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Mullah Omar’s Dramatic Emergence; An Impetus to Talks

Afghan Taliban chief Mullah Omar
Afghan Taliban chief
Mullah Omar

Undoubtedly the incumbent government in Kabul takes security a top most precedence. It’s not surprising to learn –the onset of regular talks between Afghan government and Taliban leaders are heading towards some resilience if not concrete solution. It worth noticing with succession of talks the degree of uncertainty associated with it went colossal, notwithstanding its credibility diminished. It’s widely considered Taliban’s’ central leadership might not be in the line with the aforesaid developments. Hence, the talks were deemed as individual efforts –faraway from bearing the expected fruits, as the central leadership had not broken the silence to talk on the subject.

The emergence of Taliban’s de facto leader, Mullah Omar first ever surprising message let the dust of ambiguity settle. This has been the subject of greater interests reflecting Taliban’s twin unilateral and uniform stance evident. In the latest development, talks between Taliban representatives and members of Afghan society, focusing on women’s rights in Afghanistan has taken place in Norwegian capital, Oslo. Reportedly, Taliban has demonstrated willingness to let women partake in socio-political endeavors and chase their academic goals unhampered. Will Taliban surrender to equal rights for women?

Earlier, in the latest round of talks Taliban while responding to demands of ceasefire Taliban conditioned it to formation of United National Government. It is an evident shift as earlier it was conditioned to complete withdrawal of international forces from Afghanistan. Hitherto, the details of this government is uncertain –however following the political temperament of Taliban, the demand of reservation of lion’s share in the current democratic setup, may be a credible guess.

Mullah Omar also said they formally recognized the legitimate rights of all afghan including minorities as their religious duty. The timing of this message is centrally important –where Mullah Omar seems to be quite optimistic about the forthcomings changes that are likely to materialize. “No one should fear about what will happen if the Islamic emirate comes to power. I assure you that the upcoming changes will in no way resemble the situation following the collapse of the communist regime when everything turned upside down” said Taliban’s Supreme leader. It is found the de facto leader giving assurances as if they have made their way to greater share in the altered forthcoming setup. The degree of confidence demonstrates Taliban will join the government and the peace talks crystallize given their demands of giant share are okayed.

Omar’s statement comes days after Taliban representatives and Afghan officials held first direct talks in Pakistan and agreed to meet again after the fasting month. Mullah Omar confirms Taliban’s political office in Doha for tackling political affairs and was entrusted with the responsibility of monitoring and conducting all political activities. It depicts the said office established years ago contained Taliban representatives set free from Guantanamo bay and Bagram prison for political purpose. It was following this development that the US unbranded Taliban as a terrorist outfit separating it from Al Qaeda. The distinction carved underlines; the US’s deep rooted global interests are endangered by later than former. Broadly speaking it seems to be a sub plan of another master plan where Taliban are given space to join back the political domain and disband militancy. It is this plot that is seemingly crystallizing imminently.

Mullah Omar in his statements confirms the political talks alongside the jihad a legitimate Islamic discourse. He said, “Concurrently with armed Jihad, political endeavors and peaceful pathway is a legitimate Islamic principle and an integral part of Prophetic politics.” He said the objective behind their political endeavors as well as contacts and interactions with countries of the world and Afghans was to bring an end to the occupation and to establish an independent Islamic system in Afghanistan. This is not a genuine claim retracing the footprints of history we hold Taliban a foreign element the sole factor behind foreign occupation –whose oust is demanded at present. This is nothing more than a political statement to drive them to political privileges in the incumbent government in Kabul.

The masses find it hard to unlearn the grave human right violation and women right suppression at the hand of Taliban. The history bears Taliban apolitical say prior to its aristocratic regime and has hardly used legal course to get their political dreams come true.  Even hitherto, Taliban resorted to momentous violence when peace talks are underway. It’s whether a shift or diplomacy Taliban leader calling in for oversized confidence in the ongoing political process. He said, “All Mujahidin and countrymen should be confident that in this process, I will unwaveringly defend our legal rights and viewpoint everywhere.” Taliban should be grateful of democratic setup in practice in Afghanistan that even gives Taliban an opportunity to partake in political maters but it also demands they must be tried for some if not all mass massacres executed across the length of Afghanistan.

Conciliating with political stance of Taliban that make further peace talks, Jihad renders equally unacceptable and illegitimate. Who are they, Taliban have had waged jihad with? They are none expect the innocent civilian who due to bear the brunt of butchery. This tale is confirmed by credible report that lists over 200,000 people killed in war against terror.  Who should be held accountable for these mass killings? The report alleges them for most of casualties. We are peace seekers. We negotiate peace, even with the assassins of humanity, peace and tranquility. This very stance is stressed by both head of government and political leadership of Afghanistan with variant degree of assertion. Awfully peace is talked to those who have killed over hundred thousands of innocents and physically impaired even a multiplied number since the beginning of war launched against terror. Its appreciable Mr. Omar recognizes the legitimate rights of all Afghans including minorities a religious duty –nonetheless prior to asking forgiveness for the past atrocities and submitting to free trial the moral responsibility does not end –Taliban and its politics might not find acceptance.

