Was Osama Dead Before the Attack?

By Raqib  Shah

In August  2010 after Pakistani authorities shared intelligence with US about the  compound in Abbottabad, US  after its own intelligence gathering ascertains that the compound is  occupied by Osama’s children. Compound surveillance continues through the next year in anticipation of capturing Osama bin Laden.

In January 2011 the young CIA contractor who is given the charge of Pakistan Station Chief works “extra hard” to gather clandestine information related to ISI and Al Qaeda relationship.

The  contractor, now  infamous as Raymond Davis the “American Rambo” receives a call from one of  his assets, early morning on January 27 about a high value target. But the  asset refuses to lay out details on phone or to leave the Lahore city,  where he had gone underground. Raymond Davis hires a rent a car and drives to Lahore, while his embassy’s security detail follows him in a  bullet proof Land Cruiser.

Raymond  Davis is able to loose his Islamabad’s ISI “detail”  by leaving in an unmarked  rented car.  The ISI agents falling for his trap follows the embassy’s Land Cruiser. Raymond Davis arrives at Lahore one hour earlier than his detail and meets with the asset. The asset gives him some pictures of an intelligence building at Tarbela and recording of a phone call. Listening to the phone call, Raymond  Davis realizes the gold mine he had struck, and  immediately calls his security detail which had also reached Lahore,  knowing if ISI reaches him first, he would not leave Lahore alive.

Next hour when the security car catches up with Raymond Davis, the ISI bosses realize that Raymond Davis had given them a slip earlier in the morning and in couple of hours he may have done in Lahore, he might have got some important information.  Resultantly, they put two contractors on his tail. Raymond Davis seeing a tail fears the worst and shoots them both in the back, at a traffic stop, without logically realizing that there was no way ISI could have known what he was holding.

His security detail which was close behind rushed to his “rescue”. However, by this time police had chased and  arrested Raymond Davis, while the security Land Cruiser running over  pedestrians escapes towards US consulate compound  in Lahore. ISI officers quickly reach the scene and confiscating the memory sticks realize Raymond Davis has unearthed a deep secret which even their immediate bosses didn’t know about.

The sensitivity of information rattles the entire echelons of the ISI and even its own officers are sent under house arrest while the relevant cell steps forward. At that time even some of the top intelligence officers of ISI outside the relevant cell did not know that Osama bin Laden had died and  his body was kept frozen at Tarbela. Young Raymond Davis had  unearthed the biggest secret of the century, somehow. But now the  Pandora’s Box had been opened. Pak top brass knew it had only a few days or weeks at best to capitalize Raymond Davis’ arrest before US get the intelligence.

In the next six weeks Pakistan plugs all leaks related to Osama’s death and makes sure that maximum gains are made for Raymond’s release. However, when  Raymond Davis is released on March 16, his debriefing results in a tsunami  of US policy, personal agendas and fueling of political rivalries. Everyone in the US chain of command now wanted to use the information to  further personal goals from General Petreaus  to President Obama. On March 17, knowing that Pakistan had lost its trump card General Kayani releases a press statement in which he criticizes drone attacks, first from him. From then on Pak Military raised its stance against drone attacks, fearing that US now might target its nuclear assets.

While in USA, politics was at its full swing. General Petreaus wanted to get the buckle for Osama bin Laden’s death on his belt for his future political ambitions, while President Obama wanted the credit to help his sliding popularity. While the tussle continued, the other issue still pending was how to confirm Osama’s death.

In the  next one month, nearly every week a top US official visited Pakistan,  everyone meeting with General Kayani trying to convince him to hand over  Osama’s body. While the stance from Pakistan remained, “Osama, Who?” It  was a first in the history that so many US top officials had visited and  met with a military chief of a foreign country in such a short time.  Seeing nothing getting through the top military brass of Pakistan, US  started a political and media campaign on the sides to put extra pressure  on Pak Military.

Politics within Obama Administration was also at its full swing. Petraeus was pulling all the strings to take the credit, while trying to lay out a plan to get Osama bin Laden’s body out of Pakistan. President Obama on the  other hand in one smooth move decided to “promote” Petraeus to the head of  the CIA. The news got out in the first week of April that Petraeus was  being transferred to the CIA. While at the main front, Obama continued to pressurize General Kayani and General Pasha and on April 5, Obama Administration submitted a report to the Congress that Pakistan government  had no clear strategy to triumph over militants. Alongside the report the media campaign against Pak Military and the ISI continued.

The second week of April began with a bang for top Pak Military brass. On  April 7, Bruce Riedel, former CIA officer and White House advisor wrote a  report arguing that Pakistan’s nuclear weapons are not only a deterrent to  India but also to USA. The obvious had now become clear that Obama Administration has indirectly sent a clear threat to Pakistan’s nuclear assets. The timing of the report was perfect with Centcom Chief Gen James  Mattis meeting with General Kayani next day. In the meeting General Mattis asked about Pakistan’s cooperation in capturing Osama bin  Laden.

This was ironically one of typical Hollywood thriller scene. Pakistan knew that US knew that Pakistan knows  that US knows that Osama is dead. But Pakistan continued the naive game of “Osama Who?” while US continued to play the game that “Osama must be captured”. General Mattis leaves with veiled threats and stresses that Pakistan must do more to against the Al Qaeda and Taliban, or indirectly saying that Osama bin Laden must be handed over.

For the  next ten days US waits and sees how Pakistan responds to the threats, but  Pakistan acts by burying its head in the sand – see no evil, hear no evil.  Obama Administration ups the ante and on April 18 on Pakistan’s Geo TV, Adm. Mike Mullen said ISI “has a  longstanding relationship with the Haqqani Network. That doesn’t mean  everybody in the ISI, but it’s there.” Again, international media had its field day against ISI and its links with Taliban.

After putting pressure on General Kayani, Adm. Mike Mullen meets with Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee General Khalid Shameem Wyne and General Kayani on April 20. Admiral Mullen again demands indirectly that Pakistan needs to help USA in locating Osama bin Laden. Pakistan’s response was again, “Osama, Who?”  Admiral Mullen however, left with another threat that if they came to know about Osama bin Laden’s location they would go ahead and take unilateral action. This is the same message which President Obama repeated in his announcement of Osama bin Laden’s death, when he said, “We will take actions in Pakistan, if we knew where he was.”

In response to continued threats from USA, Pakistan starts taking back its air bases from US in an attempt to avoid launching of any operation from its own soil. As a result on April 22 the news appears that Pakistan had taken back Shamsi Airbase from CIA/US  forces. While Obama Administration was piling pressure on Pakistan,  General Petraeus visited Pakistan on April 26 and met with General Kayani  openly asking him to hand over Osama bin Laden, otherwise get ready to  face the consequences. Same day Washington also critically attacked Pakistan Army’s counter-terrorism efforts. General Petraeus left with a clear message that unless Pakistan hands over Osama, US forces would be forced to  take action over Pakistani soil. Pakistani Military knowing that US knew that Osama bin Laden was dead couldn’t understand Obama Administration’s continued stance on capturing Osama bin Laden. General Petraeus left with the ultimatum that either Pakistan handed over Osama or US would get him.

Same day meeting of the Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee (JCSC) is held at Rawalpindi, one week ahead of schedule at the Joint Staff Headquarters. The top brass discussed the Osama issue and decision is reached to work out the Obama’s strategy leading to continuous threats for capturing Osama bin Laden alive, even after knowing that he was dead. While in Pakistan intelligence community starts using all of its sources to reach to the bottom of US’ demand of capturing Osama bin Laden. On April 28 President Obama signs General Petraeus’ transfer to CIA and next day signs the orders to attack the Abbottabad compounds. Thus Osama bin Laden’s credit is assured to President Obama.

On 29 April after President Obama signed the orders to “bring back” Osama bin Laden, Pakistani security agencies get a report that another order had been signed which had authorized US forces to neutralize Pakistan’s nuclear assets, if needed. The report was nothing short of seeing a death angel for the top Pak Military brass. Seeing the imminent threat, General Kayani tried his last shot when on 30 April 2011 he clearly stated in his Youm-e-Shuhada address: “Pakistan is a  peace-loving country and wants friendly relations with other countries and  our every step should move towards prosperity of the people. But we will not compromise our dignity and honour for it”. However, it didn’t stop what was about to come 24 hours later.

As night fell on Sunday, 1st May four choppers from a US Afghan base at a low altitude towards its destination in Abbottabad, to the same compound where Osama’s children  were in the hiding. Without any detection courtesy of their latest stealth technology and Pakistan’s outdated technology the choppers continued over the Pakistani territory. Ironically, ten years ago a Pak Air force air commodore had raised concern about the  outdated radar technology citing that US or worse India could fly  helicopters into the country and take out nuclear installations and in  reply he was shown the boot while no upgrades to the systems were  made.

