Asian HRs Commission Hongkong Says Army Supported Al Qaeda Candidates

Pakistan military intends to back Al-Qaida candidates for the next parliament

There have been some developments recently that reveal that in the 2013 elections elements of the Taliban and Al-Qaida had been offered seats in the parliament. Before these developments the security agencies with the help of right wing parties have also allowed 53 sectarian candidates to contest the elections without passing through the sword of the articles 62 and 63 of the constitution which debar any candidate known to be involved in cases of sectarian violence, hate campaigns or having been charged with murder and killings through sectarian violence.

The military officials were remained busy in the Bajur agency, FATA, close to Afghan border, to make a deal with the agents of Al-Qaida for the coming elections.

During the time of filing the nomination papers the Military Commander of the Bajur agency, Brigadier Ghulam Haider, held a meeting with the local leadership of Jamat-e-Islami (JI) who, in the past had direct links with the militants of Al-Qaida and master minds of 9/11 and had provided shelter to them. There are two national assembly seats from the Bajur agency and these two seats were assured to JI and in return the JI and other jihadist organization will provide:

(1) logistic support to those who want to join Jihad in Afghanistan from Pakistani side and extend ‘melmastia’, the traditional tribal hospitality, to Mujahideen coming back from Afghanistan;

(2) JI will not oppose any operation in Bajaur but rather support any military operation in Bajure in future;

(3) JI will not oppose but rather help in constructing the road that connects Afghanistan with Pakistan (The road connects Chakdara via Munda-Bajaur-Ghakhi Pass-Kunar and Chakdara-Munda-Samar Bagh-Shahi-bin-Shahi-Asmaar-Kunar) and (4)the arrangement will remain intact between the two parties until a favourable government in Afghanistan is installed.

The reasons for such developments are described as the USA and Allied Forces are leaving Afghanistan next year so the military has geared up its contacts with those political-cum-religious parties who could help in furthering the interests of Pakistan and the military to establish their major share as a stake holder.

When the US and Allied forces entered Afghanistan, the religious parties in Pakistan were brought into the power in 2002 elections by the then military dictator, General Musharraf. Now, when these forces are leaving Afghanistan, there are hectic efforts to bring fundamentalists again into the power particularly in the province of Khyber Pukhtunkhwa (KP).

The May 11 elections are the first ever party-based elections in FATA history after the political parties order was extended to the tribal belt as part of reforms to the Frontiers Crimes Regulations (FCR) in 2011.

Mr. Haroon Rasheed and Sardar Khan of JI are contesting elections from the constituency of National Assembly 43 and 44 respectively.

Haroon Rasheed was also elected in 2002 on the JI ticket when military needed religious parties to help military government. He was providing shelter to the Al-Qaida militants at his house who were wanted at international level. In 2009, during the military operation, 10 Al-Qaida militants from the Arab countries were recovered who were hiding there since many years. His brother and nephew were arrested but brother was released and nephew is still behind the bar to safe him. His house has also been destroyed with many other houses in the Loi Sim area of Bajur. All destroyed houses were not allowed to be reconstructed but Haroon Rasheed’s house has been renovated as a special case.

The JI and its leaders were involved in providing shelter to Al-Qaida militants. The mastermind of 9/11 incident, Mr. Khalid Shiekh Mohammad was arrested from the house of Ahmed Abdul Qadoos, a leader of JI from Rawalpindi, Punjab, in March 2003 but with the help of Musharraf government Qadoos was released and no action has been taken against him. The same was with former provincial mister of KP, Mr. Siraj ul Haq, the president of JI from the province. He handed over one Al-Qaida man to his friend’s house in Durgai, the Malakand Agency. After some years the Al-Qaida militant was arrested by the military but no action has been taken against Haq and his friend, it was in the era of Musharraf government when Haq was the senior minister of the province.

Last January in Karachi, two Al-Qaeda operatives were arrested after a shoot-out in the house of Sabiha Shahid, another leader of the Jamaat’s women’s wing. Dr. Khawaja Javed and his brother, who are facing trial on charges of harbouring senior Al-Qaeda operatives and their families, in their sprawling residential compound outside Lahore, are closely related to a senior Jamaat leader.

According to the newsline report of 2003, Similarly, in Karachi, Jamaat (JI) activists were involved in the shoot-out which helped a third Arab to escape. “We have strong evidence of the Jamaat’s involvement with Al-Qaeda,” said a senior government official.

The Jamaat boasts the most active women’s wing of any political party. They have been in the forefront of the protests against the arrest of Al-Qaeda leaders. Many political leaders accuse the Jamaat of using its women members as human shields. Security officials maintain that Jamaat activists, who actively participated in the Afghan war against Soviet occupation, developed close contacts with the Arab fighters and the links continued after the war was over. “Their association with the Al-Qaeda is not surprising,” said a senior official. Faisal Saleh Hayat, the federal interior minister, said it was a matter of great concern to the government that top Al-Qaeda operatives were found to be harboured by the Jamaat. “How can they claim that Al-Qaeda fugitives are their guests?” he asked. In a press briefing on March 10, an ISI official maintained that individuals from the Jamaat were associated with the Al-Qaeda.

This time the military has again contacted the JI and other religious groups to induct religious candidates in the parliament so that the liberal and secular political parties should not come in majority and can not change the Islamic colour of the country. In the recent days the chief of the Army staff, General Kiyani has come out with the announcement that the Islamic Ideology is the basis of the creation of Pakistan and it can not be separated from the country. This announcement has been termed by media circles as the ‘pre-poll rigging’.

A deal is under way with many Jihadi groups and they were assured that the military will make their way in to the parliament but in return they have to extend their help in furthering its interests in Afghanistan by providing safety and security to the Jihadi elements. This is the reason that JI have been taken as the best via media for the militant organisations and in return JI will be given good numbers of the seats in the parliament.

The three political parties, the PPP, MQM and ANP and other political parties from Balochistan province, who are liberal and secular have been threatened by the Taliban that they would not be allowed to have freedom of election campaign. Their public meetings are continuously under the bomb attacks and the Taliban claim the responsibility. Those political parties who are supposing to the ‘friends of Taliban’ have the full freedom for the election campaign. The security forces are also not providing any security to stop the attacks of the liberal parties. A great divide has been made by the military, the caretaker government and election commission between the centre right and liberal political parties and all arrangement have made that those political parties must win who have the inclination towards Al-Qaida and Taliban.

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About AHRC: The Asian Human Rights Commission is a regional non-governmental organisation that monitors human rights in Asia, documents violations and advocates for justice and institutional reform to ensure the protection and promotion of these rights. The Hong Kong-based group was founded in 1984.

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Taliban: Enemy of Our Enemy is Our Friend

Tribal elders pressurised to sign peace deals with Taliban

by Kahar Zalmay

Yet another policy change by the army indicates that the Taliban are now an asset in the new develop of the region

As the time of the withdrawal of the USA and the allied forces is coming closer the Pakistan army has suddenly changed its stance against the Taliban.

