Photo: Hazrat Data Ganj Bakhsh.com

The sons of Satan have brought death and destruction to Data Darbar in Lahore this evening. The satanic and spineless suicide attack is the work of the devil carried out by his spawn, the Taliban who can only but target the innocent people of Pakistan.

These Taliban cowards and their affiliates are Pakistan’s enemies, period. The Taliban are no sons of the soil but sons of Satan and Satan alone as they continue to attack ordinary Pakistani civilians against all norms in Islam and even those rooted in our culture as they attack Pakistani citizens often from behind, such are the acts of these macho men!

The very same weasals then hide in the shadows running scared until they can repeat their evil on another day and quite simply, they are the scum of the earth for they hijack the faith of peace for their own evil ends.

At least 35 people have died and over 200 people remain injured as I write this post, but Lahore and Data Darbar will not fall to the Taliban’s evil. Data Darbar, Lahore and Pakistan will never falter nor fear, we will rise again and again for the Islamic State of Pakistan will never cow in to the spawn of Satan.

This is a battle of right against wrong and Pakistan will prevail for our victory has been guaranteed for the Holy Quran has promised that ‘the righteous shall inherit the earth’.

In terms of the Wazirstan operation, I am glad to report that the Pakistani Army has performed brilliantly with gallantry and guile. The army is winning in Wazirstan and have performed better than anyone could have anticipated. However I became better informed of our success thanks to an article written by Ismail Khan in Dawn which summarises the success of the Pakistan Army so far and it is shared below:

Army Close to Winding Up First Phase of Operation

PESHAWAR: The Army is winding up the first phase of Operation Rah-i-Nijat by this weekend by capturing all major towns and villages in the Taliban heartland of South Waziristan, senior military officials said.
 
The lightning speed with which the military has been able to seize major towns and villages, taking over Sherwangi, Kotkai, Kaniguram and Sararogha and secure main supply routes in the embattled tribal region has taken many an analyst, and even some military planners, by surprise.

The security forces are already inside Makin from the Razmak access but the area is said to be infested with minefields and will take some time before it is declared safe.

In 20 days since the launch of the operation on the night of October 16, the military is now poised to march into Mehsuds’ regional headquarters of Laddah.

The fall of Laddah will mark the end of the first phase of the operation into the mountainous Mehsud territory.

This will mean a huge reversal for the militants who had over-run paramilitary security forces’ forts, beaten back two military operations in the past and turned South Waziristan into the epicentre and birthplace of Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan.

The second phase
The second phase that will include consolidation and clearance will take the military deeper into the Mehsud heartland, into valleys and small hamlets.

This phase will also be used to bring the political administration back into an area that hitherto was off-limit for them to make damage assessment and begin to take charge of the civil affairs.

Already, the military has begun repair work on the Shakai-Kaniguram road, while the administration has undertaken the reconstruction of Jandola-Sararogha road.

The roads have been in a shambles and no repair work could be undertaken in the area since it plunged into militancy and the state authority ceased to exist and exercise its control.

Work has also begun on restoring power transmission line, in the same speed with which the military moved in.

Officials in the Fata administration say they need Rs3.8 billion to carry out the early recovery and reconstruction work in the Mehsud territory, and a security official says Rs2.5 billion has already been placed at their disposal.

Fata administration officials say they plan to complete the major repair work, restore civic amenities and re-establish political administration in the embattled zone by April next year.

‘The Mehsuds usually migrate to Tank and Dera Ismail Khan to avoid harsh winter and return home after spring. So we have time between now and until then to complete civil and administrative work,’ a senior official in the Fata Secretariat said.

The fall of the Taliban heartland
But while the government moves in right earnest to restore its writ in the territory, there are speculations and questions galore as to what happened to the almost legendary and much-hyped Taliban resistance in the area.

Military officials now acknowledge that after putting up stiff resistance in the initial phase of the operation, the militants’ resolve to fend off attacks simply collapsed.

Not surprisingly, therefore, the military casualties have been minimal with 40 dead and 71 wounded, in what was widely billed as the mother of all battles.

Based on intercepts and other intelligence reports, the military puts the militants’ casualty figure at close to 500 dead and 786 wounded.

‘We have broken the myth of Taliban’s invincibility and we have also broken the myth that South Waziristan is a no-go area,’ a senior military officer said.

The fighting has been tough, at least in some areas, but several factors led to the military’s relatively smooth and trouble-free march into the territory.

Military officials offer various reasons for the near-successful operation so far. Chief among them was a replication of a Taliban tactic, military officials say.

The Taliban had fortified their positions and heavily mined the major access routes into South Waziristan, hoping the military, like the past, would push ahead through the main roads.

It didn’t happen. Instead, the military infantry walked through the mountains, taking over ridges and commanding features before moving down to enter a built-up area.

‘We have beaten them at their own tactic. This has been the classic Mehsud tactic, encircling and ambushing the enemy from the ridges and commanding features and we did the same to them. They were not prepared for this,’ one official commented.
 
The sheer preponderance of soldiers, unlike the past half-hearted limited-scale operations which were easily beaten, also seems to have overawed the Taliban, military officials say.

Air Action
But one of the most significant contributions perhaps, came from the Pakistan Air Force and Army’s Aviation Wing with its attack helicopters.

The PAF with advanced technology not only targeted the enemy positions with precision but also provided enhanced and high resolution images to the ground forces.

‘Necessity is the mother of all inventions,’ a senior security official remarked. ‘For nearly four months, the PAF worked hard to try and conform to our needs,’ the official said.

Video feed from its planes and unmanned aerial vehicle (UAV) and their night capabilities to search and attack targets came as a big surprise to the Taliban fighters.

‘The Taliban assertion based on their knowledge of the local area that the night belongs to them suddenly became irrelevant. They are no longer able to mount night attacks,’ the official said.

As the incessant precision attacks hit the hardcore militants hard, the peripheral elements appeared to dither and fade away. Even the widely acclaimed tough Uzbek fighters are reported to have relocated to North Waziristan, security officials said.

What probably made the military’s job easier was the evacuation of Mehsud civilians to Tank and Dera Ismail Khan. Political administration officials say almost 99 per cent of the Mehsud population left the area due to three months of crippling economic blockade and impending military operation.

Another crucial factor was the decision by the Ahmadzai Wazir militant commander Maulvi Nazir in Wana and Hafiz Gul Bahadar to stay neutral and not join the fight.

‘It took us four months to shape up the environment for the military operation,’ the senior military official said.

The Taliban say they have made a tactical retreat to avoid civilian casualties, but officials maintain that a retreating enemy does not leave behind their ammunition and weapons.

‘When somebody retreats, he takes his weapon to fight another day. He does not flee and abandon his weapons. What has happened is that they have left behind huge cache of arms and ammunition.’

The third phase:
But challenges remain. The anticipated Mehsud uprising with the launch of the military operation against the Taliban has not come, largely due to past bitter experiences with half-hearted and half-backed operations.

‘To be honest, we didn’t expect them to rise against the militants so early in the operation. There is a trust deficit. They want to be sure that the military will not abandon like the past and we don’t want to push them,’ an official acknowledged.
 
 But the political administration official in South Waziristan’s regional headquarters of Wana said the Mehsuds had begun showing signs of supporting the government against the Taliban.

‘We have assured them that the military will stay and the paramilitary force would return in addition to levy force to assuage their fears and give them a sense of security,’ he said.

The Mehsuds are weary that with the leadership intact, the Taliban may stage a comeback and make life difficult.

There is also a debate and consensus within official circles to relocate Mehsuds’ regional headquarters from Laddah to Makin.

Makin —a plain area and commercial hub of the Mehsuds —is close to Razmak, is easily defendable and sits on the Y-junction between Sararogha and Wana.

There is also a consensus to create more administrative tehsils to increase official presence and make the Mehsud territory more governable.

The divisive issue, however, is the bifurcation of South Waziristan into two separate administrative regions —the Wazir and Mehsud tribal regions.

Some officials argue that the construction of Gomal Zam Road to allow unhindered access to Ahmadzai Wazir, by-passing the Mehsud territory, and create a separate Wazir tribal agency would end Mehsuds’ nuisance value once and for all.

The Mehsuds have been opposed to such a drastic measure for obvious reasons. This will allow access to the Afghanistan via the Wazir territory for trade. Therefore, such a step now will create more acrimony than bring them back into the mainstream.

Published in Dawn

Pakistan will win in Wazirstan because the success or failure of the Pakistan Army will determine our future as a nation. A tomorrow of terror is the nightmare we must confront head-on and defeat if Pakistan is to realise its potential as a nation, and succeed we will INSHALLAH.

That said, the attack on the headquarters of the Pakistan Army do raise some important questions which the Pakistan Army must answer. The questions I wish to put are shown below:

1. How did Taliban terrorists enter the GHQ although in army uniform, are there not more stringent checks than just having to wear a khaki uniform ensures access to GHQ and is this not a blatant security lapse?
2. Why was security not stepped up after intelligence from the ISI warned of such an attack on GHQ and if not then why not?
3. If security was stepped up then what measures were taken and were they sufficient given the terrorists entered GHQ with relative ease?
4. How on earth were terrorists allowed to be at large in GHQ and take occupancy of a security office?, where they not engaged by soldiers as they moved into GHQ and was there no CCTV or other security devices that could track their movements?

The Pakistan Army in particular the brave SSG commandos must be lauded for ensuring the safe recovery of most of the hostages, however the Army leadership must look inwards as to how terrorists attacked our premier security installation with ease. Indeed some heads must roll for the attack on GHQ has hurt the morale and the will of the people of Pakistan and dented their confidence in the Pakistan Army.

Remember that the Taliban terrorists numbered a dozen or so, just imagine what a few thousand Indian soldiers could do in GHQ , since it is obvious that the security apparatus and procedures  at GHQ are ineffective and below par.

A video has been released to the BBC  in recent days by the sons of Satan. the Taliban that prove that Baitullah Mehsud is dead. I cannot contain my delight in seeing the video that shows the Indian-funded butcher of innocents dead and happily share the video below:

The latin mood music that plays in the background has me in stitches for I did not know that Mehsud and his Taliban were fans of quality Western music!

The video is a good news story and such good news must be shared as it reinforces our collective faith that Pakistan as a state is finally confronting and defeating the enemy within. As the life and death battle for Wazirstan draws near, the Pakistani nation must remain supportive of the Pakistan Army and its brave soldiers who have served the nation with distinction in fighting the menace of the Taliban.

And yes the bastard is dead!

Pakistan and Pakistanis rejoiced and breathed a huge sigh of relief in August at hearing of the death of the butcher Baitullah Mehsud. Mehsud was the chief terrorist of the satanic Taliban and was responsible for countless suicide attacks and bloodshed across the country.

More good news has arrived in the form of the arrest of  ‘Kafir-not-Muslim’  Khan and other such sons of Satan from the defeated Swat Taliban. The conclusion thus must be that the Taliban can be defeated when taken on by a state that is sincere in defeating them. I will go further and say that such rodents can only but fail as has been proved in Swat with the daily reports of terrorists surrending to the Pakistan Army.

The Taliban are in turmoil, of that there is no quarrel or doubt. However as much as I revel and celebrate their woes, I must state that the Taliban are not defeated yet and more of the same a la Swat may be necessary as the state of Pakistan must ensure its writ across Pakistan.

The geopolitical state of the region is also a negative influence and thus until NATO and Uncle Sam occupy our neighbour country that is Afghanistan no final solution is forthcoming. That said the Taliban on our side that challenge the writ of the state in FATA and elsewhere must be confronted by the state of Pakistan, end of.

With a view to improving the post I have decided to include the views of the respected journalist Saleem Safi on the Taliban challege as shown below:

Post-Baitullah TTP by Saleem Safi

It would be too optimistic to believe that the killing of Baitullah Mehsud has smashed the TTP network. It is a fact that the TTP has been weakened in the past few weeks and months, however, there are some factors which need to be considered.

The major blow to the TTP was caused by the frequent drone attacks which have left many important officials of Al-Qaeda and TTP dead have restricted the mobility of the surviving Al-Qaeda and TTP officials. The drone attacks have also badly affected the communication network of the TTP.

Another major blow to the TTP is that the US and Afghan intelligence agencies have gained major successes in penetrating the TTP among the local tribes. The Swat and Bajaur operations conducted by the Army also proved fatal to the TTP. Meanwhile, the US and Afghan forces are gearing up to wage a final battle to eliminate Al-Qaeda and the Taliban. This makes the Pakistani tribal areas as the most significant refuge for the Taliban.

Sensing this possibility, the US has put pressure on Pakistan to flush out militants from its tribal belt. The US is monitoring all the offensives launched by the Pakistani forces against the Taliban. The frequent visits of US special envoy Richard Holbrook to Pakistan and his reduced focus on Afghanistan are also reflective of this strategy.

Even if we repudiate the notion of the presence of US Marines on Pakistani soil, we could easily assess the increasing direct contacts of US officials with Pakistani media persons, civil society organisations, politicians, which are mainly meant to collect information and assess the situation on the ground in Pakistan.

The death of Baitullah, the top strategist of the TTP, has also hit the TTP from so many aspects. It was a reality that he had become a focal point between Al-Qaeda, the Afghan Taliban, the TTP and all banned militant and jihadi organisations exploiting his qualities.

Since taking over the TTP, Baitullah had established himself as a serious and farsighted leader due to which he was feared as a dangerous person locally and internationally. This was a distinction, and any other TTP leader will take years to gain such influence among TTP followers.

The death of Baitullah is a huge loss to the TTP keeping in view these factors. However, it would be imprudent to think that his death will abolish thye TTP completely as despite all his capabilities, he was neither a founder nor an architect of the TTP or Talibanisation.

History reveals that there are either founders of some movement or there are some circumstantial leaders. Prior to Baitullah, the militants were led by Naik Mohammed and later Abdullah Mehsud succeeded him after his demise. Whether it was Naik Mohammed, Abdullah or Baitullah – all were shaped up by the Afghan Taliban and Al-Qaeda. So even if Baitullah is no more, whoever is nominated by the Afghan Taliban will gradually get the stature of Baitullah sooner or later.

The militancy in the Pakistani tribal belt is produced by bickering between international forces operating in Afghanistan and Pakistan, especially the Pakhtoon belt on both sides of the border. Talibanisation cannot be abolished from the region until these international powers stop their dirty game in the region.

Regardless of who is dead or alive, if these powers seriously agrees on elimination of insurgents, the militants would be no more visible in the entire area. However, if these states kept playing for implementing their respective agendas, no matter who is alive or dead, the insurgents will rule the region and the Death Game.

The writer works at Geo TV.

Published in The News

The Taliban are in turmoil and I for one welcome it with glee and open arms.

