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Snipers Kill Nationalist Supporters Marching for Unity in Sindh

Karachi Burns in Ethnic Fires (Credit: blogstribune.com.pk)

KARACHI, May 22: At least 12 people have been killed and 29 injured in violence that erupted after unidentified gunmen opened fire on a rally organised by the Awami Tehreek and banned Peoples Amn Committee (PAC) in Karachi on Tuesday.

The protestors were rallying against the proposed Mohajir province and operation in Lyari.

Soon after the attack, the protest turned violent and dozens of cars and motorbikes were torched. The violence, which erupted in the Napier Road area, spread to the nearby localities including Lyari.

Police personnel deployed to maintain security failed to control the situation, however, after Rangers arrived, violence was brought under control.

Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani has taken notice of the violence and has sought a report from the Sindh government.

Meanwhile Express News reported that Interior Minister Rehman Malik said that Awami Tehreek and Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz, PAC, Punjabi-Pakhtun Ittehad (PPI), KCI had participated in the rally, but they had not sought prior permission from the government. A Joint Investigation Team (JIT) has been formed to investigate into the matter.

Later, while commenting on Twitter, Malik said he had proposed to Chief Minister Sindh for an inquiry into the incident through a judge of the Sindh High Court. The Court should then ascribe responsibility for a probe.

The interior minister, further tweeted late Tuesday night, posing questions to the parties involved in the rally, asking why Ayub Awan, Ayaz Latif Palijo and particularly PML-N’s Marvi Memon led 2000 people into sensitive areas including Lyari and Kharadar.

Malik blamed PML-N for the deaths, caused due to the violence.

He also shrugged off any responsibility for the episode of violence, saying that it was the responsibility of the local police, Home Secretary Sindh and Chief Minister Sindh, adding that he is only responsible for providing logistical support and forces.

Due to today’s violence, Board of Intermediate Education in Karachi and Hyderabad have postponed exams scheduled to be held on Wednesday. The exams will now be held on May 30 in Karachi and May 26 in Hyderabad.

Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM) leader Wasay Jalil expressed sorrow over the incident and called it a planned activity. He further claimed that the rally “had caused the violence”

Awami Tehreek President Ayaz Palijo, in a press conference, said that the police left the areas as soon as firing began and the PPP “stood there, watching Sindhis being killed”.

“I thank PML-N and Jamaat-e-Islami who supported us in the protest,” he added.

He further warned that every drop of blood that was shed in today’s riots will be avenged, “not from innocent Urdu-speaking people, but from terrorists”.

Palijo also said that he had received text messages last night from a certain party which threatened of repeating the May 12 scenario today during the protest.

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Zardari Attends Chicago Moot Amid Disconnect with NATO

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.

 

 

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Pak Government Warns Millions May be Affected by Floods Again

Escaping the flood (Credit: guppu.com)

ISLAMABAD, May 16: About 29 million people could be affected from possible floods in 2012, National Disaster Management Authority (NDMA) official warned on Wednesday.

Warning all provincial governments of the possible flood-related devastation, NDMA Chairman Zafaq Iqbal said there would be more monsoon rains this year.

He said “the NDMA has asked for Rs20 billion from provincial governments to start preparations in order to avert possible flood devastations.”

The NDMA chief said the federal government has also been requested to release Rs5 billion in this regard.

Iqbal said monsoon rains are likely to begin from the mid-June. CNBC

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Mumtaz Bhutto’s party merges with Sharif’s PML (N)

Mumtaz with former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif (Credit: nation.com.pk)

Years later, as I flew to Larkana to interview the aristocratic Mumtaz Bhutto at his ancestral home, I found he had also not forgiven the PPP “riff raff” for their challenge to the feudal lords.

With his cool demeanor and long moustache, Mumtaz spoke slow clipped sentences in British English. It established his credentials as a barrister-at-law from Lincoln’s Inn, U.K. Well-spoken, and comfortable with hosting Western diplomats in his Karachi mansion, Mumtaz was just as at ease in his sprawling estate as in the otherwise poor and underdeveloped Larkana.

The Larkana feudal had stayed away from Benazir’s attempts to reorganize the PPP after her father was hanged by the military. Instead, he had watched incredulously as Benazir had worked her way up through the old boy network of entrenched male feudals.

Mumtaz came to receive me at his gates in Larkana after my hosts dropped me off from the airport. We walked back to his magnificent estate.  Rows of elderly men touched his feet in reverence all the way back to the house. I felt guilty that grown men prostrated themselves. But, the Larkana feudal walked erect, scarcely looking down at the emaciated peasants. This was the traditional welcome for a man who owns lands in Larkana, Jacobabad and Shahdadkot and in the adjoining Balochistan province.