The army has developed its new policy from “Crush the terrorists” to “Our enemy’s enemy is our friend” and included the Taliban as its partner for the coming changes in the region. Since 2001 Pakistan has received huge amounts of foreign aid against Al-Qaida and the Taliban and internally a policy was adopted against terrorists which were generally bracketed as ‘Taliban’. The government and the army have divided the Taliban into the Pakistani and Afghanistan Taliban and showed a strong inclination towards declaring the Pakistani Taliban as enemies of the country. They are mainly operating from the tribal areas into the major cities of Pakistan.

In their latest policy statement the army has declared the terrorists as the major threat to the security of Pakistan. This is a policy shift as the main ‘threat’ to the country was previously India.

It is claimed by the Pakistani army that almost 40,000 armed forces personnel have been killed by terrorists, mainly by the Taliban. However, once again, a policy shift has been observed where the military is now forcing the tribal leaders of the FATA to make friends with the Taliban and sign peace deals with them. FATA is a semi-autonomous tribal region in north-western Pakistan, bordering Pakistan’s provinces of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and Balochistan to the east and south, and Afghanistan’s provinces of Kunar, Nangarhar, Paktia, Khost and Paktika to the west and north. It comprises of seven tribal agencies (districts) and six frontier regions, and is directly governed by Pakistan’s federal government through a special set of laws called the Frontier Crimes Regulations (FCR).

Malaks are the tribal elders of different tribes and the Khan is the leader of the Malaks. The Malaks in Bajaur Agency are under tremendous pressure from the military to sign peace deals with the Taliban who fled to Kunar province in Afghanistan. Bajaur is one of the seven tribal agencies bordering Afghanistan. To the South of Bajaur is the Mohmand Agency while to the North it is connected with District Dir.

During the war with the Taliban the Pakistan army provided arms, ammunition and training to the tribal leaders and elders to fight against Terrorists. For that initiative the Aman Committees (Peace Committees) were formed and they fought valiantly, sacrificing their lives and property to save the country from attacks from the northern areas.

According to the details available from the scribe of this article in the interviews conducted with the Malaks, they were invited for a Jarga three months ago at the Political Agent’s office in the agency headquarter, Khaar. In that meeting the Malaks were asked to sign a peace deal with Taliban from Bajaur Agency and also to send a delegation to Kunar in order to bring them back.

The Jargas in the tribal areas are the official meetings conducted under the political agent of the FATA and grand Jargas are conducted by the provincial governor of Khyber Pakhtoonkha.

When the Malaks resisted this initiative, another Jarga was called on February 8, 2013 which was addressed by Brigadier Ghulam Haider who is the commander of the military in the agency. In this Jarga, Brigadier Haider pressed the elders to agree to a peace deal with the Taliban.

The ‘demand’ from the military was not merely limited to a peace deal with the Taliban. Each Malak was also asked to host 30 Talibani until the political agent built houses for them.

“We were shocked and could not believe what we were told by the Brigadier. We thought the military came to uproot  the terrorists from our area but now it is asking us to sign a deal with the murderers of our sons, brothers and children”, a shaken and incensed Malak shared with this scribe in Bajaur.

The resilience to this proposal-cum-dictate came from the elders of Salarzai tribe which was the first tribe to launch a tribal Lakhkar (a collective tribal force) under the leadership of its Khan, the Khan of Pashat, Shahabuddin Khan to fight Taliban in 2007-08. This was before the military entered Bajaur. Instead of appreciating the struggle of the Salarzai tribe and its elders, it has now become a casualty of the State policy.

“We are accused of taking money from the USA, Afghanistan, Europe and India for launching our Lakhkar. And when we refused to succumb to the pressure of the military to have peace with Taliban, a 1000-strong Taliban outfit attacked our area from the Baatwar side, a mountainous village on the Pak-Afghan border. Our valiant tribesmen deterred their attack and pushed them back to the Afghan side”, a Malak told me on the condition of anonymity. We were sitting in the shadow of those tall snowy mountains from where Taliban entered some four months back.

“We do not know what the military and the government want from us. We sacrificed so much in this war. There is not a single family that did not lose a member in this fight. But we are befuddled that why after so much sufferings, the military wants us to welcome those murderers. If this was going to be the conclusion of our fight, we would not have wanted the sacrifices of our children, fathers and brothers”, an elderly man belonging to the Salarzai tribe voiced, the sorrow and subjection was clearly printed on his wrinkled face.

“The military should tell us in clear terms what it wants from us? If it wants us to leave this place, so we shall. If it wants us to attack Afghanistan, we will do it. My kids are out of school for five years; they can’t go to school even in Peshawar or roam there unreservedly. They cannot go out of this compound and I myself cannot sit here”, (he was referring to his Hujra where the guests were sitting), another Malak told the scribe in Khaar, the headquarters of Bajaur Agency.

The scribe then asked, “But will you be able to handle Taliban if the military left Bajaur. He replied, “We want the military out as we are sick of its double game and we have arrived at this conclusion that military and Taliban are the same. And as far as the Taliban are concerned, we will slice them into small pieces and throw them to this dog”. He signalled to the dog lying near the kut (the traditional bed) enjoying a sound sleep and not the least concerned with the Malak’s anguish and my curiosity.

“The military is forcing Malaks to agree to a peace deal with the Taliban and for that it exploits different tactics”, divulged a local journalist on the condition of anonymity. “If you are a Malak and you resist negotiations with the Taliban, a stranger would use some IEDs in your area and stay there until the military sniping dogs spot him there. This gives the military an opportunity to confront the Malak and accuse him of harbouring the Taliban himself. He is left with no option but to accept peace deal”. He laughed, probably noticing the expression of surprise on the face of this scribe. “This is FATA my dear, away from human civilization”, he added.

The recent appointment of the governor of KPK, Shaukatullah Khan could be linked to this new strategy of the Pakistan army to bring back their assets from Afghanistan, rest them and get them ready for a new battle in Afghanistan after the US forces withdraw. Shaukatullah Khan was an elected member of the National Assembly from Bajaur Agency.

When the scribe contacted the Military Commander in Bajaur, Brigadier Ghulam Haider, to get his view on the allegations levelled against the military by the Malaks he said, “I might have been misquoted by some Malaks as the purpose of the military in Bajaur is to clear the area of all sorts of militants. We are strictly concentrating on our job and as for negotiations with the Taliban are concerned it’s a political decision that needs to be taken by the political forces in the country”.

The entire tribal area is now in a state of confusion, not knowing whether to side with the Taliban or the army. Regardless of which way to go, there is no doubt in their minds that they will be at the mercy of both the Taliban and the army. This is not the first time in recent history that there has been a policy change regarding the Taliban and it appears that this is more a matter of convenience rather than being in the interest of the security of the country.

If, in fact, the peace deals are signed with the Taliban this will be a licence for them to kill the innocent citizens in the name of their version of Islam.

