An estimated 15,000 militants from at least 80 nations are believed to have entered Syria to help overthrow the regime of President Bashar al-Assad according the CIA and studies by ISCR and The Soufan Group. Many of these fighters are believed to have joined units that are now part of the Islamic State. Western officials are concerned about what these individuals may do upon returning to their native countries.
According to the International Center for the Study of Radicalisation and Political Violence, at least 330 Pakistani youth have already left for Syria to join the hard-line Islamic State to help overthrow Asad’s government. The Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan led by Fazlullah has declared allegiance to the Islamic State. Fazlullah freely operates across the border, kept out only by the current Pakistan military operation in FATA. However, the free movement of the Afghan Taliban into Pakistan threatens to undercut the gains of Zarb-i-Azb.
Observers believe the bigger threat could come from middle class Pakistani youth returned from Europe and the US, with good computer skills and acceptance of the prevailing fatalist religious mind-set in Pakistan. While overseas, the cultural background of these young men made them recoil against liberal, Western values, including the ubiquitous presence of women. Finding themselves at home amidst a failing economy and exposed to religious fatalism, they are prime candidates for `jihad,’ be it in Afghanistan or Syria.
ISIS Global Appeal (Credit: washpost.com)
International Center for the Study of Radicalisation and Political Violence (ISCR), The Soufan Group, CIA. Gene Thorp, Julie Tate and Swati Sharma. Published on October 11, 2014, 6:44 p.
KARACHI, Oct 15: A 45-metre-long and 10-metre-deep tunnel being built just a few metres from the Karachi Central Jail to spring 100 ‘dangerous militants’ was discovered in a house situated in a neighbouring locality, an officer disclosed on Monday.
Several suspects belonging to a banned outfit were arrested when the house was raided this weekend, while five more suspects were later picked up on information provided by them during interrogation. The move was followed by a jail operation during which all prisoners were searched physically that led to the recovery of electric wires, scissors, radios, jihadi literature, knives, party flags and a modified ladder, said a Rangers spokesperson.
The house situated in Ghausia Colony, a shanty town close to the main penitentiary in Karachi, had been bought by the suspects some five months ago, said Col Tahir Mehmood of Pakistan Rangers, Sindh, while speaking at a press conference at the Rangers Headquarters.
“They were only 10 metres from their target when the raid was conducted,” the colonel said.
80pc digging work had been done when suspects caught
There’s an underground water tank in the house where the suspects had started tunnelling their way to the jail, the officer said. He explained that they were using ‘sophisticated equipment’ for digging, besides having arranged lights and some wooden stuff to keep the tunnel dry.
He added that the activity had been on for the past four and a half months.
“The suspects had dug up the tunnel up to 45 metres and they needed 10 metres more to reach their target” when the house was raided with the help of a national security institution on the night between Oct 11 and 12, he said.
Their intended target appeared to be a barrack unit housing around 100 ‘dangerous militants’ and they had planned to reach the target through a dry well, said the officer. Due to ‘groupings’ inside the jail, prisoners belonging to one school of thought were kept in same barracks, said a senior official of the home department. He added that 100 prisoners could be kept in a single barrack unit of the jail that housed over 5,000 prisoners.
While Col Tahir did not disclose the number of suspects picked up from the house and name of the militant group they belonged to, he did confirm that the suspects belong to ‘a banned outfit’ and that ‘five more suspects’ were rounded up on information provided by them.
Speaking about the location of the house, he said there was a road between the central prison and its adjacent neighbourhood Ghausia Colony. As it was an ‘unauthorised’ settlement, he added, the law-enforcers were investigating to ascertain the actual owner of the house.
However, provincial minister for prisons Manzoor Wasan, who along with the inspector general of prison Nusrat Mangan visited the house, told the media that its owner was a policeman who had sold it at a price four times its market price some months ago.
“The actual price of the house was Rs0.3 million but the policeman had sold it for Rs1.4 million,” said the minister. He said the police official whose name he did not disclose would also be interrogated.
To find out if the suspects had ‘inside help’, a committee led by the home secretary was constituted, said Mr Wasan.
In reply to a question, the minister for prisons said that security around the central jail was mainly the responsibility of Rangers, police and other institutions.
Asked about the dry well mentioned by the Rangers officer at the press conference, Mr Wasan made it clear that there was no dry well in the house. “Instead there was a gutter adjacent to a mosque, which leads to the prison,” he added.
Mr Wasan said the suspects had dug up tunnel up to 45 metres but they had not crossed the road yet.
High-security prison
Meanwhile, progress on a proposal for setting up a ‘high security prison’ in Nooriabad, where all ‘dangerous prisoners’ would he shifted, was reviewed at a meeting presided over by Sindh Chief Secretary Sajjad Saleem Hotiana.
