Protests against the administration of President General Pervez Musharraf and against the US took off in Pakistan about a month ago in the guise of rallies denouncing caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed.

These protests have now reached the stronghold of al-Qaeda and the Taliban in Pakistan: the self-proclaimed "Islamic State of North Waziristan", a volatile tribal area on the border with Afghanistan.

For the past few days this region has been the scene of fierce battles between the Pakistani armed forces and the Taliban and their supporters. This, analysts believe, is the starting point of taking the nascent Tehrik-i-Nizam-i-Mustafa movement to other areas in Pakistan, that is, to enforce the Prophet Mohammed's way of life, or sharia law, on society. Underground Islamic radical groups will surface in support of this struggle that could ultimately lead to the ousting of the Musharraf government.

People in North Waziristan claimed that the present battles between the armed forces and the tribals are unlike those of the past, which in essence were skirmishes. They said that now there was a virtual mass mutiny against both Pakistan and its pro-US government in Islamabad.

The media broke the story about the establishment of an Islamic state in North Waziristan after the Taliban took control of the area. Initially, Pakistani authorities avoided clashes and restricted themselves to the district headquarters, Miranshah. There was an unwritten accord between the Taliban and Pakistani forces that they would not encroach on each other's areas.

However, an air raid last Friday, a day before the arrival of US President George W Bush in Pakistan, changed everything. Pakistani authorities claimed they had attacked a group of militants who were infiltrating North Waziristan after attacking a US base in Afghanistan. Local tribes maintain that the air raid killed a number of innocent men, women and children who had nothing to do with the suspect group.

In reprisal, tribals seized control of the district headquarters of Miranshah. Many Pakistani armed-forces personnel were killed, while dozens were forced to surrender and were arrested by the local Taliban.

Pakistan's ground forces could not take on the tribals, so more gunship helicopters were sent in, resulting in the deaths of more than 100 tribesmen on Saturday, according to local estimates. And on Sunday, dozens more were killed. Despite the air cover, Pakistani ground troops are not prepared to risk advancing too far beyond their bases.

According to local media, Taliban sources say that had Pakistan not begun the air raids, sharia courts would have been operational from this month. The Taliban have already established centers all over the tribal area to run local affairs, including their own system of policing.

The fight spreads

The Taliban intend to extend from their base in North Waziristan to Afghanistan to fuel the resistance there against the US and its allies. Similarly, the movement will spread to "mainland" Pakistan in an effort to topple the pro-American government in Islamabad. Pakistan is a key component of the United States' "war on terror".
This anti-government movement will need a leader. The jihadi hardcore is looking for one who will be untainted and not hand-in-glove with the military establishment. So far, a general consensus is emerging that international cricketer turned politician Imran Khan, head of the Pakistan Tehrik-i-Insaaf (Pakistan Justice Movement), might be the man for the job.

Khan took a lead role in the protests against Bush's visit to Pakistan, although he received some support from the six-party opposition religious grouping the Muttahida Majlis-i-Amal (MMA). In fact, Khan was placed under house arrest before his main rally, and in his absence his workers gathered in Rawalpindi, where they were dispersed by police and many people were arrested.

In his distinguished cricket-playing days, the charismatic Khan was featured on the cover of international magazines, and he had a huge following in his own country because of his exploits on the field. Pakistani Islamists, a constituency in the army and the powerful Jamaat-i-Islami Pakistan party saw Khan as a leader who could be cultivated as a figure to charm the masses for Islamic revolution in Pakistan.

This was soon after Pakistan won the Cricket World Cup in Australia in 1993, when Khan's popularity knew no bounds. At this time, he retired from the sport and became involved in establishing a cancer hospital.

However, Khan's marriage to Jemima Goldsmith, a daughter of British industrialist James Goldsmith, messed up the designs of the Islamists, and the whole scheme was put on the back burner.

Educated at Oxford, England, and coming from a family that is considered among the elite of Lahore, Khan nevertheless turned out to be a genuine ally of the Islamic radicals as he sided with their cause and the Taliban. The majority of his party comprises progressive thinkers, women's-rights activists and a faction of Marxists, some of whom left the fold because of Khan's tendencies toward Islamic radicalism.

Yet Khan remained a vocal voice against US designs in the region, and even launched a campaign in support of some army officers who were arrested for alleged al-Qaeda connections, and he openly supported the Taliban movement.

Khan is now divorced, so in the eyes of many he is once again in a position to become a leader.

Before his rally in Rawalpindi, he was scheduled for a meeting with this correspondent in Islamabad. But because of his house arrest, he called by telephone to express his anger.

"There may be many dimensions to Bush's visit to Pakistan, but the basic thing is the reinforcement of US influence in Pakistan, which is situated at an ideal strategic location. Musharraf is the vehicle to reinforce American designs in the region," Khan said.

He called the ongoing operation in North Waziristan a prelude of radicalization in Pakistan. "The post-September 11 [2001] events perpetuate the present situation [unrest] and the current North Waziristan situation will further radicalize Pakistani society," Khan said.

He claimed that Musharraf was living in a house of cards and that a single powerful push could force him to step down. "Had Pakistan not been hit by an earthquake [last year], the opposition parties would already have begun their movement to oust Musharraf, but you will see that he will not be able to resist any longer against the present movement."

A million-person march was staged in Karachi on Sunday, and now there is a few days' lull due to Senate elections. In the meantime, the specter of North Waziristan will loom large in the consciousness of the establishment: the fear of a religious hard core, waiting for a leader, joining with the Islamic State of North Waziristan.

According to a report by Pakistani intelligence agencies, as many as half a million Pakistanis stayed in Afghanistan during the Taliban period from 1996 to 2001. Many of them took military training, while others only sought ideological inspiration.

After the September 11 attacks in the US, Pakistan took drastic steps to contain pro-Taliban organizations in Pakistan. Still, tens of thousands of jihadis and their supporters are believed to still be active. At present, the main problem of the religious hard core is to get all of them united in a battle against the establishment and mobilized on the streets.

To achieve this, a revolutionary leader is required who will be popular in the armed forces, with the religious hard core and among the masses.

Stubborn, defiant and extremely popular among the Taliban, Imran Khan might be such a leader.

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President General Pervez Musharraf's observation that Pakistan is strategically situated in an "arc of turmoil" from Afghanistan through Iran to the Middle East is aimed at promoting Islamabad's influence in this region.

At the same time, Pakistan itself is caught in a vicious arc of turmoil that all but ties the hands of the Pakistani leader, for whichever way he turns, he is looking down a double-barreled shotgun: domestic wrath that could bring him down, and alienation of his increasingly disgruntled partner in the "war on terror", the United States.

The American barrel

Despite President George W Bush's flying visit to Pakistan on Saturday, the two sides are aware that their alliance now borders on the realm of living in a fool's paradise.

The US and Pakistan are meant to be major allies, yet this marriage of convenience, forged in the tumultuous days following the September 11, 2001, attacks on the US and the ouster of the Taliban from Afghanistan in 2001, appears headed for the rocks.

When Bush and Musharraf met in Islamabad, they didn't even have a clear-cut agenda to discuss, unlike Bush and Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, who had met earlier and agreed on a number of important issues, including a civilian nuclear accord.

What Bush did want from Pakistan, according to officials familiar with the meeting , was for Abdul Qadeer Khan to be made available for interrogation.

The US wants to grill Khan, father of Pakistan's nuclear-weapons program and self-confessed proliferator, including with Iran, so that it can build a case against Iran at the United Nations Security Council. The US argues that Tehran is bent on building the bomb. The issue of Iran's nuclear program is currently before the International Atomic Energy Agency in Vienna. It is expected to make a decision on referral to the Security Council soon.

Pakistan has outright denied any direct access to Khan, who is under virtual house arrest in Pakistan, although it has agreed to hand over a scientist, named only as Dr Farooq, and a Pakistani businessmen, named only as Mr Jafery, who were allegedly involved in smuggling nuclear components on the international market.

To the Americans, this is only a half-measure, and until direct access is provided to Khan, they believe they will not be able to draw a full picture of Iran's nuclear program and its possible capacity to develop atomic weapons.

Against this background, the US will definitely not provide Pakistan with any cooperation in the field of civilian nuclear energy, as it did with India. Bush clearly drew a line during his press conference in Islamabad in response to a question on whether his country would deal equally with India and Pakistan. He said Pakistan and India had a different history of nuclear development and requirements.

Between the lines, he clearly outlined the fact that India had developed its nuclear program indigenously and had never been involved in proliferation, while Pakistan had obtained its program clandestinely and then sold on secrets.

Bush raising the issue of democracy in Pakistan and of Musharraf's insistence on wearing a uniform also irked the Pakistani leader, who seized power in a coup in 1999.

Further, in calculated remarks ahead of Bush's visit, Afghanistan lashed out at Pakistan for failing to deal with Taliban bases and their activities on Pakistani territory.

This prompted Musharraf to pay a fruitful strategic visit to China, during which he not only struck a deal for fighter aircraft with an advanced delivery system, but also for nuclear plants. This was a clear message to the United States that Pakistan had options.

"They [Pakistanis] should be ready for worse times coming ... we have substitutes and they know why I went there [China] before his [Bush's] visit," Musharraf said at a press conference in Islamabad, which was repeatedly broadcast on all private and state-run media.

From the Pakistani perspective, it now sees the US is committed to squeezing Islamabad until it produces on the "war on terror" shopping list, starting with Osama bin Laden, his deputy Dr Ayman al-Zawahiri, Taliban leader Mullah Omar and resistance figures Maulana Jalaluddin Haqqani and Gulbuddin Hekmatyar. Much as the US would like to add Khan to this list, Pakistan sees him as non-negotiable.

The Taliban thorn

The Taliban are geared for their spring offensive in Afghanistan, having regrouped in their thousands and established bases in the country, on the border areas with Pakistan and within Pakistan itself, in North Waziristan. They are complemented by al-Qaeda-linked jihadis who have helped train the Taliban in urban guerrilla warfare.

On Monday, after several days of fighting between Taliban and Pakistani forces in North Waziristan, relative calm returned to the area, and the two sides have begun talks. The major demand of the Taliban is a guarantee of free movement over the porous border between Afghanistan and Pakistan.

At present, militants use footpaths in the Shawal region to cross into Afghanistan. This hampers their logistical ability and makes supply lines very difficult to maintain. The Taliban are demanding access from Ghulam Khan Mountain, which would allow vehicles to pass so they could fuel the insurgency at the highest possible level.

If they get this, and with more advanced weapons, they could significantly raise the level of the insurgency.

The US, though, by carrying out various attacks within Pakistan, the latest being a drone attack on suspected militants last month, clearly could never accept such a Pakistani deal with the Taliban.

The domestic barrel

Rallies sponsored by the establishment against the publication of caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed in European countries have turned into ones related to Tehrik-i-Nizam-i-Mustafa, in essence the call for the introduction of sharia (Islamic) law.

Now angry mobs want to destroy all icons of pro-Americanism, including the leaders sitting in Islamabad. Opposition parties have said they will not let Musharraf salute an important parade on March 23.

Musharraf has a stark and unenviable choice. He could go along with the Taliban plan for easy access into Afghanistan. That would mean risking complete alienation from the US, whatever that might entail, but it would take the fire out of the domestic campaign to unseat him.

Alternatively, he could refuse the Taliban, attempt to play ball with the US, and try to defuse the mounting movement against him.

The nucleus of whatever Musharraf decides to do will be North Waziristan. One clear swing toward either of the choices would set off an unprecedented reaction.

An Interview with the Former ISI chief Hamid Gul taken sometime during February 2004. Though its over an year old and taken by an Indian journalist, but surely is an eye-opener.