Taliban Have Reached Karachi

Karachi is no stranger to gangland violence, driven for years by a motley collection of armed groups who battle over money, turf and votes.

But there is a new gang in town. Hundreds of miles from their homeland in the mountainous northwest, Pakistani Taliban fighters have started to flex their muscles more forcefully in parts of this vast city, and they are openly taking ground.

Taliban gunmen have mounted guerrilla assaults on police stations, killing scores of officers. They have stepped up extortion rackets that target rich businessmen and traders, and shot dead public health workers engaged in polio vaccination efforts. In some neighborhoods, Taliban clerics have started to mediate disputes through a parallel judicial system.

The grab for influence and power in Karachi shows that the Taliban have been able to extend their reach across Pakistan, even here in the country’s most populous city, with about 20 million inhabitants. No longer can they be written off as endemic only to the country’s frontier regions.

In joining Karachi’s street wars, the Taliban are upending a long-established network of competing criminal, ethnic and political armed groups in this combustible city. The difference is that the Taliban’s agenda is more expansive — it seeks to overthrow the Pakistani state — and their operations are run by remote control from the tribal belt along the Afghan border.

Already, the militants have reshaped the city’s political balance by squeezing one of the most prominent political machines, the Pashtun-dominated Awami National Party, off its home turf. They have scared Awami operatives out of town and destroyed offices, gravely undercutting the party’s chances in national elections scheduled for May.

“We are the Taliban’s first enemy,” said Shahi Syed, the party’s provincial head, at his newly fortified office. “They burn my offices, they tear down my flags and they kill our people.”

The Taliban drift into Karachi actually began years ago, though much more quietly. Many fled here after a concerted Pakistani military operation in the Swat Valley in 2009. The influx has gradually continued, officials here say, with Taliban fighters able to easily melt into the city’s population of fellow ethnic Pashtuns, estimated to number at least five million people.

Until recently, the militants saw Karachi as a kind of rear base, using the city to lie low or seek medical treatment, and limiting their armed activities to criminal fund-raising, like kidnapping and bank robberies.

But for at least six months now, there have been signs that their timidity is disappearing. The Taliban have become a force on the street, aggressively exerting their influence in the ethnic Pashtun quarters of the city.

Taliban tactics are most evident in Manghopir, an impoverished neighborhood of rough, cinder-block houses clustered around marble quarries on the northern edge of the city, where illegal housing settlements spill into the surrounding desert.

In recent months, Taliban militants have attacked the Manghopir police station three times, killing eight officers, said Muhammad Aadil Khan, a local member of Parliament.

In interviews, residents describe Taliban militants who roam on motorbikes or in jeeps with tinted windows, delivering extortion demands in the shape of two bullets wrapped in a piece of paper.

A factory owner in Manghopir, speaking on the condition of anonymity out of fear for his safety, said that several Pashtun businessmen had received demands for $10,000 to $50,000. The figure was negotiable, he said, but payment was not: resistance could result in an assault on the victim’s house or, in the worst case, a bullet to the head.

Mr. Khan said he had not dared to visit his constituency in months. “There is a personal threat against me,” he said, speaking at the headquarters of his party, the Muttahida Qaumi Movement, which represents ethnic Mohajirs, in the city center.

The militant drive has even distressed Manghopir’s most revered residents: the dozens of crocodiles who inhabit a pool near a Sufi shrine here.

The Muslim pilgrims who come here to pay homage to the shrine’s saint have long also brought scraps of meat for his reptile charges.

But lately, as visitor numbers have dwindled from hundreds per day to barely a few dozen, the roughly 120 crocodiles here have grown hungry, according to the animals’ elderly caretaker.

Police officials, militant sources and Pashtun residents say that three major Taliban factions operate in Karachi — the most powerful one, which is rooted in South Waziristan and dominated by the Mehsud tribe, and two others from the Swat and Mohmand areas.

A senior city police officer, speaking on the condition of anonymity, said that militant commanders with those factions send operational orders to Karachi from the tribal belt; while some captured militants have tried to justify their activities by citing the authorization of religious clerics in the northwest.

In cases, he added, regular criminal groups have posed as Taliban fighters in a bid to increase their power of intimidation.

Just why the Taliban are adopting such an aggressive profile in Karachi right now is unclear. Some cite the greater number of militants fleeing Pakistani military operations in the northwest; others say it may be the product of dwindling funds, as jihadi donors in the Persian Gulf states turn to the Middle East.

In any event, it has shaken the city’s bloody ethnic politics.

Since the 1980s, armed supporters of the Mohajir-dominated Muttahida Qaumi Movement have engaged in tit-for-tat violence with those of the Pashtun-dominated Awami National Party. In the worst periods, dozens of people have died in a day. Now, faced with a common enemy, figures in both parties say they have declared an uneasy, unofficial truce.

As well as the attack on the Awami party — which have seen it close 44 of its district offices across the city — the Pakistan Taliban claimed responsibility for two attacks on the Muttahida Qaumi Movement — first, a bombing that killed four people, then the assassination of a party parliamentarian.

In a recent interview with The New York Times in North Waziristan, the Taliban spokesman Ehsanullah Ehsan said the group was targeting both parties — as well as President Zardari’s PPP — for their “liberal” policies.

The security forces, shaken out of complacency, have begun a number of major anti-Taliban operations. The latest of those occurred on March 23 when hundreds of paramilitary Rangers raided a residential area in Manghopir, near the crocodile shrine, confiscating a cache of more than 50 weapons and rounding up 200 people, 16 of whom were later identified as militants and detained.

“I don’t think the Taliban would like to set Karachi aflame, because they fear the reaction against them,” said Ikram Seghal, a security consultant in Karachi. “The police and intelligence agencies have very good information about them.”

Other factors limit the Pakistani Taliban’s ingress into Karachi. One of the more provocative ones is that allied militants — particularly the Afghan Taliban — might not like the added publicity. The Afghan wing has long used the city as place to rest and resupply. There are longstanding rumors that the movement’s leader, Mullah Muhammad Omar, is taking shelter here, and that his leadership council, known as the Quetta Shura, has met in Karachi.

In such a vast and turbulent city, the Taliban may become just another turf-driven gang. But without a determined response from the security forces, experts say, they could also seek to become much more.

Soldiers Are Often Reluctant To Fight Their Own Countrymen

The shooting [ http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-asia-19882799 ] on 9 October of Malala Yusufzai, a 14-year-old girls’ education campaigner from Swat Valley in northern Pakistan, is a reminder that militancy is still a significant threat in the north.

A large-scale operation by the Pakistan army against militants in 2009 [ http://www.criticalthreats.org/pakistan/paradise-regained-swat-one-year-may-25-2010 ], later hailed as largely successful, has not driven away the hardliners.

The military spokesman for Swat, Col Arif Mehmood, told the media [ http://tribune.com.pk/story/246049/return-of-militancy-army-launches-operation-in-swat--again/ ] this month that a “search operation” had been on for the past five days against “suspected militants”.