Anyway, the four choppers made it to the compound in Abbottabad. It is then that Pak Army was notified that they have a choice. Either face an entire barrage of US choppers attacking Pak nuclear assets or hand over Osama’s body. In the meanwhile the small gun battle at the Abbottabad compound continued and to give the drama some authenticity the US forces torched one of their own choppers. Pressed for time a Pakistani helicopter flew from Tarbela carrying dead  body of Osama bin Laden which was stored in a cold storage there. While at Abbottabad Pak Army soldiers encircled the entire area around the compound within five minutes of the start of fire fight. The firefight continued  for 35 more minutes, waiting for the Pakistani helicopter. Once the  Pakistani helicopter reached the compound the three US choppers and the  Pakistani helicopter flew towards the Afghan border, this time without the need to fly below the radar detection altitude.

Next day, the world woke up to the news that Osama bin Laden was dead and President Obama had delivered what President Bush and Dick Cheney couldn’t. But the Pak Military brass did not wake up, because they never slept the night before. Last night they had woken to the realization that US could fly under the radar and take out Pakistan’s nuclear assets at any time.

 

Drone Attacks Started with the Army’s Consent

On a hot day in June 2004, the Pashtun tribesman was lounging inside a mud compound in South Waziristan, speaking by satellite phone to one of the many reporters who regularly interviewed him on how he had fought and humbled Pakistan’s army in the country’s western mountains. He asked one of his followers about the strange, metallic bird hovering above him.

Less than 24 hours later, a missile tore through the compound, severing Mr. Muhammad’s left leg and killing him and several others, including two boys, ages 10 and 16. A Pakistani military spokesman was quick to claim responsibility for the attack, saying that Pakistani forces had fired at the compound.

That was a lie.

Mr. Muhammad and his followers had been killed by the CIA, the first time it had deployed a Predator drone in Pakistan to carry out a “targeted killing.” The target was not a top operative of Al Qaeda, but a Pakistani ally of the Taliban who led a tribal rebellion and was marked by Pakistan as an enemy of the state.

In a secret deal, the CIA had agreed to kill him in exchange for access to airspace it had long sought so it could use drones to hunt down its own enemies.

That back-room bargain is critical to understanding the origins of a covert drone war that began under the Bush administration, was embraced and expanded by President Obama, and is now the subject of fierce debate. The deal, a month after a blistering internal report about abuses in the CIA’s network of secret prisons, paved the way for the CIA to change its focus from capturing terrorists to killing them, and helped transform an agency that began as a cold war espionage service into a paramilitary organization.

The CIA has since conducted hundreds of drone strikes in Pakistan that have killed thousands of people, Pakistanis and Arabs, militants and civilians alike. While it was not the first country where the United States used drones, it became the laboratory for the targeted killing operations that have come to define a new American way of fighting, blurring the line between soldiers and spies and short-circuiting the normal mechanisms by which the United States as a nation goes to war.

Neither American nor Pakistani officials have ever publicly acknowledged what really happened to Mr. Muhammad — details of the strike that killed him, along with those of other secret strikes, are still hidden in classified government databases.

CIA Chief Mr. Brennan, who began his career at the CIA and over the past four years oversaw an escalation of drone strikes from his office at the White House, has signaled that he hopes to return the agency to its traditional role of intelligence collection and analysis. But with a generation of CIA officers now fully engaged in a new mission, it is an effort that could take years.

Today, even some of the people who were present at the creation of the drone program think the agency should have long given up targeted killings.

Ross Newland, who was a senior official at the CIA’s headquarters in Langley, Virginia., when the agency was given the authority to kill Qaeda operatives, says he thinks that the agency had grown too comfortable with remote-control killing, and that drones have turned the CIA into the villain in countries like Pakistan, where it should be nurturing relationships in order to gather intelligence.

From Car Thief to Militant

By 2004, Mr. Muhammad had become the undisputed star of the tribal areas, the fierce mountain lands populated by the Wazirs, Mehsuds and other Pashtun tribes who for decades had lived independent of the writ of the central government in Islamabad. A brash member of the Wazir tribe, Mr. Muhammad had raised an army to fight government troops and had forced the government into negotiations. He saw no cause for loyalty to the ISI that had given an earlier generation of Pashtuns support during the war against the Soviets.

Many Pakistanis in the tribal areas viewed with disdain the alliance that President Musharraf had forged with the United States after the Sept. 11, 2001, attacks. They regarded the Pakistani military that had entered the tribal areas as no different from the Americans — who they believed had begun a war of aggression in Afghanistan, just as the Soviets had years earlier.

Born near Wana, the bustling market hub of South Waziristan, Mr. Muhammad spent his adolescent years as a petty car thief and shopkeeper in the city’s bazaar. He found his calling in 1993, around the age of 18, when he was recruited to fight with the Taliban in Afghanistan, and rose quickly through the group’s military hierarchy. He cut a striking figure on the battlefield with his long face and flowing jet black hair.

When the Americans invaded Afghanistan in 2001, he seized an opportunity to host the Arab and Chechen fighters from Al Qaeda who crossed into Pakistan to escape the American bombing.

For Mr. Muhammad, it was partly a way to make money, but he also saw another use for the arriving fighters. With their help, over the next two years he launched a string of attacks on Pakistani military installations and on American firebases in Afghanistan.

CIA officers in Islamabad urged Pakistani spies to lean on the Waziri tribesman to hand over the foreign fighters, but under Pashtun tribal customs that would be treachery. Reluctantly, Mr. Musharraf ordered his troops into the forbidding mountains to deliver rough justice to Mr. Muhammad and his fighters, hoping the operation might put a stop to the attacks on Pakistani soil, including two attempts on his life in December 2003.

But it was only the beginning. In March 2004, Pakistani helicopter gunships and artillery pounded Wana and its surrounding villages. Government troops shelled pickup trucks that were carrying civilians away from the fighting and destroyed the compounds of tribesmen suspected of harboring foreign fighters. The Pakistani commander declared the operation an unqualified success, but for Islamabad, it had not been worth the cost in casualties.

A cease-fire was negotiated in April during a hastily arranged meeting in South Waziristan, during which a senior Pakistani commander hung a garland of bright flowers around Mr. Muhammad’s neck. The two men sat together and sipped tea as photographers and television cameras recorded the event.

Both sides spoke of peace, but there was little doubt who was negotiating from strength. Mr. Muhammad would later brag that the government had agreed to meet inside a religious madrasa rather than in a public location where tribal meetings are traditionally held. “I did not go to them; they came to my place,” he said. “That should make it clear who surrendered to whom.”

The peace arrangement propelled Mr. Muhammad to new fame, and the truce was soon exposed as a sham. He resumed attacks against Pakistani troops, and Mr. Musharraf ordered his army back on the offensive in South Waziristan.

Pakistani officials had, for several years, balked at the idea of allowing armed CIA Predators to roam their skies. They considered drone flights a violation of sovereignty, and worried that they would invite further criticism of Mr. Musharraf as being Washington’s lackey. But Mr. Muhammad’s rise to power forced them to reconsider.

The CIA had been monitoring the rise of Mr. Muhammad, but officials considered him to be more Pakistan’s problem than America’s. In Washington, officials were watching with growing alarm the gathering of Qaeda operatives in the tribal areas, and George J. Tenet, the CIA director, authorized officers in the agency’s Islamabad station to push Pakistani officials to allow armed drones. Negotiations were handled primarily by the Islamabad station.

As the battles raged in South Waziristan, the station chief in Islamabad paid a visit to Gen. Ehsan ul Haq, the ISI chief, and made an offer: If the CIA killed Mr. Muhammad, would the ISI allow regular armed drone flights over the tribal areas?

In secret negotiations, the terms of the bargain were set. Pakistani intelligence officials insisted that they be allowed to approve each drone strike, giving them tight control over the list of targets. And they insisted that drones fly only in narrow parts of the tribal areas — ensuring that they would not venture where Islamabad did not want the Americans going: Pakistan’s nuclear facilities, and the mountain camps where Kashmiri militants were trained for attacks in India.

The ISI and the CIA agreed that all drone flights in Pakistan would operate under the CIA’s covert action authority — meaning that the United States would never acknowledge the missile strikes and that Pakistan would either take credit for the individual killings or remain silent.

A New Direction

As the negotiations were taking place, the CIA’s inspector general, John L. Helgerson, had just finished a searing report about the abuse of detainees in the CIA’s secret prisons. The report kicked out the foundation upon which the CIA detention and interrogation program had rested. It was perhaps the single most important reason for the CIA’s shift from capturing to killing terrorism suspects.

The greatest impact of Mr. Helgerson’s report was felt at the CIA’s Counterterrorism Center, or CTC, which was at the vanguard of the agency’s global antiterrorism operation. The center had focused on capturing Qaeda operatives; questioning them in CIA jails or outsourcing interrogations to the spy services of Pakistan, Jordan, Egypt and other nations; and then using the information to hunt more terrorism suspects.