June’s B-side contents are:

•   Pakistan and The Bomb by BRUCE RIEDEL
•   A Tragedy of Cover Ups & Failures by ASMA JEHANGIR
•   Whither Pakistan by PERVEZ HOODBHOY

Pakistan and The Bomb by Bruce Riedel

The Pakistani army, backed by attack helicopters, is fighting intense gun battles in the Swat valley 60 miles outside the capital of Islamabad with Islamic extremists. Al Qaeda and the Taliban have struck back with suicide bombs in Pakistan’s major cities, including Lahore. A plot in Karachi was foiled but the extremists vow more carnage is imminent.

The battles are the latest in a deadly struggle for the control of Pakistan. Some are hoping this, at last, is the turning point when the army and the Pakistani government will finally defeat the extremists, but history suggests that conclusion is premature. More likely this will be yet another temporary setback for the Islamists to be followed by new advances elsewhere.

The fighting has cast a spotlight on the shaky security of Pakistan’s growing nuclear arsenal-the fastest growing arsenal in the world. Pakistan is finishing construction of several new reactors and is seeking to buy more from China to increase its production of fissile material. The United States has provided Pakistan with over $10 billion in military aid since 2001. No one outside Pakistan can say if some of that money was diverted directly to the nuclear program by the army, but undoubtedly the U.S. assistance indirectly made it easier for the army to use its own funds to accelerate the development of its nuclear weapons.

Today the arsenal is under the control of its military leaders; it is well protected, concealed and dispersed. But if the country fell into the wrong hands-those of the militant Islamic jihadists and al Qaeda-so would the arsenal. The U.S. and the rest of the world would face the worst security threat since the end of the Cold War. Containing this nuclear threat would be difficult, if not impossible.

The danger of Pakistan becoming a jihadist state is real. Just before her murder in December 2007, former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto said she believed al Qaeda would be marching on Islamabad in two years. A jihadist Pakistan would be a global game changer-the world’s second largest Muslim state with nuclear weapons breeding a hothouse of terrorism.

Yet it’s not inevitable. For the past 60 years, U.S. policy toward the country has been inconsistent and mercurial, rife with double standards with Pakistan’s neighbor India. Increasing calls to “secure” the country’s nuclear weapons by force are far from productive-in fact, it’s making serious work with Pakistan more difficult.

Pakistan is a unique nuclear weapons state. It has been both the recipient of technology transfers from other states and a supplier of technology to still other states. It has been a state sponsor of proliferation and has tolerated private sector proliferation as well. Pakistan has engaged in highly provocative behavior against India, even initiating a limited war, and sponsored terrorist groups that have engaged in mass casualty terrorism inside India’s cities, most recently last November in Mumbai. No other nuclear weapons state has done all of these provocative actions.

The origins of the Pakistani nuclear program lie in the deep national humiliation of the 1971 war with India that led to the partition of the country, the independence of Bangladesh and the destruction of the dream of a single Muslim state for all of south Asia’s Muslim population. The military dictator at the time, Gen. Yahya Khan, presided over the loss of half the nation and the surrender of 90,000 Pakistani soldiers in Dacca. The Pakistani establishment determined it must develop a nuclear weapon to counter India’s conventional superiority.

The new president, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto, convened the country’s top 50 scientists secretly in January 1972 and challenged them to build a bomb. He famously said that Pakistanis would sacrifice everything and “eat grass” to get a nuclear deterrent.

The 1974 Indian nuclear explosion only intensified the quest. Mr. Bhutto received an unsolicited letter from a Pakistani who had studied in Louvain, Belgium, Abdul Qadeer Khan, offering to help by stealing sensitive centrifuge technology from his new employers at a nuclear facility in the Netherlands. Over the next few years-with the assistance of the Pakistani intelligence service, the Inter Services Intelligence Directorate (ISI)-Mr. Khan would steal the key technology to help Pakistan produce fissionable material to make a bomb.

China also helped the nascent Pakistani program overcome technical challenges. According to some accounts by proliferation experts, it allowed Pakistani scientists to participate in Chinese tests to help them learn more about the bomb. Mr. Khan returned to Pakistan and with ISI built a global proliferation enterprise to acquire the technology he and other scientists needed to get Pakistan its bomb.

Mr. Bhutto’s handpicked choice for army chief, Zia ul Huq, overthrew his mentor in 1977, executed him and accelerated work on the project. By the late 1980s Pakistan had made sufficient progress that both General Zia and Mr. Khan hinted publicly that Islamabad had a bomb. According to Mr. Khan’s public account, General Zia also warned Israel not to attack Pakistan’s nuclear facilities in the late 1980s or it would destroy Tel Aviv. In 1990 the U.S. imposed sanctions on Pakistan for building the bomb and cut off the supply of F16 jets already paid for by Pakistan.

Pakistan, like the rest of the world, was caught by surprise in May 1998 when India tested its nuclear arsenal. Despite pleas from President Bill Clinton and other world leaders, Pakistan tested its own devices a few weeks after India. Mr. Clinton offered Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif a $6 billion aid program if he would not test. I was part of the team that made the offer in Islamabad. We later learned Mr. Sharif ordered the tests to proceed while we were still visiting. On the eve of the tests Pakistan claimed Israel was about to attack its nuclear facilities so it had to act. Mr. Sharif proudly announced Pakistan had “a newclear vision,” as the deliberately misspelled English phrase read on posters around the country, for the future.

Pakistan would soon demonstrate that the bomb gave its military leadership enhanced confidence to deal with India and to take risks. Less than a year after the tests, the Pakistani army initiated a limited war with India in the mountains of the Hindu Kush by crossing the line of control separating Pakistani and Indian forces in Kashmir. The Kargil War, as it is called, dragged on for several weeks.

In the White House there was growing concern the war would escalate out of control and could even go nuclear. On July 4, 1999, Mr. Clinton and I met with Mr. Sharif alone at Blair House and told him Pakistan was playing with fire. Mr. Sharif agreed to withdraw the army back behind the line of control.

Within months Mr. Sharif’s handpicked army chief, Pervez Musharraf, who had ordered the Kargil War, overthrew Mr. Sharif and sent him into exile. Mr. Musharraf poured resources into the program.

The ISI has longstanding ties to a number of Pakistan-based terrorist groups active in India. In December 2001, one staged an attack on the Indian parliament in New Delhi. India blamed Pakistan for the attack and mobilized. Again India and Pakistan appeared on the edge of nuclear disaster. President George W. Bush and Secretary of State Colin Powell needed almost a year to talk the two back from the brink.

Another ISI-backed group, Lashkar e Taiba, was behind the terror attack last November in Mumbai that kept the city in chaos for 60 hours. Again the specter of war between two nuclear weapons states was on the global agenda. Again India showed remarkable restraint in response to provocation from Pakistan, grounded in the reality that New Delhi has no attractive military options for retaliation against an opponent armed with nuclear weapons.

In short, Pakistan’s acquisition of a nuclear deterrent has worked to intimidate its opponent and to allow Pakistan to harbor terrorists who attack India and even to initiate limited military operations. What is not clear is how long India will tolerate such behavior. There are many in India who argue Pakistan must be taught a lesson for Mumbai.

Pakistan has also behaved as a major proliferator of nuclear technology. A.Q. Khan’s enterprise has become infamous for providing nuclear material and secrets to North Korea, Iran and Libya. Much of his activity was sanctioned by the Pakistani authorities and was part of complex deals to enhance Pakistan’s own deterrent-for example, by acquiring missile technology from Pyongyang. Some of Mr. Khan’s activities were pursued independently of Pakistan’s government for his own wealth. We will probably never know the exact balance between the state’s interests and Mr. Khan’s on every transaction since Mr. Khan is a national hero to Pakistanis and no government in Islamabad is ever likely to reveal all of the dirty truth. The good news is that since Mr. Khan’s televised “confession” in 2004 there has been little evidence of continued Pakistani technology proliferation activity.

There are, however, persistent reports of some kind of understanding between Pakistan and Saudi Arabia for Islamabad to provide nuclear weapons to Riyadh if the Saudis feel threatened by a third party with nuclear weapons. Then Saudi Defense Minister and now also Crown Prince Sultan visited Mr. Khan’s laboratories in a much publicized visit in the late 1990s. Both Pakistan and Saudi Arabia deny any secret deal, but rumors of one continue to surface as Iran gets closer to developing its own bomb.

Estimates of the size of Pakistan’s arsenal by outside experts in think tanks range from 60 to 100, with more being produced each year. Pakistan can deliver its weapons by both intermediate range missiles and jet aircraft, including its F16s. The bombs and the delivery systems are dispersed around a country twice the size of California, often buried deep underground.

Mr. Musharraf created a Strategic Plans Division under his control to provide security for the arsenal. Its director, Lt. General Khalid Kidwai, has lectured across the world on the extensive security layers the SPD has developed both for physical security for facilities and personnel security to prevent unauthorized activity by those overseeing protection. The U.S. has provided expertise to the SPD to help ensure security. For now most experts agree that the necessary security architecture to protect the bomb is in place and the army has control of the weapons securely.

Of course, if the Pakistani state becomes a jihadist state, then the extremists will inherit the arsenal. There would be calls from the outside to “secure” Pakistan’s nuclear weapons, but since no outsider knows where most of them are located, these calls would be a hollow threat. Even if force was used to capture some of the weapons, Pakistan would retain most of them and the expertise to build more. Finally, Pakistan would use its weapons to defend itself.

U.S. options would be severely limited by Pakistan’s nuclear arsenal. We would need to work with India, Afghanistan, China and others to isolate the danger.

Islamabad has refused for decades to sign the Nuclear Nonproliferation Treaty (NPT) and the Comprehensive Test Ban Treaty (CTBT), arguing that India must do so first. After the 1998 tests I joined then Deputy Secretary of State Strobe Talbott in an intensive diplomatic effort to persuade both India and Pakistan to sign the CTBT. The Pakistanis were the harder sell and we never even came close to an agreement with them. The effort failed entirely when the U.S. Senate refused to ratify the treaty in 2000.

Islamabad believes it was deeply unfair for Washington to offer India a civil nuclear deal in 2005 and not give Pakistan the same opportunity. The deal gives India access to advanced nuclear technology in return for international safeguards on some but not all of its reactors. Pakistanis believe the deal with India underscores America’s tilt toward the richer and bigger India and is yet another sign of Washington’s unreliability as an ally. Pakistan’s past proliferation behavior has so far ruled it out for a similar deal.

Last year the new elected civilian leadership boldly proposed that Pakistan adopt a policy of no first use of nuclear weapons. The army made it clear that it disagreed with President Asif Zardari and would not accept a no-first-use pledge. The Mumbai attack put all talk of that pledge off the table for now, but it is a good idea that Mr. Zardari should raise again if and when relations with India improve.

U.S. policy toward Pakistan in general and the Pakistani bomb in particular has oscillated wildly over the past 30 years between blind enchantment and unsuccessful isolation. President Ronald Reagan turned a blind eye to the program in the 1980s because he needed General Zia and the ISI to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan. President George H. W. Bush sanctioned Pakistan for building the bomb in 1990, and Mr. Clinton added more sanctions after the 1998 tests. Both had no choice as Congress had passed legislation that tied their hands and required mandatory sanctions implementation.

President George W. Bush lifted the sanctions after 9/11 and poured billions into the Pakistani army, much of it unaccounted for, in return for Pakistan’s help again in Afghanistan. On his watch the CIA dismantled much of the A.Q. Khan global network.

President Barack Obama has a full agenda with Pakistan, burdened by the war in Afghanistan, the hunt for al Qaeda and the internal crisis inside Pakistan. But the nuclear issue will not go away. Mr. Obama’s call for a world without nuclear weapons and his pursuit of Senate ratification of the CTBT will inevitably mean arms control will be back on the U.S.-Pakistan agenda.

It is in Pakistan’s interest to get into the arms control debate on its own terms. Islamabad should put the no-first-use pledge back on the table with India, and it should sign the CTBT without demanding Indian adherence first. Pakistan’s arsenal works, and it does not need to test again. If it wants to get into the global arms control architecture and get a deal like the one India has gotten, Pakistan needs to show that the days of A.Q. Khan, Kargil and Mumbai are over for good and that it is addressing all the challenges it faces.

In the meantime Americans should stay away from idle talk by politicians and pundits about “securing” Pakistan’s weapons by force. Such chatter is not only unrealistic but actually counterproductive. It makes the atmosphere for serious work with Pakistan on nuclear security harder, not easier. It gives the jihadists further ammunition for their charge that America secretly plans to disarm the only Muslim state with a bomb in cahoots with India and Israel.

America needs a policy toward Pakistan and its bomb which emphasizes constancy and consistency and an end to double standards with India. Congress should quickly pass the Kerry-Luger bill that triples economic aid without adding crippling conditions. We should provide military aid, like helicopters and night vision devices, that helps fight extremist groups. We should also continue providing expertise in nuclear security and safety to Pakistan-that is in our interest.

Today some in Pakistan recognize at long last the existential threat to their freedoms comes from within, from the jihadists like the Taliban and al Qaeda, not from India. Now is the time to help them and ensure their hand is on the nuclear arsenal.

The president of Pakistan in 1971 was Gen. Yahya Khan. A previous version of this article incorrectly said the military dictator at the time was Yaqub Khan. In addition, Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto was president in January 1972, not prime minister, as the article incorrectly stated in a previous version.

Published in the Wall Street Journal

WASIM VIEW- Bruce Riedel is well-known in foreign policy circles as a foreign policy expert and is a former CIA man. Recently he rose to prominence when he was assigned the task of reviewing US, Pakistan and Afghanistan relations by President Obama. Consequently it is plain logic that Riedel’s views on Pakistan could be intrepeted as the views of the Obama Administration too. It is this context that the Riedel article needs to be viewed.

Riedel begins the article supporting the army action in Swat and Malakand Division but then desroys his article and his credibility by writing a blatant untruth in saying that ‘the fighting has cast a spotlight on the shaky security of Pakistan’s growing nuclear arsenal’. It is as clear as day that the Taliban cannot breach our nuclear security appratus indeed even Uncle Sam with her military and economic prowess cannot otherwise believe you me America would have done so many decades ago.

The real truth that Riedel hides is that the US media scrum (scum more like) who write on the threat of a nuclear Taliban have demonstrated shabby journalism and have done so at the behest of the US policymakers with a view to creating a nuclear bogeyman, a monster like no other which is the very embodiment of nuclear terror. The bulk of Riedel’s article is wasted on proving his case against a nuclear Pakistan and is the most pro-Indian article written by a non-Indian I have ever read. Indeed I do wonder if it is authored by Bruce Riedel or more likely ’Bharat Riedel’ for no Indian could have done a better job on castigating Pakistan. I will not repeat any of the diatribe for it is not worth the effort but I do ask readers to read paragraph seven again and again.