The militants’ targets include campaigners for women’s rights, such as Fareeda Afridi [ http://tribune.com.pk/story/404673/farida-afridi/ ], who was shot dead in Peshawar while on her way to the Khyber Agency, where she worked for the women’s empowerment NGO Sawera.

Meanwhile, schools continue to be bombed [ http://www.dailytimes.com.pk/default.asp?page=2012\104\story_4-10-2012_pg7_10 ] in various incidents [ http://tribune.com.pk/story/436899/terrorism-girls-school-damaged-cd-shop-blown-up-in-two-explosions/ ]. Syed Nauman Ali Shah, the political administration officer in Orakzai Agency, said, “93 schools have been blown up here since 2009, and the trend continues.”

“When the various operations by the military took place in northern areas, the militants in many cases just fled to neighbouring territories where they found safe havens, as these were still under the control of other militant forces – or else they took refuge in neighbouring Afghanistan, where it was impossible for troops to follow,” Shaukat Salim, an analyst and activist based in Swat, said. He said this made a possible resurgence “quite easy”.

“The militant problem has changed shape. Things are not as they were till 2009, when the Taliban controlled all aspects of life,” Sher Muhammad Khan, the vice-chair of the HRCP said. “Targeted actions by militants continue, as in the shooting of Malala or the bombing of schools,” he said, adding that there could be no guarantee militants would not regroup. “Defeating them is all a matter of the will and commitment of the forces engaged against them. A lack of commitment naturally helps them.”

A former military officer said: “Soldiers are often reluctant to fight their own countrymen.”

Getting convictions has also proved problematic. “The fact is the police, due to poor training and resources, can often not produce evidence good enough for the courts to convict people,” said a recently retired police officer in Peshawar.

Current strategy “not working”

Some believe elements within the military may even be collaborating with certain militants. “A liaison between militants and the military was established in the 1980s, after they jointly fought the Soviets in Afghanistan. There are many reasons to believe this alliance continues, at least with specific groups of militants – for strategic reasons sometimes linked to a desire by both parties to regain a hold over Afghanistan,” said a lawyer in Peshawar.

“Oh yes, the militants are definitely still around. They threaten and harass; we have encountered problems with them in Dir District, which borders Swat, and elsewhere, and they clearly haven’t been vanquished,” Gul Lalay, director of programmes for the Peshawar-based women’s empowerment NGO Khwendo Kor (House of Sisters), said.

She said the government needed to work out a “different strategy against them as the current one is not working”. Lalay also said trying to strike a deal with militants or hold talks with them, “as the government had attempted in the past” was “pointless”.

“We are doing our best, but yes incidents like the attack on Malala Yusufzai are shocking,” the information minister in Khyber Paktoonkhwa Province, Mian Iftikhar Hussain, said.

People in northern areas say they still live in fear of militants. “The militant forces like Lashkar-e-Islam [ http://www.irinnews.org/Report/90760/PAKISTAN-A-guide-to-main-militant-groups ] operating here in Bara [a town and district in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas near the Afghan border] still control our lives. I am terrified my son, 15, will be forced to join them through coercive pressure,” Amina Bibi, 50, said in Bara town.

No jobs

Furthermore, the lack of development in Swat and the tribal agencies “definitely nurture militancy”, according to HRCP’s Khan. He said government promises [ http://pakistantimes.net/pt/detail.php?newsId=7496 ] to create employment and bring development to Swat have “not been met”. Huge floods in 2010 [ http://www.irinnews.org/Report/91192/PAKISTAN-Flood-survivors-determined-to-help-themselves ] added to the problems, he said, with rebuilding and rehabilitation work affected.

“Whether it is Swat or somewhere else, what will people do if they have no jobs, no opportunity and they can see no government presence? They will turn to the militant forces who can recruit such desperate people for any purpose – as suicide bombers, as fighters and for other things. Naturally militancy grows in such conditions,” he said. “People need choices in life. If they have none, it is easy for militant groups to lure them in.”

And the problem may be spreading beyond Swat Valley: “I have passed my matriculation exam. Now there is no college in my village, and no jobs on offer. My friends who have aligned themselves with the militants ask me to join almost each day. So far I have resisted, but one day I may give in and at least get a gun,” said Muhammad Murad, 17, from neighbouring Salarzai Valley in Bajaur Agency.

In the meantime, the Pakistan Ex-servicemen Association (PESA) has strongly opposed launching of a military operation in North Waziristan.

The people of North Waziristan are patriotic Pakistanis and have nothing to do with Malala shooting, it said.

These observations were made in a meeting chaired by President PESA Lt. Gen (Retd) Ali Kuli Khan. Vice Admiral Ahmad Tasnim. Air Marshal Masood Akhtar, former ambassador Salim Nawaz Gandapur, Brig Riaz Ahmed, Brig Masud ul Hassan, Major Farouk Hameed and others were also present on the occasion.

The PESA members said that attack on Malala has already been condemned by a jirga attended by leading Maliks who have called it as anti-Islamic and against Pakhtun values and traditions.

A military operation against them would be a cruel injustice as they are already suffering irreparable losses from the Drone attacks, they added.

The warning issued by tribal notables that they will move over to Afghanistan if operation is launched cannot be taken lightly as it could have serious implications for Pakistan, the former military strategists warned.

The meeting observed that the actual culprit is group led by radical cleric Maulana Fazlullah, an affiliate of Tehrike Taliban Pakistan (TTP). He is enjoying Afghan government’s hospitality and is carrying out frequent raids in Dir, Bajaur, Swat and other areas of Khyber Pakhtoonkhwa province, from his bases setup inside Afghanistan.

PESA members said that government should immediately demand and ensure extradition of Fazlullah. US Government is in a position to exert pressure in this regard, they added.

Efforts should also be made for earliest repatriation of over three million Afghan refugees. Their camps could also be used as launching terrorist attacks in Pakistan, they demanded.

The Interior Minister’s announcement regarding head money of Rs 100 million for Central Spokesman of TTP Ihsanullah Ihsan is illegal. It is not known under what capacity or law, the interior minister has made this announcement. Apparently there are no cases in court nor has he been declared an absconder.

It is also doubtful if any government notification has been issued for this award.  In the absence of any legal support, the person bringing Ihsan’s head would himself become liable for charges of murder.

General Secretary: Brig. Syed Masud ul Hassan, 29, Khurshid Alam Road, West Ridge, Rawalpindi. Phone: 0321-5176050http://www.pesapk.com

Patron in Chief: Air Marshal Asghar Khan, Patron:  Air Chief Marshal Kaleem Saadat,

President: Lt. Gen Ali Kuli Khan, SVP:  Admiral Ahmad Tasnim.

Malala Assassination Attempt Shows Talibans’ Intolerance

The life story of a 15-year Pakistani girl Malala who was shot by the Taliban will be published later in 2013, in a deal reported to be worth around £2m.