The meeting was informed that the project would cost Rs1.5 billion.
The chief secretary directed the special secretary finance for early release of the fund.
Mr Hotiana said that a committee, led by DIG South Barrister Abdul Khalique Shaikh, was set up to probe the matter and submit its report within a week. Additional home secretary, representative of the jail administration and others would be part of the committee that the chief secretary said had been constituted with the approval of the chief minister.
The meeting also reviewed the security of prisons in Hyderabad, Sukkur and other areas.
PESHAWAR, Oct 2 — Amid a wave of bombing attempts in this northwestern Pakistani city on Thursday, a bomb rigged to a timer exploded inside a passenger van, killing seven and wounding six, the police said.
Although the attack was the only one of eight attempted bombings to succeed here, the police said, the mass of attempts pointed to a concerted effort by militants to intensify their attacks on government targets.
“The bombs were intended to destroy an electrical tower, and to target police and a convoy of the law enforcement agencies,” said Shafqat Malik, the head of the Peshawar bomb disposal unit, noting that the bombs all had “a level of sophistication.”
“The bomb that went off was to target civilians. Imagine what would have happened, had they all gone off,” he said. “Today was the worst day in my professional career.”
The van that was bombed was set to carry passengers to Parachinar, the main town in the Kurram tribal region.
In an interview, a policeman investigating the case, Ejaz Khan, said that a man had left two bags in the van, then asked the driver to wait for him while he went to bring more passengers. The bomb, with roughly 10 pounds of explosives, went off after he left.
Although Kurram has in the past been a center of sectarian violence between Sunnis and minority Shiites, police officials said it was more likely that the bombing was a randomly chosen terrorist act rather than a targeted killing.
“People are heading home for Eid holidays,” Mr. Khan said, referring to the Eid al-Adha festival this weekend. “There is a lot of rush. No one could have known which passenger was heading where.”
A senior police superintendent, Najib Bhagvi, suspected that Pakistani Taliban militants were behind the attacks. That organization, along with some of its allies and splinter groups, has come under increasing pressure since the start of a military offensive against militant bases in North Waziristan in June.
“Peshawar is heating up, and this is the blow back of the operation in Waziristan,” Mr. Bhagvi said. “All the terrorist outfits, including Al Qaeda, have joined forces and are hitting back.”
Peshawar has seen a surge in militant attacks this year, particularly against the police. Twenty-five policemen have been killed since January, including a police inspector who was shot dead outside his house on Thursday.
Mr. Malik, the bomb squad commander, worried that more attacks were sure to come. “Tough days are ahead,” he said.
Nasiruddin Haqqani alias Zabiullah Mujahid (Credit: thenewstribe.com)
A senior Taliban official has denied he is in Pakistan after a Twitter gaffe saw his location tagged as “Sindh, Pakistan”.
Zabihullah Mujahid, whose location is supposed to be secret, has instead said on Twitter that the tagging of Pakistan as a location was an “enemy plot,” insisting he was in Afghanistan, according to the BBC.
The gaffe has added significance as Pakistan has been accused on many occasions of having secret links with the Taliban, which the country’s government denies.
After his followers alerted Mr Mujahid of the location tag, he tweeted: “My Twitter account has been manipulated – as part of weak efforts of enemy plot, it showed that I am based in Sindh of Pakistan, I call this attempt as fake and shame [sic].”
“Now the enemy’s fake act has been exposed, and with full confidence, I can say that I am in my own country.”
Twitter said its geo location data is based on latitude and longitude data, or other information that is provided by users at the time that they post their message.
The social media platform even includes a warning in its explanation of the geo location function, stating: “Remember, once you post something online, it’s out there for others to see.”
ISLAMABAD: Over two thousand criminals have been arrested since the start of the Rangers-led operation in Karachi, an official of the Sindh Rangers told the Senate Standing Committee on Interior Affairs on Monday.
During a meeting of the committee today, Colonel Tahir Mehmood of the Sindh Rangers submitted a report detailing the progress of the operation against criminal elements in the metropolis.
According to sources, the report claimed that suspects arrested included those belonging to the outlawed Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), the banned People’s Amn Committee, the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM), Awami National Party (ANP), and hundreds belonging to banned outfits.
The Rangers report claims that around 2,251 criminals were arrested during the operation, said sources.
373 raids were carried out on MQM offices in which 560 MQM workers were arrested and a large cache of weapons was recovered.
18 raids were carried out on offices of the ANP in which 40 people were arrested and 21 weapons were recovered, he said.
396 raids were carried out against the banned Amn Committee, in which 539 people were arrested and 591 weapons were recovered.