In spite of differences, let’s put our finger cross for the success and fruitful finalization of negotiations. But, there are some hard born queries to be sought out prior to making any deal. Should Taliban be given amnesty seeing them executed mass massacre of innocent people? Can Taliban get them adjusted with democracy, who are born and raised in dictatorial setup?

These queries might meet their fates as the time advance. After all, the dramatic emergence of Mullah Omar proves to be an impetus for the ambiguous peace talks.

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Vulnerable NGO Sector

THERE is a point at which legitimate national security concerns tip over into paranoia, xenophobia and insularity. The Pakistani state, including the civilian government, appears to be dangerously close to that point.

Interior Minister Nisar Ali Khan’s ongoing war on INGOs and local NGOs with external funding and links increasingly appears to be about some misguided sense of nationalism as opposed to anything to do with genuine security. Thousands — thousands — of foreigners have over the years come to Pakistan in the guise of NGO workers to undermine the national interest and harm the country’s security, the interior minister told the Senate on Thursday.

That is preposterous. The interior minister’s aggressive rhetoric has deliberately and very provocatively equated virtually anyone in the NGO sector, though especially those linked to the West, with a threat to this country.

The NGO community may well be wondering if Chaudhry Nisar’s rhetoric has crossed the line into incitement — after all, NGOs often operate in insecure areas at great personal threat to their employees from all manner of violent elements in society. Should the interior minister not feel a sense of responsibility towards the many good, decent, hardworking and honourable men and women who have dedicated their professional lives to improving the lot of Pakistan’s most vulnerable citizens?

The problem though goes far beyond the interior minister and his crusade. A narrow, security-centric worldview was once upon a time something that mostly existed in the security establishment. Over the years, however, politicians have increasingly begun to mimic their military counterparts in terms of viewing the Western world with suspicion. The public at large too appears to have increasingly conspiratorial views about an international plot, devised by the West of course, to undermine the security and stability of Pakistan. Anyone who hails from a Western country is viewed as a potential enemy out to destabilise the state.

Contrast that with the regional experience — whether in South Asia or the Gulf. Foreigners are welcomed, indeed eagerly recruited, for their productivity and skill sets. Those countries have security concerns of their own, but they aren’t allowed to overwhelm all other considerations.

Why is Pakistan so bent on being the exception? The political leadership could have tried to shape public opinion in a responsible way. Instead, it appears to be content with pandering to fear and paranoia — and maligning a sector that fills many of the gaps left by the state.

Published in Dawn, July 12th, 2015

 

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Balochistan’s Genuine Grievances are Exploited from Outside

The Balochistan government has offered general amnesty to the warring youth in the province. Cash rewards were offered to entice those who are ready to renounce violence. This generous offer reminds us of an even rosier package of Aghaz-e-Huqooq-e-Balochistan a few years ago. Hardly anybody knows any tangible outcome of the much trumpeted package.

Amnesty and appeasement packages will not yield results until a multidimensional course correction approach is adopted. Violence in Balochistan has refused to subside. The provincial government led by a nationalist party has taken pains to fetch militants from the mountains to the negotiating table but without any significant fruition.

Sporadic news of capitulation by a few beleaguered commanders could not drastically alter the overall security landscape of the province.

The current spell of insurgency is now almost a decade old. No one has accurate figures of fatalities and disappearances. Inflated figures are a norm in such situations. However, the severity can easily be gauged even without digits. In fact, numbers only partly narrate the convulsion and gravity of the situation on ground.

Balochistan is no more a local or national issue. It has become a chessboard of regional game players.

Involvement of foreign hands is not a mere canard that can be debunked as rhetoric. In a country that has remained a surrogate battlefield for decades to serve interests of global powers, any conflict of this ferocity cannot be a purely localised phenomenon. However, it would be equally inept to dismiss the deplorable local realities. Use of force can be a double-edged sword. If triggers of conflict are not addressed, suppression by gun power will prove ephemeral. This is not the first insurgency in the province. Each time triggers of the insurgency were ignored amid the euphoria of triumph, the conflict resurrected after a brief hiatus of few years.

Foreign hand is not the only factor shaping the current state of affairs. It is rather an accumulated indignation of several decades that has ostracised the local population from the mainstream business of the state. Bringing them back to the national fold needs remedial and not repressive measures.

The province had been an energy basket of the country since early 1950s that spurred industrialisation in the country, but regrettably people in the province continued to live in primitive ages.

In May 2014, a startling disclosure was made in the upper house of the parliament. The Ministry of Petroleum and Natural Resources revealed that out of the 32 district headquarters of Balochistan, only 13 towns had the natural gas facility and 59 per cent of the urban population in the province was without the basic energy commodity. Successive governments have failed to divert a fraction of accruing benefits to the province from where these precious resources were being extracted.

For decades, the province has been deprived of basic necessities like education, health and drinking water. The state abdicated its responsibility and the people were left to toil in an anachronistic tribal society.