Riedel’s rants on Pakistan as a nuclear power need no analysis but his silence on India and the fact that they began the nuclear arms race is deafening. Furthermore any respect for Riedel’s views no matter how abhorrent they may be to a Pakistani are left dead in the water when attacks Nawaz Sharif for poor english, for a so-called White House policymaker like Riedel to engage in such behaviour in public is indicative and demonstrates him as someone capable only of  childsplay and not stateplay.

In conclusion the Riedel article is a must read for all Pakistanis who have been hooked, lined and sinkered by the Obama brand for Riedel’s venom for Pakistan and her nuclear status are clear for all to see. I repeat what was said at the very start that Riedel is a key policymaker in the Obama Administration and if the article is indicative of his mindset and consequently the Obama Administration’s too then it seems we are fast-forwarding to a rebirth of the ghost of Vietnam that will show its horror this time in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The second article is written by the one and only Asma Jehangir who is the Chairperson of the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan. The HRCP report she authors is a must read for it shines a light into the dark betrayal of  the state in Swat and the wider Malakand division.

A Tragedy of Errors & Cover Ups: The IDPs and Outcome of Military Actions in FATA and Malakand Division by Asma Jehangir

The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) is convinced that the cost of the insurgency in the Malakand Division has been increased manifold by the shortsightedness and indecisiveness of the non-representative institutions and their policy of appeasing the militants and cohorting with them. While the ongoing military operation had become unavoidable, it was not adopted as a measure of the last resort. Further, the plight of the internally displaced people has been aggravated by lack of planning and coordination by the agencies concerned, and the methods of evacuation of towns/villages and the arrangements for the stranded people have left much to be desired.

Based on reports by HRCP activists in the Malakand Division and other parts of NWFP/Pakhtunkhwa, visits to IDP camps by its activists and senior board members, and talks with many displaced people and several Nazims and public figures, the commission has released the following statement on the situation, its conclusions and recommendations:

Background

The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan (HRCP) has reported, time and again over the last many years, on the rising exodus of IDPs from FATA and the Malakand Division, owing to deteriorating security situation, and warned the government of the consequences. IDPs in Balochistan have also been an issue of concern and separate statements on it have been issued by HRCP.

For over two decades the government of Pakistan, in particular the military, tolerated, if it did not collude with them, the religious militants and extended impunity to them as well as to all forms of acts of religious intolerance. It was common knowledge that international as well as national religious militants had safe havens in the country. After September 11, militants of all shades were reinforced and given a free hand to organize themselves at the cost of the freedom of the local population in FATA. Other parts of the country also continued to suffer but initially parts of FATA (Federally Administered Tribal Area) became the central hub of all militant groups, local, national, regional and international. The Musharraf government did not simply turn a blind eye but by all accounts, (including those of IDPs), several incidents revealed a policy to protect certain leaders of militant groups. The government has never given a satisfactory explanation on the supply lines of finances, vehicles, arms/ammunition and petrol that the militants have never been short of. This is particularly questionable in the case of Swat, which is a settled area and surrounded by territory in control of the government.

Amongst other reports, a number of credible sources (including official sources) confirmed that in December 2006, a vehicle was impounded by SHO Amir Zaman of police station Kabal, which was full of explosives. The destination of this pick-up was the Dera (house) of Fazallullah, popularly known as Maulana Radio. The SHO who impounded the vehicle was ordered by phone to stop all proceedings till higher police officials instructed him to proceed in the matter. As the DIG of the area was on leave, SP Qudratullah Marwat is said to have personally ordered that the van be released with the explosives as he had instructions from “higher authorities” to release the pick-up. In addition a number of other well placed sources confirmed that groups of militants from Waziristan were officially escorted to Swat in 2007.

During the last few years nine military operations were carried out and nine compromises made with militants operating in FATA and Swat. None of these succeeded in bringing peace. Almost all the IDPs and interlocutors interviewed by HRCP complained of having been let down by the government. They strongly felt that the government machinery lacked the will rather than capacity to dismantle the militant force in the Malakand Division. As regards FATA they were less sure of the capacity of the government to deal with the enormous challenge. They complained that the problem was deliberately ignored for many years and now the militant groups, criminal elements and drug traffickers had formed a formidable network.

A number of IDPs from Swat had left their homes twice or thrice before the recent army operation of April 2009. They admitted that generally the local population of Swat took a positive view of the last peace deal negotiated by the ANP and Maulana Sufi Muhammad. They had hoped that peace would be restored but they found that some of the worst forms of human rights abuses by the Taliban took place after the deal was struck. A large number of misled and tired youth joined the militants, who were seen as the ultimate victors and future administrators of the area. While a large number of people voluntarily joined the militants, the IDPs narrated incidents witnessed in their own families where the Swat-based Taliban forced young men to join them by threatening the families that came in their way. There were reports of summary executions through slaughter by the militants. At least, three cases of whipping of young girls were reported by IDPs living in three different camps. Hanging of bodies by the tree and killings of those cooperating with government forces were widely reported. Scores were killed including many political activists.

Reports of the devious role played by a former commissioner of Malakand were common. Earlier Syed Muhammad Javed, former Commissioner of Malakand, was posted as DCO Swat. It was common knowledge that he fully patronized Maulana Fazalullah, son-in-law of Sufi Muhammad. While posted as DCO he is reputed to have exhibited strong leanings towards the Al-Qaeda-style ideology. He would drive from Mingora to Peuchar where Fazaullah led Friday prayers. The presence of the highest official in Swat in the congregation of the faithful led in prayers by Fazallullah was a strong incentive for others to join. It is reported that there was vigorous recruitment of local people by the militants during that period. There are other allegations of abuse of human rights by the former Commissioner.

The government defended the appointment of Commissioner Syed Muhammad Javed on the ground that he had strong connections with the Taliban and could therefore be used for the purposes of brokering a genuine peace deal. However, it is now evident that the former Commissioner advanced the cause of the Taliban and exposed the locals to their wrath. The IDPs from Buner were particularly disturbed by the destructive role played by the former Commissioner. In April 2008, the Taliban tried to enter Buner. The local people resisted and hurriedly called for a jirga. They armed themselves and were supported by the DCO and the DPO of the area. Commissioner Javed, who was in Dir with Sufi Muhammad, heard of the resistance by the local armed groups. He called up the DCO and the DPO ordering them to halt the local resistance till he visited Buner the next day. According to eyewitnesses, the Commissioner arrived escorted by the Taliban and gave a dressing down to the DCO and the DPO. He ordered the local jirga to come to the Karakar forest rest house on the Swat Buner border for talks with the Taliban. The jirga members refused to go to the rest house and were then invited to the Commissioner House in Swat.

The jirga (after a day) went to the Commissioner House as instructed. They were shocked to see Muslim Khan there. Maulana Faqir Muhammad was awaited; he was arriving from Bajaur. When Maulana Faqir Muhammad finally arrived, he threatened the jirga members and the Commissioner forced the jirga members to apologise to the Taliban for raising an armed Lashkar against them. A sham compromise was made to assure the Buneris that the Taliban would not enter the area if they disarmed. However, the Taliban, despite the compromise, entered Buner the next day. They burnt down and destroyed the houses of active jirga members, including the Sultanwas houses of Afsar Khan (ANP leader) and Col. Sultanzeb. Within a few days the Taliban had complete control of the district.

Commissioner Syed Muhammad Javed is also alleged to have pressurized the family of Chand Bibi, the video of whose flogging was telecast by national television channels, to deny that the incident had ever taken place. According to some government sources the Commissioner played the lead role in providing a doctored report to the Supreme Court.

The Nizam-i-Adl Compromise

It is now obvious that the ANP government fell into a trap in the hope that a compromise with Maulana Sufi Muhammad would bring peace. It had been widely publicized that the local population wanted enforcement of the Nizam-i-Adl Regulation which was being supported by the militants and that its enforcement would bring peace to the Malakand Division. Only a few though believed that the campaign of the militants was motivated by a desire to bring in any form of justice. Their past record offered strong evidence against their interest in justice. Girls’ schools were bombed, women were restricted from leaving their homes without a mehram, video shops were destroyed, barbers were punished for shaving men and throats of suspects were slit without trial. Quite obviously the militants were making a bid for power. The Nizam-i-Adl Regulation was to be used as a tool to keep the local population in a state of fear while power would be wielded through Taliban appointed judges and law enforcement personnel.

Sufi Mohammad

Now in his mid-seventies, Sufi Mohammad belongs to Kumbar, near Maidan in Lower Dir district of the Malakand Division. As a young man he was associated with Jamat-i-Islami and was elected a BD councillor during the Ayub period. In the early nineties he joined the alliance of feudals and political agents who did not want FCR to be replaced with the Pakistan code and raised the demand for the enforcement of the Shariah law. He gained prominence when his supporters in the Tehrik-i-Nifaz-i-Shariat-Mohammedi (TNSM) blockaded the Malakand pass and made a violent bid to capture Saidu Sharif, capital of Swat, in which several lives were lost. The government reached an understanding with TNSM and the result was Nizam-i-Adl Regulation of 1994. After 9/11 Sufi Mohammad led thousands of ill-equipped tribals into Afghanistan to fight by the side of the Taliban. Many of his companions were killed and those who survived blamed him for their plight. He himself was arrested when he returned to Pakistan in 2001. Many thought the administrations thus saved him from his frenzied followers that were out to harm him. He stayed in prison till November 2007 when he was transferred by the caretaker regime to a hospital in Peshawar. In 2008 he was released and the provincial government signed an agreement in April 2008 with his party in the hope that he would succeed in persuading the militants, commanded by his son-in-law, Maulvi Fazaullah, to honour the peace accord. These hopes did not materialize and Sufi Mohammad himself kept raising new demands.

The militants had to rely on intimidation as in the 2008 General Election the people of the Malakand Division overwhelmingly voted in favour of the ANP and the PPP and rejected the candidates backed by clerics. As a result of excesses committed by the militants, 95,953 families (577,167 people) were internally displaced in the NWFP/Pakhtoonkhwa province before the May 2009 military operation commenced. A large number of IDPs were from Swat where the Taliban were virtually in control, Therefore it was pretty evident that the people felt themselves insecure and wanted peace – at any cost.

As was expected, the Taliban took control but soon their ambition had the better of discretion. Addressing a big public gathering in Mingora (Swat) on April 19, 2009 Maulana Sufi Muhammad rejected western-style democracy and called it “a system of infidels”.

He asserted that there was no room for democracy in Islam. Similarly he denounced the judicial system including the High Court and the Supreme Court as un-Islamic. He gave an ultimatum of four days to the government to pack up their judicial system in Malakand Division and appoint Qazis selected by himself. Lawyers, the Maulana said, had no business in his scheme of things. The public throughout the country was alarmed. The Parliament reacted strongly against his outburst and his painting of all those who disagreed with him as infidels.

The Military Operation

A number of sources claim that at least 80% of Malakand Division was already under the control of the Taliban, who nominally owed allegiance to Sufi Muhammad and his Tehrik Nifaz Shariat-e-Muhammadi, before the army operation started on 26 April, 2009. Most political parties supported the military operation. A large section of civil society was also convinced that it had become unavoidable to take some military action, particularly as police officials in the Malakand Division were killed and leaders and workers of the ruling provincial party (ANP) were liquidated. A large number of police functionaries serving in the Malakand Division had deserted or were virtually confined to their police stations. Representatives of the provincial government admit that the situation was grim enough for them to experiment with any available recipe, as long as the people of their province had some breathing space. They disclosed that they had received no support from the federal government to their efforts to raise the capacity of their law-enforcement personnel. The military merely smiled at their request for assistance while the federal government dragged its feet and remained clueless about dealing with rising violence, tensions and internal displacement.

Regrettably, the intensity of a full fledged military operation could have been avoided if the militants had been confronted, discouraged, deported and captured earlier, after several emphatic public denials of support to them. It took a number of years after September 11 for the Musharaf government to acknowledge that militant groups had taken refuge in FATA. The military operation was an unfortunate option also because no effective measures had been taken in the past to meet the challenge. As one interlocutor commented the country is a patient whose ailment has been ignored too long and who is even now being treated without a complete diagnosis, while his ailment has travelled to all parts of his body. There are several public statements on record where chief of ISI and military leaders have praised the “patriotism” of jehadi groups. Sufi Muhammad was touted out as a saviour and champion of peace and justice. It confuses the population that is consistently misled by those in authority.

The urgency of a military action cannot be discounted but any armed action by the state must, under all circumstances, follow the principles of humanitarian law and in particular Article 51 of the Protocol Additional to the Geneva Conventions of 12 August 1949, and relating to the Protection of Victims of International Armed Conflicts (Protocol 1). It must be a measure of last resort rather than a measure that becomes unavoidable because of sustained inaction in the past. Use of force must be proportionate and non-combatants should, at all costs, be assured of safety. Those trapped in the cross fighting should be provided with food and all efforts made to bring them to safety.

Tales of Suffering

The IDPs from Swat unanimously complained that they were given a scandalously brief notice to evacuate. Curfew was relaxed for a few hours and thousands of families walked for miles to reach safety. A large number of them were caught in the armed conflict between the Taliban and government forces. Those fortunate enough to find transport had to pay a fortune. There are reports of loss of life and limbs caused by mines laid by the Taliban. A number of women were traumatized because the Taliban had forced the men in the family to stay back. Many others had been separated from their families. A particularly distressing story was of a woman who carried her son’s slaughtered head for burial because she was forced to leave the corpse on the wayside by the Taliban who had beheaded him.

Another woman narrated how she had left her special child behind because he could not walk. She was beside herself and told the HRCP team that she had left some water and food by the side of her disabled child and had had no news since. Families reluctantly admitted that in a panic to save their lives in very difficult circumstances they were unable to carry the very old ones and disabled children with them. A women gave birth on the way amidst the exchange of fire and hurriedly-wrapped her newborn and it slipped through the wraps during her journey.

IDPs also alleged that they saw dead human and animal bodies lying by the wayside. The stink was unbearable. They mostly corroborated the allegation that both the Taliban and the military did not allow families to pick up the dead bodies and that a high level of fatalities had occurred in the area. They disclosed that the Taliban as well as the military operation were responsible for the loss of life of hundreds of non-combatants. There were credible testimonies that the Taliban had made last-minute desperate efforts to forcibly recruit children and very young men to fight for them. Others were taken to be used as human shields.

On the other hand, the IDPs confirmed that the use of long range artillery by the military was indiscriminate. Besides militants civilians too became targets of bombardment. Reports indicate that the scale and intensity of fighting has been severe and in many cases it has been undertaken in heavily populated areas. It is feared that several hundred people have been unable to flee to safety due to the intensity of the fighting and imposition of constant curfews. The stranded civilian population is without electricity and they have no means of communication.