403 raids were conducted against the outlawed Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), in which 760 alleged terrorists were arrested and a large cache of weapons and explosives was recovered.
159 raids were carried out against other banned outfits, in which 352 suspects were arrested and 463 weapons were recovered.
2347 other raids were conducted in which 4584 other suspects were arrested, said sources privy to the meeting.
When contacted by Dawn, spokesman for the Sindh Rangers Major Sibtain declined to comment on the numbers. He confirmed that a report had been submitted to the standing committee, but he was not authorised to share the details with the media.
According to sources, Colonel Tahir Mehmood told the committee that the suspects arrested during a raid on Sept 24 also included three notorious target killers.
Mehmood claimed that a search operation was recently carried out in Karachi’s Gulshan-i-Maymar area after security personnel were fired upon.
Mehmood said that 23 people were arrested, including three notorious target killers whose names are also mentioned in a list of 143 most wanted criminals submitted to Governor Sindh Dr Ishratul Ibad.
Mehmood further claimed that eight of the detainees were proclaimed offenders involved in several crimes and have been handed over to the police.
The Rangers official further said that 12 of the 23 detainees were handed over to MPA Faisal Sabzwari and Dr Sagheer Ahmed of the MQM, said the sources.
MQM chief Altaf Hussain has recently lashed out against the Sindh Rangers claiming that only his party is being subjected to raids and arrests when the Supreme Court has ruled that all political parties in Karachi have militant wings.
Speaking to Dawn.com today, MQM MPA Faisal Sabzwari pointed out that the report claims security forces have arrested only 60 suspected terrorists belonging to the TTP, while 560 MQM workers have been picked up. He said that the numbers raise the question of misplaced priorities of the security forces in the Rangers-led operation.
About the allegation of target killers being arrested in the Gulshan-i-Maymar raid, Sabzwari said that the MQM would contest these claims in court. “If the Rangers or police have evidence, then the MQM will never support any criminals. But workers have been picked up solely on the basis of their affiliation with the MQM,” he said.
Contradicting the numbers, the MQM leader said that at least 700 MQM workers have been sent to jail, while thousands of party workers have been detained since the start of the operation.
He added that the low number of arrests of government-backed groups and other terrorist outfits “contradicts the claims of neutrality and impartiality” by the security forces.
The MQM recently carried out a number of protest sit-ins in Karachi claiming that 41 party workers have been missing since the start of the operation. MQM further claims that several party workers picked up by the Rangers have been tortured to death.
KARACHI, July 22— I had just landed at Jinnah International Airport on July 7, and was walking toward the baggage claim area when I saw the bullet hole.
There it was, a single hole in one glass pane, probably from a stray bullet, fired hundreds of yards away. It was the only visible reminder of the firefight on June 8, when members of the Pakistani Taliban invaded the old terminal building where cargo and private flights now operate. Through the night, they fought a pitched battle with security forces that ended with 36 people dead, including the 10 militants. Another casualty, now permanently scarred, was our collective sense of security about our airport.
Jinnah International was the one place where we felt safe from Karachi’s woes. The airport feels like a sanctified space, its air already heavy with the magical scent of “abroad.” Traveling overseas is difficult at the best of times for Pakistanis, who must struggle through complicated visa applications and stressful visa interviews, weighed down by the need to prove one’s bona fide intentions as a visitor to another country, along with the daunting financial burden that traveling overseas presents to most Pakistanis.
But when you drive to Jinnah International to catch a dawn flight, with the sky turning from lavender to rose and peach, the airport shimmers from a distance like a mirage. The closer you get, the more real becomes the imposing gray granite building with its swooping ramps and graceful runways; with it, your dreams of escaping Karachi’s grip become reality, too.
The single bullet hole seemed so insignificant compared with the images that had crowded our television screens during the attack: plumes of smoke and fire emerging from the cargo buildings, soldiers bearing heavy weaponry to battle positions, ambulances rushing to the scene. I had been in London on June 8, but like everyone who lives in Karachi, I had seen similar scenes before — and not just on television: We’ve witnessed the bombs, gun battles and attacks, and their aftermath, with our own eyes.
But the airport siege opened a new wound. We were so proud of Jinnah International — not just its new terminal, built from 1985 to 1992 at a cost of at least $100 million, but also the old terminal. Its Star Gate remains a Karachi landmark. Hundreds of thousands of Pakistanis had passed through its dingy old buildings: to hajj, to emigrate abroad, to return home, to go to university, to discover the world.
The planners of the attack had to know that their strike, whether or not it crippled the airport indefinitely, would deliver a grievous wound to our psyche as Pakistanis. The airport, after all, represents our connection to the outside world, our modernity and our prosperity.
