Taliban bases in Afghanistan (Credit: longwarjournal.com)
PESHAWAR, June 25 — A relatively rare cross-border raid into Pakistan by Afghan-based Taliban militants killed at least 13 Pakistani soldiers, the military said Monday.
Pakistani officials have long faced criticism from the Americans and Afghans for failing to stop similar militant assaults in the opposite direction, and they lashed out against their neighbors over this attack, which was in the northwestern border district of Dir.
In Islamabad, the Foreign Ministry said it had called in a senior Afghan diplomat to protest “the intrusion of militants from the Afghan side.” And the new prime minister, Raja Pervez Ashraf, said he would raise the matter with President Hamid Karzai.
A senior Pakistani military official, speaking on condition of anonymity, said that more than 100 Taliban militants armed with heavy weapons had crossed the border in the attack. After initially reporting six soldiers killed and 11 missing, the official later said that seven of the missing had been “reportedly killed and then beheaded.”
A Pakistani Taliban spokesman claimed responsibility for the attack and said the militants had killed 18 soldiers. “We have bodies of 17 of them,” said the spokesman, Sirajuddin, who uses only one name, speaking by phone from an undisclosed location.
Pakistani Taliban fighters fled into Afghanistan starting in the summer of 2009 after a major assault by the Pakistani military on the Swat Valley in northwestern Khyber-Pakhtunkhwa Province.
Across the border, the militants took refuge in Kunar and Nuristan Provinces; they have since strengthened their presence in those areas as American forces have withdrawn. Pakistani officials say that two senior Taliban commanders — Maulana Fazlullah from Swat and Faqir Muhammad from Bajaur — are sheltering there, while their fighters use Afghan territory to mount attacks in Pakistan.
The most violent attack occurred in August last year when Taliban fighters killed at least 30 Pakistani soldiers along the border in the Chitral district, north of Dir. The Pakistani military has since deployed a large contingent to the area.
The situation in Dir and Chitral is the mirror opposite of that of the Waziristan tribal agency, farther west along the border, where large numbers of Pakistani, Afghan and foreign fighters train and plot attacks inside Afghanistan.
American military officials are particularly angry that the Haqqani network, which has carried out some of the most spectacular attacks in Kabul and other major cities, has an apparently free hand to operate in North Waziristan. Obama administration officials say they are unsure whether Pakistan’s powerful intelligence services are assisting such cross-border attacks, tacitly acquiescing to them or incapable of stopping them.
The Pakistani Taliban, on the other hand, are intent on attacking Pakistani forces. Sunday’s attack in Dir, the third this month, shows that, as NATO troops leave Afghanistan, the militants are using that territory to mount attacks.
Residents of Dir said the militants were operating from a base just over three miles from the border, where there is no visible Afghan or NATO presence.
Asylum seekers in capsized boat (Credit: expresspakistan.net)
PESHAWAR, June 27: Dozens of Shia tribesmen fleeing sectarian unrest in the Kurram tribal agency were on board a boat that capsized off the coast of Australia earlier this month, officials and tribesmen told The Express Tribune on Tuesday.
The ferry carrying asylum-seekers from Pakistan and Afghanistan sank some 200 kilometres off Christmas Island, according to Australian authorities. At least 16 of them have been confirmed dead.
At Christmas Island, the Australian government has set up case processing and detention facilities for illegal immigrants and asylum-seekers.
Australia’s Maritime Safety Authority said 110 persons had been rescued, 90 were missing and 16 bodies had been retrieved by rescue teams and taken to the island.
“Families have told me that 125 of the asylum-seekers on board the vessel were from Kurram Agency,” Kohat Division Commissioner Sahibzada Anees confirmed to The Express Tribune.
“Of them, 76 have been traced while the rest are missing,” Anees said and added that he has directed the tribal administration to prepare a list of the victims.
Residents said that 125 of the 140 Pakistani asylum-seekers on board the boat belonged to the Shia community from Parachinar, the main town of Kurram Agency, where sectarian tension has been running high for the last four years. The rest belonged to the Hazara community of Quetta who are also Shias by sect.
“One of my cousins, Gul Hussain, has been rescued, but he is seriously injured,” said Ali Turi, a Shia tribesman from Parachinar who works at a Peshawar-based NGO. “My friend, Imdad Hussain, is among those missing and believed to have drowned.
According to Ali, 175 people from Kurram Agency have gone abroad on student visas, while another 90, mostly young men, have taken refuge in Australia. About 250 are in Indonesia trying to sneak into Australia.