Medical assistance is not available while food and water are scarce. According to UNHCR, the affected area has over six million population. The estimates of the people displaced have risen to nearly three million. This is a strong indication that large numbers are either trapped or missing. It is reported by the incoming IDPs that fatalities and casualties amongst civilians are significant. The infrastructure has also been massively damaged by government forces as well as the Taliban. An unconfirmed report doing the rounds in the IDP camps and in urban centres of NWFP/Pakhtoonkhwa province says that some seven Taliban were captured after three commandos had been brutally butchered by the Taliban. They were thrown out of an helicopter at a high altitude. Such stories must be thoroughly probed and strongly refuted if found exaggerated. Reports of slaughter of military personnel and relatives of off duty police by the Taliban are circulating in the camps and have been confirmed by many IDPs. The loss of soldiers and police officers is a heavy blow to the country and especially demoralizing for the security forces. HRCP deeply regrets it but must continue to stress that the distinction between the behaviour of non-state and state actors must be fully comprehended.

IDP Camps

It is estimated that by May 24 1,206,213 people had fled from Swat Valley, Lower Dir, Buner and Shangla districts. According to available data, the total number of IDPs on that date was estimated at 1,783,380. Some 80% have taken shelter with local host families or in rented accommodation. As the number of IDPs keeps increasing, the capacities of host families and communities are being overstretched.

When HRCP teams visited the area there were 23 official camp sites; eleven old and 12 new ones set up after the late April/May influx. The largest camp, Jalozai II was set up before April 2009. It population is 71,344. Of the new camps, the Dargai camp at Malakand has 96,148 people. Other camps are smaller in size, mostly having under 10,000 people.

The task of organising IDP camps is gigantic and poses a huge challenge. Even more difficult it is for host families to sustain their hospitality beyond a certain period. It is absolutely remarkable the way the people, particularly in Swabi and Mardan, have opened their houses to those fleeing conflict. Had the citizens not acted in a prompt and generous way protection for the IDPs would have become virtually impossible. It also appears that foreign agencies like UNHCR, ICRC and UNICEF had foreseen such an eventuality. The government, federal as the provincial, were totally at a loss in the first few weeks. The provincial government is beginning to stir but the federal government remains clueless and has no forward looking strategy. More worrying is the revelation that neither the federal nor the provincial government could explain the overall objective of the military operation. Short-term and long term tasks have so far not been comprehended, neither was anyone certain of the next phase of the operation. The military sees it as a “jump in and out” operation, the provincial government has expressed concerns over it. They point out that holding the areas that are cleared of the Taliban till civil administration is put in place is crucial. The federal government is solely concentrated on fundraising and has so far not looked ahead.

A few families (mostly men) returned to Buner after announcements were made at camp sites that people could return for 10 days to harvest their crops. Others took up courage to return to Buner after the Interior Minister announced that Buner was safe and people could return. Families at IDP camps reported that some of their family members were stopped by the military from proceeding ahead but some went through to find that many parts of Buner were not safe and fighting was continuing. At least two families interviewed by HRCP teams lost family members, who had returned on the advice of the government.

There are serious concerns regarding security. There is no checking on arms inside the camps. IDPs admitted that some low level Taliban had also taken refuge in the camps. Foreign aid agencies point out that security has to be taken care of by the government but no effort was being made to this end. However, when VVIPs visit camps a large number of police force is seen on the spot with the entire administration hanging around waiting for endless hours for the VVIP to turn up. HRCP monitors saw red carpets rolled out in camps and huge tents with public address system being set up for a visiting VVIP. Such show of pomp can hardly please the destitute.

The IDP camps are by no means perfect. There is a dearth of all kinds of essential commodities and the infrastructure is very make-shift. Medical facilities are inadequate and heat is a main problem. The distribution system is being improved but not sufficiently fast enough. The registration system is very slow and cumbersome. It is especially difficult for IDPs living outside the camp facilities to secure registration. The IDPs were given a bag of wheat each by a foreign donor. They had no facilities to cook or to get the wheat ground. Most used the bags to sit on. The IDPs were nervous because they had no access to news on a regular basis. They hoped that the camp sites could have radios for those interested in getting information. Aid agencies complained that a number of individuals and VIPs were an obstacle to their delivery work. They gave examples of how humanitarian aid was kept undistributed because two political parties laid claim to it and could not decide who should distribute the goods. In the meanwhile, the desperate IDPs looted the goods and the most vulnerable amongst them went empty-handed.

HRCP is especially concerned that the IDPs have been virtually barred from entering Sindh. In Punjab they are not being registered but are not barred. However, the federal government has announced that all rental deeds must be executed in police stations so that the police can “keep an eye” on the IDPs from leaving NWFP/Pakhtoonkhwa. The Punjab government has issued instructions that property cannot be sold to anyone from outside the province without a no-objection certificate. This is demoralizing for IDPs who are the worst victims of the Taliban’s wrath and the governments’ utterly indefensible policies.

The effects of Talibanisation are not confined to the NWFP/Pakhtoonkhwa province alone. That part is directly affected but bomb blasts, threats and rise in crime across the entire country is a major fallout of Talibanisation and the fighting. The Taliban openly threaten the people even today. Very recently, medical representatives in Peshawar were warned not to wear pants. They were beaten because they took no notice of the warning. Male students have been instructed through a government notification, after threats from the Taliban, to wear shalwar kameez. Women in Islamabad, Lahore and Karachi have been stopped by men and told not to drive by themselves and to cover their heads.

Journalists, particularly, of electronic media told HRCP of the heavy censorship on news. There can be no discussion on the number of civilian fatalities or casualties. Independent media and international or national humanitarian groups have no access to the conflict area. This is worrying and HRCP remains concerned about the lack of independent information from the conflict area. Telephone lines are disconnected, therefore those trapped or who stayed back cannot reach anyone when in distress.

HRCP believes that the challenge faced by the country goes beyond Swat. The government of Pakistan is under great strain in dealing with this complex issue, which is mostly a legacy of the Zia-Musharaf regimes. The victims of the Taliban’s militancy have mostly been Pakistanis – civilians, law enforcement people and the military. Over the years, Pakistani jehadi groups have formed a network of supporters that are entrenched in all institutions of the country. Their close links to foreign militant groups have put more resources at their disposal and they now operate in a strategic way. Pakistan’s government has to draw a comprehensive policy – taking the military and other political parties on board – so that a long-term strategy is developed to confront the forces of militancy and intolerance. The government should seek partnership with international entities and other countries to effectively challenge militant groups and their supporters.

Conclusions and Recommendations

1. The spread of the Taliban influence in the Malakand Division and the suffering of the internally displaced people (IDPs) are the result of arbitrary policy-making by non-representative institutions. There has been no evidence of the transparent policies and reference to the people that were vitally needed. The situation though has improved under the democratic government -despite the system being fragile and lacking in many ways. Those criticizing the Taliban and religious fanatism are not snubbed and most political forces recognise the enormous challenge they face from militant Islamic groups.
2. A white paper should be issued on the official patronage extended to the militants in the Malakand Division. Government officials and other individuals who helped the militants in their unlawful pursuits, exploited the situation for narrow personal gain, and played with the lives of innocent citizens must be made to account for their misdeeds.
3. The implications of the use of force, even when unavoidable, were not taken into consideration, particularly in relation to the principle of proportionality and the need for due regard to the safety of non-combatants, specially children, women and the disabled. The measures needed to protect life through an early warning system and to minimize suffering by mobilizing resources at the earliest to help the civilians fleeing from the conflict zone were either inadequate or not there at all. According to information available to HRCP, not enough time was given to people who were required to flee to safety, no transport was arranged by the government and the people had to walk for miles without help or guidance. The safety of passage was not guaranteed. Not even a warning of mines was issued in some sectors.
4. No proper count of civilian casualties has been issued. They appear to be significantly higher than the figures mentioned by the ISPR.
5.  The displaced people have suffered in the camps because of quite a few problems that could have been managed. These include: lack of coordination among the various administrative services, shortage of trained personnel, flawed staff orientation, and lack of transport. The supply of goods to these camps often does not match the displaced people’s needs (for instance, supply of wheat instead of flour). The various agencies have no institutional framework for consultation and problems are addressed on an ad hoc basis.
6. The camps do not have oversight mechanisms to check corruption, misappropriation of relief supplies, and exploitation of the vulnerable. It is necessary to provide for processes for redress of grievances and complaints.
7. There are gaps in services provided at the camps. There is need for efficient information centres at all camps and effective procedures for the search and recovery of separated or missing members of the displaced families.
8. The plight of families stranded in towns/villagers must be seriously addressed. Ways should be found to establish communications with them, to ensure supply of food to them and to guarantee their safety.
9.  The large population of displaced people outside the camps should immediately be brought within the support network so that they are not driven by circumstances to rush towards the camps where resources are already stretched and the threat of adverse weather looms large.
10.  The policy of censoring reports about the military operation and its impact on the citizens life and matters is manifestly counter-productive. The people will better face the situation if they are taken into confidence and trusted with the truth.
11. The authorities must have a sound exit strategy – how the civilian administration will be restored once the operation is over. Who will guarantee the people’s security and how? Who will ensure that the law enforcement staff is adequately trained and equipped?
12. Finally, the government must develop a well considered plan as to how FATA and the Malakand Division will be administered after peace is restored. In particular it is necessary to decide what kind of judicial system will be followed in these territories and what arrangements will be needed to protect women, children and the minorities that have borne the brunt of the militants atrocities.

WASIM VIEW- I have written extensively on Swat on OP as seen here. However the HRCP report authored by its passionate chairperson Asma Jehangir has not nly confirmed my worst suscpisions but made me angry ten-fold.  Suscpisions that the state of Pakistan has authored a policy of its own choosing of appeasement to militant terrorists has come back to haunt us all. Winston Churchill was only too right in saying that ‘an appeaser is one who feeds a crocodile – hoping it will eat him last’. Pakistan and ordinary Pakistanis have paid the price for such state folly, none more so that Pakistanis in FATA, Swat and the Malakand Division.

The Pakistai state’s lack of will to tackle the sons of Satan that are the Taliban in Swat and Malakand Division are clear for all to see and are an indictment of our collective folly as a nation and as a people. The facilities for the IDP’s who have sacrificed their today for Pakistan’s tomorrow is a scandal and just not acceptable.

Neither is the lack of world support for these Pakistanis especially with the Muslim states it seems oblivious to Pakistan’s plight whilst the so-called ‘Great Satan’ has pledged the most support of any country. That said would it not have been for US folly in Afghanistan, Pakistan and ordinary Swatis would be relatively peaceful and so the dollars are in effect payment for services and crucially deaths rendered.

The HRCP report is a must read for all Pakistanis and its recommendations make eminent sense and I support them all.

The final article is written by no less a luminary than the well-respected Dr Pervez Hoodbhoy.

Whither Pakistan by Pervez Hoodbhoy

First, the bottom line: Pakistan will not break up; there will not be another military coup; the Taliban will not seize the presidency; Pakistan’s nuclear weapons will not go astray; and the Islamic sharia will not become the law of the land.

That’s the good news. It conflicts with opinions in the mainstream U.S. press, as well as with some in the Obama administration. For example, in March, David Kilcullen, a top adviser to Gen. David Petraeus, declared that state collapse could occur within six months. This is highly improbable.

Now, the bad news: The clouds hanging over the future of Pakistan’s state and society are getting darker. Collapse isn’t impending, but there is a slow-burning fuse. While timescales cannot be mathematically forecast, the speed of societal decline has surprised many who have long warned that religious extremism is devouring Pakistan.

Here is how it all went down the hill: The 2001 U.S. invasion of Afghanistan devastated the Taliban. Many fighters were products of madrassas in Pakistan, and their trauma partly was shared by their erstwhile benefactors in the Pakistan military and intelligence. Recognizing that this force would remain important for maintaining Pakistani influence in Afghanistan–and keep the low-intensity war in Kashmir going–the army secretly welcomed them on Pakistani soil. Rebuilding and rearming was quick, especially as the United States tripped up in Afghanistan after a successful initial victory. Former President Pervez Musharraf’s strategy of running with the hares and hunting with hounds worked initially. But then U.S. demands to dump the Taliban became more insistent, and the Taliban also grew angry at this double game. As the army’s goals and tactics lost coherence, the Taliban advanced.

In 2007, the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, or TTP, the movement of Pakistani Taliban, formally announced its existence. With a blitzkrieg of merciless beheadings of soldiers and suicide bombings, the TTP drove out the army from much of the frontier province. By early this year, it held about 10 percent of Pakistan’s territory.

Even then, few Pakistanis saw the Taliban as the enemy. Apologists for the Taliban abounded, particularly among opinion-forming local TV anchors that whitewashed their atrocities, and insisted that they shouldn’t be resisted by force. Others supported them as fighters against U.S. imperial might. The government’s massive propaganda apparatus lay rusting. Beset by ideological confusion, it had no cogent response to the claim that Pakistan was made for Islam and that the Taliban were Islamic fighters.

The price paid for the government’s prevarication was immense. A weak-kneed state allowed fanatics to devastate hitherto peaceful Swat, once an idyllic tourist-friendly valley. Citizens were deprived of their fundamental rights. Women were lashed in public, hundreds of girl’s schools were blown up, non-Muslims had to pay a special tax (jizya), and every form of art and music was forbidden. Policemen deserted en masse, and institutions of the state crumbled. Thrilled by their success, the Taliban violated the Nizam-e-Adl Swat deal just days after it was negotiated in April. They quickly moved to capture more territory in the adjacent area of Buner. Barely 80 miles from Islamabad (as the crow flies), their spokesman, Muslim Khan, boasted the capital would be captured soon. The army and government still dithered, and the public remained largely opposed to the use of military force.

And then a miracle of sorts happened. Sufi Mohammed, the illiterate, aging leader of the Swat sharia movement, while addressing a huge victory rally in early May, lost his good sense to excessive exuberance. He declared that democracy and Islam were incompatible, rejected Pakistan’s Islamic constitution and courts, and accused Pakistan’s fanatically right-wing Islamic parties of mild heresy. Even for a Pakistani public enamored by the call to sharia, Mohammed’s comments were a bit too much. The army, now with public support for the first time since the birth of the insurgency, finally mustered the will to fight.

Today, that fight is on. A major displacement of population, estimated at 3 million, is in process. This tragedy could have been avoided if the army hadn’t nurtured extremists earlier. For the moment, the Taliban are retreating. But it will be a long haul to eliminate them from the complex mountainous terrain of Swat and Malakand. Wresting North and South Waziristan, hundreds of miles away, will cost even more. Army actions in the tribal areas, and retaliatory suicide bombings by the Taliban in the cities, are likely to extend into the foreseeable future.

Meanwhile, the cancerous offshoots of extremist ideology continue to spread. Another TTP has recently established itself–Tehrik-e-Taliban Punjab. So one expects that major conflict will eventually shift from Pakistan’s tribal peripheries to the heartland, southern Punjab. Indeed, the Punjabi Taliban are now busy ramping up their operations, with a successful suicide attack on the police and intelligence headquarters in Lahore in May.