It is also the hub of Pakistan International Airlines, our beleaguered national carrier. Once the pride of the country, it is now the butt of a thousand bad jokes. P.I.A., you hear, stands for “Prayers in the Air.”
Pakistanis complain about nearly everything the airline does: its on-time record, its finances, its fleet maintenance, the often surly staff. But no matter how bad P.I.A. gets, it’s still ours: a national symbol established in 1955 under the leadership of a well-known Pakistani industrialist, Mirza Ahmad Ispahani. Its birth announced to the world that our fledgling country now counted itself among the nations that mattered. The terrorists struck at that idea, too.
Leaving home is always stressful, but Pakistanis have special reason to be nervous when flying abroad: Since 9/11, we have faced particularly stringent security checks and have often been singled out for special questioning at immigration lines. When we land abroad, the extra scrutiny and suspicion aroused by our green Pakistani passports amplify fears that we might be deported back to Pakistan, rather than be allowed to reach our destinations.
But the deepest cause of anxiety for Pakistanis leaving home may be historical memory. The ghosts of the millions who were slaughtered 66 years ago during Partition, when they were migrating between India and Pakistan, still haunt us when we travel. Who hasn’t heard the stories of entire trainloads of immigrants arriving dead at the train stations; of sword-wielding mobs killing defenseless men, women and children just because of their faith? These stories have been passed down through the generations, and their impact is imprinted onto our collective psychology. The Taliban’s actions at Jinnah International exposed that nerve, with eerie precision.
Pakistanis are always superstitious when we travel: We utter special Islamic prayers for safe departures and arrivals, and we give alms and thanks when we return home safely. But these customs won’t help to ease our anxiety nearly as much in the future. Not now that there are menacing-looking soldiers in combat fatigues clutching submachine guns as they patrol the airport’s corridors. Not now that only one person is allowed to drop you off at the airport, instead of the entire family that was present to comfort and distract you from last-minute jitters. And only one person can greet you when you return — taking some of the joy out of a successful homecoming.
Once I was safely home from the airport, the memory of that bullet hole in the windowpane, so small that it must have been overlooked by repair crews, reminded me of the way Bilal Tanweer, an up-and-coming Pakistani writer, opens the prologue to his novel “The Scatter Here Is Too Great”: “Ever seen a bullet-smashed windscreen? The hole at the center throws a sharp clean web around itself and becomes crowded with tiny crystals. That’s the metaphor for my world, this city: broken, beautiful, and born of tremendous violence.”
Bina Shah is the author of several novels, including “Slum Child,” and short-story collections.
Islamabad, June 30: Pakistan launched a ground offensive against militant strongholds near the Afghan border on Monday after evacuating nearly half a million people from the region, the army said, in the most significant escalation of a two-week long operation to root out insurgents.
The ground offensive is the second phase of a long-awaited operation against militants in the North Waziristan tribal area, a lawless, mountainous stretch of land in northwest Pakistan. The military announced the operation mid-June but has mainly limited its tactics to airstrikes while giving hundreds of thousands of people time to pack up their belongings and leave for safer areas.
The US has long pushed for such an operation to go after militants that use the area as a safe haven from which to attack targets in Pakistan and Afghanistan.
But for years Pakistan has said its forces were too strung out battling militants in other areas of the northwest to go into North Waziristan. The military is also believed to have been reluctant to launch the operation without political support from the civilian government. Until recently the prime minister, Mian Nawaz Sharif, has been pushing for negotiations over military force as a way to end the years of bloodshed caused by militants.
The army began a house-to-house search in Miran Shah, the main town in North Waziristan, the army statement said. It said up to 15 militants were killed in the initial ground advance. The town is also the headquarters for a number of different militant groups such as the Pakistani Taliban. Al-Qaida and the Afghan Taliban also have a presence in North Waziristan.
The operation began days after militants attacked the main airport in the southern port city of Karachi, killing 26 people. Ten attackers died in the five-hour siege that shocked Pakistanis by showing how vulnerable the country’s institutions have become.
The siege of the country’s busiest airport became a turning point in the government’s willingness to negotiate with the militants. A week after the attack, the military announced its troops were starting the North Waziristan operation.
Pakistani forces killed 376 militants during the first 15 days of the offensive, the statement said, adding that 17 soldiers also died. North Waziristan has always been a challenging area for journalists to access but the operation has made it even more difficult to independently verify reports of casualties.
The military said infantry and commandos are leading the ground advance. Three soldiers were wounded in an exchange of fire, the statement said.
Mansur Mahsud, from the Fata research centre, which researches the tribal areas in northwest Pakistan, said they had been receiving reports that many militants had left for neighbouring Afghanistan or the more remote mountainous areas in the northwest after the airstrikes. But he said a ground offensive was still necessary to clear the area.