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Born in a mud hut to a farmer in Sargodha, Punjab, retired Lieutenant General Hamid Gul went on to become head of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence directorate during then prime minister Benazir Bhutto's tenure. He played a pivotal role in creating the problems India confronted due to Pakistan's State-sponsored terrorism.

B Raman, one of India's leading experts on Pakistan, recalls how Gul actively backed Khalistani terrorists. "When Bhutto became prime minister in 1988," Raman says, "Gul justified backing these terrorists as the only way of pre-empting a fresh Indian threat to Pakistan's territorial integrity. When she asked him to stop playing that card, he reportedly told her: 'Madam, keeping Punjab destabilized is equivalent to the Pakistan army having an extra division at no cost to the taxpayers.'"

"Gul strongly advocated supporting indigenous Kashmiri groups," adds Raman, "but was against infiltrating Pakistani and Afghan mercenaries into Jammu and Kashmir. He believed Pakistan would play into India's hands by doing so."

In an extensive interview to Contributing Editor Sheela Bhatt at his luxurious villa in a military compound in Rawalpindi, Gul provides Indian policymakers with a glimpse of the problems that lie ahead in winning peace in South Asia. Part of this interview was first published in India Abroad, the largest circulated newspaper for the Indian-American community, which is owned by rediff.com

How do you perceive the latest peace initiatives between India and Pakistan?

The SAARC meeting has certainly been different because America has arrived in the region, and both countries are alarmed. Pakistan is used to dealing with America; India is not. When (India's Prime Minister Atal Bihari) Vajpayee says 'new questions have arisen,' he is referring to America's belligerence, its arrival in the region and its desire to control energy resources in Asia that rightfully belong to us.

What are the problem areas you see post-SAARC?

Kashmir.

Pakistan wanted to use the instrument of SAARC and other development issues as a peripheral arrangement in order to find a way to solve the Kashmir problem. But I have my misgivings. I think India wants to bypass the Kashmir issue to get to Central Asia. India also wants to ward off America's attempt to intervene directly in the Indian subcontinent.

India also has an energy problem -- it imports 70 percent of its energy. If America is going to regulate the energy tap of Central Asia, they are going to indirectly regulate the growth of the Indian economy, which is linked to India's political destiny. So India wants to build up her security arrangements. I have been discussing these issues with the Indians. The British ruled us by dividing us. Now America wants to dominate the world.

What is the solution to the Kashmir problem?

(Pakistan President Pervez) Musharraf and Vajpayee are trying to settle the Kashmir issue out of court. The court, in this case, are the people of Kashmir.

But India's Deputy Prime Minister Advani is talking to the Hurriyat Conference.

Yes, but what is being worked out by Pakistan and India right now is a division of Kashmir and I am not for it. Will the people of Kashmir accept it? Kashmiriyat is 700 years old and India and Pakistan, in their present forms, are just 56 years old.

Could the Line of Control could turn into an international border?

India thinks so. America is apparently supporting this notion, but their underlying motive is an independent Kashmir. Two days before Vajpayeeji arrived in Islamabad, he made a significant statement. He said Pakistan would have to drop the idea of taking over the Muslim majority area of Kashmir. This means he does not accept the Chenab Line (The formal division of Kashmir along the Chenab river, as proposed by Pakistan-occupied Kashmir Prime Minister Sardar Sikandar Hayat last year). He says India will not accept another communal divide. But neither Azad (Pakistan-occupied) Kashmir nor the people of Pakistan will accept the division envisaged by India. It is in our blood.

What if Indians don't accept any part of Kashmir going to Pakistan?

Musharraf says he expects India to accept the Chenab line. Many Pakistanis might support him, but will the Kashmiris agree? The Indians leaders are in trouble because of Article 370 of the Indian Constitution (which gives special status to Kashmir). The Chenab formula is not acceptable to India because, in that case, how will you maintain your armed forces against China, which is America's requirement more than India's?

Right now, if a plebiscite is held, the Kashmiris will opt for Pakistan but a psychological moment will be created when the Kashmiris will say they can't live with either India or Pakistan. At that time, America will step in and suggest a democratic solution to Kashmir. We are walking into the American trap. They are creating an environment whereby the Kashmiris will charge Pakistan with betrayal. In this new environment, America will ask for democracy in Kashmir.

Right now, India and Pakistan are settling Kashmir over their heads. The Kashmiris will be bitter and up in arms; they will express their opposition.

But Advani is talking to the Kashmiri leaders.

Yes, it is a positive sign. But what will come out of it? More autonomy to Kashmir than any other Indian state is not acceptable to Pakistan. India's army chief General (N C) Vij has said there are 2,500 freedom fighters in Kashmir -- he calls them infiltrators. They will kill some 7 or 8 (people) per day so that means the movement will be crushed by the time-frame of September 2004. Musharraf has given a commitment to India that there will be no infiltration from Pakistan's side. How will India judge Musharraf's sincerity?

By looking at the actual situation on the ground.

Right. Around September 2004, if actions (killings) go on in Kashmir then India will allege that Pakistan has not honoured its part of the deal so Pakistan is in a trap. If that happens, India will go back on the deal. If Kashmir is sold out like that we will have transferred the battle from Kashmir into Pakistan. That is going to destabilize Pakistan.

How do you analyze 9/11's impact on Pakistan?

We were caught on the wrong foot. We had been supporting the Taliban and the Americans were quiet about it because the (American oil and gas major) UNOCAL lobby was working. I have been saying that 9/11 is the creation of America. To slap sanctions on Afghanistan they started spreading baseless allegations against Osama (bin Laden).

When did you meet Osama for the first time?

I met him for the first time in Sudan in December 1993. Then again in 1994 we attended a conference of Afghan leaders in the Middle East. He was soft-spoken with flashing black eyes. He doesn't look like a blood-feasting terrorist. America is not able to catch him only because Allah doesn't wish so.

How strong is Osama and Al Qaeda now?

Given the situation in Iraq, Osama's cadre must be swelling rather than diminishing in stature, in confidence and in organization. These Arab mujahideen who were in the resistance movement against America are not products of madarssas. They are highly educated and belong to rich families. They are going for jihad in far off places like Bosnia, Chechnya and Afghanistan. In these places they were aliens -- culturally and linguistically and in many other ways. But now, Iraq is a God-send for them.

What will happen in Iraq now?

The Shias and Kurdish elements were apprehensive about possibility of Saddam coming back to power as a result of their movement against America. Now that Saddam has gone these people feel free to fight against America. But before America is defeated in Iraq there will be a lot of turmoil in American society.

Two things will happen before America is forced to withdraw from Iraq. One, their control over the energy situation will go and Israel will be exposed to threats from all directions. Will Israel lobby allow America to pull out? America will not pull out of Iraq unless it is totally drained out. So when America goes it won't be a wise decision taken within time but a belated decision which will wreck America. Anyway, they are building the cantonment in Iraq for the next 20 years. That's the reality. They will remain in Iraq till the energy is exhausted and then Americans will move on to the Caspian Sea area where the future energy source lies.

What do you think of the Americans, with whom you have been interacting since the days of the Afghan war?

Individually, they are very good. Americans are very easy to deal with. But collectively there is a dark impulse somewhere in policy making. That always comes out sharply when you deal with them. They want to dominate. They are cowboyish. They want to have things their way. They haven't had any real opposition so far and that has been a tragedy. They have not experienced an imperial setback so far. The real one perhaps, just a small glimpse of it, was 9/11.

What are 3,000 tragedies? We have had 300,000. We have gone through the trauma of India-Pakistan division. America has not matured as a nation.

But you cooperated with the Americans in Afghanistan. When and why did you turn against them?

First of all, I was not dealing with them as an individual -- we were working jointly in an operation. It was a task we were performing. I turned against America because they betrayed the Afghan nation. Afghans are great, very proud people. They are a gift to this world. Their tribes, their tremendous assimilation power, and their lust for freedom make them distinct. I love them.

You are said to have created the Taliban, and are often referred to as their godfather.

I didn't create the Taliban. This is an Ahmed Rashid (journalist and author of a book on the Taliban) saying. I was a friend of (Gulbuddin) Hekmatyar, (Burhanuddin) Rabbani and many Northern Alliance leaders like (assassinated Northern Alliance leader) Ahmed Shah Masud. I was trying to broker peace between them in my individual capacity. They are wonderful people but very difficult to deal with.

Any Afghan is a soldier, a politician, a businessman and a mullah rolled into one. And you can't move them from the part they have set for themselves. They have the best and some of the worst human traits in them. And undoubtedly they are treacherous when they deal with an enemy. Masud was my good friend. He was a tactician par excellence. He had a sharp brain.


What were the circumstances that led to the creation of the Taliban?

You can't create the Taliban, it was a spontaneous body. If you understand the psyche of the Afghan nation you will know. After the Russian withdrawal, (then Afghan leader) Najibullah's fall and the infighting of the mujahideen, an environment was created under which the Taliban was formed. I am not shy of accepting my link with the Taliban, but it is not true that I created it.

When the Taliban first appeared in August 1994, I was in Kabul. I was brokering peace between Hekmatyar and Masud. My first reaction was that the Taliban was let loose by the Americans to destroy the fruits of jihad. I told both Hekmatyar and Masud that you have to unite to fight against the Taliban.

The Talibanis were foot soldiers of jihadi leaders. They were part of jihad and frontline troops who drove Russians out of Afghanistan. These soldiers went back to madrassas, but then they thought that the Afghans were falling apart and chances of normalcy would recede. Then, a young woman belonging to the Noorjai tribe was raped by some people in east Kandahar. And from there Mullah Omar took off.

Incidentally, (Taliban leader) Mullah Omar had never traveled to Pakistan. In fact, the Taliban movement began in defense of that woman. Mullah Omar was an ordinary mujahid. He collected only 40 people to start with. He said, 'tabrees (talim/study) haram hai.' And he started the movement. Rashid's book is a pack of lies. The Taliban was not created by Pakistan.

What are your views on reports indicting Pakistan for nuclear proliferation?

Why should Pakistan be apologetic about it? Nuke proliferation started because of the US and Russia who have been distributing nuke technologies to their favourites. Israel is a undeclared nuclear power. Whether Pakistan has proliferated or not is not an issue at all.

The important question is does a small country like Pakistan having bad experiences with India and three wars have right to possess nuclear weapons or not? The cause of war still exists over Kashmir. And we have not signed the proliferation treaty.

How can you justify nuclear proliferation?

Why are the Americans then distributing it to Israel? I fear the Americans will demand the joint custody of Pakistani nuclear assets. Or they may say that Pakistan will have to roll back. I remember when Morarji Desai was prime minister of India, it first came out that Pakistan has an Islamic bomb. Desai said, 'How does it hurt India? We have one and they have one.' It's a legitimate desire of any nation to provide for its security needs.

Even America is not afraid of the Pakistani bomb. It is Israel that is afraid of Pakistani nuclear weapons.

But President Musharraf has sided with America.

(Interrupting) Under duress. I don't think his heart is in it. He has the same genes which I have. He was my student, he was my subordinate in the Pakistan army. We have served together. How can he be pro-America?

Is Musharraf anti-Indian as some people claim?

If you put aside Kashmir no Pakistani is anti-India. We like peace with India but not without settling Kashmir. Kashmir is Musharraf's only problem.

What is the bigger issue? The American threat or Kashmir?

You can't put it like that. We have to fight the American threats together. But it is not possible to surrender Kashmir to fight America together.

But India and Pakistan's case is different. America is already on Pakistani soil.

It doesn't matter. America is our bank account!! Just one uprising (against the American presence in Pakistan) and things will change. We are not afraid of the Americans, they can't fight on the ground. We are only concerned about their high-altitude bombers. India and Pakistan must find a solution to their high-altitude bombers.