What exactly do the Pakistani Taliban want? As with their Afghan counterparts, fighting the United States in Afghanistan is certainly one goal. But still more important is replacing secular and traditional law and customs in Pakistan’s tribal areas with their version of the sharia. This goal, which they share with religious political parties such as Jamat-e-Islami, is working for a total transformation of society. It calls for elimination of music, art, entertainment, and all manifestations of modernity and Westernism. Side goals include destroying the Shias–who the Sunni Taliban regard as heretics–and chasing away the few surviving native Christians, Sikhs, and Hindus from the frontier province. While extremist leaders such as Baitullah Mehsud and Maulana Fazlullah derive support from marginalized social groups, they don’t demand employment, land reform, better health care, or more social services. This isn’t a liberation movement by a long shot, although some marginalized Pakistani leftists labor under this delusion.

As for the future: Tribal insurgents cannot overrun Islamabad and Pakistan’s main cities, which are protected by thousands of heavily armed military and paramilitary troops. Rogue elements within the military and intelligence agencies have instigated or organized suicide attacks against their own colleagues. Now, dazed by the brutality of these attacks, the officer corps finally appears to be moving away from its earlier sympathy and support for extremism. This makes a seizure of the nuclear arsenal improbable. But Pakistan’s “urban Taliban,” rather than illiterate tribal fighters, pose a nuclear risk. There are indeed more than a few scientists and engineers in the nuclear establishment with extreme religious views.

While they aspire to state power, the Taliban haven’t needed it to achieve considerable success. Through terror tactics and suicide bombings they have made fear ubiquitous. Women are being forced into burqas, and anxious private employers and government departments have advised their male employees in Peshawar and other cities to wear shalwar-kameez rather than trousers. Coeducational schools across Pakistan are increasingly fearful of attacks–some are converting to girls-only or boys-only schools. Video shops are going out of business, and native musicians and dancers have fled or changed their profession. As such, a sterile Saudi-style Wahabism is beginning to impact upon Pakistan’s once-vibrant culture and society.

It could be far worse. One could imagine that Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani is overthrown in a coup by radical Islamist officers who seize control of the country’s nuclear weapons, making intervention by outside forces impossible. Jihad for liberating Kashmir is subsequently declared as Pakistan’s highest priority and earlier policies for crossing the Line of Control are revived; Shias are expelled into Iran, and Hindus are forced into India; ethnic and religious minorities in the Northern Areas flee Pashtun invaders; anti-Taliban forces such as the ethnic Muttahida Qaumi Movement and the Baluch nationalists are decisively crushed by Islamists; and sharia is declared across the country. Fortunately, this seems improbable–as long as the army stays together.

What can the United States, which is still the world’s preeminent power, do to turn the situation around? Amazingly little.

In spite of being on the U.S. dole, Pakistan is probably the most anti-American country in the world. It has a long litany of grievances. Some are pan-Islamic, but others derive from its bitter experiences of being a U.S. ally in the 1980s. Once at the cutting edge of the U.S. organized jihad against the Soviet Union, Pakistan was dumped once the war was over and left to deal with numerous toxic consequences. Although much delayed, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’s recent acceptance of blame is welcome. But festering resentments produced a paranoid mindset that blames Washington for all of Pakistan’s ills–old and new. A meeting of young people that I addressed in Islamabad recently had many who thought that the Taliban are U.S. agents paid to create instability so that Pakistan’s nuclear weapons could be seized by Washington. Other such absurd conspiracy theories also enjoy huge currency here.

Nevertheless, the United States isn’t powerless. Chances of engaging with Pakistan positively have improved under the Obama administration. Real progress toward a Palestinian state and dealing with Muslims globally would have enormous resonance in Pakistan.

Although better financial monitoring is needed, Pakistan’s support lifeline must not be cut, or economic collapse (and certain Taliban victory) would follow in a matter of months. The government and army must be kept afloat until Pakistan is fully ready to take on extremism by itself. The United States also should initiate a conference that brings Iran, India, and China together. Each of these countries must recognize that extremism represents a regional as well as global danger, and they must formulate an action plan aimed at squeezing the extremists.

Thus, Pakistan’s political leadership and army must squarely face the extremist threat, accept the United States and India as partners rather than adversaries, enact major reforms in income and land distribution, revamp the education and legal systems, and address the real needs of citizens. Most importantly, Pakistan will have to clamp down on the fiery mullahs who spout hatred from mosques and stop suicide bomber production in madrassas. For better or for worse, it will be for Pakistanis alone to figure out how to handle this.

Published in The Bulletin of the Atomic Scientists

WASIM VIEW- Pervez Hoodbhoy is reviled by the right and revered by the liberals in Pakistan. However no Pakistani doubts his intellectual prowess nor his love for Pakistan. Hoodbhoy’s article is a good one for it rubbishes the Pakistan in peril and doom stories that make the news daily, yet it does well to identify key challenges for both the Pakistani state and its citizens.   

The myth of the Taliban as confused heroes is laid bare by Hoodbhoy and he does well to paint the picture of a Taliban Pakistan bereft of tolerance, education , culture and even smiles if possible. I disagree with Hoodbhoy’s enthusuiasm for the new Obama Administration nor his plea to see India as a partner and not as an adversary. Indeed nothing would make me happier to see good Pakistan-India relations but India has demonstrated that they are hell-bent on destroying Pakistan and their acts of evil in FATA and Balochistan are not conspirancy theories but plain and simple facts. It is the weakness of the Gillani government that allows India free reign to cry foul on terrorism when it is her that unleashes her terror in Pakistan by supporting anti Pakistan activity as Christine Fair, a foreign policy expert found and reported in Foreign Policy magazine. The most relevant quotes are repeated below:

I think it would be a mistake to completely disregard Pakistan’s regional perceptions due to doubts about Indian competence in executing covert operations. That misses the point entirely. And I think it is unfair to dismiss the notion that Pakistan’s apprehensions about Afghanistan stem in part from its security competition with India. 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 (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. Kabul’s motivations for encouraging these activities are as obvious as India’s interest in engaging in them.

Hoodbhoy’s article nevertheless is well worth a read especially for non-Pakistanis who remain confused at what is happening in Pakistan. Indeed Pakistanis too suffer this ailment and the same tonic is advised for them too.

Today, I share a story told and narrated by Swati women, these are women who suffered the most at the hands of Lucifer’s litter and it is a story I promise that will break your heart for its horrors diminish and degrade us all as they took place in our Pakistan and on our watch. 

The Women who Walked and Walked

We write here some of the stories the women of Swat told us. They come from Kabbal, Mingawera (Mingora), Qambar, Kanju and other parts of Swat. Some are from Buner and Maidan in Lower Dir. Their lives were affected in many more ways than the lives of their men.

When we entered the large tent a few women looked up and smiled. Some got up and put out their hands to greet us. They seemed surprised that we could converse in the same language. “Sit down. We can’t even offer you tea” said one laughing, “look at us and what we have been reduced to.” Their children were lying on the floor, red because of the heat, tired and listless in the hot air of the fans. The women had been sitting in silence before we went in. We could hear no noise from the tent which was full of about forty women and children. What could they share with each other? Each story was the same as the other. It was a pall of misery and silences that hung over their heads. These women were lucky; they had a common place to come to, out of their tents. In most camps, the women sit in the heat of the tents, not being allowed to go out. They wait for their men to come before they can use the toilets. Their children defecate outside the tents as they cannot take them to the toilets. In some schools, they feed their children first and, at times, do not eat.

One by one they spoke their ordeal, their flight from the bombing, the endless days of walking with children and the elderly and the dead they had left behind. Soon each one wanted to tell her story. They sat closer and closer to us, listening to the others and telling us about themselves. Most of them had fled from Mingawera and other places in Swat–walking for days, avoiding the curfew by moving off the roads and taking to the mountains to walk, walking day and night; hiding their sons in trucks for fear that the Talibs would take them away to fight. One woman had walked for nine days with three children under ten. We cannot recall the number of women who told us about how their homes were shelled and how they had buried their dead without bathing them, in hurriedly dug graves. One had lost her baby on the way down, had dug a ditch beside the road, torn off part of her chadar, wrapped her child in it and buried her in the ditch. She walked on, to save what was left, her own life. Another spoke of how in the madness of the bombing, she had asked her husband to pick up her baby from the bed. When they were out of the village, the husband realized he had picked up the pillow and left the six month old child behind. They still kept walking.

Another woman spoke of how they were eating peacefully when a mortar had hit her house. The word ‘mortar’ was a regular part of their conversation. ‘Matr’ and ‘karpee’ which we finally realised was ‘curfew.’ Another told us how her neighbours’ home was shelled. Four men had died on the spot. People had run helter-skelter. The helicopter passed and the men ran and started digging graves to bury the dead before fleeing the village. They told the women to collect what they could and the women started to round up their children. As the men dug, the helicopter returned to shell. The men left the bodies and ran for cover. The helicopter fired again and flew past. The men returned and dug what they could and dumped the bodies into the graves.

Another woman in a school camp spoke of how her family had left food in their plates and hot tea in their cups when the shelling began. She was brave and then her brown eyes filled with tears and she said ‘my young son, he was in class ten, was hit on the back of his head and he died. I lost my young son’ and then her tears flowed. The others sat looking at her, thinking of their own miseries. We sat in silence, nobody consoling, and nobody talking. ‘At least they should have told us, why did they not tell us they were going to bomb?’ She wiped her eyes hurriedly and continued to talk. ‘They are beasts these Taliban. They are not human. May God finish them all like they have finished us.’ We were surprised, surprised that her anger turned to the Taliban when her son was killed by military shelling. She was a strong woman and continued to talk with a vengeance. ‘May God punish these animals for what they have done to us. I hope the army finishes every last one of them.’

From one place to another, from one tent and school to another, we heard them tell us how they were unable to leave their homes for fear of being beaten or killed or flogged, how their men had been dragged out of their homes and slaughtered. One of the men said he lived on the chowk where the Taliban slaughtered people. He told us how they walked into homes and led out their victims in silence. He told us of the sounds he heard when these men were slaughtered, like cattle, on the chowk.

Each woman talked of the slaughter of men, whether they had been through it or whether they had heard it – it had terrorised them into silence and acquiescence. They also spoke of how ‘disgraced’ they felt as they fled with only a dupatta on. One of them laughed and said: “Burqa, burqa, which is all we heard in Swat but when we ran we were hardly covered [with burqas] and the whole world was looking at us.” The men did not think this was funny. The humiliation they felt at this had outraged them – the humiliation at their women being in these camps, being seen by other men, the humiliation of standing in line for food. Perhaps that is why there were so many children standing in line for food at the camps.

In one of the schools, a group of women led us to meet their friend. She could not speak because she could not stop crying. They kept saying ‘Show them; show them what they did to you.’ She was a widow and the Taliban had taken her 12 year old son away to join them. The women said that they used to come to all their homes and ask for their sons. They were too scared to resist. Some boys were taken by force, others went themselves, and others simply disappeared from madressahs. The widow had gone and taken her son back from the madressah. They had come into her house, taken all her jewellry and cut of all her hair. She cried for her own humiliation and did not speak a word. Women from Buner spoke of how the Taliban had no respect for the Pakhtun way of life, for Islam or for women. How they would enter any house they wanted, whether to take away their sons or to take refuge. They spoke of incidents of the younger women being raped, after which their breasts were cut off. They told us how their men were beheaded and hung from electricity poles with their chopped off heads placed between their legs. They would leave notes on these bodies for no one to touch.

So why did they let this happen? Why could they not get together to stop it? We repeatedly asked them this. Who ARE these people? This is when the admittance came. They were honest, honest about the power of Mullah Radio and his constituency of women listeners. “There was peace in Swat. Shut in their homes many women listened to ‘Raidu Mullah.’ He addressed them directly. “He used to talk about Islam, about praying five times a day, about going to the madressah and learning the Quran. We all thought he was a good man.” As his popularity grew, women would line up outside his madrassah and donate. They donated whatever little jewelry they had. Even the poorest women would donate her nose-pins.

This captive, gullible audience, shut in their homes became the main source of Mullah Radio’s power and support. They encouraged their sons to join his madrassah. They provided the Taliban with a ready following. They provided them their sons which they soon realised were fodder, fodder for suicide bombings and ‘jihad.’ It was only when they realised and resisted this that the Taliban turned on their own people. “They would knock at our doors, and would say, ‘give us your sons in the name of Islam’. Those who resisted were slaughtered.”

Many said their families approached the army and the government for help. But nobody listened. A few said that anyone who informed the army did not live long. They kept quiet. Even today parts of their areas where the Taliban have fled to are not known to the army. They will not speak. Suddenly in a fit of rage one of them started shouting: “Where were this army and this government when our people have been relating these incidents to them for almost two years?” This is only a question to be answered by those responsible for what is happening to our people today.

“We have been fooled. We have been fooled by the Taliban, the Army and the government. We knew two years ago that this was not Islam but nobody would help us. Why did the army not do something two years when the Taliban were fewer in number and that when they could be controlled? When they knew exactly where they were. What is the reason for their friendship with these animals? Where were this army and this government when we were screaming for help and going to them?”

What answer can one give to these poor, helpless women? Who is going to be held accountable for the violence they have suffered. Their questions can only be answered by those who know what they have done. And if they do not answer them in this world, they will for sure answer them in the next.

This is an abridged version of a recent report by AIRRA (Aryana Institute for Regional Research and Advocacy) based in Peshawar, whose members travelled to the IDP camps for these interviews.

Published in The News

As a Pakistani I am ashamed at how Swat was left to the vile Taliban by our rulers and the ruled. It must never happen again and I apologise to the people of Swat and the wider Malakand Division and FATA regions for being part of a bystander Pakistan that in truth looked the other way.

Lessons have been learnt, the Indian-funded sons of Satan will fail and Pakistan will rise stronger with one voice and one purpose, to create the Quaid’s Pakistan.

The jawans who have embraced martyrdom will never die and never be forgotten and nor will those who have been injured in this noble fight to protect the Quaid’s Pakistan. My words of praise are not enough, indeed no words are enough.

And so my tribute is presented by sharing with OP readers the martyrdom story of Major Abid and secondly sharing the words of  Mehvish Alavi, indeed her words are mine too and both are shown below:

Major Abid – A hero to his last breath!

Unfortunately the Pakistan Army has been the butt of public criticism during the last few years. People forget that the Pakistan Army and its valiant soldiers have always been injecting fresh blood in the national polity by their inimitable sacrifices, be it floods, earthquakes or war against the enemy.

The same spirit of sacrifice and valour is being exhibited in the ongoing operation against militants. The heroic story of Major Abid Majeed bears testimony to this reality. On the fateful morning of May 18, 2009, Major Abid Majeed’s brother Major Khalid was entrusted the task of recurring the area from Shalpalam to Jura whereas Major Abid Majeed’s company was responsible for securing the area from Jura to Nazarabad. Major Khalid’s company successfully secured the area followed by Major Abid Majeed.