Sitting in the shade in Mumtaz Bhutto’s brick courtyard where the afternoon sun gently sizzled, we chatted after I finished interviewing him. An avid reader of Dawn, he told me he was familiar with my name. It did not surprise me, knowing that Western-educated feudal politicians and bureaucrats alike read the newspaper for which I wrote. At the same time, he complained that politicians shot into prominence – and I knew he hinted at Benazir – because of the media attention they received.

Perhaps the inordinate attention Benazir had received in the press after her exile overseas had seemed excessive to her uncle. In particular, he seemed irked by how green Benazir was for Pakistan’s seamy politics.

With a sardonic smile, Mumtaz told me that when Benazir had arrived from London to lead the Pakistani nation of over 100 million, her youth and unfamiliarity in getting the top job as prime minister made her seem like “Alice in Wonderland.”

“You know that when Benazir first came to me, she didn’t know anyone. Instead, she asked that I introduce her to people,” Mumtaz told me.

“Did you?” I asked.

“Yes,” he said in his non-committal way.

But I knew that as a political rival Mumtaz was least likely to introduce his ambitious niece to the powerbrokers.

Mumtaz was a man who belonged to another era, another system. His style was in sharp contrast to Benazir’s father, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto. Bhutto had used his fiery speeches to empower peasants and the working class, who had, for centuries, cringed before the aristocracy.  Apart from being a demagogue, Bhutto had left lasting effects. My visit to Larkana – the ancestral home of the Bhuttos – gave me an insight into the contrasting style of the rival politicians from the best-known political family of Sindh.

We sat in the courtyard where the sounds of chirping birds and the fresh country air made me glad to be out of Karachi city. As the servants brought tea, Mumtaz poked fun at Benazir’s poor knowledge of her mother tongue, Sindhi.  It was an issue I could identify with myself:  like Benazir, I was born a Sindhi in Karachi. Being primarily educated in Western institutions, my parents had never encouraged me to learn my own language.

But Mumtaz was relentless with his niece.

“When Benazir comes to Larkana and I hear her speeches in Sindhi blaring out from the loudspeakers, I want to cover my ears,” he laughed sardonically. He saw me smile, in spite of myself.

Mumtaz had reserved his deepest contempt for the commoners who joined the PPP under Benazir. I could see how difficult it had been for him to digest the victory of a PPP candidate of “inferior standing” like Deedar Hussain Shah, who won against him in Larkana.

“You know that fellow (Deedar Shah) used to be my kumdar (manager of lands) – who waited outside my office to get my attention,” he told me.   “And now he has the nerve to stand against me,” he added in disgust.

That came as news to me. I knew Deedar Shah as one of the best-read parliamentarians in the Sindh Assembly.

We left the ancestral courtyard after Mumtaz offered to take me on a tour of his ancestral lands in Larkana in his Pajero jeep. It was an unusual step for a feudal to drive a vehicle with an unveiled woman, but there were important things on my host’s mind.

As we drove through his constituency, he told me to note the broken roads and a gaping gutter in Naudero, Larkana where a child had fallen a few days ago. He cited them as examples of how his humble PPP rival Deedar Shah had failed to fulfill the needs of the community.

Both Mumtaz Bhutto and his PPP opponent Deedar Hussein Shah, knew from experience that getting funds from the Punjab was like getting blood out of a stone. Deedar Shah grew hoarse in the Sindh Assembly as he appealed for development funds for interior Sindh. Eventually he quit politics and became a judge.

As a prominent feudal lord, Mumtaz claimed he would have more leverage with the federal government in getting funds for rural Sindh. That, I suspected, was true.

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Ex MNA from Kohistan Threatens Working Women

Maulvi Abdul Haleem (Credit: elections.com.pk)

MANSEHRA, May 5: Former Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal MNA from Kohistan Maulvi Abdul Haleem on Saturday warned women working in non-governmental organisations against entering his district and said violators of the warning would be forcibly married off to locals.

“I issued a decree during Friday sermon that getting education for degrees by women is repugnant to Islamic injunctions because if a woman gets degree, she may use it for job, an act which Islam doesn’t allow in absence of mehram (close relatives),” he told reporters here.

Mr Haleem said: “If women working in NGOs enter Kohistan, we won’t spare them and solemnise their nikkah (marriage) with local men.”

Maulana Haleem, who remained MNA during the Musharraf regime, said if a woman got education and used it for job, then it was against the teachings of Islam.

“That’s why girls are not going to schools in Kohistan and girl schools are used as cattle pen,” he said.