Another resident of Kurram, Shahid Kazmi told The Express Tribune that the asylum-seekers included his friend Mujahid Hussain who is also believed to have died.
He said that Parachinar Students in Australia, a student body, had informed the families about the tragedy. (With additional input from News Desk)
Divided Kashmiri Families Across Neelum River (credit: tribune.com.pk)
KERAN, June 10: Hundreds of Kashmiris on Sunday staged an emotional demonstration on the banks of a fast-flowing river to urge India and Pakistan to withdraw troops from the disputed Himalayan region.
On the Pakistani side, tearful relatives waved across the gushing Neelum – which separates the two countries – to their family on the Indian side, using loudspeakers to try to speak to them, an AFP photographer said.
But the deafening roar of the river – about 200 feet wide at the village of Keran – was too loud for the cries to carry across to the Indian side.
About 600 men and women gathered by the river in Keran, about 90 kilometres northeast of Muzaffarabad, the capital of Pakistan-administered Kashmir. Many migrated to Muzaffarabad in 1990 to escape violence.
The gathering, called by nationalists, was a rare occasion – the authorities do not normally allow such events on the river.
For Ashraf Jan, who left her mother and father to come to Muzaffarabad with her aunt in 1947, it was almost too much.
Overwhelmed with emotion, the 70-year-old had to be stopped by relatives from jumping in the furious river to try to reach her ageing parents on the Indian side.
“Let me go. I just want to see my parents and after that if I die, I will be in peace,” she said.
Indian police and military did not allow Kashmiris on the other side to come near the river bank and they were left to wave from a distance.
Kashmir was split in the aftermath of independence on the subcontinent when British rule ended in 1947. Both India and Pakistan claim the entire territory, which is divided by a heavily militarised Line of Control (LoC).
The LoC is heavily guarded on both sides and strictly off-limits.
Though Kashmiris can cross the border via a special bus service started in 2005, it requires lengthy clearance procedures at both sides, meaning few go.
Arif Shahid, president of the pro-independence Jammu Kashmir National Liberation Conference, urged India and Pakistan to divert their military spending to help poor people in both countries.
“India and Pakistan are wasting money on arms when millions of people have to sleep without any meal every night. They should withdraw troops from Kashmir and liberate us so that they are able to work for the welfare of their citizens,” Shahid said.
There are nearly a dozen Kashmir militant groups fighting for the divided Muslim-majority region to become part of Pakistan and over 47,000 people have been killed since the outbreak of a separatist insurgency in 1989.
But militant violence has dropped sharply in Kashmir since India and Pakistan started a peace process in 2004.
WASHINGTON — With the end in sight for Hamid Karzai’s days in office as Afghanistan’s president, members of his family are trying to protect their status, weighing how to hold on to power while secretly fighting among themselves for control of the fortune they have amassed in the last decade.
One brother, Qayum Karzai, is mulling a run for the presidency when his brother steps down in 2014. Other brothers have been battling over the crown jewel in the family empire — the largest private residential development in Afghanistan. The conflict over the project, known as Aino Mena, has provoked accusations of theft and extortion, even reports of an assassination plot.
“It’s family,” Qayum Karzai said. “They get upset, and over time they get over it. I hope they get over it.”
One Karzai brother is also said to have imprisoned a longtime Karzai aide in an effort to make him disclose the whereabouts of money and assets that relatives suspect were hidden by Ahmed Wali Karzai, another of President Karzai’s brothers and the political boss of southern Afghanistan who was assassinated last year. He was often accused of benefiting from the Afghan opium trade and an array of corrupt deals, though he denied such claims.
The looming withdrawal of American and NATO troops by 2014 from the still unresolved war, along with President Karzai’s coming exit, is causing anxiety among the Afghan elite who have been among the war’s biggest beneficiaries, enriching themselves from American military contracts, insider business deals with foreign companies, government corruption and narcotics trafficking.
“If you are one of the Afghan oligarchs, where you put your money and where you live is an open question now,” Seth Jones, an analyst at the RAND Corporation, said. “That means you are thinking about moving your money and finding a backup option about where to live.”
The president’s family — many of whom are American citizens who returned to Afghanistan after an American-led coalition toppled the Taliban in 2001 and brought Mr. Karzai to power — are among those who have prospered the most, by the accounts of many Afghan businessmen and government insiders.
Several political observers in Kabul said any candidacy by Qayum Karzai, a longtime Maryland resident who has served in the Afghan Parliament, would be a long shot because of the nation’s fatigue with Hamid Karzai and widespread resentment over the rampant corruption that has tainted his government.