“I am Malala” will be published in the autumn and will tell the story ofMalala Yousafzai, who was shot by Taliban gunmen after she became an advocate for woman’s education in the Swat Valley. She now attends a school in Birmingham.

Yousafzai said: “I hope this book will reach people around the world, so they realise how difficult it is for some children to get access to education.

“I want to tell my story, but it will also be the story of 61m children who can’t get education. I want it to be part of the campaign to give every boy and girl the right to go to school. It is their basic right.”

The book, which will be published by Weidenfeld & Nicholson in the UK and Commonwealth and by Little, Brown in the rest of the world, is the latest stage of Yousafzai’s public life which almost ended in tragedy.

Yousafzai began writing a blog on the BBC Urdu service under a pseudonym about life in the Swat Valley in 2009. The Taliban were expanding their influence and at times banned girls from going to school and the Pakistani army fought to re-establish control.

Her real identity became known and she frequently appeared in Pakistani and international media advocating for the right of girls to go to school. In October 2011, Archbishop Desmond Tutu nominated her for the International Children’s Peace Prize and in December 2011 she was awarded Pakistan’s first National Youth Peace Prize.

In the book, Yousafzai writes: “I come from a country that was created at midnight. When I almost died it was just after midday. It was Tuesday, October 9, 2012, not the best of days as it was the middle of school exams, though as a bookish girl I don’t mind them as much as my friends do.

“We’d finished for the day and I was squashed between my friends and teachers on the benches of the open-back truck we use as a school bus. There were no windows, just thick plastic sheeting that flapped at the sides and was too yellowed and dusty to see out of, and a postage stamp.”

Since the shooting, Yousafzai has been awarded several peace prizes and is the youngest person to be nominated for the Nobel Peace Prize. Ban Ki-Moon, the secretary general of the United Nations, announced that the UN will celebrate Malala Day on 10 November.

A spokeswoman for Weidenfeld and Nicolson could not confirm reports about the value of the publishing deal.

Arzu Tahsin, the deputy publishing director of Weidenfeld & Nicolsonsaid: “This book will be a document to bravery, courage and vision. Malala is so young to have experienced so much and I have no doubt that her story will be an inspiration to readers from all generations who believe in the right to education and the freedom to pursue it.”

Malala Yusufzai was shot in Mingora, Swat, a district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa, was shot while returning home from her school. She is only 14.

What was her crime? She wrote a weekly blog for the BBC Urdu website in 2009 while the Taliban were occupying Swat and bombing schools and preventing girls from attending educational institutions.

She came into limelight after the ouster of Taliban from Swat. She started attending NGO meetings and making speeches for the right of girls to attain education. She was nominated for an international award and given one by the Pakistan Government.

The Islamic fundamentalists did not like it. On October 9,2012, two masked gunmen, apparently sent by the Taliban leadership to silence Malala forever, stopped her school van, identified her and shot her in the head. She is now fighting for her life and the doctors as of October 12 are saying that the next 36 hours are crucial for her as she fights for her life in a military hospital in Rawalpindi.

Why did the Taliban shoot this 14-year old girl?

“We had no intentions to kill her but were forced when she would not stop (speaking against us),” said spokesman Sirajuddin Ahmad, now based in Afghanistan’s Kunar province while talking to Reuters news agency.

Ahmed said the Taliban held a meeting a few months ago at which they unanimously agreed to kill her. The task was then given to military commanders to carry out.

Did they kill her because she was propagating against Islam? She was only talking about the right of girls to go to schools. Is this unIslamic?

The bottomline is that Taliban cannot stand criticism. They are not democrats and do not believe in any reasoning or freedom of expression or speech. They simply believe in silencing the critic by physically eliminating her or him for ever.

This threat of gun has made the whole nation hostage to these religious bigots.

Resultantly, religious intolerance, bigotry and terrorism have become  the wages of State’s policy of appeasement towards forces of obscurantism.

We know how the State is and we cannot and should not expect any miracles from it. The people will have to stop playing on the Islamic fundamentalists’ wicket. It is time that the secular and liberal forces come out in the open and let the nation know their numbers and worth. Otherwise, it may be too late for all of us.

We all hope that Malala will live to see the love and the respect the nation and even the world has given her. However, the war is not over. The Swat Taliban spokesman has now threatened to kill 14-year-old schoolgirl Malala Yousufzai’s father after a failed attempt to assassinate his daughter, as reported by Reuters.

The spokesman for “Radio Mullah” Maulana Fazlullah’s Swat Taliban which previously had control over the Swat region, told Reuters that two killers from Fazlullah’s special hit squad had been sent to target the young schoolgirl. The Swat Taliban militia, known to work under the Tehriki Taliban Pakistan (TTP) umbrella, has a force of around 100 men specialised in targeted killing, fighters said. They chose two men, aged between 20 to 30, who were locals from Swat Valley, Reuters quoted the fighters as saying.

A military offensive had pushed Fazlullah out of Swat in 2009, but his men had melted away across the border to Afghanistan.

Earlier this year, Fazlullah’s men kidnapped and beheaded 17 Pakistani soldiers in one of several cross border raids.

“Before the attack, the two fighters personally collected information about Malala’s route to school, timing, the vehicle she used and her security,” Reuters quoted the spokesman as saying.

They decided to shoot her near a military checkpoint to make the point they could strike anywhere, he said.

Ziauddin Yousufzai, the headmaster of a girls’ school, is on their hit list for speaking against them, his activities to promote peace in the region and for encouraging his daughter.

“We have a clear-cut stance. Anyone who takes side with the government against us will have to die at our hands,” spokesman warned. “You will see. Other important people will soon become victims.”

In the meantime, the propaganda by the conservative forces against Malala and her family is increasing. Why did the authorities not take Malala and her father into custody for taking part in a propaganda film, they ask?

How did he keep an Israeli in his home for six months to record a documentary? It is unlikely that any Israeli ever visited them or could even be granted visa to come to Pakistan and why would anyone live with the family for six months. However, the propaganda continues unabated.

This family is all drama, the Taliban claim. According to the religious forces, Malala just repeated the words her father taught her and that she is not brave.

The Americans gave her an award of bravery in return for her role and Zardari had to give one too, they say.

Lastly, they question the justification for attacking Waziristan by asking as to what the people of Waziristan have to do with Malala or her attackers?

Malala — Not The Broker, But The Breaker Of Silence

By Baseer Naweed

When a young girl led the way in the fight against extremism it is the duty of all to come out and show solidarity with her. This was the right time to come out against religious extremism and if they kill us then so be it. Hopefully, thousands of  other Malalas would continue the battle. This battle is also for my own children.

This determination is noteworthy as people generally have become dejected by the silence of Pakistani society. One can only hope that perhaps the new generation is taking the lead in what we, the present generation, and those before us, failed to do.