The vacuum created by state institutes was occupied by tribal chiefs. Eventually musketeer sardars became janitors of the society and people of the provinces were virtually made subservient to them. A protracted colonial treatment with the province resulted in complete alienation in the ensuing years.

Rather than understanding and addressing the root causes of disgruntlement among the Baloch, almost every government resorted to contemptuous measures that enraged the aggrieved people. Had the province been treated with a modicum of sagacity and had the local population been given judicious treatment of compatriots, no foreign hand would ever have found foothold in Balochistan.

One important role of a responsible state is to act as an equalizer and provide level playing field to all citizens. Balochistan is trailing behind on all development indicators and people find little reason to own the system that has failed to fulfill their genuine constitutional rights as a citizen. It would be outrageous to blithely shrug it off by just accusing a handful of sardars. A state that claims to squash insurgency with its insurmountable might should have veered a minuscule of its muscle for the benefit of dejected masses.

According to the national report on Millennium Development Goals-2013, the country has performed poorly on vital targets of human development — Balochistan’s indicators are even grimmer. Net enrollment ratio in the province is 53 per cent against the national average of 57 per cent.

The mother mortality rate in the country is 276 (per 100,000 live births), whereas Balochistan’s mother mortality rate is 758 which is alarmingly high. 78 per cent children are fully immunised in Pakistan compared to only 43 per cent in Balochistan.

Pakistan Demographic Health Survey reveals that an estimated 111 children of every 1,000 births are dying before their fifth birthday in the province. Ninety-seven of these children do not make it to the age of one year. Additionally, Unicef found that there is no vaccination centre in 39 per cent of union councils in the province. Developing Balochistan would have cost much lesser than a series of military operations.

Balochistan deserves a legitimate share in provincial as well as federal array of power web. Sindh and Balochistan have been continuously underrepresented in the federal government departments and institutions. Many instances can be cited to substantiate this argument.

According to a newspaper report in December 2012, Balochistan was grossly underrepresented in postings at foreign missions. 209 officials were assigned for diplomatic missions since the government came into power and Haji Mira Jan was the only official from Balochistan who was serving as a driver at the Pakistan High Commission in London. Quoting an official document, the scribe claimed that that out of 209 in foreign mission postings by the current government, 130 people were appointed only from Punjab.

According to another newspaper report in January 2014, over 4,000 posts reserved for Balochistan in 52 departments were lying vacant. A special committee tasked to deal with issues pertaining to Balochistan also identified that around 272 of these vacancies were BPS-17 to BPS-21 positions.

In March 2014, the provincial government approached the federal government to fill the vacancies as per the share allocated to the province. In response to the request, joint secretary (Admin) informed the principal secretary to the chief minister that as of September 12, 2013 a total of 3,692 positions were vacant in the federal ministries/divisions/autonomous bodies/corporation against the provincial quota, however the government has imposed a ban on all recruitments.

Simple measures like ensuring due recruitment from Balochistan would enhance the province’s representation in the federal government and create a reasonable amount of goodwill among the people.

More importantly, the provincial government has little say in the strategic matters of the province. In February 2013, the Balochistan government in a statement said that ports and shipping the subjects handled by the federal government and the provincial government has no role in the award of Gwadar Port contract to China. Gwadar Port is purportedly a game-changer project in the region. Apprehensions of the local population are not mere refrains.

The Baloch expect visible and measureable measures and not mere statements. They expect that history of Sui gas will not be repeated in Gwadar. People in power ought to adopt saner means to address this anxiety which has roots in bitter experiences. An enhanced role of provincial government to safeguard local interests would be a right beginning.

Law and disorder is a major challenge that has imperiled stability in the province. Inexorable violence is impeding strategic development initiatives including trans-boundary gas pipelines, economic corridor and the Gwadar Port. Only an inclusive political solution can guarantee sustainable peace and prosperity.

Missing people, extra-judicial killings and targeted ethnic murders of non-local communities are major stumbling blocks in resolving the conflict. Since the provincial government is not at the steering, credibility of the ongoing operation is murky. Law enforcement agencies are operating without any oversight of the provincial government.

On January 30, 2014, the Balochistan government conceded before the Supreme Court about its handicap in recovering Baloch missing people saying it has no effective control over the Frontier Corps which is accused of detaining people. The provincial government should be given an enhanced role in handling security challenges and taking responsibility of local affairs.

The establishment needs to revisit its strategy of solving the Balochistan conundrum. Kill and dump tactics may trounce militants but cannot win back people. Empathy would be better than apathy to salvage the bleeding Balochistan.

The parliament should play a meaningful role to resolve this protracted conflict. An all-party parliamentary committee should be constituted to develop and execute a comprehensive healing plan of political, administrative and developmental measures to bring back Balochistan into the national fold. Credible representation and swift implementation of the healing plan can create space for a political dialogue — to end insurgency and restore peace in the province. A peaceful and harmonious Balochistan will open up new vistas of economic development and stability for the country.