Even some of the Karzai family’s own business partners are among the critics.
“We have an illegitimate and irresponsible government because of Karzai and his family,” said Abdullah Nadi, an Afghan-American developer from Virginia who is a partner in the Aino Mena housing development, but who is trying to get out of the venture.
While exploiting their opportunities in Afghanistan, the extended Karzai family has for years simmered with tensions, jealousies, business rivalries, blood feuds and even accusations of murder. With the often-fractious family, it can be difficult to discern the truth, but everyone agrees that the conflict over control of its empire can be traced back to the death in July 2011 of Ahmed Wali Karzai, who had risen from working as a waiter in Chicago to become one of the most powerful men in Afghanistan, serving as the chairman of the Kandahar Provincial Council.
His murder, by an Afghan thought to be a loyal supporter, left a power vacuum in Kandahar — and in the Karzai family.
President Karzai appointed another brother, Shah Wali Karzai, to take on their slain brother’s role as head of the Populzai, the Karzai’s family tribe.
No one expected much from him. Quiet and reserved, he was largely overshadowed by Ahmed Wali Karzai, and even lived in his more powerful brother’s compound in Kandahar.
But Shah Wali Karzai has been transformed in the past year. In addition to his role as tribal chief, he serves as project manager of Aino Mena, the sprawling residential development on the outskirts of Kandahar being developed by AFCO, a corporation owned by another brother, Mahmoud Karzai, and his four partners.
They have built 3,000 homes, with plans for a total of 14,700. The developers are building on 10,000 acres, land that Afghan military officials have claimed was illegally seized from the Ministry of Defense.
Emboldened after Ahmed Wali Karzai’s death, Shah Wali Karzai appeared no longer satisfied to serve just as an employee at Aino Mena. At some point in the past few months, he created his own corporation in Kandahar and then secretly moved all of the cash from the housing development’s bank accounts to those of his new business.
According to several AFCO partners, Shah Wali Karzai had transferred about $55 million. “He simply opened another company, and put the money in that company,” Mahmoud Karzai said in an interview.
Mr. Nadi, one of the partners in Aino Mena, accused Shah Wali Karzai of forging his signature on documents to make it appear as if he had approved the creation of Shah Wali Karzai’s company as the new corporate parent of Aino Mena. “I had no clue what the hell was going on,” Mr. Nadi said in an interview.
When Mahmoud Karzai discovered what his brother had done, he demanded that Shah Wali return the money. But Shah Wali refused, and instead insisted that he be made a partner in Aino Mena. Mahmoud and his partners refused, and the two sides settled into a bitter stalemate.
Shah Wali Karzai does not deny transferring the money to his corporation. But he justified his actions by saying that he is protecting the money for the sake of the people of Kandahar. He has told others in Kandahar that if he had not taken the money, Mahmoud Karzai could have moved it to secret bank accounts in Dubai. Aino Mena would then have risked failure just like Kabul Bank, another of Mahmoud Karzai’s business ventures, he argued.
Mahmoud Karzai was a key figure in the scandal surrounding the near-collapse of the bank, which was Afghanistan’s largest, in 2010. It lost about $900 million in insider deals, much of which is believed to have ended up in secret bank accounts in Dubai. Last year, a federal grand jury in New York began a criminal investigation into Mahmoud Karzai’s business activities in Afghanistan, pursuing accusations of tax evasion, racketeering and extortion. No charges have been brought against Mahmoud Karzai, who is a United States citizen.
“The money belongs to the people of Kandahar,” Shah Wali Karzai said in a statement in response to questions about transferring the housing development funds. “They paid much of that money for the infrastructure at Aino Mena.”
He added, “When I became project manager, they owed money to the bank and local contractors, and all the money was paid off as I turned around that company from an almost bankrupt one to a successful one.”
Mahmoud Karzai said he and his partners have filed complaints with the Afghan attorney general, accusing Shah Wali Karzai of stealing their money and using extortion to gain a partnership stake in Aino Mena. The attorney general has refused to move against Shah Wali Karzai, apparently unwilling to get involved in what he sees as a family battle.
Qayum Karzai said he attempted to negotiate a settlement, but has backed off. “Tempers were flaring up,” he said in an interview. “I tried to mediate, but I failed.”
President Karzai has been reluctant to take sides in the family dispute, though his government has been drawn into the matter. The Afghan Central Bank has finally intervened, freezing the bank accounts of Shah Wali Karzai’s company. Mahmoud Karzai said a deal was in the works, but other partners said the dispute had not been resolved.