Malala at the age of 11 was nominated among five children from all over the world for the ‘Children’s Nobel Prize’ and came second. Malala was quick to praise the winner, a disabled child to whom Malala gave full credit. When asked what her reaction was when learning that she had come second she said, “I am happy for Michaela for winning the prize as she is a special child and is already working for the disabled children,” adding, in fact, “I couldn’t even stop my tears while seeing Michaela receiving the prize as it was hard for her to hold the prize due to her being a disabled child”.

Even at the tender age of 11 she adamantly stated, “To me education is the only tool that makes a man civilized, a good citizen and helps to develop the Pashtun society.”

The International Children’s Peace Prize is presented annually to a child who’s courageous or otherwise remarkable acts have made a difference in countering problems which affect children around the world.

Malala was one of the five nominees chosen out of 98 children that were put forward by organizations and individuals from 42 different countries. Archbishop Desmond Tutu, himself a Nobel Peace Laureate, announced the five nominees for the International Children’s Peace Prize 2011 in Cape Town. The prize is an initiative of the Dutch organization ‘Kids Rights’ and was launched during the 2005 Nobel Peace Laureates’ Summit chaired by Mikhail Gorbachev. That year, Michaela Mycroft (17) from South Africa was awarded with the Children’s Peace Prize.

Malala was attacked by Taliban to punish her for campaigning for the education of young girls. One thought that the reaction through emails, Facebook, and Twitter would dwindle after a few days and new issues would pop up. And, when that happened, who would care about Malala?

The so-called independent media, which is more tilted towards the right wing and military establishment, would ultimately give more coverage to the Taliban as they usually do and come out with some appeasing comments such as the attack was the result of drone attacks or a military operation. After all Taliban are Pakistani and the attack was carried out by someone else in order to discredit the Taliban.

However, the reaction to the attack did not lose force, but continues even till today. The media and the journalists, besides the teachers and professors, the parents and other sections of society did more than could be expected of ordinary persons, despite the overshadowing threat of religious extremism.

An attempt to kill a 14 year old girl from a remote area of Pakistan radically altered the thinking of an entire society and the silence that prevailed in that society since the 1980s was broken. The silence had remained since the army with the nexus of fundamentalist forces coerced the whole country into crushing the freedom of expression under the name of national security and in the greater interest of the country.

The establishment of Pakistan, which mostly consists of the armed forces, the judiciary, and the bureaucrats, has consciously prompted religious groups to form a “religious power center” to crush the freedom of expression in the country. The other purpose of the religious power center has been to make such a force where the democratic institutions like Parliament and elected bodies lose their bargaining power to confront the military establishment for its role in sordid politics.

The freedom of expression, which is said to be the mother of all human rights, was the first to be eroded through the religious power center, so that society be made to remain silent and people’s actions against corruption and misuse of power would be minimized. At the same time, the importance of education was also minimised. Also, the urge of the masses for a democratic society was strangled. In the span of just a few years, thousands of Madressas (Islamic seminaries) were built with black money and funding from Saudi Arabia. Hundreds of thousands of students were produced through the Madressas, which have swelled the ranks of the militants to crush independent thinking and free choice of judgment in the masses. The blasphemy laws were the best tool in the hands of the bigots to declare who is infidel and who is pious. Even the student’s examinations papers were checked by applying blasphemy laws.

There is no doubt that Malala must be given the credit for breaking the silence imposed by fear, coercion, and terrorism through her brave and untiring courage to speak out. After the attempt to kill her shook the society out of its indifference against the religious militancy and the religious power center, the school children throughout the country came out in her support. The country’s youth came onto the streets and every person participated.

All this was thanks to Malala, the first person to break the silence – the silence that the elected representatives and intellectuals failed to break, even after over 40,000 people have died in Taliban instigated violence.

All these have proved to be the ‘silent broker’ as this was the best way of opportunism to deal with wasted interests so that system based on strangulating society, on one or the other excuse, should remain intact and we should be claimed to be the champions of civil liberties, freedom and rights.

It is sad that this silence resounded even after the assassinations, in broad daylight, of the Governor of Punjab and the Federal Minister of Human Rights. No one came onto the streets in protest. Instead, the killer of the Governor was feted by lawyers, religions parties, and the people themselves. The retired Chief Justice of the Lahore High Court  went so far as to offer his legal services to the assassin, as the assassin was immediately symbolized as a hero for Islam. And, most shamefully, the government remained a silent spectator and left everything in the hands of the religious bigots, and this, even after the governor’ son was abducted from his house by the Taliban. Two years hence his whereabouts still remain unknown, and the government does not want to rock the boat.

This appalling silence was in stark contrast to the reaction of the people to the attack on this brave young girl, who, at the age of 11, started writing a weekly diary to the BBC. Her campaign for the right to education started long before the military operation in the Swat Valley in 2009. When the Taliban moved into the valley, over 2000 schools were destroyed by bombings and suicide attacks. The women were flogged in open places, barber shops were stormed, and anyone found with a hair cut was beaten. All this was done in the name of Shariah. At the age of only 11, it was Malala that said enough is enough and had the courage to speak out. She did this in her limited capacity, but it was enough to frighten the Taliban into taking action. The lava building up inside minds of 180 million people finally erupted after the attack.

The world has seen so many conquerors in its thousands of years of history, but it was the pen of a humble 14-year-old girl that conquered not only the minds and hearts of the people of Pakistan, but those of freedom-minded people all over the world. It is only now that the people are demanding that the terrorists are crushed. The government, military, and all other stakeholders, however, are adding to the confusion by saying that the attack was in retaliation to the drone attacks, military operation, and the policy of the United States towards the Taliban. The state of mind prevalent in Pakistan for the last 66 years still allows for conspiracy theories in favour of the Taliban – that Malala is funded by the US.

In one of her earlier comments, she said that she respected Obama and they are now using this as ‘evidence’ of their accusations. This was emphasised by the fact that when the Chief of Army Staff visited Malala, after the pressure of public opinion became too strong in her favour, he condemned the attack but made no condemnation of the Taliban. This lapse was obviously done in the spirit of appeasement, despite the fact that the Taliban boasted about their responsibility for the attack. They have publically stated that they will continue their murderous attempts if she recovers from her injuries and will not rest until she is dead. Since the attack, they have continued their assault on the local schools in Swat Valley. And, to-date two more schools have been destroyed.

What the Taliban and the Pakistani establishment have failed to see is that the one person unaffected by the conspiracy theories is Malala herself. Her message to the people of the country and the world in general is simply: every child has the right to education, regardless of whether they are male or female. She has presented this message bravely, willing to sacrifice her life and in doing so has completed the job started by numerous NGOs and INGOs with enormous budgets and the backing of the international community. She has become a symbol for students all over the world.

Malala was not the broker of silence but the breaker of silence.

The Anti-Taliban Pakistan

Women in short skirts and men with gelled hair bump and grind on a dance floor as a disc jockey pumps up the volume. The air is thick with illicit smoke and shots of hard liquor are being passed around. Couples cuddle and kiss in a lounge.