Mr. Helgerson raised questions about whether CIA officers might face criminal prosecution for the interrogations carried out in the secret prisons, and he suggested that interrogation methods like water boarding, sleep deprivation and the exploiting of the phobias of prisoners — like confining them in a small box with live bugs — violated the UN Convention Against Torture.

The ground had shifted, and counterterrorism officials began to rethink the strategy for the secret war. Armed drones, and targeted killings in general, offered a new direction. Killing by remote control was the antithesis of the dirty, intimate work of interrogation. Targeted killings were cheered by Republicans and Democrats alike, and using drones flown by pilots who were stationed thousands of miles away made the whole strategy seem risk-free.

The Predator had been considered a blunt and unsophisticated killing tool, and many at the CIA were glad that the agency had gotten out of the assassination business long ago. Three years before Mr. Muhammad’s death, and one year before the CIA carried out its first targeted killing outside a war zone — in Yemen in 2002 — a debate raged over the legality and morality of using drones to kill suspected terrorists.

A new generation of CIA officers had ascended to leadership positions, having joined the agency after the 1975 Congressional committee led by Senator Frank Church, Democrat of Idaho, which revealed extensive CIA plots to kill foreign leaders, and President Gerald Ford’s subsequent ban on assassinations. The rise to power of this post-Church generation had a direct impact on the type of clandestine operations the CIA chose to conduct.

After Mr. Muhammad was killed, his dirt grave in South Waziristan became a site of pilgrimage.

A Pakistani journalist, Zahid Hussain, visited it days after the drone strike and saw a makeshift sign displayed on the grave: “He lived and died like a true Pashtun.”

Maj. Gen. Shaukat Sultan, Pakistan’s top military spokesman, told reporters at the time that “Al Qaeda facilitator” Nek Muhammad and four other “militants” had been killed in a rocket attack by Pakistani troops.

Any suggestion that Mr. Muhammad was killed by the Americans, or with American assistance, he said, was “absolutely absurd.”

Indian Police at its Best

The Delhi police crime branch claims to have foiled a plan of ISI to settle its spies in India.

The police said they recently arrested two fresh recruits of the spy agency, including a woman, from the New Delhi railway station. This announcement came on December 12, 2011 but in the same announcement police said that the couple was arrested on December 5, when they arrived at New Delhi railway station with a plan to kill the chief minister of Gujrat.

The Indian media was so biased that it has not enquired from the police as to when were they arrested and why the police took one week time to produce them before the court? This act of police is against the Indian law according to the section 57 of Criminal Procedure Code (CrPc). The police is bound to produce an accused person within 24 hours of arrest.

The Indian media has still not contacted the couple to get their side of the story but in its so called nationalism scandalized the couple as Pakistani agents.

According to the details received through the victims and legal documents Mr. Imran Yousaf Chippa, son of Mohammad Yousaf and Sofia Kanwal were married in October 2011 in Karachi. They went to Nepal for their honey moon on November 17, 2011 with the return ticket of November 24. On the departure day as the couple were going to Katmandu air port in a taxi, a Suzuki gypsy jeep cut them off and four persons from the jeep asked their identity. As the police saw the Pakistani passports they were taken to a nearby police station. They were forcefully pushed into the jeep and their hands were chained and their eyes were blindfolded with the dopatta.

After 30 hours of the drive they were locked in a room and later on after several days of detention they came to know that it was a farm hours near the New Delhi airport. The officers sitting in the jeep were taking the names of each other in numbers like one two, three and whenever they were contacted to their center through the wireless they told that a Pakistani couple has been arrested from Nepal. The couple was kept there up to December 12, 2011 and were severely tortured to confess that they were working for the ISI and had planned to kill the chief minister of Gujrat state.

Imran, the victim, was tortured continuously for all the days of his illegal captivity, his legs were tortured to the point where he cannot walk or sit properly. His right leg was injured with a knife and it is almost paralysed. His back still bears visible signs of electric shocks. His genitalia also has signs of cigarette burning. When he was hung upside down alcohol was poured into his anus. The nerves of the legs were damaged during the interrogation which was taken by many intelligence agencies including RAW.

During the interrogation, it was said that the couple were arrested from Nepal by the agents of RAW.

Sofia, the wife, was beaten with fists and kicked to confess. At many times she was threatened with rape if she did not confess.

On December 12 morning, the couple was told that they are going to release them as the agencies did not find any evidence of them being agents of the ISI. They were taken in a jeep to an unknown place and after a one hour long drive at 4 PM the couple found themselves before the Tis Hazari court at New Delhi. When they were taken out from the jeep a heavy contingent of media people arrived and was estimated to be not less than 200 persons. For further information, please read the report published in the Hindustan Times and an audiovisual report broadcast in News24 TV regarding this case.

The couple was produced before the court of Mr. Vinod Yadev, the Chief Metropolitan Magistrate (CMM) who immediately sent them for judicial remand and couple was lodged in Tihar Jail.

After court proceedings the police addressed the media and claimed that the couple was arrested from Delhi railway station and had the plan to assassinate the chief minister of Gujrat. The media have not asked to interview the couple. The media and journalists ran many concocted stories against the couple without listening to their side of the story when they were produced in the court.

During the court proceeding through the evidences it was proved that they were arrested from Nepal but the media have never covered this fact and totally ignored it in an effort to spread sensationalism and hatred against Pakistan.

In March 2012, Imran took off his clothes before the judge and revealed the torture marks on his body and asked the judge to listen to the actual facts from them. The judge finally agreed to do so. He took his statement in his chamber and for the next six days he continuously asked the couple to come and record statements with all evidence. On March 20, 2012, the judge granted interim bail to the couple for two days and it continued every two days for some time.

Finally on April 13 the couple received bail and was released.

The couple lives in Gujrat as it was Imran’s place of birth place but his relatives and friends do not want to associate with him as he has been declared by the media as an agent of Pakistan.

 

Mohsin Hamid Blames the ISI for the Current Mess

To Fight India, We Fought Ourselves

By Mohsin Hamid

On Feb 18, 2013, my mother’s and sister’s eye doctor was assassinated. He was a Shiite. He was shot six times while driving to drop his son off at school. His son, age 12, was executed with a single shot to the head.

Next day, I attended a protest in front of the Governor’s House in Lahore demanding that more be done to protect Pakistan’s Shiites from sectarian extremists. These extremists are responsible for increasingly frequent attacks, including bombings this year that killed more than 200 people, most of them Hazara Shiites, in the city of Quetta.

As I stood in the anguished crowd in Lahore, similar protests were being held throughout Pakistan. Roads were shut. Demonstrators blocked access to airports. My father was trapped in one for the evening, yet he said most of his fellow travelers bore the delay without anger. They sympathized with the protesters’ objectives.

Minority persecution is a common notion around the world, bringing to mind the treatment of African-Americans in the United States, for example, or Arab immigrants in Europe. In Pakistan, though, the situation is more unusual: those persecuted as minorities collectively constitute a vast majority.

A filmmaker I know who has relatives in the Ahmadi sect told me that her family’s graves in Lahore had been defaced, because Ahmadis are regarded as apostates. A Baluch friend said it was difficult to take Punjabi visitors with him to Baluchistan, because there is so much local anger there at violence toward the Baluch. An acquaintance of mine, a Pakistani Hindu, once got angry when I answered the question “how are things?” with the word “fine” — because things so obviously aren’t. And Pakistani Christians have borne the brunt of arrests under the country’s blasphemy law; a governor of my province was assassinated for trying to repeal it.

What then is the status of the country’s majority? In Pakistan, there is no such thing. Punjab is the most populous province, but its roughly 100 million people are divided by language, religious sect, outlook and gender. Sunni Muslims represent Pakistan’s most populous faith, but it’s dangerous to be the wrong kind of Sunni. Sunnis are regularly killed for being open to the new ways of the West, or for adhering to the old traditions of the Indian subcontinent, for being liberal, for being mystical, for being in politics, the army or the police, or for simply being in the wrong place at the wrong time.

At the heart of Pakistan’s troubles is the celebration of the militant. Whether fighting in Afghanistan, or Kashmir, or at home, this deadly figure has been elevated to heroic status: willing to make the ultimate sacrifice, able to win the ultimate victory, selfless, noble. Yet as tens of thousands of Pakistanis die at the hands of such heroes, as tens of millions of Pakistanis go about their lives in daily fear of them, a recalibration is being demanded. The need of the hour, of the year, of the generation, is peace.

Pakistan is in the grips of militancy because of its fraught relationship with India, with which it has fought three wars and innumerable skirmishes since the countries separated in 1947. Militants were cultivated as an equalizer, to make Pakistan safer against a much larger foe. But they have done the opposite, killing Pakistanis at home and increasing the likelihood of catastrophic conflicts abroad.

Normalizing relations with India could help starve Pakistani militancy of oxygen. So it is significant that the prospects for peace between the two nuclear-armed countries look better than they have in some time.

