wednesday and aid groups have warned of an intensifying humanitarian crisis. The U.N. refugee agency said a "massive displacement" was underway. Citing provincial government estimates, it said up to 200,000 people had left their homes over recent days with another 300,000 on the move or about to move.

They are joining another 555,000 people displaced in other areas because of fighting since August, it said.

The government has ordered the army to strike at "militants and terrorists" it said were trying to hold the country hostage at gunpoint.

"On the directive of the government, the army is now engaged in a full-scale operation to eliminate the militants," military spokesman Major-General Athar Abbas told a news briefing at army headquarters in Rawalpindi.

"They are on the run and trying to block exodus of civilians from the area," Abbas said, while warning that the operation was difficult and declining to give a time for clearing the valley

Earlier, helicopter gunships and fighters attacked Taliban positions. There were 4,000 to 5,000 militants in the valley while the up to 15,000 members of the security forces were involved, Abbas said.

Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari, in talks in Washington this week, assured U.S. President Barack Obama of Islamabad's commitment to defeating al Qaeda and its allies.

Pakistan efforts against militants sheltering near the border with Afghanistan are seen as vital to efforts to defeat the insurgency in that country.

Militant violence in areas closer to Islamabad, such as Swat, have raised concern about nuclear-armed Pakistan's stability.

CIVILIANS FLEE

The view of at least some Pakistanis toward fighting the militants seemed to be shifting. In the past many were opposed to action, saying Washington wanted Islamabad to be a proxy in what was essentially a U.S. battle.

Now an increasing number of Pakistanis view the militants as a threat to the country, although if the military is too cavalier about use of tactics and heavy weapons that cause civilian casualties that could change. The growing refugee burden could also sour sentiment.

But at the moment some are cheering on the government.

"If the government is serious in eliminating militants from Swat then we will support the military operation," Khalid Khan, a social worker and resident of the Dheri Baba area in Swat, told Reuters.

We are ready to make every sacrifice if the government really means business this time," said Gul Omer, a poultry trader, referring to previous, inconclusive military action that was followed by the peace deal.

Gilani said the government would not bow before terrorists and would force them to lay down their arms. Reinforcements have been arriving in Swat as a peace pact collapsed and fighting has intensified since Wednesday.

Authorities agreed in February to a Taliban demand for Islamic sharia law in the valley but the militants refused to disarm, and pushed out of Swat closer to the capital.

(For a graphic on Pakistan see URL: here )

(Additional reporting by Augustine Anthony and Kamran Haider; Writing by Jerry Norton; Editing by Robert Birsel and Jeremy Laurence)

[Biggs]

‘Taliban in control of 90% of Swat’

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2009%5C05%5C07%5Cstory_7-5-2009_pg1_8

LAHORE: The Taliban are in control of “90 percent” of the Swat valley, Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan spokesman Muslim Khan told Al Jazeera on Wednesday. Blaming the breakdown of the Swat peace deal on the Pakistani military, Khan said the peace accord with the government in the Swat valley was over. Khan alleged the security forces had killed civilians in the area. “How can we follow the agreement with them?” Khan said, adding that the Taliban would continue to implement sharia “as soon as possible”. daily times monitor

[Biggs]

55 Taliban killed in fresh Pakistan ops

http://www.asianage.com/presentation/leftnavigation/news/international/55-taliban-killed-in-fresh-pakistan-ops.aspx

REZAUL H. LASKAR

ISLAMABAD

May 9: Pakistani troops backed by helicopter gunships killed at least 55 Taliban in the troubled Swat valley on Saturday as the government said the military offensive, crucial for the "survival of the country", will continue till terrorists are eliminated.

The "full-scale operation" against the Taliban targeted militant hideouts in Mingora, the main town of Swat as also bases in Matta, Qambar, Ziarat, Mushkomai and Chamtalai areas, the military said in a statement adding that 55 militants have reportedly been killed.

With this, the total of number of Taliban militants killed in three days of operations climbed near 200. Fighter jets and helicopter gunships pounded militant positions across the scenic valley located 160 km from Islamabad. The Army said the Taliban "are on the run" and accused them of "trying to block the exodus of innocent civilians" and even taking them hostages. The operation will continue till terrorists are eliminated, Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani said. Responding to a question on whether the operation was launched due to international pressure, Mr Gilani said the "this is our own war, a war for the survival of the country and the future of the people. We had no other option."

"The provincial government saw the peace deal and the Constitution being violated". The militants had gone "against the judiciary, democracy and Parliament" and this was tantamount to an "open revolt", Mr Gilani said. Noting that this is "not a normal war" but a "guerrilla war," he said the troops are trying to ensure that there is "minimum collateral damage".

Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari, who is on a state visit to the US, told a TV channel that "this is war. If they kill our soldiers, then we do the same." Separately, during an interaction with Pakistani-American community, he said "we will not step back... If they want to damage Pakistan, we will fight them for the sake of our country and for the sake of our future generations."

The security forces are also conducting operations in Buner and Dir districts, which were taken over by Taliban fighters from Swat. Meanwhile, at least six persons were killed and over 10 others injured on Saturday in a missile strike by a US drone in Pakistan’s troubled South Waziristan tribal region. The drone fired four missiles at a house and an adjacent seminary in Sararogha in South Waziristan Agency, considered a stronghold of the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan led by Baitullah Mehsud. Most of those killed in the drone attack are believed to be militants, officials said.

—PTI

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Nine Killed In US Drone Attack On Militants

5:01pm UK, Saturday May 09, 2009
Nine people - five of them militants - have reportedly been killed in a suspected US missile attack in northwestern Pakistan.

 CLICK HERE FOR LINK

It is claimed strikes by US drones have killed more than 300 people in the past year


Pakistani officials said the target was a compound used by the Taliban in South Waziristan near the Afghan border.

It is believed at least four missiles were fired at the building, in the village of Sarorogha, by two pilotless US drone aircraft.

"We have reports of at least five militants killed in the missile attack," said an intelligence spokesman. The same figure was given by the Taliban.

However, another intelligence official put the death toll at as high as 20, saying one of the missiles also hit a vehicle carrying militants.

The attack comes after Pakistan's military chiefs asked for more hardware to help them fight the Taliban.

The government has also urged the US to stop drone attacks, saying they violate its sovereignty and deepen resentment among Pakistanis.


The Pakistani army is battling Taliban militants in Pakistan's Swat Valley. They have been strafing the main city and surrounding areas with jet fighters, helicopter gunships and artillery rounds.
Sky News Asia correspondent Alex Crawford


The latest drone strike comes as Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari is visiting the United States.

The attacks have increased in the past year and there has been no let-up since US President Barack Obama took office in January.

America has carried out about 40 drone air strikes since the begining of 2008, most since September.

They have killed more than 300 people, according to a variety of reports.

There have been 15 drone attacks this year, five in April.