In the past, critics have accused Pakistan of playing a double game, supporting or tolerating some militants that it sees as useful in maintaining influence in neighbouring Afghanistan, and going after other militants that attack the Pakistani state. The military has said that this operation will pursue everyone equally, but many question how aggressive they will be.
The operation could take three to four months, and it isn’t likely to end militancy across the country immediately, said Mahsud. Militant groups still have a presence in places such as Karachi or Punjab province or other parts of the northwest.
But over time, Mahsud said it will significantly weaken the militants by denying them a place to headquarter their organisations and to train new recruits.
“It cannot end militancy 100% in Pakistan but it can have a significant effect,” he said. “Once this area is cleared the militants are forced to shift to Afghanistan or the mountains.”
About 468,000 people have poured out of North Waziristan, flooding the nearby Pakistani areas of Bannu and Dera Ismail Khan in anticipation of the ground offensive. An additional 95,000 went to Afghanistan, the UN reported.
The Pakistani army has already conducted several military operations in the tribal badlands along the Afghan border, including 2009 offensives in the scenic Swat valley and in South Waziristan, the one-time headquarters of the Pakistani Taliban.
The Pakistani Taliban is a loose network of several local militant groups who want to overthrow the country’s government in a bid to install their own harsh brand of Islamic law. In their decade-old deadly campaign of bombings, shootings and other attacks, they have killed thousands of Pakistanis.
Nawaz Sharif’s government has been trying to negotiate a peace deal with the militants since he took office last summer. The operation has effectively ended prospects of any such move in the near future
FAIRY MEADOWS, Pakistan June 29 — For more than five decades, locals have called it “Killer Mountain,” a reminder of the risks of trying to scale beautiful, snow-topped Nanga Parbat.
More than 100 climbers and porters have died on the steep, rocky ascent up the world’s ninth-highest mountain — a fact Pakistan once touted in a bid to lure thrill-seekers.
Now, however, local residents are frantically trying to scrub the word “killer” from a mountain that has become a symbol of the threat posed by the Pakistani Taliban.
One year ago this month, about a dozen heavily armed Pakistani Taliban militants executed 10 foreign mountain climbers, including a U.S. citizen, at the base of the mountain. It was one of the worst acts of violence to strike the international climbing community.
Terrorism is hardly unusual in Pakistan; at least 3,000 people died last year alone in the country in violence attributed to Islamist extremists. But the attack at Nanga Parbat was a major blow, horrifying citizens who view the majestic northern mountains as a source of national pride.
“As a Pakistani, I look at it as our Sept. 11,” said Nazir Sabir, who in 2000 became the first Pakistani to climb Mount Everest in Nepal. He now operates an Islamabad-based tour company. “We never, never, ever thought that this could happen.”
The attack also crushed the remnants of Pakistan’s international tourism industry, creating new hardship in a part of the country known for its tolerance and hospitality. The loss of foreign climbers was so distressing that Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif cited it as one reason he ordered a military offensive against the Pakistani Taliban in North Waziristan this month.
Pakistan is home to five of the world’s 14 highest peaks, including K2, the second-highest mountain in the world. Nanga Parbat, at 26,660 feet, is Pakistan’s second-highest mountain.
After the attack, the number of foreign mountain climbers collapsed.
“It may take years and years before they will consider going back to a place like Pakistan,” said Steve Swenson, past president of the American Alpine Club, who has been on 11 climbing expeditions in Pakistan over the past three decades. “I talked to a lot of people, even fairly knowledgeable people, about going there again, and their immediate response is: Is it safe? And then a not-unusual response is: Are you crazy?”
‘This is the day we take revenge’
According to local officials and residents, the Pakistani Taliban attackers hiked through the wilderness for three days to reach the base camp on the western side of the mountain, known as the Diamir Face, late on June 22, 2013.
“Taliban! Al-Qaeda! Surrender!” the militants shouted as they marched into the camp, where the climbers and about three dozen porters slept.
officials say security measures have been increased. (Max Becherer/Polaris Images For The Washington Post)
The assailants went looking for foreigners, slashing more than 40 tents with knives. They yanked people from their tents — one Lithuanian, three Ukrainians, two Slovakians, two Chinese, one American and one Nepali — tied their hands behind their backs and made them kneel in a row in the moonlight.
“Then, suddenly, we a heard a shot,” said one 31-year-old Pakistani climber, who was tied up by the militants nearby. He spoke on the condition of anonymity because he continues to fear for his safety.
“Then we heard hundreds of ‘brrr, brrr, brrr’ sounds,” like an automatic weapon might make, he said. “Then a leader of the group came and shot all the dead bodies one by one again.”