India and Pakistan share a lengthy land border, but they might as well be on separate continents, so limited is their trade with each other and the commingling of their people. Visas, traditionally hard to get, restricted to specific cities and burdened with onerous requirements to report to the local police, are becoming more flexible for business travelers and older citizens. Trade is also picking up. A pulp manufacturer in Pakistani Punjab, for example, told me he had identified a paper mill in Indian Punjab that could purchase his factory’s entire output.

These openings could be the first cracks in a dam that holds back a flood of interaction. Whenever I go to New Delhi, many I meet are eager to visit Lahore. Home to roughly a combined 25 million people, the cities are not much more than half an hour apart by plane, and yet they are linked by only two flights a week.

Cultural connections are increasing, too. Indian films dominate at Pakistani cinemas, and Indian songs play at Pakistani weddings. Now Pakistanis are making inroads in the opposite direction. Pakistani actors have appeared as Bollywood leads and on Indian reality TV. Pakistani contemporary art is being snapped up by Indian buyers. And New Delhi is the publishing center for the current crop of Pakistani English-language fiction.

A major constraint the two countries have faced in normalizing relations has been the power of security hawks on both sides, and especially in Pakistan. But even in this domain we might be seeing an improvement. The new official doctrine of the Pakistani Army for the first time identifies internal militants, rather than India, as the country’s No. 1 threat. And Pakistan has just completed an unprecedented five years under a single elected government. This year, it will be holding elections in which the largest parties all agree that peace with India is essential.

Peace with India or, rather, increasingly normal neighborly relations, offers the best chance for Pakistan to succeed in dismantling its cult of militancy. Pakistan’s extremists, of course, understand this, and so we can expect to see, as we have in the past, attempts to scupper progress through cross-border violence. They will try to goad India into retaliating and thereby giving them what serves them best: a state of frozen, impermeable hostility.

They may well succeed. For there is a disturbing rise of hyperbolic nationalism among India’s prickly emerging middle class, and the Indian media is quick to stoke the fires. The explosion of popular rage in India after a recent military exchange, in which soldiers on both sides of the border were killed, is an indicator of the danger.

So it is important now to prepare the public in both countries for an extremist outrage, which may well originate in Pakistan, and for the self-defeating calls for an extreme response, which are likely to be heard in India. Such confrontations have always derailed peace in the past. They must not be allowed to do so again. In the tricky months ahead, as India and Pakistan reconnect after decades of virtual embargo, those of us who believe in peace should regard extremist provocations not as barriers to our success but, perversely, as signs that we are succeeding.

Shia Genocide: Military and Militants

Balochistan province and especially its capital have been virtually under the control of military and its intelligence agencies for the past one and half decades, in every nook and cranny there are security kiosks and check posts of the military and the FC. No person has the liberty to go about his business without producing his or her identity and suffering a search of all their belongings. Even a person who purchases food stuffs from the vendors has to get clarification from the FC personnel who are all around the streets of the capital. The searches extend even to the shoes of the residents.

Therefore it is not possible that anything can enter without the permission of the FC, police and other local law enforcement agencies but the bombings continue. There is also strong network of intelligence agencies in Balochistan, if any guest arrives at any relative’s house, even, in the remotest part of the province the intelligence agencies and police enquire about the guest and sometimes detain him for several hours for enquiry.

Therefore, it can only be assumed that the terrorists with huge amounts of explosive material are moving about with the tacit approval of the FC and other law enforcement agencies. Since the last two years it is observed that when the Hazaras pilgrims were going in buses to Iran their buses were attacked close the picket points of the FC. This was also witnessed when the Shia pilgrims from Gilgit Baltistan were travelling in buses and were attacked and killed by men in military uniforms. All these incidents were reported and to-date the military has remained silent. Interestingly neither have they contradicted such reports.

The failure of the military and intelligence agencies to stop the killings of members of the Shia community in Balochistan province is now being discussed in the media and in government circles. Indeed, media analysts are blaming Saudi Arabia for the killings.

This is significant because only a short time ago to make such an allegation was prohibited. It is said that the killings of the Shiites is the result of the conflict between Iran and Saudi Arabia. It is openly believed that because Pakistan is entering into different trade pacts with Iran and China the United States and Saudi Arabia want to block such ventures.

Saudi Arabia is providing huge grants to the Pakistan army and many analysts report that the army and its units have a vested interest in turning a blind eye to the sectarian attacks against the Shiites.

During the latest carnage against the Shiites on February 17, the terrorists were carrying 1000 kilograms of explosive material in a water tank which passed through many check posts of the FC. The driver informed the FC officials that he was carrying water to Hazaras town and so was not searched. However, considering that this was a most sensitive area due to the bombing on January 10 where 107 persons were killed there is no excuse for the FC not to have checked the contents of the tank.

A banned organisation, Lashkare Jhangvi has claimed responsibility for the attack as it has done for the previous attacks on Shiites and particularly on Hazaras. This organisation all its bases in Punjab province and is running hundreds of mosques from where they preach their messages of hate against Shias calling them infidels and liable to be killed. Its leaders are free and openly collecting funds from the streets. Instead of taking action against them the law minister of the Punjab government is notorious for providing protection to the militants of banned organisations and these groups support him in the elections.

The courts also have a soft attitude towards such organisations and release them for want of evidence. Even the Chief Justice has released its leader, Malik Ishaq for not having any evidence. This is despite the fact that Malik himself confessed publicly before his release in 2010 that he has killed more than 100 Shia persons and was involved in the attack of Sri Lankan cricket team. After every incident of terrorism Malik goes to Saudi Arabia where he gets VIP treatment and given huge rewards for his ‘the service to Islam’.

By Yousuf Nazar

Pakistan’s top military spokesman Director General (DG) Inter-Services Public Relations (ISPR) Major General Asim Salim Bajwa on Thursday spoke with the media and rejected the impression that any banned organisation was being supported, saying that the armed forces were not in contact with any militant organisation including Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ). The government arrested LeJ’s leader Malik Ishaq Friday 22 February for the second time in the last six months in an apparent bid to calm growing public anger at its inaction after more than 100 people died in a bomb blast in Quetta in Balochistan province on last Saturday. He may be out soon!

The LeJ has claimed responsibility for two bomb blasts in Quetta so far in 2013 targeting Shia Hazaras that killed over 210 men, women, and children. In 2012, at least 325 members of the Shia Muslim population were killed in targeted attacks that took place across Pakistan. In Balochistan province, over 100 were killed, most of them from the Hazara community.

During the last decade, over 2000 Shia Hazara community children have been killed or wounded in attacks perpetrated by terrorists in southwestern town of Quetta of Pakistan’s turbulent Balochistan province. Many hundreds of Shia Muslims have been killed in northern areas of Pakistan such as Gilgit, Baltistan, Parachinar and Chelas. The attacks on Shia Muslims since the year 2000 have not been limited to Balochistan or the northern areas and major cities like Karachi and Lahore have also seen target killings of Shias. Historically since the 1980s, Pakistan’s biggest province Punjab had been at the centre of Shia-Sunni sectarian tensions but while there it is now mostly peaceful in Punjab – the power base of the LeJ- Balochistan has been hit hard by a wave of Shia killings in the last few years that can hardly be described as sectarian conflict. It is genocidal.

During the last few days Pakistan’s intelligence services have come under fire for their failure to stop the killings, at the very least, and for complicity at worst. Khwaja Mohammad Asif, a senior lawmaker from the opposition, demanded that “all institutions responsible for security” — including secret agencies, the paramilitary Frontier Corps operating in Balochistan and police — should be called “so the representatives of 180 million people (of Pakistan) ask them why the nation is so unsafe”. Hamid Mir, one of Pakistan’s leading journalists and TV anchors, said the Pakistan’s intelligence services had ignored a tide of sectarian bloodshed after deliberately creating “private death squads” to fight a war against separatists in the country’s troubled Baluchistan province.

Many analysts accuse the military intelligence of complicity and protecting Malik Ishaq – the leader of LeJ. He was released on bail by Pakistan’s Supreme Court in July 2011 after spending 12 years in jail. On his release, he was received outside the prison by leaders of Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP), banned in 2001 as a terrorist organization but now renamed to Ahle Sunnat wal Jamaat (ASWJ). The ASWJ leader heading the welcome party was Maulana Muhammad Ahmad Ludhianvi who came in handy when the current Army chief, Gen. Ashfaq Kayani, called on Ishaq to talk to the terrorists who had attacked Army General Headquarters in Rawalpindi in October 2009. The Army chief’s personal plane had carried Ishaq to Rawalpindi, while another plane belonging to the ISI chief, Gen. Shuja Pasha, carried Ludhianvi, according to the reports published in Newsweek Pakistan, and daily newspapers, the Express Tribune and the News International.