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Afghan Envoys Say Taliban Were Authorized to Talk

Rejecting claims that they had met with an unauthorized Taliban delegation, Afghan government envoys said on Thursday that the insurgents they held initial talks with in Pakistan this week had the blessing of the Taliban’s deputy leader, Mullah Akhtar Muhammad Mansour.

The comments by Afghan government envoys, briefing the news media in Kabul for the first time since their return from the talks, added to speculation that there was a widening rift among the Taliban’s leadership over the Afghan peace process. On Wednesday, a representative of the Taliban’s official political office in Qatar claimed that the talks had been “hijacked” by Pakistani officials who had brokered a meeting with unauthorized Taliban representatives.

Mullah Mansour is believed to be locked in a struggle for influence with other senior Taliban commanders, and he has used his credentials as a confidant of the insurgency’s reclusive leader, Mullah Muhammad Omar, to seed the group’s ranks with more of his loyalists in recent years.

An increasingly splintered Taliban movement would have serious repercussions for the peace process, raising questions about how much cooperation Taliban leaders in favor of negotiating could command.

But members of the Afghan delegation expressed optimism for the process ahead. During the late-night discussions in Murree, a resort town near the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, the two sides agreed to seek a peaceful end to the conflict by attending regular meetings, the officials said. The sides also drew up a list of all the issues and demands for the negotiations.

Hekmat Khalil Karzai, the Afghan deputy foreign minister who attended the talks, said the government’s delegation had set no preconditions and was willing to engage the Taliban on any of the group’s demands, including the release of prisoners and the future of American military forces in Afghanistan.

“We went with good intentions and good authority,” Mr. Karzai said. “We said we are willing to discuss anything, but within a framework that leads to a continuous process.”

He added, “We will let prisoners out, but on the condition that they give us guarantees they won’t kill innocent people anymore.”

The delegations also discussed the possibility of a temporary cease-fire during the three-day festival of Eid al-Fitr, which will signify the end of fasting for Ramadan later this month, the officials said, without elaborating on whether an agreement had been reached. But specific methods “to stop the bloodletting” will be the central topic in the next round of negotiations, said Azizullah Din Mohamed, a member of the Afghan government’s High Peace Council who was part of the Afghan delegation.

With the Afghan government under severe pressure from Taliban offensives in several provinces, the public will mostly judge the talks on whether a visible reduction in the violence is achieved, said Haroun Mir, a political analyst. Decreasing the bloodshed would also be a test of the authority of the delegation that represented the Taliban.

“Without a reduction of violence, the Afghan government won’t be able to sell this to the people,” Mr. Mir said.

While the meeting this week was hailed as a breakthrough in Kabul, the Afghan capital, concerns have remained about just what faction of the insurgency was present.

Mr. Karzai, who admitted to rifts among the Taliban, said the Afghan envoys had been assured that the delegation they met had permission from Mullah Mansour and the rest of the Taliban leadership based in Pakistan. He would not describe how that assurance was given. But a diplomatic official, speaking on the condition of anonymity to discuss the talks, said Pakistan’s military spy chief had vouched for the standing of the Taliban delegation with the insurgents’ leadership council.

What Pakistan managed to deliver at Murree were members of the Taliban closest to its establishment, some analysts and Taliban members believed. The insurgent delegation included Mullah Abbas Akhund, a member of the movement’s health commission and a longtime liaison with the Pakistani government, according to a member of the Taliban’s official political office in Qatar. The delegation also included a representative from the Haqqani insurgent network, Afghan attendees said.

The political office is now deciding whether Mullah Akhund “is still trusted” after he gave in to Pakistani pressure and attended the meeting without permission, the Qatar office representative said.

Some analysts expressed doubt that Mullah Mansour had given his full blessing to the delegation, saying the claim did not fit with the developments in the recent months.

On the urging of Afghanistan’s president, Ashraf Ghani, the Pakistani military increased pressure on the Taliban’s leadership to sit down for direct talks months ago. But the pressure seemed to backfire in some ways. Members of the office in Qatar, long seen as official representatives of the Taliban’s highest leadership, expressed dismay that the Afghan government saw them as Pakistani proxies. The insurgency began its deadly spring offensive anyway.

Mr. Ghani’s patience with Pakistani officials began to run out this spring, as the violence continued with little sign of a breakthrough on talks, officials said. The Pakistani military, which has sheltered the Taliban’s leadership for years, redoubled its pressure on the insurgents to come to the table. As a result, some Taliban commanders began fleeing Pakistan, said Borhan Osman, a researcher at the Afghan Analysts Network who has written extensively about the insurgency.

That reaction, coupled with the Qatar office’s public disagreement with the Murree meeting, made him “think twice,” Mr. Osman said, about the claim that Mr. Mansour had given permission to the Taliban negotiators.

“Especially if the Qatar office has been accountable to Akhtar Muhammad Mansour himself, you can’t imagine a contradiction between the two,” Mr. Osman said.

