Category: Foreign Affairs

ISLAMABAD, June 19: The government of Pakistan condemned the two incidents of US drone strikes that took place near Miramshah, North Waziristan during the early hours of Wednesday.

According to a statement from the Ministry of Foreign Affairs on Wednesday, where they termed the strikes as a “violation of its sovereignty and territorial integrity.”

“These strikes have a negative impact on the government’s efforts to bring peace and stability in Pakistan and the region.”

Wednesday’s strikes killed at least six people. On June 11, two successive drone strikes reportedly killed around 16 people and injured few others.

There have been three drone strikes this year, killing around 20 people.

London, June 3: On Tuesday, police in London arrested a man on suspicion of money laundering. Thousands of miles away in Karachi, Pakistan’s turbulent coastal metropolis, traffic snarled, shops shuttered, trains stopped, embassies closed and millions braced for further havoc. (As of Tuesday evening, there were reports of gunfire and 12 vehicles set aflame, but no casualties.)

The man taken in by Scotland Yard is Altaf Hussain, leader of Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), the dominant political party in Karachi. Despite living in self-imposed exile in Britain for more than two decades out of fear for his life, Hussain has remained a kingpin in this megacity of nearly 20 million, depending on how you count it. He casts a long, dark shadow over the city, notorious for its gangland violence and volatile political divisions.

The MQM draws support from Karachi’s large population of mohajirs, the descendants of those who migrated to Pakistan from what is now India in 1947, when colonial India was cleaved in two by the departing British. The party commands a crucial bloc of seats in Parliament, almost all of which are concentrated around Karachi in southern Sindh province.

The city’s ethnic polarization — it’s also home to huge ethnic Pashtun and Sindhi populations — has led to years of sectarian tensions, punctuated by attacks and street battles. The MQM’s vast political machinery is complemented by brass knuckles. A leaked 2008 U.S. diplomatic cable, citing local police, claimed that the party maintained its own parallel militia of as many as 10,000 active fighters, with 25,000 in reserve.

British authorities have been investigating Hussain, 60, since the 2010 assassination in London of a MQM official, Imran Farooq, who had grown estranged from the party. Last week, they froze Hussain’s bank accounts. MQM officials said today that he was brought in only for questioning, but it seems clear that he is under arrest.

Hussain is considered a charismatic, larger-than-life figure. Ensconced in his compound in northwest London, he would coordinate the operations of his party via teleconference and get beamed over satellite to address mass gatherings and rallies.

While the MQM has staunch middle-class backing and is credited with running Karachi efficiently, it is thought to benefit from a whole slew of underworld activities, including extortion and targeted attacks on opponents. MQM officials routinely deny any connection to such wrongdoing.

Hussain himself has earned notoriety for his incendiary rhetoric — once telling an aggressive journalist that he had “his body bag ready” and, in another instance, warning critics to end their “false allegations” against him. “Don’t blame me, Altaf Hussain, or the MQM,” he said, “if you get killed by any of my millions of supporters.”

Scotland Yard may struggle to charge him with incitement to violence or prove a direct link to Farooq’s death. So it appears its most solid case surrounds Hussain’s funds and their use in Britain. Earlier raids on Hussain’s house led to the impounding of about $600,000 in cash.

Meanwhile, in Karachi, MQM officials have called for calm, sending out mass text messages throughout the city advising residents to ignore rumors that could cause further disruption or violence. Like many political parties in South Asia, the MQM’s cohesion depends greatly upon the presence of its towering founding figure. The doubts and fears in Karachi are as much about what happens at home as they are about what happens in a British courtroom far away

LAHORE, May 28—A major faction of the Pakistani Taliban broke away and condemned violence on Wednesday, weakening the militant group allied with al Qaeda that seeks to overthrow the Pakistani state.

The split in the Pakistani Taliban, known formally as Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, comes after months of attempted peace negotiations between the government of Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif and the militant organization. It also followed weeks of bloody infighting within the TTP.

The move could push Pakistan closer to an army operation against the remainder of the TTP, an offensive that Washington has long wanted.

Although the stated aim of the talks was to forge a peace deal with the whole TTP, Pakistani officials had privately said the realistic goal was to see which factions were amenable to peace and which were irreconcilable. An operation planned by the army was put on hold when Mr. Sharif launched peace talks in late January.

The breakaway faction is led by a warlord named Sajna who is also known as Khan Said or Khalid Mehsud, announced a “complete separation from the current organization that has lost its way.”

Sajna represents most of the militants from the fierce Mehsud tribe, who made up much of the TTP. His faction, now calling itself Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan Mehsud group, accused the rest of the TTP of criminality.

The breakaway group, if it goes on to agree to a peace deal with the government, could now join the ranks of the so-called good Taliban—jihadist groups that don’t fight within Pakistan such as an outfit led by Gul Bahadur, which is active in Afghanistan.

“We consider kidnapping for ransom, extortion, damage to public facilities and bombings to be un-Islamic,” said a statement from the breakaway faction.