After his release, Ishaq has been participating in political activities and even appeared at public rallies at least one of which was attended by Pakistan’s former ISI Chief Lt. General Hamid Gul. Ishaq was briefly detained for making a ’provocative’ speech in August 2012 from Lahore airport on his return from Saudi Arabia where he had gone for a “short visit”. He was quickly released on ‘bail’ by a lower court. According to the British daily Guardian, Saudi Arabia was described as the world’s largest source of funds for Islamist militant groups in a secret December 2009 paper signed by Hilary Clinton.

Most noticeable and significant development has been the dramatic rise in attacks on Shias since Ishaq’s apparent rehabilitation which started in October 2009, finally leading to his release in July 2011. On 28 December 2009, as many as 40 Shias were killed in an apparent suicide bombing on a Shia procession in Karachi. Another attack took place on 1 September 2010 in Lahore where at least 35 Shia were killed and 160 people sustained injuries during a Shia procession. Another occurred on 3 September 2010 in the city of Quetta which killed around 56 people during another Shia procession.

During 2011, most of the attacks on Shias took place in Balochistan marking the shift in focus from other parts of Pakistan. Over 70 Shias died in Balochistan, mainly in or near the provincial capital Quetta, in at least eight major incidents that involved use of rocket launchers, bomb blasts, and open massacre such as shooting Shia pilgrims travelling to Iran by road.

In 2012, at least 325 members of the Shia Muslim population were killed in targeted attacks that took place across Pakistan, about one-third of them in Balochistan province, which is the smallest in terms of population and accounts for just around 4% of Pakistan’s total population of 190 million.

According to the New York Times, the murders in Quetta (a small city of around 2 million) involve remarkably little mystery. In a report published 3 December 2012, the paper said: “by wide consensus, the gunmen are based in Mastung, a dusty agricultural village 18 miles to the south that is the bustling local hub of Lashkar-e-Jhangvi, the country’s most notorious sectarian militant group”. Earlier on 20 September 2012 gunmen opened fire on Shia Muslim pilgrims travelling by bus through Mastung, killing 26 people. On 30 December 2012 the terrorists struck again in Mastung as remotely-triggered bomb hit a convoy of three buses carrying Shia pilgrims to Iran and killed 19 people and injured 25.

Abdul Khalique Hazara, a leader of the Hazara Democratic Party, mainly consisting of Shia Muslims, told Al Jazeera TV’s Jane Dutton 18 February 2013, “they are trying intentionally, in Quetta district, to promote religious extremism. So I think they are provoking our community to be involved; they are going to drag us into sectarianism. But our people are very peaceful people”.

The accusations that Pakistan’s military establishment is using Islamic militants and extremists to promote religious extremism are more than just accusations given the long history of Pakistani establishment in using them as both a foreign policy and domestic politics tool. Former military dictator Pervez Musharraf helped a coalition of religious parties win provincial elections in 2002 in Kyhber Pukhtoonkhwa. The coalition was led by JUI which ran seminaries that gave birth to the Talibans.

The military establishment has faced tough resistance from secular Baloch nationalist groups for most periods of Pakistan’s history but that resistance turned into a province wide insurgency after a leading Baloch leader Akbar Bugti was killed in a military operation in 2006. Instead of seeking a political solution, Pakistan’s security establishment started a ruthless campaign of crushing the dissidents and insurgents through all possible means. In April 2011, the Army began a limited withdrawal from the cantonments and turned much of the security responsibility to the Frontier Corps (FC), at least nominally. But FC is also headed by a serving Major General. The province is now in the middle of its fourth major episode of insurgency, following major outbreaks in 1948, 1963–69, and 1973–78.

President of the Balochistan High Court Bar Association, the province’s lawyer’s body, Hadi Shakeel told Pakistan’s Supreme Court in February 2011 that there were more than 5,000 cases of ‘forced disappearances’ in Balochistan. A three-member-bench headed by Supreme Court Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry conducted many hearings on the petition filed on the law and order situation in Balochistan. On 27 September 2012, the chief justice told the province’s top civilian bureaucrat to discuss the issue with the president, Director General (DG) of the Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) and DG Military Intelligence (MI) and to inform the court in writing as to what steps are being taken to improve the situation. This was a clear indication of the active involvement of the military intelligence agencies as well as the recognition of that fact by the country’s highest court.

It is important to note that the Pakistan military including the Army, Air Force, Navy, and Coast Guard all maintain a presence in Balochistan, while the most significant branch is the Army. The Pakistan Army XII Corps, commanded by a three star general who serves concurrently as the commander of the southern command, is based in Quetta. The Pakistan Air Force operates four bases in Balochistan. The primary base is Samungli in Quetta and is home to the 31st Fighter Wing. The other three smaller bases include Shahbaz, Pasni, and Faisal. The Pakistan Navy operates four naval bases on the Arabian Sea in Balochistan. The primary base is the deep water port of Gwadar in western Balochistan which is the second largest port in Pakistan after Karachi. The port is also home to the 3rd Battalion of the Pakistan Coast Guard. The three smaller naval bases are located in Jiwani, Ormara, and Pasni.

The Pakistan Intelligence community also maintains a significant presence in Balochistan. The Inter-Service Intelligence Directorate (ISI) is responsible for strategic intelligence as well as conducting operations has a large element in Quetta. The ISI’s Joint Signals Intelligence Bureau (JISB) operates signal intelligence collection stations in Saindak which covers the western border and in Gwadar which cover the shipping lanes of the Gulf of Oman. In addition to the ISI each service has military intelligence assets, collectively known as MI, which support tactical requirements. The Intelligence Bureau (IB) is the oldest intelligence entity in Pakistan which traces its heritage back to British India. The IB conducts federal investigations in Balochistan along the lines of the United States Federal Bureau of Investigation and also supports the military establishment. Finally, there are the special branches of the provincial and local law enforcement that conduct criminal intelligence.

Given the extensive presence of the security agencies and their operations particularly since 2006, it is absurd to try to portray Balochistan as some place like North Waziristan. Anybody who is anybody in Pakistan knows well who runs Balochistan and the nature of the military operations inside it. But the most damning indictment of the extra-legal activities of the military intelligence agencies came when the chief justice said that the ‘Death squads’ of ISI and MI agencies should be abolished.

In some other country, this would have created a major political and legal crisis and many top heads would have rolled if its chief justice acknowledged that the state operated death squads but not in Pakistan. On the contrary, the alleged proxies of the intelligence agencies have struck with greater force in the last five months after the remarks of the chief justice. Gunmen in Quetta operate with impunity. Sometimes, they don’t even take the trouble of wearing masks to hide their identity, and kill Shias in the city’ streets and markets in broad daylight.

Clearly, Pakistan’s security establishment is unwilling to stop the growing power of dreadful extremists of the Lashkare Jhangvi while their own ‘death squads’ have the reputation of pursuing and killing insurgents with great efficiency.

It seems that as in the past; like the use of the Talibans in the 1990s, that of local militant groups in Kashmir, and that of sectarian groups like the SSP in the 1980s, the security establishment considers the LeJ as an ally in Balochistan with the apparent aim of controlling the unruly province with the help of religious forces that have little in common with the secular orientation of the Baloch rebels and are controlled by ethnic Punjabis like Malik Ishaq.

LeJ and their Pakistani allies are believed to have the sympathies if not the active support of the Saudis although there seems to be little doubt about the funds that generously flow to these groups from the Arabian Gulf. These militants are also hostile to the neighbouring Shia Iran due to their religious beliefs. Hazara Shias, a peaceful community, has thus become a victim and cannon fodder in this high stake and deadly game to promote hatred and extremism in order to keep Balochistan under the grip of the security establishment which has found the challenge of fighting the insurgents rather daunting in the last six years. But Pakistani people and the World must not allow innocent and peaceful Hazara Shias to become a ‘collateral damage’ in this extremely sensitive part of the region and Pakistan because the repercussions could spill over across the region and within Pakistan, with possibly catastrophic consequences.

Yousuf Nazar is a columnist and researcher-can be reached at; yousufnazar@yahoo.com

After hearing the accusations of covert and overt support for sectarian terrorism and the terrorists the state institutions, like the judiciary and the army are trying to clarify their positions.

There is of course, the involvement of the civilian set up that, after a total of 32 years of collision between the army and the judiciary, succeeded in coming to power.

The Supreme Court has started hearing the cases of the genocide of the Hazara Shias to determine the cause of the killings after a demand from Imran Khan, who is well known for his relationship with the former chief of ISI.

The Chief Justice, Iftekhar Choudhry, during the hearing, has placed the sole responsibility for the genocide at the feet of the prime minister and the governor of Balochistan province thereby relieving the military, Frontier Corps (FC) and intelligence agencies who are, in fact virtually ruling the province of any blame. The CJ also kept the reports of the Intelligence Bureau (IB) and FC confidential and their contents were not divulged as he said that he did not want to demoralize ‘anyone’.

On the other hand the military has come out with a clarification and denounced its involvement in supporting the religious terrorist organizations.