“The most plausible scenario is that Pakistan brought the best they could offer — these are the guys that Taliban cannot deny,” he continued. “But whether they have the blessing of the leadership, that is the question.”

Fazal Muzhary contributed reporting.

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Reports: ISIL leader in Afghanistan killed in U.S. drone strike

Former TTP spokesman Shahidullah Shahid (Credit: Samaa TV)
Former TTP spokesman Shahidullah Shahid
(Credit: Samaa TV)

A senior leader for the Islamic State in Afghanistan, currently embroiled in a feud with the Taliban over who will conduct the insurgency there, has been killed in a U.S. drone strike, local media reported Thursday.

The strike killed Shahidullah Shahid and more than two dozen militants in eastern Afghanistan south of the city of Jalalabad. It was in that city where Islamic State militants conducted their first major attack against Afghan civilians in April, killing 35 in a suicide bombing.

The drone strike was Tuesday, the same day Taliban officials met for the first time with an Afghanistan delegation in Islamabad, Pakistan, to open peace negotiations.

The Pentagon said Thursday that “precision strikes” by U.S. forces were carried out Monday and Tuesday south of Jalalabad “against individuals threatening U.S. and coalition forces.” There was no elaboration.

Afghan intelligence officials told media that those killed in the drone strike included Shahid, a former Pakistan Taliban spokesman and another senior Islamic State leader in Afghanistan, Gul Zaman.

The Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL, controls vast portions of Syria and western Iraq. Last year, it began recruiting disaffected members of both the Pakistan and Afghan Taliban insurgencies and providing funding for opening a front in South Asia, said Seth Jones, a political scientist with RAND Corp.

“What they’ve done is they haven’t built anything from scratch. They’ve just reached out to disaffected folks,” Jones said. “It’s possible, for example, if (Afghanistan government) negotiations continue with the Afghan Taliban, that those who don’t want a peace deal may defect to the Islamic State. But the challenge the Islamic State has in this area is its ideology is foreign.”

Shahid was named deputy chief for a region the Islamic State identifies as spanning parts of Afghanistan, Pakistan and Iran. A cover story in an Islamic State magazine published in December was highly critical of Taliban leader Mullah Mohammed Omar.

The Afghan Taliban reacted strongly to the intrusion publishing an open letter on its website in June warning the Islamic State to stay out of its territory. “Jihad against the Americans and their allies must be conducted under one flag and one leadership,” the letter said.

Last year, Shahid was fired as Pakistani Taliban spokesman after pledging allegiance to the Islamic State. At the time the Pakistan Taliban said Shahidullah Shahid was a “nom de guerre” and that his real name was Sheikh Maqbool, the BBC reported.

A senior leader of Islamic State operations in southern Afghanistan, Mullah Abdul Rauf, who had sworn allegiance to the militants after breaking with the Taliban, was killed in a U.S. drone strike in February.

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The Benazir murder mystery

BB's last rally (Credit: dunyanews.com)
BB’s last rally
(Credit: dunyanews.com)
ON the recent occasion of Benazir Bhutto’s 62nd birth anniversary, her husband and PPP’s co-chairman spoke about her murder and said: “We cannot withdraw the FIR, no matter how much pressure you exert on us and how much you fight for that.”

Heraldo Munoz of Chile, the head of the UN commission that probed Benazir Bhutto’s murder concluded as follows: “Probably no government will be able or willing to fully disentangle the truth from the complex web of implication in Benazir Bhutto’s assassination.”

I read the former Chilean diplomat’s personal account in his book Getting Away With Murder with great sadness because the Federal Investigation Agency (FIA) under my command on Aug 6, 2009 was entrusted with the responsibility of taking over the investigation from Punjab police. The Special Investigation Group was given the task of putting together a joint team of various law-enforcement and intelligence agencies to carry out further investigation and interrogate possible suspects.

The investigation into Benazir Bhutto’s murder has hinted at a complex web of implication.

I distinctly recall that night of Oct 18, 2007 when as inspector general police, Balochistan, I was glued to the TV watching the huge procession Ms Bhutto was leading in Karachi after finally returning home from a nine-year exile. The bombings that targeted her cavalcade that night resulted in 149 deaths and injuries to 402.

Ms Bhutto survived that deadly attack and lodged an FIR by becoming a complainant herself. Police did not register the case that she filed on Oct 21, 2007 in which she wrote: “I was informed by the government that certain militant groups wanted to attack me. After receiving this information I wrote a letter dated Oct 16, 2007 to the president of Pakistan informing him of my grave concern regarding my security and specified the forces and persons behind them whom I suspected were likely to harm me physically.”

The investigations remained stalled until she was assassinated on Dec 27, 2007. The Karsaz case was finally re-registered on Oct 17, 2008, after Gen Musharraf was forced to quit as president in August that year and Mr Zardari had become president.

Meanwhile, the UN mission started the formal probe in July 2009 and the federal government entrusted further investigation to the FIA on Aug 6, 2009. Codenamed ‘Operation Trojan Horse’, the case investigation team was tasked with collecting ocular testimony as well as documentary, forensic and circumstantial evidence prior to the Oct 18 Karsaz attack, events between Oct 19 and Dec 27, and post Dec 27, 2007 developments.