In the midst of the conflict, Afghan security officials uncovered a plot to kill Mahmoud Karzai. About two months ago, the National Directorate of Security, the Afghan domestic intelligence agency, identified at least three Afghans, including two former employees of the Aino Mena development, who had been involved in a plot to kill Mahmoud Karzai and possibly others. One man was arrested and later released. The two former Aino Mena employees implicated in the plot had both been fired by Mahmoud Karzai.
Afghan security officials have not accused Shah Wali Karzai of any involvement in the scheme. He denies any involvement in it, and Mahmoud Karzai said in an interview, “I refuse to believe that my brother had anything to do with it.”
Family members said that Shah Wali Karzai had also been trying to unlock the secrets of his dead brother’s fortune.
After Ahmed Wali Karzai was killed, his most trusted aide, Zamarai — like many Afghans, he uses only one name — moved to Dubai. Reports of his lavish lifestyle there fed suspicions within the family that Zamarai had access to riches hidden by Ahmed Wali Karzai, perhaps through accounts and properties that had been placed in Zamarai’s name.
When Zamarai returned recently to Kandahar — some family members claim he was lured back by Aziz Karzai, Afghanistan’s ambassador to Russia and President Karzai’s uncle, an account the envoy flatly denies — he was detained by security personnel working for Shah Wali Karzai, according to relatives.
Mahmoud Karzai says he believes that Zamarai knows the whereabouts of “one or two million dollars.” Others familiar with the matter say that Shah Wali Karzai suspects that Zamarai knows about hundreds of millions of dollars more hidden in Dubai and elsewhere, including assets in Afghan businesses and real estate.
Zamarai is being held at Sarposa Prison in Kandahar, where he is guarded by Shah Wali Karzai’s security personnel rather than the regular prison guards, according to several people familiar with the matter but who asked not to be identified for fear of retribution from the Karzai family.
He has not been charged with any crime.
When asked through Gerald Posner, a Karzai family lawyer, about Zamarai and whether he is holding him, Shah Wali Karzai declined to comment.
Ex Envoy to the U.S. Hussain Haqqani (Credit: nation.com.pk)Islamabad, June 12 — A controversial judicial commission has ruled that Pakistan’s former ambassador to the United States secretly approached the Obama administration last year requesting help to stave off a possible military coup.
After five months of politically charged hearings that centered on the former diplomat, Husain Haqqani, the commission submitted its findings to the Supreme Court on Tuesday. The court then issued an order for Mr. Haqqani, to return to Pakistan from the United States, where he is teaching at Boston University. Legal experts said Mr. Haqqani could face treason charges.
The commission’s findings, in what has become known here as the “Memogate” scandal, are likely to reignite long-running tensions between Pakistan’s top civilian leaders and army generals that only last January led to rumors of a possible military coup. And it is certain to lead to more trouble for President Asif Ali Zardari, who is seen as close to Mr. Haqqani. Mr. Zardari is already engaged in several legal battles of his own with the court and stands accused of ultimately approving the supposed covert approach to the Obama administration.
State media said the commission had determined that Mr. Haqqani was responsible for a secret memo sent in May 2011 to Adm. Mike Mullen, who was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff at the time, seeking American help to avert a possible military takeover in Pakistan.
In the unsigned document, Mr. Haqqani is accused of offering to help make Pakistan’s military leadership more amenable to American priorities in return for President Obama’s assistance in preventing a coup.
Mr. Haqqani, who resigned his post in November, did not testify before the commission. Speaking by phone from the United States, he rejected the commission’s findings as “political and one-sided.”
“I am being hounded for the perception that I was pro-American,” he said. “The inquiry commission is not a court, and those claiming it has determined guilt or innocence are wrong.”
The accusations, which infuriated Pakistan’s military leadership, stemmed from an article published in the Financial Times last October by Mansoor Ijaz, an American businessman of Pakistani origin who claims to have the delivered the unsigned memo to the Pentagon on Mr. Haqqani’s instructions.
Mr. Ijaz’s claims led to Mr. Haqqani’s resignation. The army chief, Gen. Ashfaq Kayani, and Gen. Ahmad Shuja Pasha, who was then head of the Pakistani spy agency, the Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate, sent affidavits to the Supreme Court expressing alarm at the accusations. Weeks later, following a petition from the opposition leader Nawaz Sharif, the Supreme Court established a three-judge panel to investigate the claims.