The chief of the Inter Services Public Relations (ISPR), Major General Bajwa, claimed that during the last four months the ISI has conducted 130 operations, but in the same breath he said that military has not been stationed in Balochistan province since 2008. He disassociated the military from the carnage of Quetta.

The statement of the spokespersons of the military is actually a confession as to how military intelligence is operating independently as even the Supreme Court was not informed about its activities in the province when the CJ asked the Secretary of Defence to submit a statement about the killings in Balochistan. Even the civilian authorities did not know that so many operations were being carried out in within 120 days which means that more than one operation was conducted in any one single day. The military has also not bothered to mention as to who the targets of the operations were; whether they were against the local population or against sectarian terrorists?

Were those operations were against the Islamic militants or to establish them in Balochistan to create another province which would fall into the hands of banned militant organisations? Has just one single militant network been destroyed? Have any militants been arrested? Indeed, one crucial question is: why there were the attacks against Hazaras successful without any loss to militants.

It is no doubt that the ISI are operating freely in the province without any legal authority against the Baloch nationalists who are secularly free from any religious hate, fighting for the cause of simple autonomy for Balochistan whose resources were always usurped by the military and its forces through their operations. The abductions, extrajudicial killings and the dumping of bodies of Baloch people after arrest have never stopped. The peculiarity of the military and its intelligence agencies is that they do not like any secular or democratic movement and that is why the most democratic section of the population is under attack from military agencies.

It is also no longer a secret that when General Head Quarter (GHQ) of the Pakistan army was attacked in 2010 all the leaders of the sectarian groups and militant organisations were loaded onto a military plane and given a red carpet welcome in the GHQ for negotiations. Among them was also Malik Ishaq, the commander of Lashkare Jhangvi (LEJ) who always claims responsibility for attacks on the Shias and Hazaras.

After the successful discussions at GHQ Malik Ishaq, was awarded and the Supreme Court was requested to release him unconditionally — the Supreme Court followed the request from the old masters and he was released in July 2011. What is known is the fact that before his release he announced very proudly that he has killed more than 100 Shias and also managed the attack on the Sri Lankan cricket team from inside his prison cell.

The spokesperson has not clarified as to why two notorious killers of the Shias, Usman Kurd and Daud Badini were allowed to escape from the Anti Terror Jail in 2008 which was situated in the military cantonment of the Quetta, the capital of the province. Nor has he explained what actions have been taken against the officials of the military cantonment. The Supreme Court has yet not taken action against the escape of the killers who are in the city and declaring they will never be caught again.

There are many doubts about the Sou Moto action of the Supreme Court on the killings of Hazaras Shia on February 16. The action of the SC will not yield any result as no results have ever been witnessed in such Sou Moto actions. It is rather for the consumption of the galleries. The role of the judiciary is also being discussed in the media about the release of militants just on the excuse of want of evidence. The militants know better how to deal with judiciary and that is why judiciary is spared of any rebound from the militants.

The judiciary and military know full well that if there would be fair inquiry then their role is certain to be discussed and their collusion exposed. Therefore it is wiser to hide their crimes and act quickly to put all the blame on the civilians. This explains as to why the reports of the intelligence agencies are kept secret by the Supreme Court in an effort to save their old masters and the judges themselves for not following the law in order to save their countrymen from acts of terrorism. What exactly is it that is preventing the military and the judiciary from destroying the militants? The only possible explanation is that there is a hidden agenda with regard to terrorists and religious extremism which the military and the judiciary are keeping to themselves.

Blaming the civilians is not the answer as the responsibility for safeguarding the security of the public lies with the military and the judiciary as well. This responsibility is non-transferable. All institutions of the government have to fight against this malaise that is pulling the country down to the level where the people live and die at the whim of the terrorists. The blame game between the institutions is not going to resolve this problem and the only people who are winning are the militants.

Now the Emails Will be Monitored

The government has assigned PTCL and other operators to install monitoring equipment for checking voice and email communications from abroad and the services of the country’s spy.

The regulator, the Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA), has assigned 14 LDIs, including PTCL, to install this monitoring equipment.

The PTA had installed a monitoring system to check 15 gigabytes (GB) traffic coming from international routes at a cost of $10 million in 2008. Now this international traffic from abroad has increased to 275 GB so the cost of monitoring could be higher.

The PTA has dispelled the impression that after placing International Clearing House (ICH), the rate of incoming calls from abroad especially from Europe, US and Canada had gone up to unprecedented levels, claiming that in the pre-ICH the approved termination rate stood at 6.25 cents which went up to 8.80 cents from October 1, 2012.

The termination rates of other countries showed that the rate being charged by Pakistan was not unusual as it stood at 8 to 10 cents in European Union, 16 cents in Afghanistan, 21.5 cents in Oman, 10 cents in Indonesia, 15 cents in Norway, 15 cents in Qatar, 9.5 cents in Sri Lanka, 10.5 cents in Saudi Arabia, 13 cents in UAE and 8 cents in UK Mobile.

So far the State Bank of Pakistan has collected $40 million in the first 15 days of October after placing ICH mechanism and the government expects $1 billion in the whole financial year.

The Lawlessness in Pakistan is Reaching the Intelligence Agencies

The whereabouts of the senior intelligence officer kidnapped from the outskirts of Islamabad two weeks ago while his guard was shot dead upon resistance remain unknown, Geo News reported.

According to sources, the senior intelligence official and ex-brigadier was on his way from the residential area in the vicinity of Sahala police station when unidentified armed men stopped his vehicle.

The assailants killed the guard and abducted the officer.

Police and intelligence agency have started investigations.

On November 4, twelve-year old daughter of a serving Major serving in the ISI was kidnapped from Bahria Town in Rawalpindi. The car in which she was kidnapped overran a seven year child who died on the spot. The kidnappers panicked and left the girl at the site and ran away in the car.

They remain untraceable.

 

Is the ISI Behind Hina Rabbani Khar & Bilawal Zardari Scandal?

By Dean Nelson

South Asia Editor

The Daily Telegraph/ 27 Sep 2012

Claims of an affair between Hina Rabbani Khar, the 34-year-old glamorous foreign minister, and the 24-year-old scion of the country’s most powerful dynasty have fuelled feverish speculation and outrage in Pakistan since they were reported in a Bangladeshi tabloid earlier this week.

According to Blitz Weekly, the married foreign minister, who has two young children with her millionaire husband, and Bilawal Bhutto-Zardari, the PPP co-chairman, want to marry and have been regularly talking on the telephone and sending one another cards.

The tabloid claimed President Zardari is firmly opposed to their alleged relationship and had sought details of their mobile telephone conversations to establish the facts.

As per Bangladeshi tabloid, The Blitz, Hina’s husband Firoze Gulzar had called up his wife, who is New York for the UN summit with Pakistan President Zardari, to seek clarification on the “scandal” being tossed around by the media. Tabloid says Hina and Bilawal appear to be on a collision course with their families over their desire to turn their love affair into marriage. The tabloid claims that Hina told her husband to send the link of the news story that he was referring to and Gulzar subsequently sent the same to his wife. When he called her up again, Hina reportedly asked him: “where did you get all of this rubbish stuff?” and cut the line.

However, Gulzar is said to have known about the secret relationship between his wife and Bilawal for a while now. He got suspicious when he realized that his wife was brining souvenirs for Bilawal on each of her foreign tours.

He also saw her spend long hours chatting on the internet with Bilawal. When he asked Hina about what was that made her spend long hours on the internet with Bilawal, his wife reportedly tried to convince him that she was discussing political and diplomatic issues with the president of PPP with the aim to enrich his knowledge.

The Blitz, which was the first to report the story, claims that Feorze was not convinced and tried to argue with Hina, to which she turned furious and warned him that she would leave him if he doesn’t change his attitude.

The seeds of the distrust between Hina and Gulzar were sown after Hina caught him having extra-marital affair with a female staffer in one of his business ventures, The Blitz claimed, adding that Hina was terribly shocked at the betrayal of her husband and had attempted to commit suicide by taking sleeping pills.

Hina also crossed swords with Bilawal’s father Zardari after he came to know about the contents of the romantic greetings card sent by his foreign minister to his son.

The Blitz says that the President immediately called Hina and expressed anger for her extra-marital affairs with his ‘minor son’, but Hina was unperturbed and replied in a harsh tone that Zardari was being mean and asked him to refrain from interfering in her personal affairs”.

When Bilawal came to know about his father’s rudeness towards his lady love, he threatened to leave the post of the chairman of PPP and leave the country by the end of the year. Hina would also resign by then and marry Bilawal, the report added.

The paper cited “western intelligence agencies” as the source of details of messages the ‘couple’ had sent each other.

Hina Rabbani Khar and her husband have dismissed the claims as “reprehensible” and “trash”, but they have been reported widely in Pakistan where they spawned conspiracy theories among Islamabad’s political classes.