It was decided to record testimony of all those travelling in the vehicle along with BB: driver Javed; SSP Security Imtiaz Hussain; Makhdoom Amin Fahim; Naheed Khan; Safdar Abbasi; and valet Razzaq. Senator Safdar Abbasi and his wife Naheed Khan had publicly claimed that “sharp sniper fire and a typical intelligence operation” was carried out to eliminate their leader. PPP spokeswoman Sherry Rehman declared she had died from a bullet injury. These statements and the suspicious conduct of Khalid Shahenshah, a security guard who had been caught on TV footage making suspicious signals from near the stage close to BB prior to the exit from the rally where she was murdered, required a thorough probe.

We decided to start our investigations by seeking assistance from interior minister Rehman Malik, who was Ms Bhutto’s chief security officer. Accordingly, I sent across to him in writing on Aug 12, 2009 a note through his trusted staff assistant director of FIA, seeking the following: 1) copy of the letter sent by BB to Gen Musharraf on Oct 16, 2007 naming three suspects; 2) copies of emails sent by BB to Mark Siegel and others identifying threats from Gen Musharraf; 3) a copy of BB’s original will; 4) a copy of the final agreement exchanged between BB and Gen Musharraf; and 5) copies of correspondence between CSO [Rehman Malik] and the governments of Pakistan and Sindh on security-related matters. There was no response.

Meanwhile, interrogation of five arrested accused, namely Aitzaz Shah, Sher Zaman, Hussnain Gul, Muhammad Rafaqat and Rasheed Ahmed, as well as some other crucial leads led us to aim for arrest of one Ibadur Rahman resident of Malakand who, we believed, played a key role in BB’s murder. (However, this key plotter was reportedly killed in the first-ever drone strike in Khyber Agency in May 2010 or in an attack carried out by a Pakistani fighter plane.)

Another suspect was al Qaeda’s No 3 leader and financial and operational chief Mustafa Abu Yazid alias Sheikh Saeed Al-Masri who was said to have claimed responsibility for “terminating the most precious American asset who vowed to defeat Mujahideen”. He was reportedly killed in a CIA drone attack on May 22, 2010 in North Waziristan.

Similarly, the crucial suspect or witness Khalid Shahenshah, the security guard hired allegedly by a trusted confidant of the party leadership, was killed in Karachi a few months after Ms Bhutto’s murder.

An important meeting of the FIA investigation team was held on Oct 28, 2009 in the interior minister’s presence. My directions were clear: place all the evidence and leads before the UN team. While the UN commission was generally critical of the conduct of relevant stakeholders, including the earlier Punjab police JIT, it did note in its report that the second JIT by the FIA “has been more vigorous in carrying out its investigations”.

In yet another important meeting held at the interior minister’s residence on Nov 25, 2009, the FIA investigators reviewed the progress and asked the agencies concerned for apprehension of key suspect Ibadur Rehman from Khyber Agency. They were also given the go-ahead to visit Madressah Haqqania in Akora Khattak for adducing further evidence. Officers were also assigned to visit the UAE, Saudi Arabia and United States for obtaining evidence from key sources that could shed further light on the conspiracy.

Within days of setting a clear direction for the investigators to move forward on the case, I was transferred from the FIA.

The case is under trial and I will avoid drawing conclusions. The UN commission submitted its report in May 2010 and their conclusions and recommendations were commented upon by me as a professional in a confidential letter addressed to the then prime minister. The political and security establishment consigned those recommendations to the dustbin of history. Truth hopefully shall prevail eventually.

The writer is former DG, FIA.

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Peshawar suspect in market bombing attack arrested in Rome

Peshawar suspect (Credit: timesofoman)
Peshawar suspect
(Credit: timesofoman)
ROME, June 27: A Pakistani suspected of involvement in the Peshawar market bombing — one of the country’s bloodiest attacks — has been arrested in Rome, Italian police said on Friday.

The man, who has been living in Italy, is accused of taking part in the attack in 2009 in which 134 died, including many women and children.

He was held at Rome’s Fiumicino airport after stepping off a flight from Pakistan.

Anti-terrorist police believe he also hid a “suspected suicide attacker who was supposed to carry out an attack” in Italy.

In April, Italy claimed to have dismantled an Islamist terror cell on the island of Sardinia led by two former bodyguards of Osama bin Laden who were plotting a possible attack on the Vatican.

Arrest warrants were issued for 18 people, several of whom are also suspected of being part of militant networks in Pakistan.

Nine were arrested across Italy, including three on Sardinia.
The Vatican has played down the threat to the pope’s life.

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Drug Parcels Sent from Af-Pak Region Daily – Europol

Intercepted drug packets (Credit: tribune.com.pk)
Intercepted drug packets
(Credit: tribune.com.pk)

THE HAGUE: European police on Monday said they had arrested over 500 suspects and seized over 2.8 tonnes of cocaine and hundreds of vehicles in a series of raids against organised crime.