Thereafter Major Abid Majeed’s company was ordered to more forward. Thirteen vehicles of the company moved to safety however the last vehicle came under heavy and precise firing, near a ‘nullah’ bend, by militants.

The driver of the vehicle embraced martyrdom there and then. No more movement was possible as the route was blocked. The forward troops tried to move back and rescue the trapped soldiers, however due to accurate and effective firing by militants the movement was not possible. It was then at 1645 hrs that Major Abid Majeed decided to move back himself. He took two soldiers, the first aid kit and a water bottle and ordered his company to engage the militants. In the rain of bullets, he rushed to the site, dragged the two bleeding soldiers Sepoy Tariq and Sepoy Nausherwan to a place of safety. He immediately poured water into their mouths and then started bandaging them to stop the flow of blood.

In the meantime, his shoulder got exposed and he was shot at. Not bothered by it, he kept himself engaged in the task of bandaging. The second bullet hit his ribs, but it too failed to prevent him from completing his task. Unmoved by the blood gushing out of his wounds, he dragged soldiers to a safer place. In the process, he was hit by three bullets and fell down.

While bleeding profusely, he took the wireless to talk to his brother Major Khalid (for the last time), who was 100 metres away. “Brother I have to pay so much to so and so, do not forget it. Take care of the mother and under no circumstances leave the job of eliminating the miscreants incomplete. I wish I could march onto Mingora and see it clear of the militants”. And then he succumbed to his injuries but he managed to save the lives of two soldiers.

Sepoy Tariq and Nowsharwan cannot control their tears at the mention of Major Abid Majeed’s name. The only words they utter are “Why Major Sahib why not us”.

Long Live Pakistan Army!

Long Live Pakistan!

Brigadier Syed Azmat Ali, Rawalpindi

Published in The News

And now Mehvish Alvi’s tribute to Pakistan’s brave army jawans:

Dying with Boots on

Death is indeed inevitable. Yet there are times a person is left shattered by the loss, even though it is known we all have to leave one day. Six months back I lost my father, my best friend, my superman. I ranted and I raved and I thought it was unfair of God to take my strength away. Time has passed but the pain has never lessened — I am just learning to live with it.

We live, we pray, we sit but who is there guarding us? It is indeed our brave soldiers who are fighting in hot sweltering heart deprived of basic necessities. We have lost so many brave sons in the fight against the Taliban. The Taliban slaughter and behead innocents and then mutilate their bodies. And they do all this in the name of Islam – so they say. Everyday we are losing brothers, fathers, husbands, cousins to these animals. I knew some of the soldiers personally, others I didn’t yet, for everyone martyred my heart bled. They are the true lions of our nation, the true sherdils who did not surrender.

Capt Salman Lodhi was martyred in the same Lal Masjid operation. He too always wanted to be a shaheed. So many others followed him, the same fearless way. Capt Waqas Zameer Shaheed from the 15 FF embraced shahadat during Operation Rah-e-Haq. He was martyred while saving his 15 troops in the combat. He saved them all but embraced martyrdom in the act and died with his boots on. We salute you. Capt Najam. Lieutenant Junaid and two other soldiers were martyred after being kept for weeks in the militants’ custody. Sadly the atrocities of the Taliban did not end there. They were all beheaded and mutilated before their bodies were sent to the army.

There are countless other soldiers we have lost to the Taliban. Countless families left incomplete and in mourning. It is indeed an awakening for all of us, a new beginning for Pakistan. We cannot let their supreme sacrifices made by all of these brave martyrs go to waste. They may have gone but each of them has left us a message, a message of freedom and sacrifice. We might never be able to repay their debt but the least we can do is recognise our unsung heroes and not let their blood go waste. We owe this to our martyrs, to their families and, most of all, our ancestors. We won’t let the Taliban take over our country no matter what we have to give up. This is our country and ours it shall remain.

And to the martyrs and their families: we as a nation can’t ever thank you enough for sacrificing yourselves for our better tomorrow. You gave the supreme sacrifice. You are still alive and shall be alive till eternity. We salute all of you. We can’t take the pain away from your families, your loved ones but we can share their pain. Out of the night that covers me / Black as the pit from pole to pole / I thank God / For my unconquerable soul. In the fell clutch of circumstance / I have not winced nor cried aloud / Under the bludgeoning of chance / My head is bloody, but unbowed.

Mehvish Z Alvi

(Daughter of Maj-Gen Amir Faisal Alvi — a former chief of the SSG)

Islamabad

Published in The News

Pakistan Zindabad

May’s B-side contents are:

• The Drone War by PETER BERGEN & KATHERINE TIEDEMANN
• Taliban vs Taliban by GRAHAM USHER
• How Pakistan is Countering the Taliban by HUSAIN HAQQANI

Drone, drone and drones, droning on about drones regrettably is a pastime in Pakistan now, so its time to talk drones!

The Drone War by Peter Bergen & Katherine Tiedemann

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

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

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

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

More than two years later, on July 28, 2008, a U.S. drone finally killed Abu Khabab in the Pakistani tribal region of South Waziristan (along with two other militants and three boys who happened to be in the strike zone). The assassination of the WMD expert marked the beginning of a vastly ramped-up program to take out Al Qaeda’s leaders using missiles launched by U.S. drones. President Obama has not only continued the drone program, he has ratcheted it up further. In 2007, there were three drone strikes in Pakistan; in 2008, there were 34; and, in the first months of 2009, the Obama administration has already authorized 16.

The drone war against Al Qaeda’s leaders–and, increasingly, their Pakistani-based Taliban allies–has been waged with little public discussion or congressional investigation of its legality or efficacy, even though the offensive is essentially a program of assassination that kills not only militant leaders, but also civilians in a country that is, at least nominally, a close ally of the United States. Nor has there been a substantive debate about whether the gains of winnowing the ranks of Al Qaeda’s leadership outweigh the fact that the inevitable civilian casualties are a superb recruiting tool for the Pakistani Taliban. Indeed, the drone strikes have pushed militants deeper into Pakistan and given them an excuse to strike the heartland of the country, further destabilizing the already rickety government in Islamabad. All of which raises the question of whether the drone campaign, however useful in the short term, might fatally undermine U.S. efforts to stabilize the region and to win the long-term war against Al Qaeda and its allies.
***

Officially, the United States does not assassinate people. In the aftermath of the Church Committee investigations–which uncovered eight plots to kill Fidel Castro–Presidents Ford and Carter both signed executive orders banning assassinations. In practice, however, presidents have signed off on missions to kill political leaders who have ordered attacks on Americans. Ronald Reagan authorized air strikes on one of Muammar Qaddafi’s residences in 1986, after Libyan agents bombed a German bar frequented by U.S. military personnel. And President Clinton ordered a cruise missile attack on an Al Qaeda camp after learning that the terrorist network was responsible for the 1998 bombings of the American Embassies in Kenya and Tanzania.

Legally, successive administrations have justified these exceptions by arguing that the assassination ban does not apply to enemy commanders. Under this interpretation, Al Qaeda and Taliban leaders are fair game. President Bush authorized several targeted killings in the first years after the September 11 attacks. In November 2001, a drone strike near Kabul killed Mohammed Atef, Al Qaeda’s military commander. Atef, whose daughter married one of Osama bin Laden’s sons, was a close confidante of the Al Qaeda leader. A year later, one of the suspected planners of the 2000 attack on the USS Cole, Abu Ali Al Harethi, was killed by a drone in Yemen–the first such strike outside of Afghanistan. Also killed in the attack was Kamal Derwish, an American in cahoots with Al Qaeda and the first U.S. citizen to die in a CIA drone strike.

The relatively slow pace of drone attacks against Al Qaeda’s leaders quickened dramatically in the waning months of the Bush administration after it had become clear that the terror group was reconstituting itself in Pakistan’s tribal regions. In July 2007, the 16 agencies that make up the U.S. intelligence community released a National Intelligence Estimate assessing that Al Qaeda was resurging and warning that it “has protected or regenerated key elements of its Homeland attack capability, including a safe haven in Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA).”

What particularly alarmed Bush administration officials was the mounting evidence that Al Qaeda and affiliated groups were using the FATA to train Westerners for attacks on American and European targets. For instance, the masterminds of the July 7, 2005, attacks in London, which killed 52 people, had trained in the tribal regions. So too had the leaders of the summer 2006 plot to use liquid explosives to bring down seven Canadian and U.S. passenger jets leaving Heathrow. Two Germans and one Turk who were planning to bomb the U.S. Air Force base in Ramstein, Germany in 2007 had trained with an Al Qaeda affiliate in the tribal areas. And, during this period, both bin Laden and Zawahiri, who are generally presumed to be living in or around the FATA, continued to release a stream of audio- and videotapes demonstrating that the Al Qaeda leadership was very much intact.

At the same time, despite “peace agreements” that the Pakistani government had negotiated with the Taliban in 2005 and 2006, the number of attacks into Afghanistan by militants crossing the border was increasing exponentially. And the violence from the FATA-based groups began blowing back into Pakistan itself. More Pakistani citizens died in militant violence in 2007 than had died in the six previous years combined.

By early 2008, the Bush administration had tired of the Pakistani government’s unwillingness or inability to take out the militants in the FATA, and in July the president authorized Special Operations forces to carry out ground assaults in the tribal regions without the prior permission of the Pakistani government. On September 3, 2008, a team of Navy SEALS based in Afghanistan crossed the Pakistani border into South Waziristan to attack a compound housing militants. Twenty of the occupants were killed, most of them women and children. The Pakistani press picked up on the attack, and the assault sparked vehement objections from Pakistani officials, who protested that it violated their national sovereignty. Army chief of staff Afshaq Parvez Kayani bluntly said that Pakistan’s “territorial integrity … will be defended at all costs,” suggesting that any future insertion of American soldiers into Pakistan would be met by force.

In the face of the intense Pakistani opposition to American boots on the ground, the Bush administration chose to rely on drones to target suspected militants. Bush ordered the CIA to expand its attacks with Predator and Reaper drones, and, according to a former Bush administration official familiar with the program, the U.S. government stopped notifying Pakistani officials when strikes were imminent or obtaining their “concurrence” for the attacks. As a result, the time that it took for a target to be identified and engaged dropped from many hours to 45 minutes.

The Predators and Reapers are operated by a squadron of pilots stationed in Nevada and are equipped to drop Hellfire missiles and JDAM bombs, respectively. More than two-dozen feet in length, the drones linger over the tribal areas looking for targets. Between July 2008 and the time he left office, President Bush authorized 30 Predator and Reaper strikes on Pakistani territory, compared to the six strikes that the CIA had launched during the first half of the year, a fivefold increase.

The Taliban consistently have claimed that those killed in the attacks are civilians, while U.S. and Pakistani officials generally say that they are militants. The truth is, of course, a mix of both, but it’s impossible to give an accurate breakdown of the death toll because the militants live among the civilian population and don’t wear uniforms. Based on our analysis of reliable accounts in the Pakistani and U.S. press, the drone attacks have killed around 600 militants and civilians since 2006, two-thirds of them in the past two years. This figure is roughly the same as the number that Amir Mir, a well-regarded Pakistani terrorism expert, arrived at for the same time period. Mir puts the total number of deaths caused by drone attacks during the past three-and-half years at 700, although he asserts that the vast majority of casualties have been civilians, something that is, in fact, impossible to establish definitively.

It is possible to say with some certainty that since the summer of 2008 U.S. drones have killed dozens of lower-ranking militants and at least ten mid-and upper-level leaders within Al Qaeda or the Taliban. One of them was Abu Laith Al Libi, who orchestrated a 2007 suicide attack targeting Vice President Dick Cheney while he was visiting Bagram air base in Afghanistan. Al Libi was then described as the number-three man in the Al Qaeda hierarchy, perhaps the most dangerous job in the world, given that the half-dozen or so men who have occupied that position have ended up dead or in prison.

Other leading militants killed in the drone strikes include Abu Sulayman Al Jazairi, an Algerian jihadist; Abu Khabab, the WMD expert; Abdul Rehman, a Taliban commander in South Waziristan; Abu Haris, Al Qaeda’s chief in Pakistan; Khalid Habib, Abu Zubair Al Masri, and Abdullah Azzam Al Saudi, all of whom were senior members of Al Qaeda; Abu Jihad Al Masri, Al Qaeda’s propaganda chief; and Rashid Rauf, a British national who is a key suspect in the 2006 plot to bring down U.S. and Canadian airliners (though there is some debate about whether Rauf is actually dead).

One consistent target of the drone attacks has been the South Waziristan strongholds of Baitullah Mehsud, the leader of the Pakistani Taliban. American and Pakistani officials identify Mehsud as the mastermind of Benazir Bhutto’s assassination in December 2007. So far, Mehsud has managed to evade death. None of the strikes has targeted bin Laden, who seems to have vanished like a wraith.

The pace of drone attacks increased further during the waning days of the Bush administration–likely a legacy-building effort to dismantle the entire Al Qaeda top leadership. Cheney seemed to acknowledge this in an interview with CNN eleven days before Obama took office, saying optimistically of efforts to kill bin Laden, “We’ve got a few days left yet.” A week earlier, the Bush administration had received the welcome news that Osama Al Kini and his lieutenant, Sheik Ahmed Salim Swedan, had been killed by a Hellfire missile launched from a drone over Waziristan. Al Kini and Swedan played a central role in planning the 1998 bombings of the two American embassies in East Africa. In one of his many exit interviews, Bush told Larry King with a slight smirk that bin Laden would eventually be found “just like the people who allegedly were involved in the East African bombings. Couple of them were brought to justice recently.”

Officials in both the Bush and Obama administrations have been leery of discussing the highly classified drone program on the record, but a window into their thinking was provided by the remarks of then-CIA director Michael Hayden on November 13, 2008, as the drone program was in full swing. “By making a safe haven feel less safe, we keep Al Qaeda guessing.We make them doubt their allies; question their methods, their plans, even their priorities,” he explained. Hayden went on to say that the key outcome of the drone attacks was that”we force them to spend more time and resources on self-preservation, and that distracts them, at least partially and at least for a time, from laying the groundwork for the next attack.”

This strategy seems to have worked, at least in terms of the ability of Al Qaeda and other FATA-based militant groups to plan or carry out attacks in the West. Since the summer of 2008, law-enforcement authorities have uncovered no serious plots against U.S. or European targets that have been traceable back to Pakistan’s tribal regions.

Privately, American officials rave about the drone program. One former Bush administration official said that the drones had so crimped the militants’ activities in FATA that they had begun discussing a move to Yemen or Somalia. Two officials familiar with the drone program point out that the number of “spies” Al Qaeda and the Taliban have killed has risen dramatically in the past year, suggesting that the militants are turning on themselves in an effort to root out the sources of the often pinpoint intelligence that has led to what those officials describe as the deaths of half of the top militant leaders in the FATA.