One militant then shouted, “This is the day we take revenge for Osama bin Laden,” the man recounted — an apparent reference to the United States’ killing of the al-Qaeda leader in Pakistan two years earlier.
Only one foreign climber — a Chinese man who hid in a steep trench clutching a pickax — survived. The attackers also killed a Pakistani cook, apparently because he was Shiite.
Pakistani police later arrested six people who reportedly confessed to the crime.
Before the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks, hundreds of thousands of tourists traveled each year to Pakistan’s Gilgit-Baltistan district, where the Himalayan, Karakoram and Hindu Kush mountain ranges meet.
There were 20,000 tourists in northern Pakistan on the day of the attacks on New York and the Pentagon alone, but afterward the country was lucky to attract half that number in an entire year, said Tayyab Nisar Mir, a manager at the Pakistan Tourism Development Corp.
Those who did come were almost exclusively mountain climbers and long-distance backpackers determined to explore some of the world’s most picturesque scenery.
Although there were about 150 climbing expeditions a year in the country in the 1980s and 1990s, and about 75 annually after 9/11, only about 30 are likely to occur this year, officials said. And no climbers are expected this summer at Nanga Parbat. (At least two climbers made an unsuccessful attempt this past winter; no one has made it to the peak of Nanga Parbat or K2 in the winter).
The number of backpackers has declined even more dramatically, Mir said.
“Nanga Parbat was the last nail in the coffin of tourism in Pakistan,” he said, adding that the loss of tourism is costing the country $100 million annually.
Officials in Gilgit-Baltistan stress that the massacre was an isolated tragedy. They have been going to great lengths to reassure visitors that the region is safe.
On a pull-off spot overlooking Nanga Parbat on the Karakoram Highway, a sign once read, “Look to your Left: Killer Mountain.”
But Qaria Amin, 33, who operates a gem store at the spot, said that a month after the massacre, a police officer made him paint over the word “killer.” The sign now reads, “Look to your Left: Mountain.”
Local government officials had part of the mountain’s nickname, ”Killer Mountain,” painted over on a sign. (Max Becherer/Polaris Images for The Washington Post)
Kareem’s climbing equipment shop saw a constant stream of customers before. Now, merchandise collects dust. (Max Becherer/Polaris Images for The Washington Post)
Amin says he is lucky if he makes a $100 a week now, compared with the $100 a day he used to bring in selling rubies, topazes and emeralds collected from the nearby hills.
At Fairy Meadows, a village that overlooks the northwest face of Nanga Parbat and the Raikot glacier, the tourism industry has “collapsed, causing hopelessness,” said Raji Rehmal, a resident.
The village of about 50 extended families is so remote that there are few other economic opportunities. To get there, visitors travel an hour by jeep up what locals call “the world’s most dangerous road,” a lane so narrow that vehicles’ tires are inches from the ledge. The road ends at an elevation of about 8,200 feet, and visitors then must hike to the village, elevation 11,154 feet.
Rehmal, who estimates that he is 50 years old, says he has walked at least 13,000 miles working as a guide or porter for foreigners. His work helped pay for the construction of a school for the village. A foreign climber came up with the name Fairy Meadows in the 1950s because the grassy plateau reminded him of a fairy tale, according to tour operators.
“In the good days, there were doctors who used to bring medicine, and Westerners who used to linger longer just to teach the local kids,” Rehmal said. “We would never, ever think of harming any tourist, any foreigner.”
Pakistani hikers in the area also said they miss the foreign visitors.
“We have so little to be proud of, so if there is something as impressive as this, and foreigners come praise it, it’s a psychological lift,” said Nashreem Ghori, a 41-year-old Karachi native who was hiking near Fairy Meadows.
There has also been a steep decline in the tourism business in the Hunza Valley, an oasis of cherry and apricot trees wedged between imposing snow-
covered mountains. The area is one of several Himalayan locations that have been mentioned as the possible inspiration for the mythical Shangri-La in James Hilton’s 1933 novel, “Lost Horizon.”
“Here, we have nice weather, nice mountains, nice people, but tourists are not coming, ” said Mohammad Karim, 34, a guide who also runs a camping store in Karimabad, a town in the valley.
Ghulam Nabi, owner of a campground at Fairy Meadows, said he fears that residents may resort to mining or logging to try to earn a living if the tourists stay away.
“The people of Gilgit-Baltistan have learned a lot from Western people,” Nabi said. “We were taught how to protect the environment, and how to balance tourism and nature.”
Authorities now assign an armed police officer to any foreigner who wants to go hiking near Nanga Parbat. Pakistanis are hopeful that such measures, and the stunning scenery, will eventually draw back tourists.