The initial hearings, in January, were framed by intense intrigue outside the courtroom. The prime minister, Yousaf Raza Gilani, accused General Kayani and General Pasha of acting “illegally” and “unconstitutionally.” The army hit back with a trenchant statement warning that Mr. Gilani’s words could have “very serious ramifications with potentially grievous consequences” — prompting fevered speculation of a military coup.
Those tensions eventually calmed after a series of meetings between General Kayani and President Zardari, and the Memogate hearings gradually receded from the media spotlight as other crises took prominence.
As the commission hearings dragged on for months, they offered little clarity on either the authorship of the memo or the motivations behind the episode.
Mr. Ijaz refused to come to Pakistan to testify before the commission, citing security threats, instead testifying by video link from London. Controversy briefly flared after it emerged that he had participated in a music video that featured topless women.
Ultimately, though, Mr. Ijaz failed to produce definitive proof in public to back his claims. And Mr. Haqqani did not appear before the commission at all. He insisted that, like Mr. Ijaz, he should be allowed to testify via video link from abroad. But the judges refused his request.
As the hearings wore on, criticism grew in the Pakistani press, where many commentators said the commission was pursuing an openly partisan political agenda that would have been better dealt with in Parliament.
“The memo controversy was artificially manufactured and based on dubious evidence — basically one man’s accusations,” the newspaper Dawn wrote in April. It said that Mr. Ijaz’s accusations had “created a mountain out of a molehill.” Others accused the court of taking a side in long-bubbling arguments between the country’s top generals, politicians and elements of the news media.
The inquiry has become one of several controversies involving the Supreme Court this year. The court has endeared itself to some Pakistanis by taking a robust approach to human rights abuses committed by the military. It has also clashed with the government by pursuing a corruption case that led to Mr. Gilani’s conviction on contempt charges.
Mr. Haqqani said on Tuesday that the commission’s findings were intended to distract attention from recent corruption accusations against the son of Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry.
Mr. Haqqani also offered a veiled attack on the judiciary, which historically has sided with Pakistan’s generals rather than its civilian leaders, saying that he “refuses to let his patriotism be judged by those who had endorsed martial law regimes and had even given the right to military dictators to amend the Constitution.”
FC chief Maj. Gen. Obaidullah Khan (Credit: tribune.com.pk)
QUETTA, June 3: Balochistan Frontier Corps (FC) Inspector General (IG) Major-General Ubaidullah Khan Khattak has claimed that around 121 camps of the banned Baloch groups are operating in Balochistan and they are responsible for nationalist movement and deteriorating law and order situation in the province, while another 30 camps, sponsored by foreign powers, are functional in Afghanistan.
Speaking to media at FC headquarters on Saturday, Khattak said the rebel camps were being provided support from Afghanistan, while the Afghan government is neglecting their presence. He said these included 40 camps of Baloch Liberation Army (BLA), 26 of Baloch Republican Army (BRA), 19 of Baloch Liberation Front (BLF) and two camps belonged to Lashkar-e-Balochistan.
To a query, the FC IG said foreign hands were involved in deteriorating law and order situation in Balochistan and also supporting the militants financially.
“Teachers, doctors and many civilians have fallen prey to targeted killings,” said Khattak, adding that over 100,000 people had migrated from the province due to the poor law and order situation.
The FC chief insisted that the Balochistan issue was purely a political one and it should be resolved in a political manner. But at the same time, he issued a warning, saying, “Tit-for-tat action would be taken against those elements which are bent to disintegrate Pakistan and making propaganda against the country’s institutions.”
Khattak claimed that the number of terror acts had been reduced to a great extent in Balochistan as compared with the terror acts of last couple of years. However, he regretted that through a well-planned propaganda was being carried out against the law enforcement agencies personnel who had been sacrificing their lives for the security of people. “Through propaganda campaign and targeted attacks, the FC is being demoralised,” he added.
Khattak said 575 subversive incidents had occurred so far in the province during the current, year in which 254 people – including 57 FC personnel, two army men and 20 policemen – had been killed, while 258 of these incidents had been owned by the Baloch militant outfits.
“Attacks on FC have been increased during past several months which are aimed at to demoralize it physically and psychologically,” he added.
He further said the Levies Force was incapable and needed training to handle the criminals and the matter had been brought to the notice of provincial government. Situation in the ‘B Area’, which came under the Levies Force’s jurisdiction, was very serious and the FC was imparting training Levies Force so that it could be made affective, he added.