Daniel Byman, who runs the Security Studies program at Georgetown, has studied the effects that targeted assassinations have on terrorist groups. For years, the Israeli government has mounted assassinations against the leaders of groups like Hamas. Byman found that the dead leaders were replaced by more junior members of the group, “who are not as good; you drive down the age and experience of the leadership.” A similar problem appears to be affecting Al Qaeda, according to Dennis Blair, the Director of National Intelligence. In February, he testified to Congress that “replacing the loss of key leaders, since 2008, in Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas has proved difficult for Al Qaeda.”

One way of measuring the pain that the drone program has inflicted on Al Qaeda is the number of audio-and videotapes that the terrorist group has released through its propaganda arm, As Sahab (“the clouds” in Arabic). Al Qaeda takes its propaganda operations seriously; bin Laden has observed that 90 percent of his battle is waged in the media, and Zawahiri has made similar comments. In 2007, As Sahab had a banner year, releasing almost 100 tapes. But the number of releases dropped by half in 2008, indicating that the group’s leaders were more concerned with survival than public relations. However, since the beginning of 2009, Al Qaeda is on track to produce a record number of tapes, suggesting that its media arm has moved from the FATA deeper into Pakistan, likely to cities such as Peshawar.

Such a move would be something of a reverse migration. Between 2002 and 2004, Al Qaeda leaders generally preferred the perceived safety of Pakistan’s teeming, anonymous cities. In fact, typical urban activities like making cell phone calls or dialing up Internet connections provided many important clues to the whereabouts of Al Qaeda operatives, according to Pakistani intelligence officials. As a result, in the first three years after September 11, key Al Qaeda operatives were captured in cities such as Karachi, Peshawar, Quetta, Faisalabad, Gujrat, and Rawalpindi. Following those arrests, the Al Qaeda leadership largely migrated to the relative safe haven of FATA. Now that haven is safe no more.
***

While there is little doubt that the strikes have disrupted Al Qaeda’s operations, the larger question is to what extent they may have increased the appeal of militant groups and undermined the fragile Pakistani state. Such an outcome would be ultimately a lot more worrisome than anything that could happen in Afghanistan, given that Pakistan has dozens of nuclear weapons and will soon be the fifth most populous country in the world. A militantly anti-American Pakistan would be a major strategic problem for the United States and the West in general.

There is little doubt that the drone program is deeply unpopular among Pakistanis, who see it as an infringement on their sovereignty and who are, in any case, generally anti-American. Today, the United States is viewed favorably by fewer than one in five Pakistanis, and a poll released last year found that 52 percent of respondents blamed the United States for the violence in their country, while only 8 percent blamed Al Qaeda. The militants have actually used the drone attacks as an excuse to strike the Punjabi heartland of the country. In taking credit for the March attack on a Lahore police academy that killed 18 people, Baitullah Mehsud, the leader of the Pakistani Taliban, said it was “in retaliation for the continued drone strikes by the U.S. in collaboration with Pakistan on our people.”

The one place the drone strikes do seem popular is in the FATA itself. The Aryana Institute for Regional Research and Advocacy, a Pakistani think tank that does work in the tribal regions, found that more than half the people it polled in the FATA say the drone strikes are accurate and are damaging the militant organizations. Fewer than half said that anti-American sentiment in the area had increased due to the drone attacks. This is perhaps less surprising than it might initially seem; if a bunch of heavily armed religious nutcases took over your neighborhood, you too might not mind if occasionally they were whacked by mysterious missiles falling from the sky, whatever their provenance.

Pakistani officials, however, conscious of how unpopular the drone attacks are among the general population, have been at pains to distance themselves from them. In New York last November, President Asif Ali Zardari protested, “It’s undermining my sovereignty, and it’s not helping win the war on the hearts and minds of people.” And, in January, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani told CNN that there was no agreement between his government and the Americans to allow the strikes. The next month, though, Senator Dianne Feinstein, who is privy to the most sensitive briefings as head of the intelligence committee, inadvertently let the inconvenient truth out of the bag when she said of the drones, “As I understand it, these are flown out of a Pakistani base.”

For Pakistani politicians, the drone program is a dream come true. They get to posture to their constituents about the perfidious Americans even as they reap the benefits from the U.S. strikes. They are well-aware that neither the Pakistani Army’s ineffective military operations nor the various peace agreements with the militants have done anything to halt the steady Talibanization of their country, while the U.S. drones are the one surefire way to put significant pressure on the leaders of the Taliban and Al Qaeda. This is called getting to have your chapati and eat it too.
***

Just three days into his presidency, Obama authorized a near-simultaneous pair of drone strikes against targets in North and South Waziristan. Since he took office, there have been a total of 16 airstrikes, or roughly one per week. Our analysis shows that these attacks have killed some 170 people, but only one has killed an important Al Qaeda or Taliban leader, presumably because many of them have decamped from the tribal areas. The ramped-up drone program seems to have hit the point of diminishing returns.

There has been some speculation in the press that the CIA might extend the drone attacks to other parts of Pakistan, in particular the southwestern Pakistani province of Baluchistan where the Afghan Taliban is headquartered, but this seems unlikely. The western tribal regions, which have lived under their own legal and social codes for centuries, have never fully been part of Pakistan proper. In fact, the Urdu word for the tribal regions is ilaqa ghair, or “foreign area.” By contrast, Baluchistan is part and parcel of the Pakistani state. U.S. drone attacks there would almost certainly provoke the same fierce Pakistani pushback that the SEALS’ ground incursion into the tribal regions did last year. Shuja Nawaz, the author of Crossed Swords, the authoritative history of the Pakistani military, says, “Any drone attack in provinces outside of the tribal regions would be disastrous, totally destroying the American relationship with the army.”

There is widespread consensus among national security experts that the drone program is the least bad available option to pressure the Al Qaeda leadership and its Taliban allies. This is because the Pakistani government–divided between a barely functional civilian arm and a strong but unelected army–has wavered between ineffective punitive expeditions against the extremists and appeasement. Neither the military nor the political establishment has articulated an effective plan to rid the country of its jihadist militants. And so, for the moment, the drones are the only game in town.

But the drone program is a tactic, not a strategy. Bruce Hoffman, a professor at Georgetown widely regarded as the dean of terrorism studies, says, “We are deluding ourselves if we think in and of itself the drone program is going to be the answer,” pointing out that the 2006 U.S. airstrike which killed the leader of Al Qaeda in Iraq, Abu Musab Al Zarqawi, did not exactly shut down the organization. Following Zarqawi’s death, violence in Iraq actually accelerated.

And militant organizations like Al Qaeda are not like an organized crime family, which can be put out of business if most or all of the members of the family are captured or killed. Al Qaeda has sustained and can continue to sustain enormous blows that would put other organizations out of business because the members of the group firmly believe that they are doing God’s work.

Effectively challenging the militants will require a sea change in the views of Pakistani citizens and their leaders, who have been conditioned by decades of war and tension with India to believe that the real danger lies to their east instead of their west. Fortunately, if there is a silver lining to the militant atrocities that have plagued Pakistan in the past year and a half, it may be that such a change has begun. The Taliban’s assassination of Benazir Bhutto; Al Qaeda’s bombing of the Marriott hotel in Islamabad; the attack on the visiting Sri Lankan cricket team in Lahore; the widely circulated video images of the Taliban flogging a 17-year-old girl; a cell phone video recording of militants executing a couple for supposed adultery–each of these has provoked real revulsion among the Pakistani public, which is, in the main, utterly opposed to the militants.

In fact, future historians may record the Taliban’s decision to move from the Swat Valley into Buner District, only 60 miles from Islamabad, as the tipping point that finally galvanized the sclerotic Pakistani state to confront the fact that the jihadist monster it had spawned was now trying to swallow its creator. Indeed, lost in all the disturbing pictures of the Taliban advancing on Islamabad are three seismic shifts in the Pakistani political landscape whose importance is rarely discussed today in the U.S. press. First is the lawyers’ movement, which lies outside of the control of Pakistan’s traditional hidebound party system and was instrumental in pushing dictator General Pervez Musharraf out of power last year. Second is the explosion in independent Pakistani TV stations, which are largely pro-democratic and secular. Third, the alliance of pro-Taliban religious parties known as the MMA was trounced in the 2008 election, earning a miserable 2 percent of the vote, while support for suicide bombing among Pakistanis has plummeted from 33 percent in 2002 to 5 percent in 2008.

Although the political will necessary to wipe out the Taliban is beginning to emerge in both the public and the political establishment, the Pakistani army remains mired in conventional approaches to this unconventional conflict. The fact that hundreds of thousands of refugees have streamed out of Buner and Swat as the army engages the Taliban with artillery and air power indicates that the Pakistani military still lacks the capability and doctrine for successful counterinsurgency operations. Until that changes, U.S. drone operations will likely continue in Pakistan for the foreseeable future because building the capacity for robust counterinsurgency operations takes years, as the U.S. military found to its cost in Iraq. In the meantime, the civilized world can take solace in the fact that Abu Khabab and some of his peers are no longer with us.

Published in The New Republic

WASIM VIEW- Peter Bergen is the famed ‘terrorism expert’ of CNN and is respected in his field.  I must begin by saying that Bergen & Tiedemann’s article is compulsory reading for it charts the history of drone attacks in Pakistan.

Moreover, the article serves as  incriminating evidence against the Mush/Bush tag team and worse the present Obama/Zardari tag team who have presided over the betryal of Pakistan’s sovereignty. Indeed Bergen’s math says it all  when he diclosed that the US sanctioned 3 drone attacks in  2007 but 34 in 2008 . Yet in the first few months of 2009, the Obama administration has already authorized 16 drone attacks. Hail change we cant Obama I say!

My biggest moan (and possibly too for another 170 million Pakistanis) is that drone attacks are illegal and are a naked aggression against the Pakistani state. Worse still, the Predators or presents are gifts of  our so-called ally in Uncle Sam and proves that even under the saviour of the world President Obama both Obama and America have learnt nothing. To some extent, Bergen agrees I feel as the article comments that the drone war has ‘been waged with little public discussion or congressional investigation of its legality or efficacy, even though the offensive is essentially a program of assassination that kills not only militant leaders, but also civilians in a country that is, at least nominally, a close ally of the United States’

Looking at the issue in pure military terms, I agree with Bergen that drone attacks have killed many leading lights of Al-Qaeda, however I see them as counterproductive with a capital C. Drone attacks kill today’s terrorists but create many more for tomorrow and serve as a recruiting tool for Al-Qaeda. Drone attacks also fuel anti-US sentiment and worse create a wedge between the moderate majority and the religious right who revel in ridiculing this facet of US-Pakistan relations a la not so friendly fire actions.

To end, I agree with Bergen that drone attacks are here to stay even though they are not welcome or effective. However since the Pakistani government has tacitly agreed to their use (indeed they fly from Balochistan) it seems we will see more drones droning on and on. My quarrel is not just with the US but more so with my own government who have tried to pull a fast one on their public by  feigning ignorance when Mrs Hellfire lets out some fire in FATA, it is as Bergen says getting to have your chapati and eat it too.

Next the sons of satan that are the Taliban and their various forms are considered within the broader geopolitical context  thanks to an informative article by Graham Usher.

Taliban vs Taliban by Graham Usher

Pakistan and India have been at war since 1948. There have been occasional flare-ups, pitched battles between the two armies, but mostly the war has taken the form of a guerrilla battle between the Indian army and Pakistani surrogates in Kashmir. In 2004 the two countries began a cautious peace process, but rather than ending, the war has since migrated to Afghanistan and the Pakistani tribal areas on the Afghan border. ‘Safe havens’ for a reinvigorated Afghan Taliban and al-Qaida, the tribal areas are seen by the West as the ‘greatest threat’ to its security, as well as being the main cause of Western frustration with Pakistan. The reason is simple: the Pakistan army’s counterinsurgency strategy is not principally directed at the Taliban or even al-Qaida: the main enemy is India.

In the Bajaur tribal area, for example, the army is fighting an insurgency led by Baitullah Mehsud, the leader of one of Pakistan’s three Taliban factions, but it’s not because he is a friend of al-Qaida. What makes him a threat, in the eyes of Pakistan’s army, is that he is believed to be responsible for scores of suicide attacks inside Pakistan (including the assassination of Benazir Bhutto). He is also thought to have recruited hundreds of Afghan fighters, among them ‘agents’ from the Afghan and Indian intelligence services – ‘Pakistan’s enemies’, in the words of a senior officer.

An enemy in Bajaur, the Taliban is a friend of Pakistan in North and South Waziristan. Like Mehsud, the guerrilla commander Jalaluddin Haqqani, who directs the Afghan Taliban’s ‘central front’ from bases in Pashtun villages in Pakistan, has ties to al-Qaida. Unlike Mehsud, he’s not attacking Pakistan, and his fight against the US and Nato enjoys the support of the army and of broad sections of the Pakistani public. The same courtesy has been extended to Mullah Omar, whose headquarters are in Quetta, where he’s reportedly sheltered by the ISI. ‘They are our people; they’re not our enemies,’ one ISI officer says. So what does it mean to be ‘anti-Pakistan’? The short answer is pro-India, in practice if not intent. Insurgents in the tribal areas are deemed anti-Pakistani if their actions advance the perceived goals of India in Afghanistan. They are pro-Pakistani as long as they don’t attack the Pakistani state or army, even if they launch attacks against Nato forces in Afghanistan, Islamabad’s supposed allies in the ‘war on terror’. Indeed, the Afghan Taliban is considered an ‘asset’, a hedge against the day when the US and Nato leave, but also a counter to India’s expanding influence in Afghanistan.

Pakistan has been worried by India’s increasing interest in Afghanistan since the Bonn conference in November 2001 at which Afghan factional leaders and UN officials met to discuss the formation of a post-Taliban government. At that conference it became clear that the pro-Pakistani Afghan Taliban would be purged from the new Afghanistan under Karzai and replaced by forces dominated by commanders from the Northern Alliance (NA), which had opposed the Taliban regime before 9/11 and fought with US troops to overthrow it. India, Iran and Russia were the NA’s main supporters while Islamabad was backing the Taliban. Neither Pakistan nor the Taliban was invited to Bonn – this was ‘the original sin’, according to Lakhdar Brahimi, the UN representative.

India is one of Karzai’s few remaining champions. Delhi sees the new Afghanistan as a part of its sphere of influence. It has four consulates in Afghanistan and has given its government $1.2 billion in aid: a remarkable sum for it to donate to a country that is 99 per cent Muslim and with which it has no common border. Delhi has also put up the new parliament building and chancery, and has helped to train the army. India’s most ambitious – and, for Pakistan, most alarming – Afghan project is a new highway that will provide a route to the Iranian port of Chabahar. Not only will Afghanistan no longer need to use Pakistani ports, the road’s destination is a clear indication of India’s intention to consolidate an alliance with Iran in western Afghanistan in order to counter Pakistan’s influence in eastern Afghanistan. The road network, as they see it, is a new way to fight an old war. It’s precisely in order to resist the India-Iran bloc – as well as the emerging axis between Delhi and Washington – that the ISI has aligned itself with the Afghan Taliban and Haqqani.