Europol said that operations targeted high-volume trafficking in cargo containers, drug couriers flying to Europe from South America as well as drug parcels sent to Europe from Pakistan and Afghanistan “on a daily basis.”

Police from all 28 European Union countries and elsewhere carried out the raids in 260 locations between May 4 and June 24 as part of Operation Blue Amber, the pan-European policing agency said in a statement.

Police and customs confiscated 390 vehicles and seized nearly 1,300 tonnes of stolen metal as well as 110 kilos of heroin, it said.

“The concealment methods vary greatly, from hiding cocaine in clothes and shoe insoles, to caching heroin in medical instruments,” it said.

The operation also led to the arrest of “several” people smugglers and the discovery of a safe house for illegal migrants in Hungary.

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In Karachi, a Fatal Mix of Heat and Piety

KARACHI, Pakistan — WHEN I go to buy my drinking water, I don’t ask for water. I ask for Nestlé. Then I drive home with five 20-liter plastic bottles and make sure that we make every cup of tea, and all our ice, from this water. Like other people in this city, I believe the tap water is poisonous. During the summer, many of us follow the practice of putting out a water cooler on the street for passers-by. There are chic restaurants, cafes and art galleries in my neighborhood, but not a single public source of clean drinking water. Street vendors, security guards, trash pickers and maids rushing from one job to another often stop by to have a drink from this cooler. Like most such water coolers, mine is secured with a padlock; even the plastic tumbler is tied to it with a small chain.

Ramzan, the holy month of fasting known as Ramadan in the Arabic-speaking world, started last week, and like everyone else, I stopped putting out the water cooler. I did think about the people who wouldn’t be fasting and the non-Muslims not obliged to fast. But I didn’t think much. I removed the cooler because everyone does. There is the Respect of Ramzan Ordinance, which says you may be sent to prison for a few months if you eat or drink during fasting hours, or if you give someone something to eat or drink. I don’t really think I removed the cooler for fear of the ordinance: God knows, like every middle-class, privileged Pakistani, I flout enough laws. I did it because it would hurt the sensibility of those who fast.

Many of the 1,000 people who have died in the recent heat wave in Karachi died because of this sensibility: Some people were reluctant to ask for a drink of water, others were reluctant to offer it to them. You can’t blame them. Even if they could get past their inhibitions, there was no water to be had. All the little tea stalls, roadside restaurants, small juice or snack vendors disappear from the streets during fasting hours. In this month you can walk miles without finding a sip of water. And Karachi has developed in a way that you can also walk miles without finding any shade to cool down. Trees have been cut down to widen roads, overpasses have gobbled up footpaths; there are few shaded bus stops. Without water and without shade, while fasting or pretending to fast, people going to and coming back from work just fell on the streets and died.

Karachi is known for killing its residents, but weather had never been its weapon of choice. It is the world’s third-largest city, and its population has nearly doubled in the last 15 years, to 20 million. People come here to survive even though they know it can be a dangerous place. They leave bombed-out villages in the tribal north or parched hamlets in South Punjab to come settle at the edge of sewers in unplanned slums and make a living, mostly in daily wages, building malls or guarding them. Karachi hosts refugees from countries as diverse as Afghanistan and Myanmar. One reason so many have flocked to the city is that the weather has always been hospitable. You can sleep on the streets year round. Winter is only a rumor. Summer is hot and humid, but usually bearable out in the open with the breeze from the Arabian Sea.

The highest recorded temperature during the current heat wave in Karachi was 45 degrees Celsius, or 113 degrees Fahrenheit. Other towns in Pakistan have recorded temperatures of 50 degrees Celsius, or 122 degrees Fahrenheit, without ever suffering the kind of catastrophe that struck here. The victims, mostly poor and working class, needed some shade, a drink of water and a bit of time to slow down. But shade and a respite from work are hard to come by in Karachi — even in the month of Ramzan, the work of being a megacity must go on.

Thousands of construction workers dangle from high-rises. Traffic constables stand on city squares. Private security guards sit outside banks and offices. All in the heat, with no shade. When it is not Ramzan, these workers usually carry a bottle of water. When it is Ramzan, they don’t. When it is Ramzan, the eateries where they could score a free drink are shut. And when it is Ramzan, all the kindhearted people take away their coolers.

Since an overwhelming majority of those who died were poor, nobody is calling for an investigation or rethinking how the city is growing. The victims were just dehydrated and not sensible enough to protect themselves against the harsh weather. They don’t count as martyrs, according to religious authorities, even though they died during the holy month, many of them while fasting. The media express indignation, but over power breakdowns: the assumption being that with enough electricity these people wouldn’t have left their air-conditioned rooms and would have had chilled water to drink. Just as we kindhearted people do.