Referring to a recent interview of Baloch exiled leader Nawabzada Brahmdagh Bugti, Khattak said, “Nobody would be allowed to disintegrate Pakistan and we will continue fighting against those who talk about the breakup of the country.”
He said the FC wanted the support of Baloch people because no force could achieve the targets without their support.
To a query, Khattak dispelled the impression that the FC was not obeying the orders of provincial government. “FC is a federal force and deployed at borders; however, it was deployed in different parts of Balochistan following a request of the provincial government and is discharging its duties in accordance with the law”.
He stressed the need for unity amongst the people of the country, saying billions of dollars were being spent to destabilise the country. “Besides the security forces, it is also a responsibility of the citizens to play their role and foil the nefarious designs of anti-state elements”, he added.
The FC chief regretted that the accused persons involved in subversive activities always went unpunished by the courts. “121 accused persons involved in different incidents were arrested in 2011 but only 4 of them had been sentenced,” he added.
Referring to the hearings of missing persons case the Supreme Court, Khattak said he had appeared before the bench four times and always tried to uphold the rule of law. However, he said the way he was reported in the media was regrettable. “I had gone to Iran on an official visit and an official of FC had appeared before the bench during recent hearing behalf of me. But the media reported that IGFC is not appearing before the court,” he said, and adding that he (Khattak) was just an employee of the state. Khattak said the FC respected courts and political institutions. “There is no motive of FC but to maintain law and order and protect borders,” he added. Responding to a question, he said limited force was being used in Balochistan to eliminate the militant camps of militants; therefore, these camps still existed.
He said in the military operation of 2006-07, militants camps had been almost finished, however, following the elections of 2008, a political government came in power and the army was withdrawn and some cantonments were dismantled that helped militants to reorganize.
US Defense Secretary Leon Panetta (Credit: tribune.com.pk)
KABUL, June 7: Defence Secretary Leon Panetta said on Thursday the United States was reaching the limits of its patience with Pakistan because of the safe havens the country offered to insurgents in neighbouring Afghanistan.
It was some of the strongest language used by a US official to describe the strained ties between Washington and Islamabad.
Panetta was speaking in the Afghan capital, where he arrived for talks with military leaders amid rising violence in the war against the Taliban and a spate of deadly incidents, including a NATO air strike said to have killed 18 villagers.
“It is difficult to achieve peace in Afghanistan as long as there is safe haven for terrorists in Pakistan,” Panetta, who arrived in Kabul a day after a deadly insurgent bombing, told reporters.
“It is very important for Pakistan to take steps. It is an increasing concern, the issue of safe haven, and we are reaching the limits of our patience.”
Pakistan’s cooperation is considered critical to US efforts to stabilise Afghanistan before most foreign combat troops leave at the end of 2014.
President Obama & President Zardari (Credit: dailymail.co.uk)
CHICAGO, May 21: Nato leaders agreed Monday to hand Afghan forces the lead for security from mid-2013 as they rush to end the war and ensure Afghanistan can ward off Taliban militants after foreign troops leave.
In a Chicago summit declaration, US President Barack Obama and his 27 military allies confirmed plans to withdraw combat troops by the end of 2014.
But they also ordered military officers to begin planning a post-2014 mission to focus on training, advising and assisting Afghan troops and special forces.
“As Afghans stand up, they will not stand alone,” Obama told the opening of a gathering of more than 50 world leaders, focused on ending the international mission in Afghanistan and helping the war-torn country shape its own destiny.
Nato Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen vowed: “We all remain committed to our goal, a secure and democratic Afghanistan in a stable region.” But while the Western alliance coalesced around an exit strategy, they struggled to convince Pakistan to reopen a vital supply route for their troops in Afghanistan.
The leaders declared that the transition process was “irreversible” and would put Afghan forces “in the lead for security nationwide” by mid-2013, allowing US-led troops to gradually shift their focus from combat to support.
“We are gradually and responsibly drawing down our forces to complete the ISAF (International Security Assistance Force) mission by 31 December 2014,”they said in a declaration setting in stone a roadmap agreed in 2010.
With the Taliban still resilient after a decade of war, Nato leaders sought to reassure Afghan President Hamid Karzai that the international community would not abandon his country after 130,000 foreign combat troops are gone.
The 28 allies, who discussed Afghanistan over dinner at the American football Soldier Field late Sunday, were meeting Monday with their 22 partners in the war as well as other world leaders including Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari.
Zardari’s attendance had raised hopes his government was ready to lift a blockade on Nato convoys, but talks on reopening the routes have stumbled over Islamabad’s demand to charge steep fees for trucks crossing the border.