This is not Saturday night at a club in New York, London or Paris. It is the secret side of Pakistan, a Muslim nation often described in the West as a land of bearded, Islamic hardmen and repressed, veiled women.

Pakistan was created out of Muslim-majority areas in colonial India 65 years ago, and for decades portrayed itself as a progressive Islamic nation. Starting in the 1980s, however, it has been drifting towards a more conservative interpretation of Islam that has reshaped the political landscape, fuelled militancy and cowed champions of tolerance into silence.

But the country remains home to a large wealthy and Westernised elite that, in private, lives very differently.

Every weekend, fashion designers, photographers, medical students and businessmen gather at dozens of parties in Islamabad, Karachi and Lahore to push social boundaries in discreet surroundings that would horrify, and enrage, advocates of the stricter brand of Islam.

“This is just epic,” said Numair Shahzada, bobbing his head to the beat at a party in a farmhouse outside Islamabad as fitness instructors moonlighting as bouncers looked on. “The light and smoke show is phenomenal.”

Young men and women mix freely, dancing, talking or drinking. Some curl up together in quiet areas.

Although alcohol is prohibited in the country, many have brought their own liquor. Whisky is carried in paper bags and vodka is disguised in water bottles arranged along the dance floor.

The party-goers form only a tiny minority of the country’s 180 million people, but overall, Pakistan is not repressive. Women can drive, are enrolled in universities and have played prominent roles in politics. Unmarried men and women can interact without risking the wrath of religious police.

People from its most populous province, Punjab, are renowned for their exuberance.

But a conservative form of Islam is chipping away at the tolerance.

A few hours drive from Islamabad’s party circuit, parts of remote tribal regions have fallen under the sway of hardline Taliban militants, who dream of toppling the U.S.-backed government and creating a society where revellers would face flogging, or worse.

“Men and women who dance together are damned by God. Whenever we see such displays of vulgarity we will definitely make them a target,” said a senior Taliban commander.

News reports have said a tribal council in a village near the Afghanistan border ordered four women killed earlier this year for clapping and singing as men danced at a wedding. The Supreme Court has ordered an investigation, but there have been no further details.

CREEPING CONSERVATISM

While the vast majority of Pakistanis abhor the Taliban’s violence, there are many who share their belief that Islam should be Pakistan’s guiding force. Religious parties, which do poorly at the polls but exert considerable sway over public debate, believe Islam should govern all spheres of life.

“It’s so messed up,” said Myra, a 23-year-old Pakistani who has dyed her hair reddish-brown.

“You see the servants and the drivers at the parties watching you and you wonder what kind of a person they think you are.”

To avoid prying eyes, the kind of alcohol-fuelled blow-outs enjoyed by Myra and her friends are held in lonely farm-houses in the outskirts of Islamabad and other cities, or in affluent neighbourhoods behind high walls. Organisers charge on average a $60 entry fee, an amount most Pakistanis earn in a month.

Rafia, petite with long, black hair and wearing tight jeans and a low-cut black blouse, is a regular on the party scene.

She frowns on women who carry secret cell phones unmonitored by their parents and wear revealing outfits under conservative dress that come off before getting on the dance floor.

“You can either be God-fearing or you can party,” she said, taking a drag on a marijuana joint at a recent rave.

“I don’t pray regularly and I usually stick to my fast. But at the end of the day, I don’t say I am a very religious person.”

Not everyone agrees.

Bina Sultan, 40, an attractive fashion designer, showcases nude paintings and topless male models in shows. She also wears a silver pendant engraved with a verse from the Koran.

“People think I am shameless but I am actually very religious,” she said at her studio, peppering her sentences with “jaani”, Urdu for darling, while chain smoking.

“My faith is very strong. But everything I do is between my God and me.”

LONELY LIBERALS

Conservatism began sweeping through Pakistan during the military dictatorship of General Mohammad Zia ul-Haq in the 1980s under a drive to Islamize the state.

Zia’s policies are widely blamed for a creeping culture of intolerance that has further isolated liberals.

In an incident that traumatised the elite, the governor of Punjab province, Salman Taseer, was assassinated by his own bodyguard last year for opposing harsh anti-blasphemy laws.

The reaction was almost more shocking to liberals than the murder itself. Clerics organised huge rallies to praise the killer. Even lawyers, once at the vanguard of Pakistan’s democracy movement, showered him with rose petals.

In the growing climate of fear, the space for liberal voices is shrinking.

Pakistani rapper Adil Omar, who attends weekend parties, pokes fun of the Taliban and rising conservatism in his songs. But he never goes too far.

“A lot of people seem to be torn and seem to have an identity crisis,” said Omar, who wears the traditional flowing shirt and baggy trousers. His elaborate forearm tatoo featuring a semi-naked woman and a unicorn has drawn fire on his Facebook page from some fans who see it as an offence to Islam.

“I am careful not to give any opinions regarding religion on the record,” he said, adding: “I don’t want some crazy person chopping off my head.”

 

Pakistani Taliban Will End-up Spreading Polio All Over the World

An estimated 250,000 won’t be receiving the potentially lifesaving polio dose during the recent polio vaccination campaign in Pakistan.

In June, militant leaders in two of the most lawless districts of FATA declared that the vaccination teams would not be allowed to conduct their campaign, declaring that the locally run program was merely a ruse to allow American spies to penetrate the region. “In the garb of these vaccination campaigns, the U.S. and its allies are running their spying networks in FATA, which has brought death and destruction on them in the form of drone strikes,” wrote Mullah Nazir, one of South Waziristan’s major militant commanders, in a pamphlet that was widely distributed on June 25. His screed echoed that of a commander in North Waziristan, Hafiz Gul Bahadur, whose own pamphlet was even more direct: “We don’t want benefits from well-wishers who spend billions to save children from polio, which can affect one or two out of hundreds of thousands, while on the other hand the same well-wisher (America) with the help of its slave (Pakistan’s government) kills hundreds of innocent tribesmen including old women and children by unleashing numerous drone attacks.” The ban on vaccinations, he continued, would not be lifted until the drone strikes stop.

Using children as medical poker chips is indefensible under any circumstances, but the Pakistanis do have other reasons to be suspicious of Westerners bearing vaccines. In the months leading up to Osama bin Laden’s killing in May 2011, a local doctor who was also working for the CIA ran a hepatitis-vaccination campaign in and around Abbottabad, where bin Laden was holed up. The real purpose was to try to obtain DNA samples that would confirm bin Laden or his family members were indeed in residence. That, surely, figured in the Taliban’s decision.

But the militant’s math — “one or two out of hundreds of thousands” — demonstrates an egregious misunderstanding of the sinister swath that polio can cut through a population of healthy, active kids.