Senior PPP figures on September 27 said they believed the claims were part of a plot by the country’s feared ISI agency to damage Rabbani Khar’s reputation because it blames her for her part in facilitating a UN investigation into thousands of missing people detained by the security forces.

One PPP official said that the ISI expects the United Nations’ Working Group on Enforced and Involuntary Disappearances to recommend senior army and intelligence officials be charged for their role and blame Rabbani Khar for allowing the delegation into the country.

“They are not happy with her,” the official said. “The UN mission received a cold reception but Hina was called in by the president to meet him and the army chief. She crossed some red line.”

The government has not officially commented on the allegations.

Ms Rabbani Khar, the daughter of a powerful Punjab landowner, has been the subject of rumours concerning her private life since she first became a minister in General Musharraf’s government in 2004.

There was speculation then that she might marry the then prime minister Shaukat Aziz, but instead she married businessman Firoze Gulzar. She later stood as a PPP candidate in the 2008 elections and was appointed as finance minister in the new PPP-led government. She won many admirers for her stylish clothes and designer bags during her visit to India in 2011 where the two countries made significant progress in improving their relationship.

Yellow Journalism & An Immoral and Unethical Internet Attack on Khar

By William Gomes

Yellow journalist Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury has recently propagated falsehood against Hina Rabbani Khar. He claims that Weekly Blitz is a tabloid newspaper published in Bangladesh every Wednesday but in reality it is not available in the market.

Yellow journalist Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury has cheated many people among them two women who came in public and flashed his criminal face.

Brenda West wrote “Choudhury operates a shady website called Jethro Conglomerate, for which a scam alert has been posted by an organization that regulates the business dealings of the commodities Choudhury sells. (In case you are curious or are impressed with Choudhury’s interest in things Jewish, Jethro is the Hebrew word for Choudhury’s preferred moniker, Shoaib.)

Choudhury states on the Jethro Conglomerates website that he represents a company called Noca. Noca itself does not seem legitimate. It is not licensed. It provides no information about who owns or runs the company. The representatives they do list could be of interest to law enforcement. The Noca site says it is located in Canada but it gives an unpublished Nevada phone number. There is an odor of mobster activity connected with this enterprise, as well as Choudhury’s involvement in it. As we shall see in Choudhury’s published resume, Choudhury worked closely with the indicted mobster, Aziz Mohammed Bhai, who fled Bangladesh in 2009 to avoid imprisonment for various charges, including murder.”

Brenda West wrote “In June 2011 Tass (info@itar-tass.com) spokeswoman Lora Potopova confirmed in an email and subsequent phone conversation with this reporter that the wire service never had a bureau in Bangladesh, and had no record of employ for Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury — as a stringer or otherwise. Potopova reported that her thorough search of all Tass branches found no trace of Choudhury or a Tass office in Bangladesh. “

Using the banner of media outlet Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury is running his criminal business for years.

Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury has coined the falsehood. Weekly blitz is a part of a syndicate of Hindustan times. The propaganda was subsequently reported by Hindustan times and other India media

Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury became successful in his plan when it was published in India and then he started lobbying with the friends in Bangladeshi media to get it reported in different media outlets.

Salah Uddin Shoaib Choudhury is deliberately running this falsehood against Hina Rabbani Khar and Bilawal Bhutto to be discussed by international media to use that discussion for further criminal business.

William Nicholas Gomes
80/ B Bramon Chiron, Saydabad,
Dhaka-1203, Bangladesh.
Cell: +88 019 7 444 0 666
E-mail:William [at] williamgomes.org,editorbd[at]gmail.com
Skype: William.gomes9

“Mr Speaker, please stop this yellow taxi from leaving the House,” Muslim League MP Sheikh Rashid Ahmed called out, as the then prime minister, Benazir Bhutto, left her seat to go out of Parliament. Benazir, then in her first term as PM (1988-90) and clad in a yellow kamiz shalwar suit with her trademark white duppata over her head, did not bother to respond as she exited.

PPP workers were livid; they worshipped the very ground Benazir walked on, and called her ‘Bibi’ out of reverence. It is another story that later Rashid Ahmed was jailed for possession of unlicensed weapons. At least he was safe from diehard PPP supporters.

Earlier, during the election campaign, the Muslim League had resorted to a ‘dirty tricks’ campaign against Benazir and her mother Nusrat, where their photographs were printed in newspapers in a crude cut-and-paste job. The man who had orchestrated that campaign was Hussain Haqqani, the former Pakistan ambassador to the US.

As coarse attempts are being made to defame foreign minister Hina Rabbani Khar and the PPP chairman Bilawal Bhutto Zardari, it is the irresponsible social media that appears to be carrying on a systematic campaign to this end.

Contrarily, latest photographs showing Khar and President Asif Ali Zardari talking relaxedly at the UN General Assembly sessions speak louder than the tasteless stories being bruited around.

The real issue is not about the Bhuttos or Khars. It is that if you are young, beautiful and a high-profile female politician in Pakistan, you are a soft target for sick minds and their ‘dirty tricks’ that seek to damage your  reputation. Social media helps turn malicious gossip into scandals that turn viral on the net. These stories, where no distinction is made between movie stars and politicians, sell internationally. There are even sites dedicated to “beautiful Pakistani female politicians”.

Young and glamorous women politicians in Pakistan have been hounded for years. If it is Khar today and Benazir in the past, ambassador Sherry Rehman, parliamentarian Kashmala Tariq, speaker of the National Assembly Fehmeda Mirza and several others continue to be mired in unwanted gossip. All of these women ignore the rumours and continue to have successful careers.

In fact, when Khar first came into the assembly, she refused to be put into a ‘zanana dabba’ or ‘special women’s compartment’. When asked by Newsline what she would do for women’s rights, an inexperienced Khar said, “My father got me elected from a general seat. In our country, both men and women have issues that need to be resolved. Neither have what you may consider basic rights—the right to clean drinking water, the right to enough water to irrigate their lands, the right to basic health and sanitation facilities, the right to educate themselves, the right to have access to electricity and roads. Let us please try to give them these rights and then we can talk about women’s rights and men’s rights.”

It is common sense that most voters who have reposed their faith in  women leaders in the region are uneducated and illiterate. But at no time have they ever stooped low and spread vile canards about them. Never have they shown such inclination to gossip or scandal.

“In fact, it is this post-modern era, with its high-tech social media, controlled and consumed by the educated and the so-called liberals, that is responsible for targeting high-profile women, whether they are in politics or in other fields. You will not see an ordinary party worker in Pakistan ever discussing such trash. Whether Benazir Bhutto, Indira Gandhi or Sirimavo Bandaranaike, the majority of their supporters were illiterate but had more grace than the class that goes around as the ‘educated’ today,” says TV host and columnist Nusrat Javeed.

Recently, another very young politician, Iman Hazir Mazari, daughter of the well known Dr Shireen Mazari, left Imran Khan’s Tehreek e-Insaf. Amongst other reasons for her resignation is her continuous, abusive hounding in the social media. Mazari is barely 20.

“One thing I have put up with for the past six months is abuse and character assassination. My self-respect and principles are more important to me than a party that continues to attack me. Being called a ‘prostitute’, or hearing/reading insults regarding my late grandfather by PTI workers is unacceptable. Yes, I wear what I want and I live my personal life the way I want to—that is between me and myself; no one…will ever have a right to comment on it. I will never make any apologies for the way I choose to live my personal life,” she wrote on her blog.

The ‘story’ involving Khar and Bilawal Bhutto Zardari was first planted in an obscure Bangladeshi publication. Needless to say, the merely dressed up gossip  was handled in an unprofessional manner. No attempts were made to get the viewpoint of the subjects. The publication might have sold well, but in the process the publishers sacrificed and traduced all principles of journalism.

As expected, Indian publications and broadcast media picked the story up, as befits their obsession with Khar’s ‘glamorous looks’. In this case, the ‘glamour’ surrounding the gossip involving Khar and Bilawal was lapped up greedily, as both are highly saleable. It was the Indian media that went berserk over Khar’s looks, apparel and accessories when she visited New Delhi in July 2011.

However, in Pakistan itself, the report has been roundly rubbished. No newspaper or TV channel has touched it. They know fully that it is trash, and have treated it as such. The government so far has not even dignified it with a response. Khar has not only been the country’s youngest and first female foreign minister, but one of the successful ones at that. Her diplomacy and handling of her portfolio has been lauded in the corridors of power in various countries, whether Washington DC, Kabul or Berlin.

It is quite clear that these speculations started when Khar was in New York to represent Pakistan in the UN general assembly, and was designed to divert attention to her equation with Zardari, who is also there as head of state. It’s also significant that her visit as foreign minister comes at a very crucial point in Pakistan-US relations. Also, Khar has recently had a very successful trip to Berlin, and stole the thunder from her Indian counterpart in Islamabad during bilateral talks in early September.