In their declaration, the Nato leaders said it was still working with Pakistan to reopen the border crossing, which was used to bring fuel and other supplies to foreign troops, “as soon as possible.” Islamabad shut its border to Nato supplies in November after a botched US air raid that left 24 Pakistani soldiers dead.
To ferry troops, food and equipment into Afghanistan, the US-led force in Afghanistan has relied on cargo flights and a more costly northern route network that passes through Russia, Central Asia and the Caucasus.
Obama said after talks with Karzai on Sunday that there were still “hard days ahead” in a conflict that has left that has killed over 3,000 coalition soldiers, maimed thousands more and left tens of thousands of Afghans dead.
In a sign of growing impatience within the alliance, new French President Francois Hollande refused to back down from his decision to pull troops out in 2012, a year earlier than planned.
“I told everyone I spoke with that this was not negotiable because it was a question of French sovereignty and everyone understood,” he said, adding France would continue to train Afghan forces after 2012.
Karzai said his country no longer wanted to be a “burden,” urging the international community to complete a security transition to his Afghan forces.
The Afghan leader came to the summit armed with a demand for $4.1 billion a year from Nato and other nations to fund his forces, giving them the means to prevent a civil war.
Thousands of protestors have taken to the streets in recent days calling for an end to war. Although the rallies have been largely peaceful, scuffles broke out Sunday when some hardcore demonstrators refused police orders to disperse.
Police said 45 people had been arrested and four police officers suffered minor injuries.
LAHORE, May 8: India is willing to look at more land border transit points with Pakistan and opening new border crossings at places like Munnabao in Rajasthan is a possibility , Sharat Sabharwal, India’s high commissioner to Pakistan said on Monday. He was addressing the inaugural session of the 2nd Aman Ki Asha Indo-Pak Economic Conference . At present, Attari-Wagah is the only land route for trade between the two nations.
Later this month, Indian and Pakistani home secretaries are expected to sign off on an agreement that will liberalize the business visa regime. In the works are multiple entry visas, abolishing police checkposts and multi-city visas.
These measures are expected to give a fillip to Indo-Pak trade which today is languishing at sub $3-billion . Sabharwal said the Indian commerce ministry believes that trade between the two can touch $12billion in the next five years. He reiterated commerce minister Anand Sharma’s promise that for every one step Pakistan takes, India will take two. “We will like to carry the process of trade liberalization forward in a manner to create a win-win situation for both sides.” The Indian high commissioner appreciated Islamabad’s decision to accord the most favoured nation (MFN) status to India and to move from a positive list of imports from India to a negative list.
Delivering the keynote address, Pakistan Prime MinisterYousaf Raza Gilani said core issues should be settled through dialogue and called for enhanced people-to-people contact. Gilani said his government was committed to normalization of ties. “Non-state actors from both sides of the border are determined to harm relations. We need to be vigilant . He said that in sectors like information technology, education, health engineering, there is huge scope for cooperation. He commended the Times of India and the Jang group of Pakistan for launching the Aman ki Asha initiative when tensions were running high between the two nations.
Hoping that the India-Pakistan economic conference will boost the peace process, he said poverty, disease and ignorance should not become the fate of the region. “Our people have suffered because of the policies of the past. They deserve better. No more time should be wasted .” He described industry captains at the conference as the “best ambassadors of peace” for both countries . “The world is marching on and it is time for us to shed the baggage of the past and grab the opportunity at hand and act with urgency to build relations of mutual trust.”
Speakers at the conference highlighted the fact that improved economic relations between the two nations will lead to peace and prosperity . Some delegates were worried that offering MFN status to India might result in highly skewed trade relations with the balance tilting in favour of India. Their concerns were addressed by Pakistani business leaders such as Mian Muhammed Mansha, chairman, MCB Bank, and Bashir Ali Muhammed, chairman, Gul Ahmed.
They were unequivocal in saying that greater trade will benefit the Pakistani people and industry would gain from greater competition in the longer run. Mansha said he was keen on starting a bank in India.
Adi Godrej, CII president and head of the Godrej Group said the two largest economies of south Asia should work together to ensure that bilateral trade touches $10billion in the near term. Textiles, agriculture, engineering, IT, education and healthcare are sectors which can see immediate traction, he said. “Removal of tariff barriers should set in motion processes for the removal of asymmetries in trade.”