“Tehreek-e-Taliban Mehsud group believes in stopping the oppressor from cruelty, and supporting the oppressed.”

The breakaway group was originally led by a commander named Waliur Rehman, who was killed in a U.S. drone strike last year.

It was always considered relatively moderate, It was involved in many of the activities it now condemns and is likely responsible for the deaths of thousands of Pakistanis, analysts said.

The TTP, which works independently of the Afghan Taliban, was formed in 2007 in the lawless tribal areas under the influence of al Qaeda to target Pakistan.

The breakaway group pledged allegiance to the Afghan Taliban.

“We have the deepest respect for jihadist organizations of the right beliefs fighting against evil powers,” the group said.

The rest of the TTP is still led by Mullah Fazlullah, a militant from the Swat district outside the tribal areas who isn’t a Mehsud.

The leadership of the TTP passed outside the Mehsuds for the first time when Mr. Fazlullah was made chief in November after the previous leader, Hakimullah Mehsud, was killed in a U.S. drone stroke.

Many from the Mehsud clan never accepted the new leader.

Rahimullah Yusufzai, a veteran journalist who was formerly part of the government’s negotiating committee for the peace talks, said he expected some other factions of the TTP from the tribal areas to join the breakaway faction.

Parts of the so-called Punjabi Taliban—militants from the country’s most populous Punjab province—could also possibly join.

“Now you will have one less enemy,” Mr. Yusufzai said.

“The Mehsuds have always been the backbone of the TTP. I expect Fazlullah will become weaker, day by day.”

Pakistan’s national-security adviser, Sartaj Aziz, and the Interior Ministry, which is handling the peace talks, both declined to comment on the latest development.

Mr. Fazlullah is believed to be based in eastern Afghanistan, putting him beyond the reach of Pakistan’s armed forces.

A relatively small group of the Mehsud clan militants, led by a commander named Shehryar, remains loyal to Mr. Fazlullah. . Fighting between the Sajna and Shehryar factions has left dozens of militants dead in recent weeks.

Parts of the TTP allegedly have support from Afghan intelligence, a connection made public last year when a TTP commander was snatched from Afghan custody by U.S. forces in Afghanistan.

The breakaway faction said that “using the TTP platform, people in the current organization are tools of secret agencies.”

The Afghan government denies it supports the TTP, and didn’t immediately comment on Sajna’s defection.

Pakistan’s military is thought to be getting impatient for military action against the TTP, one of the sources of its tension with the civilian government.

Following a visit to troops in the tribal areas Tuesday, the army chief, Gen. Raheel Sharif, said: “Together the whole nation has rejected the misplaced ideology of the terrorists, who have clearly lost their cause already and are being marginalized.”

Rifaat Hussain, a security analyst based in Islamabad, said airstrikes by the Pakistani military in recent weeks, along with limited ground action, pointed toward a coming offensive that would target the Fazlullah-led group.

“The army has declared its intention very clearly to launch an operation,” said Mr. Hussain. “The military sees this as an opportunity to finally break the stranglehold of the TTP on the tribal areas.”

The TTP has tentacles across the country and has a major presence in Pakistan’s largest city, Karachi, where they dominate areas around the periphery of the city and, according to police, use it to raise funds through extortion and other criminality.

Saifullah Mahsud, director of the FATA Research Center, an independent think tank in Islamabad, said that Sajna group had emerged as the dominant TTP faction in Karachi, so his departure from the TTP and his pledge against violence could help the law and order situation in Karachi.

“This is a change in strategy for the Sajna people and it helps Pakistan keep its options open,” he said.

— Safdar Dawar and Qasim Nauman contributed to this article.

ISLAMABAD, April 17: The Pakistani establishment has made it clear to the Afghan Taliban and the Haqqani Network that the time has come for them to choose between the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan and the state of Pakistan, if they want to stay friends with Islamabad.

The unprecedented warning from the Pakistani establishment has come at a crucial time when the Pakistani Taliban are holding peace talks with the government in Islamabad, amidst demands to release over 800 Taliban prisoners and to set up a free peace zone in Waziristan.

According to well-informed sources, the warning from the establishment was prompted by the growing cooperation among the Afghan Taliban, the Haqqani Network and the Pakistani Taliban, which has reinforced the martial power of TTP in its current conflict with the security forces of Pakistan.

The TTP spokesman, Shahidullah Shahid, already admitted on October 6, 2013 in an interview that the Afghan Taliban were financially supporting the Pakistani Taliban besides providing them sanctuary in Afghanistan.

The fugitive TTP Ameer, Mullah Fazlullah, who had claimed responsibility last year for killing GOC Swat Major General Sanaullah Niazi is also being sheltered by the Afghan Taliban in the Kunar Province.

However, what seemed to have angered the Pakistani establishment the most were the allegations coming from the Afghan and the Pakistani Taliban, blaming the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) for the November 11, 2013 mystery murder [in Islamabad] of Dr Nasiruddin Haqqani, the top fundraiser and organiser of Haqqani Network as well as its liaison man with the Pakistani security establishment.