Why are you anti-India?

I am not anti-India. I am against the imperial streak in the Indian psyche. The 1947 riots had a deep impact on my mind. The Indians always lean towards imperial powers. Look at your special relationship with Jews. And now you are with America. Jinnah was right when he invited Ambedkar to join Pakistan. About 5% to 6% Brahmins dominate India. Where are the lower classes?

How do you define your own ideology?

I am an Islamist. Islam is the final destiny of mankind. Islam is moderate, Islam is progressive. Islam is everything that man needs. It is not necessary to become a Muslim but it is necessary to adopt the principles of Islam. Naseem Azavi and Iqbal's writings have influenced my thinking.

How do you see the future of Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif?

Pakistan's future will lie in the hands of those who oppose America and who take a stand on Kashmir. Benazir will have to oppose Musharraf who is seen as pro-American. Unless she changes her stand of pleasing Americans, she has no political future. Pakistan has to redeem dignity and honour, which we have lost to the Americans.

What will be the minimum demand from Pakistan to India over Kashmir?
Musharraf is saying he expects the Chenab line to be accepted by India. Many Pakistanis might go with him but would Kashmiris agree with them? Also, our discomfort over the leaks of proliferation must not ease India. Dr (A Q) Khan is our hero. Nobody can dare touch him.

If India has a problem with Pakistan why don't you give Kashmir to Kashmiris? Indians have a deep-rooted prejudice against Pakistanis. Not one Indian intellectual is ready to say that let Kashmiris have freedom.

As ISI chief you have observed India. Do you still feel India can give their land to Pakistan?

India will. India will give its land when it will be divided into many pieces. India will have to be break. If India does not give us our land we will go to war and divide India. This time America helped India.

When you were ISI chief you were closely monitoring India…

(interrupts) We never wanted to create problems with our Muslim population in India. Otherwise, believe me, India is so fragile. India has such weak joints that if we want we could strike these weak joints then India will dismember. But we don't want India to break.

Weak joints?

India is ridden with problems. I am not talking about Muslims. There are many other weak joints. Indians have strong fissiparous tendencies, which is absent in Pakistan. One can easily exploit it politically. Because of Indian Muslims it is not in our interest to break India.

Pakistan attacks US-India nuclear pact

Pakistan has said a nuclear energy deal between India and the United States would wreck international agreements to stop the spread of atomic weapons, the Financial Times reports.

On Friday, the newspaper quoted Khursheed Mehmood Kasuri, the Pakistani foreign minister, as saying that the US decision to give nuclear technology to India - which like Pakistan has a military nuclear programme - would encourage other nations to follow suit.

In an interview, Kasuri told the Financial Times: "The whole Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty will unravel. It's only a matter of time before other countries will act in the same way.

"Nuclear weapons are the currency of power and many countries would like to use it. Once this goes through, the NPT will be finished. It's not just Iran and North Korea. Brazil, Argentina and Pakistan will think differently."

New Delhi is to receive US nuclear technology - including reactors and nuclear fuel - in return for separating its military and civil facilities and opening some civilian plants to international inspections.

The pact was agreed upon during a visit by George Bush, the American president, to India this month.

"Nuclear weapons are the currency of power and many countries would like to use it"

Washington has refused to extend the same co-operation to Pakistan. Bush said that the two countries have "different needs and different histories".

The United States has been concerned about weapons proliferation by Pakistan since Abdul Qadeer Khan, the country's top scientist, admitted in 2004 to selling nuclear technology to Iran, North Korea and Libya.

Pakistan-China ties
But analysts say that the growing US-India strategic ties could encourage Pakistan to seek a similar relationship with China, its traditional ally.

Kasuri said: "The US should be conscious of the sentiments of this country. Public opinion sees things in black and white. They compare the US to China and feel it has not been a constant friend the way China has."

India and Pakistan tested nuclear weapons in 1998 and have long refused to sign the NPT, the centrepiece of the global disarmament effort.

Kasuri said the United States should not be treating the two countries differently.

"We demand equality of treatment and we will continue to pursue it. We have a large population and a fast-growing economy. If the Indian deal goes through, there are some things we will do."

Pak Troops Blow Up Madrasa

MIRANSHAH, Pakistan, 16 March 2006 — Pakistani authorities have arrested at least 30 people, blown up a madrasa and banned sale of weapons as part of an effort to suppress militancy in a troubled tribal region.

The North Waziristan tribal agency was the scene of military strikes before and after a March 3-4 visit to Pakistan by US President George W. Bush that officials say killed nearly 200 pro-Taleban militants.

A curfew was imposed in the capital Miranshah 11 days ago.

Early yesterday, the paramilitary Frontier Constabulary blew up the town’s Anwar-ul-Uloom madrasa, which officials said has served as a sanctuary for militants.

They said the religious school was built by Afghan refugees in the 1990s and no one was in it at the time it was destroyed.

North Waziristan’s official, political agent Zaheerul Islam, told Reuters that 29 people, 19 of them Afghans, had been arrested since authorities announced a drive to force out Afghans living illegally in the region on Monday. Witnesses saw another Afghan being arrested in Miranshah when the night-time curfew ended at dawn yesterday.

Islam said the Afghans were arrested as “they are no longer refugees but foreigners living without travel documents.” He said some Pakistanis were arrested for possible links with militants.

He said those arrested would be interrogated for possible links with an estimated 400 foreign militants living in the area.

Authorities have also ordered Miranshah’s 130 arms shops to remove weapons from their premises immediately.

The head of the town’s arms dealers’ association, Haji Akhtar Khel, said authorities had said the ban on arms sales was aimed at denying militants easy access to weapons.

He said dealers had been told they would be held responsible for the consequences if they did not comply.

Officials have blamed unrest in North Waziristan on radicals among thousands of Afghans who took up residence there after the Soviet occupation of their country in the 1980s.

A relative calm has returned to Miranshah area since security forces killed up to 30 pro-Taleban militants and local supporters in a village about 10 km west on Friday.

But sporadic instances of violence have continued. In Janikhel, a nearby tribal area adjoining neighboring North West Frontier Province, two Irrigation Department engineers were abducted with their driver on Tuesday, sources said.

And the same night, suspected militants blew up an empty post of the Frontier Constabulary about 40 km southwest of Miranshah, sources said.

Pakistani forces have been trying to clear out foreign militants from Waziristan since 2004.

Many Pashtun tribesmen, who live on both sides of the Pakistan-Afghanistan border, sympathize with the Taleban and Al-Qaeda, and Al-Qaeda leaders Osama Bin Laden and Ayman Al-Zawahiri are believed to be hiding somewhere in the frontier region.

Tuesday March 21, 2006
The Guardian

A powerful new militia dubbed "the Pakistani Taliban" has effectively seized control of swaths of the country's northern tribal areas in recent months, triggering alarm in Islamabad and marking a big setback in America's "war on terror".
The militants are strongest in North and South Waziristan, two of seven tribal agencies on the border with Afghanistan. Strict social edicts have been handed down: shopkeepers may not sell music or films; barbers are instructed not to shave beards. Yesterday a bomb blew up a radio transmitter in Wana, taking the state radio off the air.

Militants collect taxes from passing vehicles at new checkpoints, and last week an Islamic court was established in Wana to replace the traditional jirga, or council of elders. Rough justice has already been dispensed elsewhere. A gang of seven alleged bandits were executed in Miran Shah in December and their bodies were hung from a post in the town centre.

The violent puritanism is spreading. On Sunday a remote-controlled bomb ripped through a police vehicle in Dera Ismail Khan, near South Waziristan, killing seven people. More than 100 pro-government elders and politicians have been killed in the past nine months, said a diplomat.

The Pakistani military deployed 70,000 troops to Waziristan two years ago to rein in the militants. But the campaign is faltering. An army assault against an alleged al-Qaida training camp outside Miran Shah on March 1 left more than 100 dead.

Fareed Ullah Khan, a resident, said he cowered inside his home for three days as shells whistled overhead and the air rattled with gunfire. As the fighting intensified, his family scurried from room to room in search of safety.

"We were afraid the bullets might land where we were hiding," said Mr Khan, who has since fled to Peshawar, the capital of North-West Frontier province. President Pervez Musharraf has vowed to quell the revolt. Since declaring a curfew in Miran Shah, government troops have regained control. But some people are worried. "The so-called war on terror is going badly," said one diplomat.

Comparisons to the emergence of the Afghan Taliban in the early 1990s are increasing. Although they have distinct identities, the groups are strongly linked - both are ethnic Pashtun - and Afghans use Waziristan as a rear base.

Analysts say the Pakistani Taliban is a loose alliance of tribal militia operating under radical clerics such as Sadiq Noor and Abdul Khaliq. Many are angered by heavy-handed Pakistani military attacks against suspected al-Qaida hideouts, which are thought to have killed hundreds of civilians over the last two years.

The tribesmen are allied with al-Qaida fugitives, mostly from Uzbekistan and Chechnya. The foreigners have blended into the tribal structures, buying loyalties and marrying local women.

Foreign reporters are banned from the area and most local journalists have fled. One, Hayatullah Khan, 32, was abducted in December and is still missing.

The US is impatient to catch more senior al-Qaida figures. Unmanned Predator drones, now armed with Hellfire missiles, sweep over the tribal areas on surveillance missions so often that villagers now recognise their engine noise.

In January American forces destroyed a house in Bajaur tribal agency where it thought al-Qaida's second in command, Ayman al-Zawahiri, was hiding. Thirteen villagers were killed. The US has carried out several strikes, said a well-placed diplomat, but it has let Pakistan claim responsibility.

Such attacks have won the militants much support. "These are not the proper Taliban," said the refugee Mr Khan. "They are the common people who have revolted against the [Pakistani] government and targeted killings by Americans."

The Taliban presence in northern Pakistan also concerns Britain, which is deploying more than 3,300 troops in the southern Afghan provinces of Helmand and Kandahar.

British intelligence contributed "heavily" to a list of about some 150 Pakistan-based Taliban suspects that the Afghan president, Hamid Karzai, brought to Islamabad last month, the diplomat said.

Pakistan increasingly is looking to China as a natural strategic ally and energy partner, and some Pakistanis see the move as all the more important given the new emphasis Washington is placing on its ties with India.

Pakistan and China have enjoyed good ties for decades, but the relationship is heading for a new level, a shift likely to have strategic ramifications for U.S. interests in the region.

President Bush's first visit to South Asia, early this month, was a disappointing one for Pakistan.

Its neighbor and rival, India, won a historic civilian nuclear energy cooperation deal with the U.S., a deal that must now be approved by Congress.

There was no equivalent trophy for Pakistan, whose dire record on nuclear weapons proliferation made it ineligible, U.S. officials say.

At the same time, Pakistan, under President Pervez Musharraf, has been an important - some experts say the most important - partner in the U.S.-led war against al Qaeda and other terrorist groups launched after 9/11.

Washington designated Pakistan a "major non-NATO ally" (MNNA) in 2004, a status enjoyed only by 13 other nations, including such key allies as Israel and Japan.

Although India is not among the MNNA countries, the Bush administration's stated policy is to help the democracy of more than one billion people become a "major world power" in the 21st century, and the nuclear cooperation agreement lies at the center of that push.

Even before Bush's South Asian trip and the signing of the Indo-U.S. nuclear deal, U.S. foreign policy specialists were describing Washington's new stance on India as hugely significant.

Because of the longstanding enmity between the nuclear-armed neighbors, Pakistan has traditionally viewed good U.S. ties with India as inimical to its own interests, and vice versa.

Following Bush's visit this month, a Pakistani former secretary-general of foreign affairs, Akram Zaki, was quoted as saying that given a U.S. tilt towards India, Pakistan should focus more attention on China, Central Asia and the Middle East.