The ex-MNA, who was once a mufti at Darul Uloom Haqqania, Akora Khattak, and also taught top clerics Maulana Samiul Haq, Maulana Anwarul Haq, Maulana Nizamuddin Shamazai, said he was not opposed to NGOs and would ensure complete protection of their male staffers in Kohistan.

He said if NGOs wanted to work for women’s development, they should spend money for the purpose through government departments.

“We won’t let them (NGOs) influence our women in the name of empowerment and financial support through women workers of NGOs,” said the ex-MNA, who remained the district chairman in Kohistan during the General Ziaul Haq regime.

He said he issued a decree in the past in favour of poppy cultivation and trade and continued to believe so.

“I also rose up against the unjustified slaughtering of animals by Jehanzeb Khan, the ruler of the formerly Swat state, at his birthday. Kohistan was part of the state of Swat at that time. Even he (ruler) put me behind the bars but I didn’t withdraw the decree,” he said.

The ex-MNA said killing of women in the name of honour was a ‘local custom and religious practice’ in Kohistan.

He said if someone witnessed female members of his family roaming with ghair mehram (other than close relatives), he could kill her without producing four witnesses,” he said.

Meanwhile, a man was killed and his father and two brothers critically wounded on Saturday when their rival tribesmen attacked their house in Palis area.

A dispute over the ownership of a water reservoir was blamed for the Narng Shahkhail attack on Badakhail tribesmen.

The dead included Azizur Rehman, while the injured were his father, Mohammad Asghar, and his brothers, Mohammad Essa and Abdul Quddos, whose condition was stated be critical at a local hospital.

The Palis police lodged an FIR and began investigation. Last year, four people were killed and three injured when Badakhail and Narng Shah-khail tribes exchanged heavy fire over the same dispute.

 

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Tharis See Meteor Fly through Desert’s Night Sky

Meteor in night sky (Credit: perseid38.com)

MITHI, May 5: People living in a village of Thar district said they had seen a mysterious flying object come crashing down on a school building late on Friday night. Some villagers even said they were sure that the object was a meteorite.

The object struck Ladki village of Diplo taluka, 60 kilometres from here. It caused a small crater in the school ground. The object weighed about few hundred grams. Prem Shivani – dawn.com

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Desertification is Creeping Cancer of Feudal Society

Soil degradation in Pakistan (Credit: tribune.pk.com)

Without fair access to land, peasant and farm workers in Pakistan have no reason to protect land from desertification (© DfID/Flickr)

Land is a critical productive asset and the majority of livelihoods in the dry lands of the developing world depend on it.

The UN Convention to Combat Desertification (UNCCD) is one of the main environmental treaties, borne out of the Rio Earth Summit, and it addresses land; its resources, its productivity and the role of stakeholders in combating desertification.

Those poor people, who use land to meet their daily livelihood needs – farmers, tenants, agricultural workers and pastoral communities – are the primary stakeholders for desertification.

They are the ones whose decisions and practices affect the health of top soil, in either positive or negative ways.

In many of the world’s least developed and underdeveloped countries, access to land and land governance systems do not provide the proper entitlements or access to land for poor tenants and pastoralists.

This is one of the main reasons why these communities are not encouraged to take care of the land on which they depend.

While climatic changes and prolonged droughts are putting increasing pressure on the productivity of soil, the government’s lack of interest in agriculture and natural resource management worsens the problem.

This absence of title of land for the landless tillers and the denial of legitimate access to rangelands for pastoralists, are adding to the increase in desertification, as people do not own the land titles they do not care about the land.

Land ownership in Pakistan

Pakistan’s example is most pertinent. Land ownership in Pakistan is highly concentrated: 75% of agricultural land is owned by just 25% of the people – while the rest of the agri-land is owned by the 75% small famers.

Land owners in Pakistan are mostly absentee land lords, while the work is done by peasants and share croppers who get their income as part of the harvest’s proceeds.

SCOPE Pakistan works with stakeholders on the ground to raise awareness of desertification issues.

These peasants have been demanding land for a long time, and there has so far been three attempts to take excess land from large land owners to re-distribute it to the landless farmers – but without political influence they were unable to regain much land and the impacts of land reforms were minimal.

Land degradation in the form of water logging, salinity on canal irrigated lands and soil erosion on rain-fed land can be observed in Pakistan.

Around 50% of the farm land in Pakistan is subjected to desertification. The impact of land degradation on large farms – owned by absentee land lords in for example the Sindh Province – can be observed more prominently than that is small farms in say the Punjab province, where average land holdings are relatively small (less than 25 acres).

With no access to titles, pastoralists have no incentive to manage rangeland, which are mostly owned and managed by the Forest Department.