But it really wasn’t the lack of electricity or even the heat that killed these 1,000 people. What killed them was the forced piety enshrined in our law and Karachi’s contempt for the working poor. These people died because we long ago removed any shade that could shelter them from the June sun and then took away their drinking water. When they were about to die, we rushed them to hospitals in ambulances paid for by charities and gave them medicines paid for by charities. We gave them white sheets to recuperate in if they survived, and when they didn’t, those white sheets became their shrouds. Karachi’s hospitals are now awash with chilled bottles of Nestlé water donated by the kindhearted people of the city, but you still can’t get a drink of water on the streets.

Mohammed Hanif is the author of the novels “A Case of Exploding Mangoes” and “Our Lady of Alice Bhatti.”

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Pakistan’s MQM ‘received Indian funding’

Ch Nisar meets UK High Commissioner (Credit: breakingnewspak.com)
Ch Nisar meets UK High Commissioner
(Credit: breakingnewspak.com)

Officials in Pakistan’s MQM party have told the UK authorities they received Indian government funds, the BBC learnt from an authoritative Pakistani source.

UK authorities investigating the MQM for alleged money laundering also found a list of weapons in an MQM property.

A Pakistani official has told the BBC that India has trained hundreds of MQM militants over the past 10 years.

The Indian authorities described the claims as “completely baseless”. The MQM also strongly denied the claims.

Party spokesman Saif Muhammad Ali told BBC Urdu that the MQM had never received any funding or training from India. He said authorities in Pakistan were running a campaign against the party.

With 24 members in the National Assembly, the Muttahida Quami Movement (MQM) has long been a dominant force in the politics of Pakistan’s largest city, Karachi. denied the allegation telling the BBC the

British authorities held formal recorded interviews with senior MQM officials who told them the party was receiving Indian funding, the BBC was told.

Meanwhile a Pakistani official has told the BBC that India has trained hundreds of MQM militants in explosives, weapons and sabotage over the past 10 years in camps in north and north-east India.

Before 2005-2006 the training was given to a small number of mid-ranking members of the MQM, the official said.

More recently, greater numbers of more junior party members have been trained.

The arrest of Altaf Hussain prompted unrest in Karachi

The claims follow the statement of a senior Karachi police officer that two arrested MQM militants said they had been trained in India. In April, Rao Anwar gave details of how the two men went to India via Thailand to be trained by the Indian intelligence agency RAW.

In response, MQM leader Altaf Hussain issued a tirade of abuse at Rao Anwar.

Asked about the claims of Indian funding and training of the MQM, the Indian High Commission in London said: “Shortcomings of governance cannot be rationalised by blaming neighbours.”

The UK authorities started investigating the MQM in 2010 when a senior party leader, Imran Farooq, was stabbed to death outside his home in north London.

In the course of those inquiries the police found around £500,000 ($787,350) in the MQM’s London offices and in the home of MQM leader Altaf Hussain. That prompted a second investigation into possible money laundering.

 

Who is Altaf Hussain?

  • § Born in Karachi in 1953 to a middle-class family; studied pharmacy at university.
  • § Formed MQM party in 1984 to represent Mohajirs – descendants of Urdu-speaking Muslims who migrated from India to Pakistan.
  • § Requested political asylum in UK in 1992, later gained British citizenship; continues to run MQM from north London.

Pakistan’s powerful but absent politician

In the course of the inquiries the UK authorities found a list itemising weapons, including mortars, grenades and bomb-making equipment in an MQM property, according to Pakistani media reports that the BBC believes to be credible. The list included prices for the weapons. Asked about the list, the MQM made no response.

As the UK police investigations have progressed, the British judiciary has been taking an increasingly tough line on the MQM. Back in 2011 a British judge adjudicating an asylum appeal case found that “the MQM has killed over 200 police officers who have stood up against them in Karachi”.

Last year another British judge hearing another such case found: “There is overwhelming objective evidence that the MQM for decades had been using violence.”

The MQM is also under pressure in Pakistan. In March the country’s security forces raided the party’s Karachi headquarters. They claimed to have found a significant number of weapons there. The MQM said they were planted. The MQM has the ability to put thousands of protesters on the streets of Karachi

The party has a solid support base made up of the Mohajirs, or refugees who left India at the time of partition so that they could settle in Pakistan.

The Mohajirs complain that they have been the subject of sustained discrimination in Pakistan. The MQM insists it is a peaceful, secular party representing the interests of the middle classes in Pakistan.

As well as its electoral base, the MQM has formidable street power. When it orders a strike the streets empty and the whole of Karachi grinds to a halt.

Altaf Husain has lived in self-imposed exile in the UK for more than 20 years. He was given a British passport in 2002. For many years the party has been accused of using violence to impose its will in Karachi.

A number of MQM officials, including Altaf Hussain, have been arrested in relation to the money-laundering case but no-one has been charged. The party insists that all its funds are legitimate and that most of them come from donors in the business community in Karachi.

India has long accused Pakistani officials of involvement in sponsoring militant attacks in India. Delhi, for example, has demanded that Pakistan take firmer action against those suspected of plotting and managing the Mumbai attacks of 2008.

The latest developments in the MQM case suggest that Pakistan will now counter such complaints with demands that India stop sponsoring violent forces in Karachi.