He was addressing a seminar reviewing the Bush visit, at which speakers said U.S. policy had made India a leading power while relegating Pakistan to lesser status.

At the same function, an influential former chief of the Pakistan army said the U.S. was employing a Cold War-type "policy of containment" aimed at keeping its foes from progressing.

General Aslam Beg said the U.S. and its allies in Europe, Japan and India were now "lined up against China, Russia and the Muslims."

'Strategic'

Musharraf chose shortly before Bush arrived to pay an official visit of his own to Beijing, during which a 2005 "treaty of friendship, cooperation, and good neighborly relations" was enhanced.

Dr. Subhash Kapila, a strategic affairs analyst with the India-based South Asia Analysis Group, saw the timing of the week-long visit as evidence that Pakistan gives greater priority to its strategic partnership with China than it does to its MNNA status with the U.S.

"While we should continue having relationship with the United States because it is a unipolar world, we have our relationship with China as well and that relationship is strategic in nature," Musharraf said one day before Bush arrived.

Speaking at the National Defense College in Islamabad, he continued: "We must understand what is our interest and what interest others have in us. Our pure location gives us strength and unfortunately we have not realized this in the past."

The reference to geographic location is key: Pakistan is all that lies between landlocked western China and the Indian Ocean, Arabian Sea and Persian Gulf.

Pakistan has offered itself to China as an outlet to these strategic waters, and Beijing is developing a deep-water port at a Pakistani coastal village called Gwadar. Highway links from there to China also are being upgraded.

The benefits for China are not purely economic. As early as 2001, Musharraf commented on the advantages for China in having its Navy at Gwadar.

Center for Security Policy research associate Robert T. McLean wrote earlier this month that the port construction was "a development of enormous geostrategic significance."

The project would give Beijing "the ability to substantially influence events in both the Middle East and the ever-important Indian Ocean."

Energy, weapons, politics

Advantages for Pakistan from the strengthening partnership include energy. The U.S. may have ruled out nuclear energy cooperation with Pakistan, but China has already built one nuclear reactor in Pakistan's Punjab province, and has agreed to provide a second.

Pakistan hopes for more reactors in the decade ahead, and while Musharraf was in Beijing, the two governments signed an agreement to "deepen cooperation in peaceful application of nuclear power."

Pakistan, which recorded one of the highest levels of economic growth in Asia last year, says it will need a more than eight-fold increase in power requirements over the next quarter-century.

Despite Washington's refusal to consider nuclear cooperation with Islamabad, Bush did dispatch Energy Secretary Samuel Bodman this week to discuss ways the U.S. "could be helpful in realizing Pakistan's energy objectives."

Other features of the Pakistan-China partnership include defense ties. Pakistan armed forces use Chinese weapons systems and the two are jointly building JF-17 (Thunder) fighters, a plane Musharraf says compares favorably with American F-16s.

As the relationship develops, the two countries are also looking for ways to use each other to further their own broader aims.

In a little-reported comment during Musharraf's visit to Beijing his Information Minister, Sheikh Rashid Ahmad, told Chinese television Pakistan would stand by China if the U.S. ever tried to "besiege" it.

Pakistan has been a firm supporter of Beijing's "one China" policy, taking a lead in blocking Taiwan's efforts to win admission into U.N. agencies.

Islamabad has also backed China in opposing moves to expand the U.N. Security Council - a goal they share because Pakistan doesn't want India given a permanent seat, while China has similar views about Japan.

In a bid to strengthen its regional position vis-a-vis India, Pakistan is supporting China's entry into the eight-nation South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (SAARC) grouping.

Seema Sridhar of the Institute of Peace and Conflict Studies in New Delhi called the move "another attempt by Pakistan to restructure the regional balance of power."

In turn, Islamabad is looking to Beijing to open the door for Pakistan to join the Shanghai Cooperation Organization (SCO), a regional bloc comprising China, Russia and four Central Asian republics.

China this week invited Musharraf to attend a SCO summit in June as an observer, but during his recent visit the two countries discussed the possibility of full membership.

Formed in 2001, the SCO has over the past year or so begun to flex its muscles, carrying out joint military and counter-terror maneuvers.

Last July the bloc caused waves when it called for the U.S. to set a deadline for withdrawing its troops - deployed in support of operations in Afghanistan - from Central Asian bases.

Analysts saw the demand as part of attempts by China and Russia to edge the U.S. out of the strategic and oil-rich region.

Wednesday, March 22, 2006

Taliban control Waziristan

Daily Times Monitor

LAHORE: Pakistani Taliban have taken control of most of North and South Waziristan, enforcing strict social edicts such as a ban on the sale of music and films and shaving of beards in the tribal agencies, the Guardian reports. Militants collect taxes from passing vehicles at new checkpoints, and last week an Islamic court was established in Wana, the headquarters of South Waziristan, to replace the traditional jirga, says the British newspaper. The military deployed 70,000 troops to Waziristan two years ago to rein in the militants. But the campaign is faltering. An army assault against an alleged Al Qaeda training camp outside Miranshah on March 1 left more than 100 dead. Since declaring a curfew in Miranshah, government troops have regained control. But some people are worried. “The so-called war on terror is going badly,” said one diplomat. Analysts say the Pakistani Taliban is a loose alliance of tribal militia operating under radical clerics. Many are angered by heavy-handed attacks against suspected Al Qaeda hideouts, which are thought to have killed hundreds of civilians over the last two years.

http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?p...22-3-2006_pg1_6

Wednesday, March 22, 2006

Militants blow up pipeline near Sui

QUETTA: Suspected militants blew up a gas pipeline in Balochistan on Tuesday, officials said. The pipeline is owned by Sui Northern Gas Pipelines Ltd (SNGPL) and feeds gas to the Punjab province. Officials at the company said supplies to consumers remained unaffected. “One of our 30-inch diameter pipeline was damaged in the attack, which took place at around 1:30 am and some 11 km away from the Sui fields,” said Naeem Ahmad Khan, a spokesman for SNGPL. Khan said the repair work on the damaged pipeline was likely to be completed within 24 hours. Nobody has claimed responsibility for the attack, but Baloch militants have waged a low-level insurgency for decades and have intensified attacks on government installations and infrastructure facilities, including pipelines and transport links, in recent months. On Monday, a four-inch diametre pipeline was blown up at the outskirts of Quetta, the capital of Baluchstan, disrupting gas supplies to some areas. Officials said supplies were expected to be back to normal by midday on Tuesday. Reuters

New turn in US-India ties

PRESIDENT Bush’s arrival in New Delhi and the conclusion of the civil nuclear cooperation agreement as the centrepiece of the new “strategic partnership” was the culmination of America’s wooing of India which started almost from the day that India and Pakistan won their independence. There were idealistic and practical reasons for this fascination.

On the idealistic plane India was the world’s largest democracy and a country that won its independence through non-violent protest.

This was seen as fascinating enough to overcome the aversion to the “socialism” that India theoretically practised at home and the “non-alignment” it preached. It was in 1959 that President Eisenhower, the first American president to visit India, told his Indian interlocutors that “we who are free — and who prize our freedom above all other gifts of God and nature — must know each other better, trust each other more, support each other.”

On the practical “realist” plane there was the desire initially to make India-the largest country of the region — a part of the string of alliances the US had created around the world to “contain” the communist threat from both the Soviet Union and the People’s Republic of China.

It was only after India rejected American overtures that the Americans turned towards Pakistan and made it the lynchpin in the Baghdad (later Cento) and Seato pacts aimed at the soft underbellies of the Soviet Union and China respectively. More recently, other American geo-political perceptions have made it appear that a strategic partnership with India is an indispensable element of American policy.

In the early years, the effort to make India part of the western alliance did not wane even while on the surface it seemed that Washington’s impatience with India’s hypocritical posturing and adamant refusal to be, in the American perception, genuinely non-aligned placed the two countries at odds. India was the recipient of large dollops of American aid and was perhaps the only country in the 1960s which had its PL-480 (food aid programme) loans written off. It was the largest recipient (40 per cent) of assistance, thanks to American influence over the soft loan window of the World Bank.

It was the principal beneficiary of the “green revolution”. The institutes of technology, the pride and joy of the Indian educational system and the foundation of the information technology industry in India were a gift from the Americans. Much of this could be attributed to the fact that India’s needs were great and the American philanthropic impulse was at play but there was no doubt that political factors also played a part.

It was in 1962 that this became most clearly evident when the Sino-Indian conflict led to massive defence supplies being rushed by the Americans and the British to India along with offers of unstinting political support. It came as a rude shock to the Pakistanis, the most allied of allies, that there was little regard for Pakistan’s pleas to exploit India’s hour of need to persuade it to settle its disputes with Pakistan.

If the Indo-American relationship did not acquire strategic dimensions at that time it was only because the Indians felt that they could derive greater benefits by being de facto allies of the Soviet Union while maintaining a facade of neutrality and thus having their cake and eating it too. The situation changed after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the emergence of a unipolar world.

The decision around the same time by the Indians to introduce economic reforms that opened up the economy to foreign investment had a dramatically positive effect on the “Hindu rate of growth” and suddenly brought to the fore the potential of India as a trading partner and a market of middle class consumers for western products on the one hand and the need for India to look westward for markets for its burgeoning exports and for the import of technology on the other.

This was reinforced by the growing economic and political clout of the Indians settled in America. The Americans were more than happy to respond. Indian suspicions of American intentions and the so-called American tilt towards Pakistan were put to rest by the manner in which Clinton handled the Kargil episode and by his week-long visit to India in March 2000 when it became evident that the American tilt was definitely towards India.

Fast forwarding to today the Americans in defining the reasons for seeking a strategic partnership with India have said that “India and the United States are both multi-ethnic, multi-lingual, multi-religious democracies with increasingly converging interests on the world’s most important issues. Opening new areas to economic cooperation and concluding a civilian nuclear partnership are two of the most important areas at this moment. Beyond that, we need to look at all the areas where our international interests intersect with those of India and where we can advance our interests by partnering with India in this region and beyond. Some areas that spring to mind are agriculture, democracy building, disaster relief, education, and science and technology”.

In addition, it has been argued that India’s growing market will offer interesting opportunities for American businessmen both for trade and investment and that India’s large reservoir of trained manpower will help fill the gaps that are beginning to arise in key sectors of the American economy.

It is also noted that at a time when admirers of America are becoming few and far between a recent survey has shown that 71 per cent of Indians have a favourable view of America and Prime Minister Manmohan Singh could truthfully tell an American TV channel when asked about domestic opposition to Indo-US cooperation that “there are the Left parties of our coalition, they still regard the United States as a hegemonic power. But I think the new Indians of tomorrow, our young people, our businessmen, our scientists, our technologists, I think they are not held back by the Cold War thinking.”

American analysts and policymakers have argued that India following the capitalist path for economic development while maintaining a democratic structure was the model that other developing countries should be encouraged to follow and that this would happen only if India was assisted in its effort to match the fantastic economic progress that China had made under totalitarian rule.

As a logical corollary but also as part of “containment” it is argued that India cannot be regarded as a model if it cannot match China in military prowess and “nuclear status”. It must therefore be allowed if not helped to develop nuclear weapons of the same calibre and in the same quantity as China. Currently China may be adhering as the other nuclear weapon states are doing to the policy of not producing fissionable material for nuclear weapons but it has already accumulated a sufficient stockpile of nuclear weapons and, in addition a large quantity of fissionable material, to add to this stockpile whenever it chooses. India must be enabled to do likewise.