Here you can see large scale deforestation and uncontrolled exploitation of natural fauna and flora, resulting in desertification.

There are, however, some examples across the country where communities have somehow maintained their local control on a small scale and where the rangelands are still very healthy.

Moving forward

In the absence of inclusive land governance and pro-poor land access policies, UNCCD objectives can be hard to accomplish.

Co-operation among stakeholders cannot achieve its objectives until the primary stakeholders – tenants, peasants, pastoralists and small land holders – are taken on board and empowered by creating an enabling environment.

Continuous absence of tenure rights, long overdue and reforms and pro-poor land access policies are the main hurdles in creating this environment for grassroots actors in which they can play a role in protecting productive soil and land resources.

The UNCCD recognizes this principle in Article 3 (a), which states:

“The Parties should ensure that decisions on the design and implementation of programmes to combat desertification and/or mitigate the effects of drought are taken with the participation of populations and local communities and that an enabling environment is created at higher levels to facilitate action at national and local levels.”

And Article 5 (e), which demands its parties to:

“Provide an enabling environment by strengthening, as appropriate, relevant existing legislation and, where they do not exist, enacting new laws and establishing long-term policies and action programmes.”

Participation of grassroots land users is absolutely essential, and can only be made possible when they are accommodated in the national level decision making and policy development process.

As much as 50% of farmland in Pakistan is affected by desertification.

Meaningful, effective and equitable land reforms are urgently needed in many developing countries, which are facing a desertification crisis – to address land, poverty and food security in a holistic way.

Debates in and around the UNCCD are lacking this vital link.

Although we often listen the rhetoric about the importance of participation of stakeholders, particularly affected populations in decisions fighting against desertification, it is time that this issue be raised at the UNCCD and at a national level.

It is time we ensure real participation of farmers, tenants, pastoralists and landless agriculture laborers who are at the frontline in the fight against desertification.

Tanveer Arif, is CEO at Society for Conservation and Protection of Environment (SCOPE), an active NGO following UNCCD, since 1993

 
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India may open more land routes for trade with Pakistan

Attari transit route (Credit: tribune.pk.com)

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 Minister Yousaf 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.

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US Marks Bin Laden’s Exit Anniversary with Fanfare

Bin Laden's Abbotabad home demolished (Credit: geotv)

Before his death, Osama bin Laden boldly commanded his network to organize special cells in Afghanistan and Pakistan to attack the aircraft of President Obama and Gen. David Petraeus.

“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.

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British Humanitarian Aid Worker Found Beheaded in Quetta

Khalil Rasjed Dale (Credit: tribune.com.pk)

Islamabad, April 29: The beheaded corpse of a British aid worker has been discovered in the Pakistani city of Quetta, almost four months after he was kidnapped.

The body of Khalil Rasjed Dale was left on a road outside the city, in southern Baluchistan province, with a note attached which said he had been killed because a ransom had not been paid to his captors.

Dale, who had been working for the International Committee of the Red Cross (ICRC), was kidnapped in January while driving near the organisation’s Quetta office.

He was abducted by gunmen as he made his way home in a clearly-marked ICRC vehicle on 5 January. His assailants are said to have bundled him into a car about 200m from an ICRC residence.

At the time, police in Quetta said Dale was abducted by unknown assailants driving a Landcruiser following a visit to a local school. He was travelling with a Pakistani doctor and a driver, who were not seized.

Quetta police chief Ahsan Mahboob said the killers’ note read: “This is the body of Khalil who we have slaughtered for not paying a ransom amount.”

Dale had been a Muslim convert for more than 30 years.

William Hague, the foreign secretary, said “tireless efforts” had been made to secure Dale’s release and the British government had worked closely with the Red Cross.

“I utterly condemn the kidnapping and killing of Mr Dale and send my deepest condolences to his family and loved ones as they come to terms with their tragic and distressing loss,” he said.

“We are devastated,” said ICRC director general Yves Daccord. “Khalil was a trusted and very experienced Red Cross staff member who significantly contributed to the humanitarian cause.

“All of us at the ICRC and at the British Red Cross share the grief and outrage of Khalil’s family and friends.”

Separatist militants and the Taliban are extremely active in Quetta, which is just a couple of hours’ drive to the border with Afghanistan’s Kandahar province, where the Taliban is battling US forces.

The ICRC has working relations with movements such as the Taliban, but its staff remain vulnerable to criminals and kidnappers.

Retired nurse Sheila Howat, a former colleague of Dale’s at Dumfries and Galloway Royal Infirmary, said: “It’s dreadful what has happened to him, really awful. The world has lost someone who really cared for others.”