Dr Nasiruddin, the real brother of Sirajuddin Haqqani, was killed by unknown gunmen in the federal capital 10 days after the November 1, 2013 killing of the TTPAmeer in a US drone attack in North Waziristan. Both were laid to rest in the Dandey Darapa Khel area of North Waziristan which also headquarters the Haqqani Network as well as the TTP.

The decades-old cozy ties between the Pakistani establishment and the Haqqanis were shattered with the mystery murder of Dr Nasiruddin when a spokesman of Haqqani network (Najeebullah) immediately blamed the Pakistani intelligence agencies.

He said: “Dr Nasiruddin had been mediating between a powerful intelligence agency and the Pakistani Taliban for peace talks. But he had refused to mediate further following Hakimullah’s death and the subsequent announcement of TTP not to hold peace talks with the government.

Nasiruddin’s reluctance to mediate anymore after Hakimullah’s killing must have annoyed the agency which decided to eliminate him physically,” the Haqqanis’ spokesman was quoted by the media as saying.

On his part, the TTP spokesman, Shahidullah Shahid, also blamed a Pakistani intelligence agency for the murder, vowing to take revenge. “Nasiruddin Haqqani has been martyred by none other than the ISI.

He was killed because he had bravely backed our Ameer Hakimullah Mehsud,” Shahidullah told AFP when asked about possible killers.

However, on their part, the ISI circles had refuted the allegations of involvement in the murder, saying Dr Nasiruddin Haqqani was either killed by the TTP or by the Afghan National Directorate of Security.

The allegations leveled by the Afghan Taliban and the Haqqani Network were followed by Pakistani intelligence reports that both the groups were supporting and financing the TTP in its terror spree against the khakis and the civilians alike.

Indeed, the Pakistani and the Afghan Taliban are closely allied and both aim to impose a strict version of Islamic laws or Shariah on their societies. However, their leadership and targets differ with each other.

While the Pakistani Taliban mostly focus their terrorist attacks in Pakistan against the security forces which they think are an American ally, the Afghan Taliban target the Afghan and the Allied forces.

Defence Minister Khawaja Asif recently told Reuters in an interview that the Pakistan government was worried about the possibility of increasing convergence between the Pakistani and the Afghan Taliban. “Then the Pakistani Taliban will have a powerhouse behind them,” Khawaja Asif had said.

Analysts believe that these concerns might have prompted the Pakistani security establishment to warn the Haqqanis and the Afghan Taliban against backing the TTP.

However, the close nature of ties between the Afghan and the Pakistani Taliban can be gauged from the fact that the central Shura of TTP has already referred their internal differences to the Afghan Taliban while asking Mullah Omar to intervene and send a delegation to resolve the tiff between two major factions of Mehsud militants from South Waziristan.

A senior TTP commander has been quoted in the media as saying that the Shura thought that the intra-TTP tussle was too serious and critical for them and, therefore, they decided to approach the Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan, a term usually referred to the Afghan Taliban.

There are already reports that the Ameer of the Afghan Taliban is persuading the Pakistani Taliban to end their infighting in South Waziristan as he wants to secure their support against the foreign troops in Afghanistan to launch the annual spring offensive.

Analysts believe the Pakistani security establishment’s warning was meant to dissuade the Haqqanis and the Afghan Taliban from siding with the Pakistani Taliban in their conflict with the state of Pakistan at a time when the Allied forces are set to withdraw from Afghanistan and both the Afghan militia groups would require the crucial support of Islamabad to stage a comeback in Kabul.

In fact, the ultimate agenda of the Pakistani Taliban is the establishment of their own state — the Islamic Emirate of Waziristan [on the pattern of Mullah Omar’s Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan] in Fata where they can impose the Islamic Shariah. On the other hand, the ultimate agenda of the Afghan Taliban is the revival of the lost Islamic Emirate of Afghanistan.

Therefore, following the Pakistani establishment’s warning, Mullah Omar will have to decide whether to befriend the Pakistani Taliban or the state of Pakistan.

Commander Sirajuddin Haqqani of the Haqqani Network is bound to follow suit being a disciple of Mullah Omar just like the Pakistani and the Afghan Taliban. Well informed sources in the establishment say logically speaking Mullah Omar would like to remain a friend of Pakistan instead of inviting its wrath by befriending the TTP.

However, there are those in the Taliban circles who believe that if the Afghan Taliban succeed in regaining power in Kabul after the withdrawal of the Allied troops, there would be greater chances of their joining hands with the Pakistani Taliban whose aims and objectives and those of the Ameerul Momineen are the same.

However, the establishment circles say, in such an eventuality, the Afghan Taliban and the Haqqani Network must know that “strategic depth” would no longer be a consideration of the establishment if the Pakistan government finally orders a military action in North Waziristan after the failure of the talks with the TTP.