This argument has been made most bluntly by the former ambassador to India, Robert Blackwill who said in a recent article that “Of course we should sell advanced weaponry to India. The million-man Indian army actually fights, unlike the post-modern militaries of many of our European allies.” America should help India with its space programme without worrying too much whether that will help India build missiles. “Why should the United States want to check India’s missile capability in ways that could lead to China’s permanent nuclear dominance over democratic India?”

Other thinkers put it more delicately suggesting that while there is no desire to contain China it is the American national interest to prevent the domination of Asia by any one power since this could jeopardise American interests and those of American allies in the region and that the rise of India as a power equal to China was, therefore, an American interest.

The American view of China has changed from the days that Bush came to power and talked of China as a strategic competitor. Now there is recognition that cheap consumer goods from China are helping keep inflation in check in the US and that American companies have large investments in China. There is once again an emphasis on engagement. The nature of engagement is not, however, necessarily friendly.

From India’s perspective the memories of 1962 still remain. There are suspicions about the nature of the Sino-Pak relationship and accusations abound in the Indian press regarding China’s assistance for Pakistan’s nuclear and missile programmes. Most importantly in justifying its testing of nuclear weapons in May 1998 former Prime Minister Atal Behari Vajpayee’s letter to President Clinton had talked of the threat that Chinese nuclear weapons posed to India.

There is the Indian desire in its ‘Look East’ policy to develop trade and economic ties with Asean countries where it finds itself far outstripped by China. Of course, alongside it must be noted that Sino-Indian talks on the border issue appear to be going well and trade between the two nations has grown at over 30 per cent annually since 1999. They are cooperating in securing oil and gas concessions so as to avoid being driven into competition for limited resources and there is much talk of the fact that in a relatively short time China may supplant the US as India’s largest trading partner.

In other words, there is a possibility that the view of China as an adversary both in Washington and in New Delhi may be subject to some measure of adjustment.

There is perhaps another, and at this time more pressing, American interest in the Indo-US strategic relationship. In the past years Indian analysts, particularly academics based in the US, had been making the point that India and the US had a common interest in combating the arc of instability represented by the crescent of Muslim states lying between Israel and India. It was postulated that the US could cooperate with these two countries to combat the menace of “Islamic terrorism”.

This concept drew upon earlier American thinking that despite its enormous power the US would need to rely upon “regional influentials” to ensure that its regional objectives were achieved. At the time that this was first propounded in the mid 1970s the Shah of Iran was a strong American ally and it was thought that Iran and Israel would be the regional influentials who would safeguard American interests. In the changed circumstances assigning such a role to India and Israel would appear plausible.

It is in this context that one should see the highlighting in American official statements and in the media of the fact that India has been on the side of the Americans on the question of Iran’s nuclear programme, and of the fact that with its large and tolerant Muslim population India may also be an ally against Islamic radicalism. It should also be noted that with American encouragement the Indo-Israeli relationship is flourishing with extensive ties being established in the sphere of security and defence.

How the nuclear deal and the rationale for the deal will impinge upon the security situation in the region generally and on Pakistan in particular is something that we need to think about. I have no doubt, however, that in informal consultations, if not in public testimony, Bush administration officials will seek to highlight this anti-terrorism role and the tie-up with Israel as the principal or at least the added benefits to be derived from giving India concessions on the nuclear issue.

The American administration has submitted to Congress the proposal for amending the American laws that will have to be modified to permit the civilian nuclear cooperation to go forward. Passage is not going to be easy. In my next article I will look at the prospects for such approval.

PAKISTAN: FORMER PM NAWAZ SHARIF DID MEET BIN LADEN, SAYS EX-LIGENCE AGENT

Karachi, 20 March (AKI) - (Syed Saleem Shahzad) - Former Pakistani prime minister Nawaz Sharif did meet al-Qaeda leader Osama bin Laden at least three times in order to get financial help, according to Khalid Khawaja, the former official with Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI). In an exclusive interview with Adnkronos International (AKI), Khawaja, once a close friend of Osama bin Laden, rejected the statements by a spokesperson for Sharif's political party, denying that Sharif had sought political cooperation from bin Laden in the past.

"Nawaz Sharif met Osama Bin Laden on at least three occasions and was desperately seeking his financial assistance," Khawaja told AKI in response to recent news reports regarding a possible meeting between the two.

In an interview with a national Urdu daily, Qazi Hussain Ahmad, the leader of the largest Islamic party in Pakistan, the Jamaat-e-Islami (JI), and of the six party religious alliance MMA, said that Nawaz had repeatedly met Osama bin Laden who offered him money to buy the loyalties of parlimentarians in the late 1980s in order to topple the government of then prime minister Benazir Bhutto. Ahmad also said that bin Laden was a big supporter of Nawaz Sharif's bid to be prime minister in 1990.

Soon after the publication of the interview, the information secretary of the Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz (PML-N) Siddiqul Farooq, denied any contact between Nawaz Sharif and Osama bin Laden.

"Osama is above all this politicking," said Khawaja. "He is a great man and will remain great. Even if Nawaz Sharif’s party refuse to admit a contact between Osama and Nawaz, it will not change the facts which were witnessed by many people including Khayyam Qaisar (Nawaz Sharif’s personal staff officer) and myself," Khalid Khawaja maintained.

Khalid Khawaja is a retired squadron leader of the Pakistan Air Force who was an official in Pakistan’s intelligence agency, the ISI, in the mid 1980s. After he wrote a critical letter to General Zia ul-Haq, who ruled Pakistan from 1977 till 1988, in which he labeled Zia as hypocrite, he was removed from the ISI and forced to retire from the airforce.

He then went straight to Afghanistan in 1987 and fought against the Soviets along side with Osama Bin Laden, developing a relationship of firm friendship and trust.

Khalid Khawaja’s name resurfaced when US reporter Daniel Pearl was abducted and subsequently killed. Pearl had come to Pakistan and met Khalid Khawaja in order to investigate the jihadi network of revered sufi, Syed Mubarak Ali Gailani.

"Actually the situation needs to be understood from very beginning as everybody has got the facts intermingled” Khawaja maintained.

“Soon after the plane crash of then President General Ziaul Haq in August 1988, I was fighting against the Soviets in Afghanistan. The biggest challenge before us was to save Afghan Jihad as in the post-Zia period the victory of the secular Pakistan Peoples Party was like writing on the wall.”

“So initially a few Pakistanis, including myself, planned an alliance which would be dominated by Islamic parties and also include the moderate Pakistan Muslim League. We wanted clear domination of hardline religious parties so that moderate Muslim League would not deviate from the cause of Jihad,” Khawaja asserted.

“A businessman, Tanveer Sheikh, Dr Adil of Jamia Farooqia, Karachi and myself were the three person who initiated this task. Tanveer Sheikh provided the seed money and we established an office in a bungalow in an upmarket neighborhood of Karachi.

"At that time we had zero percent support from ISI. Though they knew of our plan and we both used to exchange notes as well" he said.

"We had meetings with all top religious figures ranging from Mufti Rafi Usmani to Maulana Fazlur Rehman and finally brought them together under the umbrella of Muttahida Ulema Council (United Islamic Scholars Council).”

"However, the irony of this situation was that when all there was a ground-swell for a broader Islamic alliance the ISI hijacked the whole plan and deviated partners into IJI (Islamic Democratic Alliance).

Even then, Khawaja said, they did not give up and tried to outwit Benazir Bhutto . We met Altaf Hussain of MQM and he agreed to vote against Benazir Bhutto, then we tried to cut a deal between Maulana Fazlur Rehman and Nawaz Sharif. Nawaz was ready to give a big share to Fazl in power but Fazl insisted on premiership. As a result of these differences, Benazir Bhutto prevailed and with a very simple majority formed her government in 1989" Khawaja recalled.

“Now after Benazir Bhutto formed her government and the opposition parties moved for a vote of no-confidence, Osama Bin Laden comes in a picture,” Khawaja recalled.

“However, let it be clear that Osama is Mujahid. His aim was not to manipulate Pakistani politics. His whole life revolves around the cause of Jihad” he said.

“I still remember that Osama bin Laden provided me with funds, which I handed over to Nawaz Sharif, then the chief minister of Punjab [and later premier], to dislodge Benazir Bhutto. Nawaz Sharif insisted that I arrange a direct meeting with the "Sheikh", which I did in Saudi Arabia. Nawaz met thrice with Osama in Saudi Arabia. "

The most historic was the meeting in the Green Palace Hotel in Medina between Nawaz Sharif, Osama and myself, Khayyam Qaiser is the witness for that meeting in which Khayyem, the personal staff officer tried to take a photograph but Osama’s friends there stopped him.

Osama asked Nawaz to devote himself to "jihad in Kashmir". Nawaz immediately said, "I love jihad." Osama smiled, and then stood up from his chair and went to a nearby pillar and said. "Yes, you may love jihad, but your love for jihad is this much." He then pointed to a small portion of the pillar. "Your love for children is this much," he said, pointing to a larger portion of the pillar. "And your love for your parents is this much," he continued, pointing towards the largest portion. "I agree that you love jihad, but this love is the smallest in proportion to your other affections in life."

These sorts of arguments were beyond Nawaz Sharif's comprehension and he kept asking me. "Manya key nai manya?" [Agreed or not?] He was looking for a grant of 500 million rupee [US 8.4 million dollars at today's rate]. Though Osama gave a comparatively smaller amount, the landmark thing he secured for Nawaz Sharif was a meeting with the [Saudi] royal family, which gave Nawaz Sharif a lot of political support, and it remained till he was dislodged [as premier] by General Pervez Musharraf [in a coup in 1999]. Saudi Arabia arranged for his release and his safe exit to Saudi Arabia,”

“Now with these immortal accounts secured in my memory I see the denials published in newspapers, that Nawaz had nothing to do with Osama, and I think "how can people forget their mentors?". Nawaz proudly said that he is friend of US president Bill Clinton and but denies his association with a revered holy figure like Osama Bin Laden,” Khalid Khawaja concluded

http://www.adnki.com/index_2Level_E...277838622&par=0

this is a very interesting emerging scenario. pakistan has potentially a lot to gain from it politically, but also a lot to lose. the stakes are very high in essence. should we play our cards the right way, pakistan can outmanuever india and the US and establish itself comfortably in south asia as a chinese outpost, thereby battling (unwanted) american influence, and also keeping a tight lid on extra curricular indian activities (vis a vis afghanistan). we will just have to wait and see. musharraf and our policymakers seem to be getting it right thus far. we can only pray to Allah for the best.

Man convicted by ‘Taliban’ executed in S. Waziristan[size=4]




Bureau Report

PESHAWAR, March 27: The local Taliban in the South Waziristan tribal region sentenced a man to death for murdering a taxi- driver and the execution was carried out by the cabby’s father.

According to sources close to militants in the area, a Taliban Shoora found Hayatullah guilty of killing the taxi-driver, Bilal, and pronounced the death sentence under Shariat law.

The execution was carried out in Tiarza, dominated by the Mehsud tribe, on Sunday evening in the presence of Taliban leaders. In a grim reminder of dispensation of justice under the Taliban rule in Afghanistan, Bilal’s father was given a Kalashnikov and he fired a volley of bullets to avenge the death of his son.

Hayatullah was buried on Monday, the sources said.

This is the first execution carried out in the area which is under effective control of militants locally called Taliban.

The sources said that a group of Taliban activists had investigated the murder of Bilal whose body had been found in a ravine near Wana about two weeks ago.

DAWN

I think it is time for pakistan to move on for russuian arms

What The Hell Is Wrong With You.
Dizasta I Hope You See Why I Was p####d Off With This Man.

There Are Certain Things Which We Will Need To Change Our Policy According To The Russians and Backing Them Fully. Pluss They Are Still P####d Of From Their Afghan Campaign.