Group managing director of Jang Group Shahrukh Hasan said the Aman ki Asha initiative has helped change perceptions in both countries. “Peace which has been tantalizingly elusive is inevitable,” he said. He and almost all speakers said a liberalized visa regime is a must for any forward momentum in relations. “MFN and FDI are of no use without people being able to travel across the border,” he said.
Rahul Kansal, executive president , Times Group, said history has shown that when foes develop deep economic stakes in each other, war becomes a non-option . “We are at a historic moment; it will be pity if we can’t seize the opportunity.”
Aman ki Asha is an initiative of the Times of India and the Jang Group of Pakistan and the Lahore trade meet is co-sponsored by CII and Pakistan Business Council.
“The reason for concentrating on them is that Obama is the head of infidelity and killing him automatically will make (Vice President Joe) Biden take over the presidency,” the al-Qaida leader explained to his top lieutenant. “Biden is totally unprepared for that post, which will lead the U.S. into a crisis. As for Petraeus, he is the man of the hour … and killing him would alter the war’s path” in Afghanistan.
Administration officials said Friday the Obama-Petraeus plot was never a serious threat.
The scheme was described in one of the documents taken from bin Laden’s compound by U.S. forces on May 1, 2011, the night he was killed. I was given an exclusive look at some of these remarkable documents by a senior administration official. They have been declassified and will be available soon to the public in their original Arabic texts and translations.
The man who bin Laden hoped would carry out the attacks on Obama and Petraeus was Pakistani terrorist Ilyas Kashmiri.
“Please ask brother Ilyas to send me the steps he has taken into that work,” bin Laden wrote to his top lieutenant, Atiyah Abd al-Rahman. A month after bin Laden’s death, Kashmiri was killed in a U.S. drone attack.
Bin Laden’s plot to target Obama was probably bluster since al-Qaida apparently lacked the weapons to shoot down U.S. aircraft. But it’s a chilling reminder that even when he was embattled and in hiding, bin Laden still dreamed of pulling off another spectacular terrorist attack against the United States.
The terrorist leader urged in a 48-page directive to Atiyah to focus “every effort that could be spent on attacks in America,” instead of operations within Muslim nations. He told Atiyah to “ask the brothers in all regions if they have a brother … who can operate in the U.S. (He should be able to) live there, or it should be easy for him to travel there.”
U.S. analysts don’t see evidence that these plots have materialized.
“The organization lacks the ability to plan, organize and execute complex, catastrophic attacks, but the threat persists,” said a senior administration analyst who has carefully reviewed the documents.
The bin Laden who emerges from these communications is a terrorist CEO in an isolated compound, brooding that his organization has ruined its reputation by killing too many Muslims in its jihad against America. He writes of the many departed “brothers” who have been lost to U.S. drone attacks. But he’s far from the battlefield himself in his hideout in Abbottabad, Pakistan, where he seems to spend considerable time watching television.
Because of constant harassment and communications difficulties in Pakistan’s tribal areas, bin Laden encouraged al-Qaida leaders to leave North and South Waziristan for more distant and remote locations.
Bin Laden’s biggest concern was al-Qaida’s media image among Muslims. He worried that it was so tarnished that, in a draft letter probably intended for Atiyah, he argued the organization should find a new name.
The al-Qaida brand had become a problem, bin Laden explained, because Obama administration officials “have largely stopped using the phrase ‘the war on terror’ in the context of not wanting to provoke Muslims,” and instead promoted a war against al-Qaida.
Bin Laden ruminated about “mistakes” and “miscalculations” by affiliates in Iraq and elsewhere that had killed Muslims, even in mosques. He told Atiyah to warn every emir, or regional leader, to avoid these “unnecessary civilian casualties,” which were hurting the organization.
It would be better to concentrate on attacking the U.S. homeland. This led to sharp disagreements with his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, who favored easier and more opportunistic attacks on U.S. forces in Iraq, Afghanistan and other areas.
Bin Laden and his aides hoped for big terrorist operations to commemorate the 10th anniversary of Sept. 11, 2001. They also had elaborate media plans. Adam Gadahn, a U.S.-born media adviser, even recommended to his boss what would be the best television outlets for a bin Laden anniversary video.
“It should be sent for example to ABC, CBS, NBC and CNN, and maybe PBS and VOA. As for Fox News let her die in her anger,” Gadahn wrote. At another point, he said of the networks: “From a professional point of view, they are all on one level — except (Fox News) channel, which falls into the abyss as you know, and lacks neutrality, too.”
What an unintended boost for Fox, which can now boast that it is al-Qaida’s least favorite network.