Washington has tilted towards Delhi since 2004, lured by the size of India’s markets and its potential as strategic counterweight to China, Pakistan’s closest regional ally. Last year the US signed an agreement that allows India to buy civilian atomic technology, including nuclear fuel, from American firms, even though it is not a signatory to the Non-Proliferation Treaty. Pakistan, by contrast, has been criticised for developing a nuclear weapon, and of course for the activities of its former top nuclear scientist, A.Q. Khan.

Since 9/11 Washington has tended to use Islamabad as a gun for hire: the army was given around $1 billion a year on condition that it secured supplies to US and Nato forces in Afghanistan and fought against the Taliban and al-Qaida in the tribal areas. In agreeing this condition Pakistan had expected that its interests would be taken into account following the Anglo-American invasion. But unlike India or Iran, and despite its services to Washington, Islamabad was given no say in the formation of the Afghan government. This confirmed Pakistanis in their view that Musharraf and his army were no better than mercenaries fighting ‘America’s war’, and as a result of this humiliation, the Pakistani army has interpreted its commitments selectively, opposing ‘safe havens’ that might be used to launch attacks against other countries, but supporting the Afghan Taliban insurgency. Washington is exasperated by Pakistan’s refusal to fight the Taliban, but it’s been given little incentive to do so.

Fear of India’s influence was heightened by Bush’s decree last July allowing US Special Forces in Afghanistan to pursue al-Qaida and Taliban fugitives into Pakistan’s territory without the approval of its government. There has been one US ground assault and more than 30 drone attacks since then, overwhelmingly in North and South Waziristan. Washington claims to have a tacit agreement about the drone strikes with the Pakistan government. The government denies this. Army officers admit that the strikes may have killed scores of al-Qaida fighters, and that the ISI may have supplied intelligence for the operations, but the missiles have also killed civilians, including pro-government tribal elders.

The Pakistan army believes India is responsible for the CIA’s new belligerence. Some even believe India wants to create such turmoil in the tribal areas that Nato forces and the new Afghan army are compelled to invade, destroy the ‘terrorist havens’, and wrest back Pashtun lands claimed by Kabul. Others think that India wants to dismember Pakistan because of the ‘danger’ it poses as the world’s only Muslim nuclear state. According to another source in the army, ‘the Americans have decided India will be the regional power. And India thinks a fragmented Pakistan would reduce the threat level.’ It’s true that Washington’s nightmare is Pakistan’s nuclear materials falling into the hands of al-Qaida militants. Indeed war games have been staged in the Pentagon to work out what kind of military intervention would be needed to rescue them. The ISI’s charge that there is Indian involvement in the unrest in the tribal areas is unconvincing, and the evidence scant, but it’s safe to assume that India is keeping a close eye on what’s going on there.

After the Mumbai attacks in November a senior Indian military officer told journalists in Delhi that the US-led fight on the Pakistan-Afghan border was ‘also our war’. And a former Indian envoy to Pakistan, G. Parthasarathy, told India Today magazine in January that India ‘should not shy away from political destabilisation and inflicting economic damage on Pakistan. The time has come for us to say that Pakistan’s border with Afghanistan is disputed.’ It does not bode well. ‘The more I talk to the military establishment, the more I’m convinced fear and hatred of India is growing,’ a Pakistan security analyst told me.

America has just unveiled a strategic review of its policy towards Afghanistan, Pakistan and the tribal areas. While civilian aid to the Pakistan government will increase, Obama will continue with certain policies from the Bush era. One is the use of military force. There will be more drone attacks in the tribal areas (at least 80 people have been killed by US missiles since January) and perhaps in Balochistan, and a ‘surge’ of 21,000 US troops in Afghanistan, mostly along the border with Pakistan. Obama has also promised that US policy towards India – and Kashmir in particular – will be ‘dehyphenated’ from policy towards Pakistan and Afghanistan.

One consequence is that three feuding Taliban factions have now joined forces against ‘Obama, Zardari and Karzai’ in an agreement brokered by Mullah Omar. One of the factions is led by Baitullah Mehsud. The other two are pro-Afghan Taliban factions based in South and North Waziristan, which had largely refrained from attacking the Pakistan state and army but may not do so any longer. The army is also worried that the surge could cause a further flight of Afghan Taliban and other militants into the tribal areas. If the army acts against them, retaliatory strikes may follow across Pakistan. If it doesn’t, US and Afghan soldiers might chase them inside Pakistan – as they did last September, killing 20 tribesmen ‘by mistake’. Any such incursion would unite the Pashtun tribes behind the Taliban, deepen anti-American sentiment in the army and stretch US-Afghan-Pakistani co-operation to breaking point.

The removal of India and Kashmir from the strategic review makes clear Delhi’s growing influence in Washington. During his campaign Obama argued that Pakistan would be more likely to stay focused not on India but on the militants on the Pakistan-Afghan border if there was a concerted effort to resolve the Kashmir crisis. In a lobbying push of near Israeli proportions, however, Obama was told that Richard Holbrooke, his special envoy, would be shunned in Delhi if any link were made between Kashmir, Pakistan and Afghanistan, and by January it was announced that Kashmir would not be part of Holbrooke’s portfolio.

The announcement was met with scorn in Islamabad, but many Pakistani analysts (and military officers) agree that Kashmir is better handled bilaterally. They also agree that the four-year-old Pakistan-India peace process suffered a near mortal blow with the discovery that Pakistanis were behind the attacks in Mumbai. This is particularly troubling because the process had achieved not only quiet but progress, including on Kashmir: an outline for a deal based on demilitarisation, open borders and a form of self-government or autonomy that would unite the divided territory. The Pakistani army attempted to defuse tensions along the Line of Control, closing militant training camps and co-ordinating security with the Indian army.

The process collapsed partly because of the political crisis that engulfed Musharraf after he sacked Pakistan’s chief justice in 2007. But it also fell apart because India did not reciprocate: military rule in Indian-occupied Kashmir remained as entrenched as ever. ‘The army’s recent experience with India is very bitter,’ a Pakistani analyst told me. ‘After 2004 the army scaled down militant intrusions into Kashmir by 95 per cent. And India’s response was to refuse to talk about Kashmir. The army thinks it would be the same in Afghanistan if it abandoned the Afghan Taliban.’ In the last year Indian Kashmir has seen increased penetration by Pakistani militants and skirmishes between the Pakistani and Indian armies. The spike seems to have less to do with Kashmir, where violence is at its lowest ebb in 20 years, than with the proxy war in Afghanistan. And it would suggest that – far more than on strategic reviews – peace in Afghanistan rests on peace between India and Pakistan. The road out of Kabul goes through Kashmir.

Published in the London Review of Books

WASIM VIEW- Usher’s article doesnt usher in anything new (pardon the pun) in concept or analysis but it does well in painting the big picture.  The good and bad Taliban as perceived by Pakistan are laid bare as are the evil designs of India in Afghanistan. US-Pakistan relations or the lack therof  are also laid bare and I could not say it better than Usher when he coins the US-Pakistan relationship since 9/11 as ‘ Washington using Islamabad as a gun for hire’.

The article sheds some light on the evil Indian agenda which will fail. As Usher writes in the article ‘Delhi sees the new Afghanistan as a part of its sphere of influence. It has four consulates in Afghanistan and has given its government $1.2 billion in aid: a remarkable sum for it to donate to a country that is 99 per cent Muslim and with which it has no common border. Delhi has also put up the new parliament building and chancery, and has helped to train the army. The proof is in the pudding is it not.

To conclude it seems to me at least that with American support, India feels confident of enforcing her agenda on a boxed-in Pakistan. But both the Indians and Americans are barking up the wrong tree since Pakistan is well aware of their evil agenda. Hence the doublespeak with the Afghan Taliban will persist as Pakistan sees US and Indian interest at their western border as fleeting and temporary and  not based on common interests but as an opportunity to spite the Pakistani state or to cut it to size.

If Uncle Sam and not-so-shining India were serious about stabilising Afghanistan then I believe Pakistan could work with both to bring about peace even at the cost of losing so-called traditional friends of Pakistan like the Afghan Taliban. However it is as clear as day that both America and India seek to fulfil their own narrow agendas in the region which are increasingly divergent from the state interests of Pakistan..

Even now, not all is lost and it is hoped that President Obama can achieve a rebirth into ‘Candidate Obama’, a man who promised to help resolve the Kashmir dispute and thus serve as a bridge for improving Pakistan-India relations.  Kashmir will secure Kabul in my opinion, a view echoed by Usher who ends the article saying that the road out of Kabul goes through Kashmir, I could not have said it any better.

And to end, I offer the Pakistani viewpoint on issues Taliban via Hussain Haqqani who is Pakistan’s Ambassador to the US. It is well worth a read.

How Pakistan is Countering the Taliban by Husain Haqqani

The specter of extremist Taliban taking over a nuclear-armed Pakistan is not only a gross exaggeration, it could also lead to misguided policy prescriptions from Pakistan’s allies, including our friends in Washington.

Pakistan and the international community do face serious challenges in confronting terrorists and the ideologies that sustain them. But panicked reactions of the type witnessed in the U.S. media over the last few weeks — after the Taliban drove into Buner, a town 60 miles north of the capital Islamabad — are not conducive to strengthening Pakistani democracy or to developing an effective counterterrorism policy for Pakistan.

Now that the Taliban have been driven out of Buner, and Pakistani forces have militarily engaged them just outside their Swat Valley stronghold, it should be clear to all that Pakistan can and will defeat the Taliban.

In the free elections that returned Pakistan to democracy in February 2008, Pakistanis overwhelmingly rejected Taliban sympathizers and advocates of extremist Islamist ideologies. But the legacy of dictatorship, including a tolerance for some militant groups, has proven tough to erase. Anti-American rhetoric and Pakistan’s traditional security concerns about its neighbors have also dampened popular enthusiasm for strong military action against violent extremists, even though President Asif Zardari has repeatedly declared the war against them a war for Pakistan’s soul.

Meanwhile, the change of administration in the U.S. has slowed the flow of assistance to Pakistan. Unfortunately, ordinary Pakistanis have begun to wonder if our alliance with the West is bringing any benefits at all.

Under the Musharraf dictatorship, Pakistan probably was not as quick as it needed to be to comprehend the enormity of the Taliban threat. And after last year’s election of democratic leaders, our new government had an array of domestic issues to address. Mobilizing all elements of national power, particularly public opinion, against the Taliban threat took time because many Pakistanis thought the Taliban were amenable to negotiations and would keep their word.

Recent developments offer us an opportunity amid crisis. More Pakistanis are now convinced of the need to confront the extremists.

The recent spike of international concern about the threat in Pakistan seems to stem from the recent dialogue between the government of the Pashtunkhwa Northwest Frontier Province of Pakistan and a local movement that supported Islamic law but did not join the Taliban’s violent campaign. The goal for this dialogue was twofold — first, to restore order and stability to the Swat Valley; and second, to wedge rational elements of the religiously conservative population away from terrorists and fanatics.

The model here was the successful pacification of Fallujah in Iraq, where agreements with more moderate elements broke them away from al Qaeda nihilists. The model worked so well in Fallujah that it is now being resurrected by the American and NATO troops in Afghanistan. The goal in Pakistan’s Swat Valley was the same.

The dialogue in Swat resulted in an agreement that would allow for elements of Shariah to be applied to the judicial system of the Valley, as it has at other times in our nation’s history. This agreement demanded that the native Taliban put down their weapons, pledge nonviolence, and accept the writ of the state. It was a local solution for what some in Pakistan viewed as a local problem.

Let me be perfectly clear here: Pakistan’s civil and military leadership understands that al Qaeda and its allies are not potential negotiating partners. But, as the U.S. did in Iraq, Pakistan sought to distinguish between reconcilable and irreconcilable elements within an expanding insurgency.

The premise of the dialogue was peace. Without peace there is no agreement, and without an agreement the Pakistani government will use all power at its disposal to restore order in the Valley. We’d rather negotiate than fight. But if we have to fight we will — and we will fight to win.

What does Pakistan need to contain this threat? In the short term we need the U.S. to share modern technology in antiterrorist engagement. Pakistan needs night-vision equipment, jammers that can knock out FM radio transmissions by the terrorists, and a larger, modernized fleet of helicopter gunships for ground support in the massive sweeps that are necessary to contain, repel and destroy the enemy.

Yet Washington has been reluctant to share this modern equipment, and to train our military in antiterrorism techniques, because of concerns that these systems could be used against India. Such concerns are misplaced. Pakistanis understand that the primary threat to our homeland today is not from our neighbor to the east but from the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) on our border with Afghanistan. To meet this threat, we must be provided the means to fight the terrorists while we work on resuming our composite dialogue with India.

In the long term, Pakistan’s security will be predicated on Pakistan’s economic viability. That is the central thrust of the Kerry-Lugar legislation currently before Congress, which would establish a 10-year, multibillion dollar commitment to Pakistan’s economic and social system. It is also manifest in the Regional Opportunity Zone legislation currently before Congress that would open U.S. markets to products manufactured in Afghanistan and Pakistan’s FATA region. An economically prosperous Pakistan will be less susceptible to the ideology of international terrorism — and it will become a model to a billion Muslims across the world that Islam and modernity under democracy are not only compatible, but can thrive together.

Published in the Wall Street Journal

WASIM VIEW- Husain Haqqani has been lauded publicly by Hillary Clinton recently and is regularly derided as the US Ambassador to Pakistan! Yet his article makes sense in the main although it is written for an international audience namely the US paymaster general.

Haqqani does well to allay fears of a Taliban takeover that is nigh impossible and the nightmare that keeps Uncle Sam awake during night and day. The US is put on the dock for their lack of military equipment support including FM radio jamming equipment to stop Mullah Radio of Swat airing his diatribe.I echo such sentiments but I do not agree with Haqqani that the Kerry-Lugar bill and other support will prove the panacea for Pakistan’s ills.

I believe that the US is not serious in establishing a strategic partnership with Pakistan, except for do more and more and they say this ad nausem. Pakistan is being used as a cheap proxy to do America’s bidding in the region and it must stop and it is high time the Gillani government moves in this direction as part of a made in Pakistan foreign policy that protects Pakistani state interests and nothing else.

However I remain optimistic that the Taliban will be routed this time hence this post seeks to share some hope. So Pakistan and Pakistanis stand tall and united, fear not for the dark hour will pass.  Dir, Buner and Swat will sing again and soon.