Yes i did see his posts .... i do understand what you meant. However restraint is recommended when in a cyber environment, cuz you wouldn't want to hit our own people! Its the bhindis you smackdown! I think Jani got a bit too carried away! Its trial & error, hope he learns!

ALMOST ALL OF TEH ARTICLES POSTED CAN B SUMMARIZES AS "MEDIA BULL ####"
nd an article by dawn...of all papers DAWN....I STILL REMEMBER THEY WERE THE FIRST #### NEWSPAPER WHICH REPORTED THE JF 17 PROJECT HAS FAILED DUE TO TEH ENGINE ISSUE WHIHC TURNED TO B CRAP!!!

A rush to the Taliban's call


KARACHI - The Taliban's spring offensive is in full swing, with almost daily attacks, including suicide bombings, in Afghanistan. More than 200 people, including 14 American soldiers, have lost their lives in the Taliban-led insurgency this year.

This toll - and the damage caused - is small in relation to the insurgency in Iraq, though the techniques applied have been modeled on those used by the Iraqi resistance. What the Afghan resistance lacks in expertise and sophistication, though, it is making up in numbers - to a scale not seen since the Taliban were driven from power in 2001.

Thousands of new volunteers are pouring into the mountainous regions on the border between Pakistan and Afghanistan to combat Pakistani troops on the one side and US-led allied forces on the other side. The volunteers include local Waziristanis from the North and South Waziristan tribal areas, Afghans and a small number Central Asian fighters. The vast majority, though, come from North West Frontier Province, Punjab and Karachi.

And in a significant development, many of these fighters would normally have joined in the struggle against Indian-administered Kashmir.

Thousands of jihadis who had fought alongside the Taliban against the Northern Alliance in Afghanistan before the US-led invasion of the country in 2001 subsequently joined with the the banned Jaish-i-Mohammed and Harkatul Mujahideen to fight in Kashmir. However, with India fencing the borders in Kashmir and the United States applying considerable pressure on Islamabad to stop the infiltration into Indian-administered Kashmir, the flow of jihadis has dried to a trickle, leaving them sitting idle.

The Taliban's recruitment drive for this summer's offensive, which started last year, targeted these jihadis, and many were persuaded to join the Taliban in North and South Waziristan. Apart from those belonging to the Jaish-i-Mohammed and Harkatul Mujahideen, fighters associated with the Lashkar-i-Toiba have also joined the Taliban in their thousands.

The Taliban have also targeted underground militias that sprang up in Pakistan after the fall of the Taliban regime in Afghanistan, with a total of about 50,000 fighters, many of whom received training in Afghanistan under the Taliban. These groups range from 20-2,000 people in each.

The battle from The Base (al-Qaeda)
Whether the Taliban inflict major losses on coalition forces this year or not, the International Islamic Front of Osama bin Laden has unleashed a battle from its new base - the "Islamic state of Waziristan" in North Waziristan (see The Taliban's bloody foothold in Pakistan, Asia Times Online, February 8).

The strategy is to expand this base further, to the provinces of Paktia, Khost, Helmand and Zabul in Afghanistan. In many villages of these provinces, as in North Waziristan, the Taliban have paralyzed the writ of the Afghan state and have formed their own administrations, which include a Taliban judiciary, police and system of taxes.

Although the Taliban have reached the Pakistani districts of Dera Ismail Khan and Tank, and shut down music centers, a decision to take over full control of these districts in North West Frontier Province has not yet been made.

In Taliban-controlled areas, neither tribal chiefs nor clerics have any say. Similarly, the six-party religious-political alliance, the Muttahida Majlis-e-Amal, has lost its influence. This much has been admitted by the Pakistani minister of interior.

On-the-ground contacts from North Waziristan tell Asia Times Online that as many as 27,000 fighters have grouped in the area. A new command has been formed, with all prominent faces being sent into the background. The new field commander is little-known, an Afghan named Maulana Sagheen Khan Zadran, 41. Of the fighters, about 3,500 are from Pakistani Punjab and Karachi and more than 10,000 from various districts of North West Frontier Province, while the rest are either local tribals or Afghan refugees.

The field commander of the Taliban in South Waziristan is Baitullah Mehsud. Though the exact figures for fighters in South Waziristan are not known, they are believed to run in the many thousands.

"This is the tip of the iceberg as thousands of mujahideen are waiting for the call. They are located in all seven tribal agencies and the rest of Pakistan. In addition to that, thousands of Taliban are still in Afghanistan, and once the Taliban movement gets momentum, they will be regrouped in their respective districts, like the Taliban are organized in North and South Waziristan, in the districts of Paktia, Khost, Helmand and Zabul," a contact said.

Asia Times Online has contacted top Pakistani officials, ranging from those in the Ministry of Information to the Ministry of Interior, the armed forces and the Federally Administered Tribal Areas, informing them of this article and requesting interviews. None chose to respond.

A twist in the 'war on terror'
Since the attacks on the US on September 11, 2001, the US-led "war on terror" has been through many phases. The indications are that another major change is happening.

A key policy the Americans devised was to shut down war theaters, be they in the Middle East, South Asia or Africa, as they were perceived as breeding grounds for terror. Thus, after invading Afghanistan and Iraq, the US put considerable diplomatic muscle into twisting Pakistan's arm to ban all private militias, initiate dialogue with India and clamp down on militancy emanating from the Pakistan-administered side of Kashmir, as well as abandon Islamist leaders in Kashmir.

The results of this, however, have not been what the Americans wanted, for while a lot of the heat might have been taken out of the Kashmir struggle, the focus has shifted to Waziristan and Afghanistan.

Khalid Khawaja is a retired squadron leader in the Pakistan Air Force (PAF) and belonged to the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) in the 1980s. He wrote a critical letter to the late general Zia ul-Haq, calling him a hypocrite. Zia ordered his dismissal from the ISI and forced his retirement from the PAF. Khalid went straight to Afghanistan in 1987 and fought alongside the mujahideen against the Soviets.

While in Afghanistan he developed close and friendly ties with bin Laden. Khawaja's name resurfaced after the abduction and murder of US reporter Daniel Pearl in 2002.

Asia Times Online asked Khawaja why people were giving up fighting in Kashmir and instead going to Waziristan.

"The feelings of disgruntlement among mujahideen emerged soon after September 11. Even a person like Maulana Fazl Rehman Khalil [chief of the Harkatul Mujahideen] once asked me in a private meeting why the mujahideen should [continue to] fight for the Kashmiri cause.

"The way the situation evolved in Pakistan after September 11, there was just no rationale for people to fight in Kashmir, simply because whatever Indian forces were doing in Kashmir against the Muslim population, Pakistani forces did even worse against Muslims in Pakistan," Khawaja said.

"Jihad is fought not for the sake of land. Jihad is fought when there is a question of faith and the enemy are attacking the faith. After September 11, the Americans attacked our faith. We fought against Soviet Russia for the same reason. Now the Americans have replaced Soviet Russia.

"Now when faith is under attack there is no difference of caste and creed. The collaborators are equally punishable, be it Pakistan or any other country. This is a global rule of mujahideen which is substantiated by clear religious decrees, be it Iraq, Afghanistan or Pakistan. After all, when [US President George W] Bush can say that you are with us or against us, what harm if the mujahideen make the same claims?" Khawaja said.

Saleem Hashmi, a spokesman for the largest indigenous Kashmiri liberation movement, the Hizbul Mujahideen, told Asia Times Online that with regard to the HM's strategic manpower, it is targeted at Indian-administered Kashmir.

Nevertheless, the situation on the ground tells a different story, and it is clear that that the Taliban have acquired a new and reliable supply of volunteers to feed the movement for many more spring offensives.

The Taliban movement has evolved beyond its guerrilla struggle into an organized widespread rebellion. It has fully matured in southern Afghanistan and is heading north toward Kabul and beyond, all the way drawing on growing popular support.

"Don't consider the present [insurgency] movement as Taliban only. This is a mass mutiny against the foreign presence, and all common Afghans are solely responsible for that," Gul Mohammed, a Taliban commander, explained in an interview in Qalat, the capital of Zabul province in Afghanistan.

Gul Mohammed's views are not exaggerated. This week, the Senlis Council, a London-based international security and policy advisory think-tank, reached a similar conclusion.

"Helmand [where the Taliban have a strong foothold] is an early warning of what the whole of Afghanistan could become if a radically different approach is not taken in the coming months," the Senlis Council, an independent group actively engaged in work in Afghanistan, said in its report.

"The United States unilaterally bombing Kandahar undermined the civilian population's support for the [Hamid] Karzai government," the council said. "The recent riots in Kabul were also an example of the increasing hostility of the Afghan people towards the international community."

Gul Mohammed picked up the point: "Americans crashed our gates and the sanctity of our houses. They disrespected our traditions and gave Christian missionaries a free hand to operate in Afghanistan. We just explained these features to the masses, who are our brothers and sisters."

Mullah Gul Mohammed Jangvi (the last name means "warrior"), to give him his full name, was the commander of the Taliban at Pul-i-Khumri in central Afghanistan when the US attacked in 2001. When the Taliban retreated from Kabul in the face of the invasion, he took refuge in Kandahar, the Taliban's spiritual capital.

In 2003, he was betrayed to US forces, arrested and taken to Bagram Base near Kabul, where he was tortured and then coerced into joining the Jaishul Muslim, a proxy US outfit established among the Taliban in an attempt to dislodge Taliban leader Mullah Omar.

But soon after Gul Mohammed was released, Jaishul Muslim evaporated and he rejoined the Taliban, along with 1,600 men. He is now one of the main commanders in the Qalat and Helmand area.

The US invested millions of dollars to built a support system in this region, which included buying the loyalties of local warlords, establishing proxy organization such as Jaishul Muslim, appeasing local tribes by releasing their men from Bagram Base, and recruiting local youths for the Afghan National Army.

However, when this year's spring offensive by the Taliban started, the whole scheme fell apart like a house of cards, with the chief beneficiary of the elaborate investment being the Taliban.

"Before the present [spring] campaign, we had adopted a strategy to educate the masses about the high-handedness of the Americans. Whenever we entered any village, we surrounded the whole area and asked the people to gather in a nearby mosque," said Gul Mohammed.

"We then told the people that they are under foreign occupation and there is a need to stand up against the foreign forces. We distributed night messages [a traditional Afghan way of spreading information] and passed on our messages through audio cassettes and computer disks."

Gul Mohammed maintained that the Taliban would continue their twofold strategy - military and political - and expressed confidence that soon the movement would reach into northern Afghanistan and foreign forces there would be very much under attack, as they are in southern Afghanistan.

"At present we have made Kandahar, Qalat and Helmand our strategic nucleus, where we have completely debased the enemy. There are seven main districts in Kandahar which are completely in our hands. Soon we will intensify our suicide operations throughout Afghanistan, and then you will see how the Afghan administration will collapse," said Gul Mohammed.

This is substantiated by the Senlis Council report: "About 80% of the population in Helmand supports the Taliban. The British troops [who are to replace US troops] will need to regain control, and for this they will need a different approach. That approach will have to be to listen to people and their needs."

The report continued, "The perception of the local people has changed ... they now see the Taliban as acceptable. So actually the Taliban are about to win the battle for the hearts and minds of the local population."

Gul Mohammed is of the same view: "In the next stage, ethnic groups from the Tajik and Uzbek communities will join hands in our struggle and foreign forces will not have any option except to leave Afghanistan.

"We have made southern Afghanistan a hell for foreign forces. There is little media coverage on our activities, otherwise [people would know] we are far ahead of the Iraqi resistance. There is not a single day when the Taliban don't carry out an operation against foreign forces.