“Those mountains are not going anywhere,” said Iqbal Walji, a Pakistani tour operator. “Sooner or later the people will come back, because it’s one of the most beautiful places on earth.”
Pakistan’s military began a full-scale operation in the Taliban stronghold of North Waziristan, prompting insurgents to warn foreign investors, airlines and multinational companies to leave the country.
“We’re in a state of war,” Shahidullah Shahid, a spokesman for the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, or TTP, said in a statement yesterday. “Foreign investors, airlines, and multinational companies should cut off business with Pakistan immediately and leave the country or else they will be responsible for their damage themselves.”
The army said June 15 it would target local and foreign terrorists in North Waziristan, a tribal region near the Afghan border the U.S. has called the “epicenter” of terrorism. The operation, long sought by the U.S., comes a week after militants attacked the country’s biggest international airport.
As Islamic militants capture cities in Iraq and the U.S. draws up plans to withdraw from Afghanistan, public opinion in Pakistan is shifting in favor of stronger action against fighters who were previously seen locally as more of a threat to America’s interests. The Taliban wants to impose its version of Islamic Shariah law in Pakistan, which includes a ban on music and stricter rules for women.
Pakistan’s Future
“At stake is the future of Pakistan,” Mahmud Ali Durrani, a former national security chief and ex-ambassador to the U.S., said by phone. “Do we want a Talibanized Pakistan or do we want to live according to the constitution, democracy? If we want to live according to our constitution and democracy then we have to fight for it, because they are the kind of people who don’t believe in these things.”
Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s party won an election last year after pledging peace talks with the TTP, the group at the forefront of an insurgency that has killed 50,000 people since 2001. Negotiations that began in March collapsed over the TTP’s demands for prisoner releases even before progressing on issues such as Shariah law.
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“I am confident this operation will be a harbinger of peace and stability,” Sharif said in a speech in Parliament yesterday. “The decision on a decisive operation was taken with full consensus.”
After Taliban and Uzbek militants attacked Karachi’s international airport, killing 28 security officials and workers, U.S. drone strikes resumed in North Waziristan following a six-month pause.
Terrorist Hideouts
Pakistani jets yesterday destroyed six hideouts and killed 27 militants in the area, taking the toll to 167 in two days of air strikes, the military said in a statement. Another 10 insurgents were shot dead in a separate battle, it said. Six soldiers were killed and three were injured when an explosion hit the area, the military said.
Troops have cordoned off all militant strongholds, including the two main towns of Mir Ali and Miranshah, and have been deployed along the border with Afghanistan to prevent combatants from fleeing the country, the military said. Pakistan has also sought help of the Afghan security forces to seal the border, according to the statement.
North Waziristan residents such as Nur Rehman have fled over the past month in anticipation of a military offensive. The threat made life unbearable, and about a quarter of people in his village of Tappi have already left, he said on June 12 from the outskirts of Islamabad, Pakistan’s capital, where he was staying with his wife and three children.
“In the sky you have drones and on the ground there’s no safety,” Rehman said. “You don’t know when you’ll become a target.”
Air Strike
More than 61,000 people have fled North Waziristan through the town of Bannu since a military air strike that killed more than 60 militants on May 21, according to the local government in Bannu. Another 6,500 people from the area, including 1,500 children, fled to Afghanistan, Mobarez Mohammad Zadran, a spokesman for the border province of Khost, said by phone.
North Waziristan is an area roughly the size of Connecticut that sits near the Afghan border in a semi-autonomous tribal region. Michael Mullen, the U.S.’s former top military official, in 2010 called it the “epicenter of terrorism” and “where al-Qaeda lives.”
No mobile phone coverage is available, and residents make a living through farming or trading goods with Afghanistan. About half of the world’s polio cases this year have been reported in North Waziristan as militants target vaccination drives, part of the fallout from the U.S. spying operation that led to Osama bin Laden’s death in 2011.
Own Laws
The roughly 700,000 people living in North Waziristan are exempted from paying taxes and are governed by their own set of criminal laws. While traditions entrust village elders to solve disputes, feuds are often settled with guns.
After the U.S. invaded Afghanistan in 2001, North Waziristan became a safe haven for foreign militants like Uzbeks and Turks who fought alongside the fallen Taliban regime. Local tribes welcomed them in line with a culture of hospitality, according to Khalid Aziz, chairman of the Regional Institute of Policy Research and Training in Peshawar.
In 2007, militant groups in the area united to form the TTP, which went on an offensive toward Islamabad. After Pakistan’s army flushed them out of the Swat valley and most tribal regions, it resisted U.S. pressure to follow through with a push into North Waziristan, which was also home to the Haqqani network and Gul Bahadur, who were fighting American troops in Afghanistan.