On the eve of the general elections, political opponents know how such a scandal could damage Khar’s image in her conservative constituency. Pakistani foreign ministers have rarely returned to parliament, as they remain out of touch with voters due to constant travel. Khar had an advantage as her father, a seasoned parliamentarian, was doing much of the work at the ground level.

The CIA and ISI: Are Pakistan and the U.S.’s Spy Agencies Starting to Get Along?

After months of relations languishing at an all-time low, Pakistan and the U.S. may now be opening up a fresh phase of engagement.

Following U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton’srecent apology for the loss of 24 Pakistani soldiers at a border checkpoint in November 2012, NATO supplies are rumbling through again. Washington has also released funds for Pakistani military operations it had previously withheld. And, perhaps most crucially, the two fractious allies’ top spies are talking again, with a view to enhancing their cooperation as the 2014 deadline for a withdrawal of U.S. troops from Afghanistan looms.

The relationship between the CIA and Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency has been at the core of Washington and Islamabad’s alliance for over a decade now — and sometimes the source of the mutual misery. After 9/11, both intelligence agencies collaborated closely to capture scores of al-Qaeda suspects. But over the past two years, as suspicions have grown, the two sides have become near adversaries.

The ISI is often accused of supporting jihadist proxies attacking U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan — and is widely considered to have been either incompetent or complicit when it came to Osama bin Laden’s presence in Pakistan. The CIA was found to be operating independently within Pakistan’s jealously guarded territory, running unauthorized contractors, recruiting local informants and showering drones at their fiercest pace yet.

But as bitter memories of those disputes begin to recede and new faces assume leadership roles, there is some cautious optimism going forward now — this despite domestic imperatives in both countries (an election year in the U.S., the heated anti-American populism in Pakistan) making rapprochement difficult. Last month the new head of ISI, Lieut. General Zaheer-ul-Islam, made his first visit to Washington, meeting with top intelligence, defense and Administration officials. Tentative agreements were made in terms of joint operations against militants in the region, theWall Street Journal reported. But, officials from both sides say, fundamental differences linger.

Little is known about General ul-Islam, but a change at the top of ISI will please U.S. security officials. The previous ISI chief, now retired Lieut. General Ahmad Shuja Pasha, had become fiercely hostile to Washington in his final year — engaging in “shouting matches” with then CIA director Leon Panetta, cutting cooperation down to a minimum, ordering the harassment of U.S. diplomats in Pakistan and locking up Shakil Afridi, the physician who ran a vaccination program in the town where bin Laden was found hiding.

Afridi is currently serving a 33-year sentence handed down to him by a tribal court. The charges were not explicitly for spying for the U.S., but there is little doubt in observers’ minds that this is the reason he was punished. Afridi wasn’t arrested for the alleged offenses he has been convicted for until the ISI discovered his vaccination program and links to the CIA. At one point, according to a Pakistani military official familiar with the discussions, the CIA suggested that the ISI strip Afridi of his nationality and hand him over to the U.S. General Pasha angrily refused, saying it would set a bad precedent — one that could encourage others to spy for foreign countries if there were no consequences. U.S. Congressmen reacted angrily to Afridi’s imprisonment, voting to cut $33 million of U.S. assistance to Pakistan, one million for each year he’s serving in prison. The question of Afridi’s fate will likely have come up during ul-Islam’s visit to the U.S. There may be no movement soon, but if relations between Washington and Islamabad grow warmer, the ISI may eventually be persuaded to arrange for Afridi’s quiet release.

The harassment of U.S. officials hasn’t changed much, says a U.S. official. Vehicles are constantly stopped, security personnel searched with unusual rigor, and there is even pressure on the U.S. to abandon the construction of a new consulate in Peshawar. On other fronts, ul-Islam has maintained a low profile, a decision thought to be influenced by his predecessor’s controversial visibility. “Unlike General Pasha,” says a senior politician from Pakistan’s opposition Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz party, “we don’t see the new head of the ISI interfering in politics — yet.”

During the new ISI chief’s visit, U.S. officials repeated their long-standing concerns about the Haqqani network, a potent jihadist group linked to al-Qaeda that is based in Pakistan’s North Waziristan tribal territory along the Afghan border. From their sanctuary there, say U.S. officials, the group contentedly plots terrorist attacks on U.S. and NATO troops in Afghanistan, before slipping back across the border. The ISI is widely suspected of offering the group support, with Admiral Mike Mullen, former Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, even describing the Haqqanis as “a veritable arm of the ISI” in his valedictory testimony before Congress last year.

The Pakistanis deny backing the Haqqanis but concede links with them and their reluctance to confront them. They plaintively cite a lack of resources and insist their priority is targeting militants mounting attacks inside Pakistan, but tellingly add that the Haqqanis will be crucial to any future Afghan settlement that Pakistan hopes to be a part of. But a series of unremitting, violent attacks in and around Kabul, authored by the Haqqanis, has intensified the pressure on the Pakistanis.

Last October, Pakistan’s army chief, General Ashfaq Kayani, discussed the possibility of “limiting the space” given to the Haqqanis in North Waziristan with Clinton during her visit to Islamabad. The Pakistani army said it had certain contingency plans in place for limited, surgical operations to reclaim territory in some of North Waziristan’s main towns. These plans were shelved soon after, with the deaths of the Pakistani soldiers in November 2011. Now, as pressure builds again, with enduring attacks and Congressmen calling for the Haqqani network to be designated as a foreign terrorist organization, the plans will have to be revisited. The new U.S. ambassador to Pakistan, Richard Olson, told U.S. lawmakers during his confirmation hearings last month that he will be committed to taking on the Haqqanis.

Without a Pakistani military operation against the Haqqanis, the CIA has focused on drone strikes against them and other militants in the region. The strikes, U.S. officials insist, are effective. Some Pakistani military officials also have conceded improved accuracy. But there are limits to what can be achieved by a drone-only strategy, and there are political costs. Drone strikes have not only become hugely unpopular in Pakistan, where the parliament has united in denouncing them, but also across the world. A Pew Research Center survey published in June found that majorities in countries as diverse as France, Germany, the Czech Republic, China, Japan, Brazil and Turkey opposed the widespread use of drone strikes.

An acknowledgment of the accumulating political costs may temper the frequency with which the CIA uses drone strikes. General David Petraeus, the new CIA director, is said to appreciate that the program is unsustainable. Previous CIA director Panetta was seen as being indulgent of “the CT guys and their shiny toys,” says the official. Drone strikes increased to a pace of one every four days at their height.

But there are certain points at which they are seen as a necessity — and they will continue to be used despite ul-Islam’s insistence last month in Washington that they stop. Just days after Clinton’s apology and the reopening of the NATO supply lines, a drone strike in North Waziristan reportedly killed 20 suspected militants. The actual figure, the U.S. official says, was lower. But it was a truck packed with explosives heading across the border. “It was a clear shot,” the official says. “We had to take it.” And that is one of the many differences in opinion that both sides will somehow have to learn to live with.

 

ISI – US Relations

A succession of spy scandals has sent the ISI’s relationship with the CIA — and, more broadly, with the United States— to a historic low in 2011.

Tensions rose in January 2011 after a C.I.A. contractor shot and killed two Pakistanis inLahore, and then worsened in May after the surprise American raid that killed Osama bin Laden in Abbottabad.

In September, Admiral Mike Mullen, then chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff, said at a Congressional hearing that the pro-Taliban militant group known as the Haqqani network was a “virtual arm” of the ISI, prompting fresh tumult.

However, the ISI and the CIA have quietly worked to rebuild ties in the past few months, and officials from both countries say the relationship is slowly mending.

At a special joint session of Parliament set for March,Pakistan’s politicians will debate the broad contours of a new policy toward the United States.

Few doubt, however, that core elements of the relationship will be determined by General Kayani and General Islam, in consultation with President Zardari.

One likely obstacle will be the continuing CIA drone strikes in the northwestern tribal belt, which are wildly unpopular.

The ISI has a fearsome reputation after decades of political manipulation and meddling in militancy. But in recent years, it has faced stark challenges. Pakistani Taliban militants have killed dozens of ISI employees since 2007, undermining the army’s authority.

The ISI is also facing challenges on the judicial front. This week the Supreme Court resumed hearings into an election-rigging scheme in which the ISI distributed $15.5 million to favored politicians in an ultimately successful bid to influence the 1990 election.

On March 9, 2012, the court heard testimony from a former ISI chief, Asad Durrani, who admitted to running the scheme but denied that it was part of ISI policy.

The hearing also included an extraordinary moment involving Gen. Mirza Aslam Beg, a former army chief who is said to have blessed the illegal scheme.

Infuriated by what was deemed to be an insubordinate affidavit that the general filed to the court, Chief Justice Chaudhry demanded that the general apologize. “Is he here to play golf?” the justice asked.

Another judge said, “We will not allow anyone to play with our dignity.”

General Beg wrote an apology on a piece of paper, and the case was adjourned until March 15.