"In the last two months we launched 20 successful attacks against foreign forces in which they lost men and assets. For instance, a recent incident happened in Maroof district of Kandahar in which we targeted a military convoy in which two tanks and eight US [foreign troops] were killed. The media did not mention this operation," Gul Mohammed said with some satisfaction.

Gul Mohammed said the Taliban had stored a lot of weapons before the US invasion, which they were now using, including Stinger missiles.

Again, the Senlis Council report confirms this. "We're talking about attacks being conducted every day. We're talking about a rise in suicide bombings, from five in 2004 to 21 in just the first semester of 2006. We're talking of a sophistication of terror techniques used, for example in the explosive devices used. So there is definitely a change in the way the insurgents are organizing their operations."

The rise in insurgency activity is admitted by General Peter Pace, chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, as quoted by Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty: "In the last two months, the Taliban have been conducting larger attacks this year than they did during the same time last year.

"The problem for the Taliban is that as they have gotten larger groups together, they have become much bigger targets. And they have lost about 300 Taliban in the last two months during those operations. So the Taliban are a tactical problem for the coalition in Afghanistan. [But] the coalition in Afghanistan is a strategic problem for the Taliban," said Pace.

Gul Mohammed, however, maintained that the real asset for the Taliban was the mass support they already had, and which was increasing multifold.

"The Americans bombed Panjwai [a district of Kandahar province], where innocent civilians were killed. The Taliban did not sustain a single injury in that incident. However, the way the Americans brutally bombed the area brought cascading effects. People turned against the Americans with conviction. There were 18,000 soldiers in Kandahar in the Afghan National Army. After the bombardment, it was reduced to 7,000 as the rest left the army in anger.

"The more they oppress Afghans, the more the reaction generates against the Americans. The same happened with Soviet Russia [in the 1980s], and ultimately it was defeated in Afghanistan and collapsed. The same will happen with the Americans," Gul Mohammed predicted.

Caught in the crossfire

For Merajuddin, a 29-year-old welder, and Mohammed Din, a 45-year-old farmer, both from Panjwai, their lives have been turned upside down.

Both belong to the Ishaqzai tribe and fled to Chaman, Pakistan, with their families, like dozens of other families from their home town, after the US bombing of Panjwai recently in which more than 50 civilians were killed.

"We saw an end-of-time sort of situation," said Merajuddin. "It is true that the Taliban had came to our area, but they left. The US got information and send aircraft 24 hours after the Taliban left. From 11pm to 5am aircraft constantly bombed Talaqan, the district headquarters.

"Initially they released gases which [put] many of us in an unconscious-like condition, and then they bombed the area. It looked like aircraft were static in the air for hours, and they showered bombs," Merajuddin said.

"As soon as the bombing ended, foreign troops took positions. They never allowed us to look after affected families. Instead, they took away the wounded men to interrogate them. The incident prompted us and other Afghan families to leave the area and take refuge in Pakistan," Merajuddin said.

Migration of tribes symbolizes the seriousness or depth of any crisis in Afghan history. When tribes leave their places in bulk, it shows that they would participate in a prolonged war.

"The Americans walk into our houses when they feel like. Neither do they ask permission nor are we in a position to stop them. They think all Afghans are Taliban. They entered in areas where only women live," Mohammed Din said, adding that the behavior of the Afghan National Army was even worse.

"They are given a free hand to humiliate us. They come to search for Taliban in our houses and eat our food and take away blankets and even money from our pockets," said Mohammed Din.

"Nobody wants to leave his place, but we were forced to do so. Here in Pakistan, we will do some labor jobs to make our two ends meet," Mohammed Din maintained.

"And we won't leave here until the foreign forces leave Afghanistan."

SCBA to move apex court on Musharraf’s options




By Our Staff Reporter

ISLAMABAD, June 9: The Supreme Court Bar Association (SCBA) plans to move the apex court by filing a constitutional petition seeking interpretation whether President Pervez Musharraf can contest elections in uniform for the second term.

“Undue controversy on the presidential elections and irresponsible statements from all sundry have necessitated that the apex court should resolve this controversy as it involves constitutional implications rather than political motifs,” SCBA President Malik Mohammad Qayyum told reporters here on Friday.

It is the duty of the Supreme Court, which is also the custodian of the constitution, to interpret such issues, he added.

The petition will seek explanation from the apex court on the controversy whether a president can be elected twice by a parliament, whether Gen Musharraf can continue in uniform for another term and whether the new assembly is required to elect new president.

On Hudood ordinance, Malik Qayyum was of the view that it was a controversial set of legislation and therefore should be repealed.

He also suggested that such laws should either be amended or revoked completely.

The Hudood laws are contrary to the spirit of Islam, he said, and demanded that the government should take cognizance of the matter since many innocent persons were being victimised under this law.

Necessary provisions of the Hudood laws could be incorporated into Pakistan Penal Code (PPC) and other statutes, he suggested.

Referring to the Federal Shariat Court (FSC), he said this institution should be dissolved and its powers should be delegated to the high courts.

He said judges who took oath under the constitution and later had to take another oath under the Provisional Constitutional Order (PCO) were enjoying constitutional status and therefore fresh oath was not mandatory for them. Whereas, those judges who had taken oath only under the PCO were required to be administered fresh oath under the constitution.

About government’s intention to set up a federal court in Islamabad, Malik Qayyum said such a court could not be established by an act of the parliament, as a two-thirds majority was required for a constitutional amendment.

DAWN 10-06-2006

Opposition terms budget rich-friendly: ‘N-programme being rolled back’[size=5]




By Our Staff Reporter

ISLAMABAD June 9: Legislators belonging to the treasury and opposition benches on Friday criticised the budget 2006-07, terming it anti-poor and rich-friendly while some of them went to the extent of warning the government that civil war might break out if deprived people’s problems were not redressed urgently.

PPP Parliamentarians’ Dr Babar Awan accused the government of having rolled back the nuclear programme. He also said that the government had stopped work on seven vital projects in the PSDP 2006-07 out of 30 ongoing projects included in the current PSDP.

Parliament, he said, should be taken into confidence and should be informed about projects which had been dropped and also name the people responsible for the decision. He said the move was akin to undermining the country’s defence capability, adding that the country’s nuclear programme had been initiated during the tenure of a civilian prime minister while nuclear tests had been conducted during the tenure of another civilian premier.

Dr Awan termed the subsidy offered on pulses a joke played on the poor and said more than 85 per cent of the country’s population lived outside the Utility Stores’ reach. He also dared the government to work out a small family budget for Rs4,000, which it had proposed as minimum wages for workers.

He presented figures for a financial plan for an average six-member lower-middle class family, which amounted to Rs17,800 per month without including such essential items as rent for a modest house, medical bill, accidental expenses and expenses incurred on conveyance.

He termed the Finance Bill 2006 unlawful, supra-constitutional and said that it was invalid on the grounds that it proposed amendments to 50 laws, which would render them un-enforceable. He said under Article 73 of the Constitution, money bills could not be amended in the finance bill.

On the third day of the debate, lawmakers from both sides of the political divide continued criticising budget makers for providing less than desired allocations for education and criticised the increase in defence budget.

Dr Awan also criticised the absence of even the mention of women development or a special scheme for minorities in the budget estimates while the National Accountability Bureau sought funds for its external operations, meaning to chase the popular leadership abroad.

Enver Baig of the PPP blamed the government for having done nothing to provide relief to the poor and for promoting what he termed cronyism and nepotism. In this connection, he cited the ECC to allow the import of tractors at zero per cent duty to four ‘favourite’ parties. The real beneficiary of the decision, he said, was a minister’s son who, he said, was a British national.

He said that a minister involved in the recent sugar crisis was heading the Utility Stores. He also gave details of allotment of 1,000 acres of land in Karachi at a throwaway price of Rs100,000 per acre, adding that there was no sign of a plant for which it was allotted.

Citing last year’s infamous stock exchange scam, he said the same cartel that had caused the stock crash had been successful getting the SECP chairman removed.

Abbas Kumaili of the MQM said the budget did not contain anything positive for the poor, adding that it took care of the interests of the haves while ignoring the have-nots.

Talha Mahmud of the MMA contested government’s claim of having broken the begging bowl and said the bowl had in fact been enlarged.

He said that prices of wheat flour had gone up by 108 per cent, kerosene oil 400 per cent, milk 200 per cent and pulses 233 per cent during the present government’s tenure.

Sardar Jamal Leghari suggested the setting up of yet another ministerial portfolio and said a ministry of human resource should be tasked to determine ministers’ suitability.

Other speakers included Sardar Mehtab Ahmed Khan, Maulana Abdul Rashid, Bibi Yasmin, Farooq Naik, Dr Abdul Malik and Sahibzada Khalid Jan. The house will now meet on Saturday.

http://www.dawn.com/2006/06/10/nat1.htm

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Lashkar takes control of Bara bazaar

By Ibrahim Shinwari

LANDI KOTAL (Khyber Agency), June 10: Activists of the Lashkar-i-Islami took control of the Bara bazaar on Saturday after announcing formation of a peace committee for Bara on Friday.

The gun-tottering activists took positions at entry and exit points of the Bara bazaar and invited elders and religious leaders of all eight Afridi tribes of Bara to help form the new peace committee.

In his message to local elders, the Lashkar-i-Islami Amir, Mangal Bagh, said the local administration had failed to control the law and order situation in the Bara tehsil.

He warned those who were found involved in kidnapping, car-lifting, robbery and other unlawful and un-Islamic activities of severe punishment.

The political administration, on its part, activated its Khasadar force and asked for assistance from Mehsood Scouts.

The Khasadar force and Mehsood Scouts started patrolling roads in Bara and took positions at all important government offices.

The situation in Bara had gone tense after bloody clashes between supporters of Mufti Munir Shakir and his opponent Pir Saifur Rehman in March which had left at least 32 dead and nearly two dozen injured. The old Bara peace committee was disbanded after the clashes.

Official sources confirmed taking over of the Bara bazaar by the Lashkar-i-Islami activists but did not tell about any possible action against them.

It is, however, learnt that the political administration is in constant consultation with commandants of Khyber Rifles and Mehsood Scouts about a possible operation against the Lashkar-i-Islami and various gangs of outlaws operating in Bara.

It is also learnt that curfew has been imposed in the Bara bazaar area.

A jirga of Zakhakhel edlers was held in Landi Kotal which warned of resistance if the group started its activities in the Landi Koal tehsil. Some Zakhakhel youths have taken position on hell tops in their area to prevent the entry of the Lashkar-i-Islami activists into Landi Kotal.

http://www.dawn.com/2006/06/11/top17.htm

Foreigners among 18 killed in Waziristan

By Our Correspondent

MIRAMSHAH, June 10: Eighteen militants, including 10 foreigners, were killed after Army helicopters bombed a compound in the Madakhel area in the North Waziristan Agency on Saturday morning, military sources said.

But credible official sources told Dawn in Peshawar that US forces had conducted the attack, which destroyed a training facility close to the Afghan border.

The official sources and eyewitnesses said that US war planes had targeted the hideout. This was the second air strike from across the border within a period of slightly more than a month.

The May 8 air strike on a chromite mine in the Khwaja Khizar area near the Angoor Adda in the South Waziristan Agency had killed eight mine workers. Officials had confirmed that US helicopters had fired missiles into Pakistani territory.

In the fresh airspace violation, officials said that at least 10 foreigners were also among the dead. The compound belonged to Sherbat Khan, said a local tribesman.

Intelligence officials said that helicopter gunships pounded a hideout in the Madakhel village in the Datakhel tehsil of the North Waziristan tribal agency, about 45 kilometres West of Miramshah.

An official said that the attack was launched after it was confirmed that militants had assembled in the compound.

“We don’t have exact casualty figures, but it has been verified that at least 18 militants had perished in the attack”, they said.