Unable to convince Pakistan to take action, the Obama administration intensified its campaign of drone attacks that President George W. Bush started in 2004. More than 3,200 people died in drone strikes from June 2004 to December 2013, according to California-based Pitch Interactive, Inc., which cited data from The Bureau of Investigative Journalism.
About 70 percent of all drone strikes have been in the North Waziristan region, according to Washington-based The New America Foundation. Only 58 known militant leaders have been killed in drone strikes in Pakistan, representing 2 percent of the total deaths, it said.
Pak offensive in North Waziristan (Credit: guardian.co.uk)
Islamabad, June 15 – A long-awaited military campaign to destroy militant safe havens in a Taliban-dominated part of Pakistan‘s borderlands began , years after the US first demanded action.
The army said it had launched a “comprehensive operation against foreign and local terrorists who are hiding in sanctuaries in North Waziristan”, the troubled tribal region that has served as a staging area for attacks across Pakistan and Afghanistan.
Military sources said as many as 30,000 troops could be involved in the operation to secure the border region, which the army believes must be completed before the end of Nato combat operations this year in Afghanistan.
An official statement said “Operation Zarb-e-Azb” had been launched “on the directions of the government”, but the decision follows months of public controversy over the issue, with leading politicians arguing any attempt to seize control of the area would provoke a violent backlash by the Pakistani Taliban in the country’s cities.
Pakistan’s prime minister, Nawaz Sharif, had instead tried to negotiate a peace deal with militants, something most experts said had no chance of success given the record of militants breaking ceasefires.
Sharif’s obstinacy in the face of army demands for North Waziristan to be dealt with before summer has exacerbated tensions between Pakistan’s civilian and military leaderships, who have clashed over the treason trial of former military ruler Pervez Musharraf.
The military statement said the country could not afford to wait any longer. “Using North Waziristan as a base, these terrorists had waged a war against the state of Pakistan and had been disrupting our national life in all its dimensions, stunting our economic growth and causing enormous loss of life and property,” it said.
Pakistan’s military had already ramped up pressure on militant groups in North Waziristan in recent weeks, launching air strikes and limited ground operations which it described as limited acts of retaliation against Taliban attacks.
The latest came early on Sunday when the army claimed fighter jets killed 80 terrorists, most of whom it said were Uzbeks involved in last week’s lethal attack on Karachi’s airport. Military sources said Abdul Rehman, a senior commander from the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan who is said to have masterminded the airport attack, was among the dead.
North Waziristan is part of a swath of forbidding, mountainous border territory that fell under Taliban control after militants fled there from Afghanistan following the US-led invasion of 2001.
It soon became a global hub for a plethora of terrorist groups, including al-Qaida and the Pakistani Taliban.
The presence of a large safe haven next to Afghanistan enraged bWashington and Kabul who complained the region was being used to hatch plots, train fighters and prepare suicide bombers who could cross the border to kill Afghan and Nato troops.
But Pakistan refused to act, even after the attempt by a Pakistani American terrorist to bomb New York’s Times Square was traced back to the Pakistani Taliban in North Waziristan.
In 2011 the North Waziristan-based Haqqani Network, an Afghan militant group, launched a rocket attack on the US embassy in Kabul.
In response the White House expanded the use of missile strikes by unmanned drones to kill suspected militants, although the increase in strikes caused outrage in Pakistan.
Pakistan’s refusal to act in North Waziristan reinforced suspicions that it continues to support and protect some militant groups, including the Afghan Taliban, in order to gain influence in Afghanistan, a country historically feared by Islamabad because of its refusal to drop claims to Pakistani territory and long-standing ties with arch enemy India.
The army argued it was taking action, methodically clawing back control of parts of the tribal north-west that had slipped into militant hands by launching major operations in the Swat Valley and South Waziristan.
Some observers remain sceptical despite Sunday’s announcement. They argue the Haqqani Network and other militant groups regarded as useful allies are likely to be left untouched by the operation or will simply move into unsecured parts of western Afghanistan.
On Sunday the army insisted it would “eliminate these terrorists regardless of hue and colour”.
Despite the dangers posed by North Waziristan, many analysts, including one senior western security official in Islamabad, warn an operation may only succeed in forcing dangerous militants into other parts of the country, including the already turbulent city of Karachi where the Pakistani Taliban has made dramatic inroads in recent years.
They say the police are simply not prepared to fight an urban insurgency.
Speaking on local television defence minister Khawaja Asif said “terrorists may carry out attacks, we have to be watchful”. But he vowed that the operation would be carried through “to its logical conclusion”.
“Any group that uses Pakistan’s soil for terrorism will be eliminated, the operation will continue till the complete destruction of terrorism,” he said.