Sources said the compound served as a training facility in the area, which shares borders with Afghanistan’s Paktia province.

Agencies add: Pakistan military spokesman Major-General Shaukat Sultan confirmed the strike, saying “some 15 to 20 local and foreign miscreants have been killed in the raid.

“We were tracing them because despite continued negotiations some miscreants were regularly launching rocket and IED (improvised explosive device) attacks on security forces in the area,” he said.

A private news television channel, citing a security official, said Uzbeks, Tajiks and Chechens were believed to be among the dead.

Foreign militants had arrived in the area in the 1980s, with the encouragement of Pakistan, the United States and Saudi Arabia to help Afghan guerrillas fight Soviet forces in Afghanistan .

Clashes have intensified in the region since an air strike on an al Qaeda compound in early March. Security forces have killed more than 300 militants, including about 75 foreigners, in North Waziristan since the middle of last year.


Army role comes under fire

By Raja Asghar

ISLAMABAD, June 10: Army’s role in the country’s politics came under fire during a heated budget debate in the National Assembly on Saturday, with opposition vowing to challenge the trend.

The ruling coalition tinged its defence with attacks on the previous governments of two major opposition parties.

Prominent opposition members, including Aitzaz Ahsan and Raja Pervez Ashraf of the People’s Party Parliamentarians (PPP), and Pakistan Tehrik-i-Insaaf chief Imran Khan, also criticised the military operations in Balochistan and Waziristan while a Baloch nationalist party member complained of human rights violations in his province.

Minister of State for Law, Justice and Human Rights Shahid Akram Bhinder provoked protest shouts from opposition benches as he ridiculed the governments of former prime ministers Benazir Bhutto and Nawaz Sharif on the second day of a counter-offensive mainly by young ruling party members who included ministers of state Hina Rabbani Khar (Economic Affairs) and Ali Asjad Malhi (Railways).

Aitzaz Ahsan noted with regret that after Myanmar, Pakistan was the world’s second military-ruled country which, he said, had been transformed from a welfare state to a national security state where a general rather what he called “financial czar Prime Minister Shaukat Aziz was empowered to “move mountains”, take decisions and direct policies.

PPP secretary-general Raja Pervez Ashraf said the army was “no longer a defender of (the country’s) frontiers” because of its involvement in politics.

Imran Khan said the army’s present role in Balochistan and North Waziristan showed that no lesson had been learnt from the separation of former East Pakistan and the British rulers’ experience in tribal areas.

Abdul Rauf Mengal of the Balochistan National Party-M, said 60,000 troops had been deployed in Balochistan and alleged that 700 people had been killed in operations there.

Britain Told To Make Peace Deal With The Taliban As Mullah Omar Plans Spring Offensive
Nov 26, 2006
By Sayed Ullah | JUS Pakistan Correspondent

The British will never win in Afghanistan by military means and should open negotiations with the Taliban, the former leader of Pakistan’s forces Lieutenant-General Ali Mohammad Jan Aurakzai has told his British counterparts on the eve on the NATO summit due to be held on Tuesday and Wednesday in Latvia's capital of Riga.

One issue and one issue only will dominate the NATO summit, whose attendance is expected to bring not only bedraggled US President George. W. Bush but 25 other presidents and prime ministers from among its European allies; Afghanistan and growing allied casualties.

Bush is expected to get a particularly tough talk from those on the front lines mainly Canada, Britain and the Netherlands, while the others, including Germany, Italy, France and Spain who have restrictions limiting there troops to the relatively peaceful north and west will no doubt remain mute.

In particular Canada’s US puppet president Stephen Harper is experiencing great difficulties as Canadian casualties have soared in recent months. Harper is set to go down in Canada’s history as the Conservative Prime Minster who has lost public support the fastest, as he is facing serious unpopularity at home early on in his tenure. Also on the firing line domestically is long-time Bush subordinate British Prime Minister Tony Blair, who has come under increasing pressure to remove British troops from Afghanistan after escalating casualties mame clear that there is no possible way for a military victory in Afghanistan.

Of course the allies grumbling is a sweet sound to the ears of the Commander of the Faithful and Supreme Taliban Leader Mullah Omar, who has waged a fierce five year long battle and is poised for the deadliest spring offensive yet in 2007.

Pakistan’s Aurakzai say today that “bring 50,000 more troops and fight for 10 to 15 years more and you won’t resolve it. The British with their history in Afghanistan should have known that better than anyone else.”

In the past three years NATO has more than doubled its troops in Afghanistan to 43,000, making it its biggest mission since WW2. Last week NATO’s Supreme Allied Commander, General James L Jones said that he was about 15 short of requirements. He said that failure to provide more men would make the mission longer and more costly. Despite months of lobbying by Britain and the US, officials say it is extremely unlikely that the two-day summit in the Latvian capital will produce more troops. Countries are particularly reluctant to commit to the turbulent south where British and Canadian forces have suffered heavy casualties.

Aurakzai said: “NATO are ignoring the realities on the ground. The reason Taliban numbers have swelled is because moderates are joining the "militants". It is no longer an insurgency but a war of Pashtun resistance exactly on the model of the first Anglo-Afghan War. “Then too (in 1839-42) initially there were celebrations. The British built their cantonment and brought their wives and sweethearts from Delhi and didn’t realize that in the meantime the Afghans were organizing to rise up. This is exactly what Afghans are doing today and what they did against the Soviets.”

Aurakzai dismissed criticism of Pakistan’s efforts to support George Bush’s war on Islam. “We are doing far more than the whole coalition put together,” he said. Pakistan had 80,000 troops in border areas, more than twice as many as NATO and has conservatively speaking lost about 750 soldiers, more than the entire coalition according to “official” reports. “It pains me to hear people accusing us of allowing border crossing,” he said. “We’re physically manning the border – our troops are sitting there on the zero line ... Damn it, you also have a responsibility. Go sit on the border, fight like soldiers instead of sitting in your bases. “The Americans say they can see even a goat on a hillside with their electronic surveillance, so why don’t they tell us where crossings are taking place and we will plug those gaps and kill those people?

Awe, such are the troubles of those who side with the Kafirs.

Rather than fighting, Aurakzai said the only answer is to talk to the Taliban, a naïve viewpoint at best. Taliban Commander Mullah Omar has made very clear from the start that the Taliban Mujahideen will not lay down their weapons until the last infidel has left the Islamic Emirate’s soil.

In the meantime, not much change in Bush’s pitch at the NATO summit is anticipated. He is expected to keep pouring on the rhetoric as he has in the past, with talk of “staying the course”, blah, blah, blah. And while all the chatting is going on, Mullah Omar and the Taliban Mujahideen are planning, with local support now estimated at over 90%, as Allah is planning, and indeed He is the best of planners. (JUS)


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Afghanistan strikes back at Pakistan
By Syed Saleem Shahzad

KARACHI - After a number of recent incidents, it is emerging that for the first time since the fall of the communist regime in Afghanistan 13 years ago, Afghan intelligence, likely with foreign assistance, is active in Pakistan.

At the same time, several attacks on Pakistani military bases - the most recent a suicide attack on Wednesday morning that killed at least 35 soldiers - add to the overall volatility of the country. And this comes at a time that the top brass are gathering at General Headquarters in Rawalpindi to make a vital decision on Pakistan's role in the "war on terror".

Last week, a car bomb ripped through the office of the inspector general of police in Quetta, the capital of southwestern Pakistan's Balochistan province. One policeman and two other men were killed.

This followed a bomb attack in Peshawar, the provincial capital of Pakistan's North-West Frontier Province (NWFP), in which nine people were killed and more than 30 injured.

And on Tuesday, NWFP Governor Ali Mohammad Jan Aurakzai escaped unhurt in a rocket attack while he was addressing a council in Wana, headquarters of the South Waziristan tribal agency.

Initial investigations into the Quetta attack pointed to suspects of Afghan-Uzbek origin. A subsequent massive raid netted more than 70 Afghans, a few of whom admitted connections with Afghan intelligence.

A joint investigation team comprising Military Intelligence, Inter-Services Intelligence and the Intelligence Bureau then grilled these suspects and concluded that the sophisticated and organizational nature of the operation was beyond the known capabilities of Afghan intelligence on its own.

"KHAD [Khadamat-e Etela'at-e Dawlati, Afghanistan's secret police] was the most active agency in the region throughout the 1980s, but most of its counter-intelligence missions were assisted by the [Soviet] KGB. KHAD's external wing carried out bomb attacks in cities such as Peshawar, Quetta and Karachi, as well as assassinations of mujahideen leaders," a senior security official told Asia Times Online on condition his identity not be revealed.

"Now, no KGB services are available to Afghan intelligence, and none of the old Soviet-trained Afghan officials remain. Thus it is a matter of surprise for Pakistan to see Afghan intelligence using methods which only a few intelligence agencies, considered the best in the world, are capable of applying," the security official said without giving names but clearly hinting at British, US and Indian intelligence.

Information acquired from the suspects rounded up in Quetta and other parts of the country revealed a network working through the Afghan consulates in Karachi and Quetta, where the Afghan Foreign Ministry had attached a number of staff who were not career diplomats but activists of the Northern Alliance. The Northern Alliance, a mostly non-Pashtun grouping, bitterly opposed the Taliban during their rule from 1996-2001.

According to Asia Times Online contacts, during interrogation some of the suspects talked of plans for death squads to launch attacks in Karachi and Islamabad. The facilitation was to be through the Afghan consulates in Quetta and Karachi.

The death squads were to target top religious leaders considered pro-Taliban. One of the names learned by this correspondent is Maulana Noor Mohammed (a member of parliament from Quetta), in addition to some non-political clerics in the tribal and border areas.

Certainly, such killings would anger the large pro-Taliban following in Pakistan; at the same time, they would likely fuel sectarian strife in the country as the blame would fall on Shi'ites.

More instability would be the obvious result.

Army in the firing line
This month, a suicide bomber blew himself up at an army parade ground in the town of Dargai in NWFP, killing at least 35 soldiers and wounding 20. Dargai is mostly pro-Taliban.

The first reaction would be to assume that this attack had nothing to do with Afghan intelligence operatives - why should they attack the Pakistani army, which is ostensibly on their side?

But if it was Afghan intelligence, as a section of Pakistani intelligence is convinced, the argument is the same as it was for the Quetta attack. In that incident the attackers selected the office of the inspector general of police because insurgents in Afghanistan target Afghan police and the Afghan National Army (ANA), in what the Afghan government calls Pakistan-sponsored attacks. So these would be tit-for-tat responses.

This attack could also have been undertaken by al-Qaeda-linked militants. Indeed, they would be the immediate suspects. This would be because they are seeking revenge for the air attacks on a madrassa (seminary) in Bajour agency last week in which 80 people died. US drones are believed to have been involved in the attack, which officials said targeted militants.

Further, the militants would want to sabotage peace deals between Islamabad and the tribal areas. North and South Waziristan recently concluded deals under which the army would withdraw in exchange for the tribals stemming the flow of militants across the border into Afghanistan. Bajour agency was on the brink of signing such a deal when the air attacks came.

Shifting tides
The Hezb-e-Islami Afghanistan (HIA) led by Gulbuddin Hekmatyar, once the favorite of Pakistan's groups, has come out into the open in southwestern Afghanistan in a form of alliance with local Afghan governments. Gulbuddin has been considered an important player in the Taliban-led insurgency.

HIA commanders have taken control of many villages and towns. Here they have hoisted HIA flags alongside those of the local Afghan administrations, which are already filled with former HIA members. Hekmatyar has already signaled for a deal with the Afghan administration in Kabul.

Certainly Hekmatyar would not have changed his attitude toward foreign forces in Afghanistan and still demands that they announce a schedule for leaving. B