For every clinical case of polio, there are 200 subclinical ones that can present themselves merely as a bad summer cold; but that’s 200 active carriers who can and do spread the wild virus. Even people who are infected with what will turn out to be a crippling strain of the disease do not know they’re sick for a week or more, as the virus makes the long journey from the throat to the gut to the bloodstream — multiplying explosively all the way — and finally to the anterior horns of the spinal cord and the medulla oblongata of the brain, where it wipes out the cells that signal the muscles, paralyzing them forever.

The vaccination campaigns take place every six weeks or so; each child under the age of 5 requires three doses to ensure that he or she is truly immune. So not only will the militants’ ban leave the very young vulnerable, it will also negate the effects of previous vaccination campaigns. That too will have long-term consequences, not just for the children but for the worldwide campaign to eradicate polio for good, according to Kluger:

Until recently, polio appeared to be at the very brink of eradication — which would make it only the second disease ever to be wiped out in the wild, following smallpox, which was finally vaccinated out of existence in 1977. As recently as 1988, there were 350,000 cases of polio worldwide, distributed across 125 countries. Thanks to an aggressive, 24-year eradication campaign, however, there were only 650 cases worldwide last year and only 73 so far this year — confined to just three countries: Afghanistan, Pakistan and Nigeria.

Afghanistan’s 10 cases this year have occurred in the country’s south, along the border with Pakistan, where ongoing fighting has prevented vaccination teams from accessing the children. Pakistan’s 22 cases, however, have occurred in all four of the country’s provinces, a worrying sign of the disease’s spread. Nigeria, with 52 cases of paralysis this year, will still be the most difficult country to tackle, though numbers have plummeted over the past four years.

Still, with so few cases worldwide, the prospect of global eradication is tantalizingly close. The longer the Pakistani militants’ ban on vaccination goes on, the more difficult it will be to reach that goal. They might think they are making a point, instead they are holding the lives of Pakistan’s, and the world’s, children hostage. When challenged on that point, both Nazir and Bahadur argued that they were looking out for the long-term good of their people. It’s hard to see how.

What a Fall for Pakistan

by Nadeem F. Paracha 

Over the years many from within and outside Pakistan have been emailing me complaining that whenever they tried to look for pictures of Pakistan on the internet that have little or nothing to do with vicious looking mullahs, suicide bo mb ings and mutilated bodies, they have failed.

I’ve been scouting newspaper libraries and personal photo collections belonging to the parents, aunts and uncles of friends and acquaintances for the last many years in an attempt to chronicle social and cultural shifts and trends in Pakistan before the years when Pakistan’s cultural and social evolution began to become ruddily ridiculous by a quasi-Orwellian ‘Islamist’ dictatorship – a flippant happening whose deafening echoes can still be heard and felt in the now much anguished and tormented Pakistan.

There is very little memory left of a Pakistan that today almost seems like an alien planet compared to what it has been ever since the mid-1980s.

Here, I will share with you some interesting photographs that I’ve managed to gather in the last couple of years of that alien country. A place that was also called Pakistan.

Guevara stayed for a short while in Karachi during his whirlwind tour of Arab and third world countries (in 1959). He again visited Karachi in 1965 and that is when the above photograph was believed to have been taken (inside the VIP lounge of the Karachi Airport.

It is interesting to see Che standing with Ayub Khan whose military coup (in 1958) was not only backed by the US , but was also highly repressive of leftist forces in Pakistan .

The irony is that the widespread leftist uprising in Pakistan in the late 1960s that helped topple the Ayub dictatorship was mainly led by leftist students many of whose icon and hero was, yup, one named Che Ernesto Guevara!

PIA press ad, 1965: This 1965 PIA ad (published in Dawn) bares claims that one can’t even imagine PIA to make in this day and age.

Pakistan’s national carrier has been cru mb ling for the last many years and today stands on the verge of bankruptcy. And yet, back in the 1960s and early 1970s, PIA stood strong and proud, awarded on multiple occasions and being a constant on the list of top ten airlines of the world!

When this ad appeared in print, PIA was enjoying rapid growth within and outside Pakistan . It had already been noted for having ‘the most stylishly dressed air hostesses’, great service, a widespread route and, ahem, ‘having a generous and tasteful selection of wines, whiskeys and beers’ on offer.’*

*Serving alcoholic drinks on PIA was banned in April 1977.

PPP formation, 1967: It’s amazing how little is available by way of any visual documentation of what was perhaps one the most iconic events in the history of Pakistani politics – i.e. the formation of the Pakistan Peoples Party (PPP) during a convention in Lahore in 1967.

The convention gave birth to a populist democratic party that for the next four decades would go onto become both passionately loved, as well as loathed by Pakistanis in equal measure.

Chaired by the suave and yet exuberant Z. A. Bhutto, the convention was attended by some of the country’s leading progressive and leftist intellectuals, journalists and radical student leaders.

This photo shows Bhutto seated among the men who would turn the PPP into a fervent progressive platform that not only accommodated committed Marxists, Maoists, ‘Islamic Socialists’ and liberals alike, but would also go on to sweep the 1970 general election (in former West Pakistan). The most endearing characteristic of the image is the way J. A. Rahim (an otherwise serious and so mb re Marxist thinker and PPP’s leading ideologue) is actually sitting on Bhutto’s lap!

Rahim was one of the founders (along with Z. A. Bhutto) of the PPP and co-author of the party’s original socialist-democratic manifesto.

Unfortunately in 1975, Rahim had a falling out with Bhutto and was humiliatingly expelled from the party.

Bhutto, on the other hand, was hanged by the Ziaul Haq dictatorship in 1979 through a sham trial, taking with him what still remains to be one of the most populist, dynamic and yet, contradictory eras in Pakistani politics.

House full: Pakistani film industry and cinemas began experiencing a creative and financial peak in the late 1960s; a high that would last till about 1979, before starting to patter out in the 1980s and hitting rock bottom a decade later.

There were a nu mb er of reasons for the rapid fall of the industry and the consequential closing down of numerous cinemas.

Two of the leading reasons were the brutal censorship policies of the reactionary Ziaul Haq dictatorship in the 1980s, and the arrival of the VCR.

As Zia’s so-called ‘Islamisation’ process began stuffing public space and collective socialising spots with moral policing and restrictions, the people took their entertainment indoors.

Cinemas were hit the worst by this as not only the ‘respectable’ audiences stopped frequenting cinemas; the Pakistani film industry too began to fall apart.

‘Illegal’ video shops renting Indian films and porn (allowed to openly operate after bribing the police) sprang up and cinemas began to be torn down by their owners and turned into gaudy shopping malls.

For example, in Sindh alone there were over 600 cinemas between 1969 and 1980, but only a few hundred remained by 1985.

Similarly, the Pakistani film industry used to generate an average of 20 Urdu films a year in the 1970s, but by the late 1980s, it was struggling to come out with even five a year.

Nishat survived the thorny Zia years, the VCR invasion and the local film industry’s collapse.

In fact Nishat still stands, reeking out a survival by running latest Indian and Hollywood films.

It is easy to spot the haunting irony on the page that is splashed with disastrous reports about the Pakistani war effort and an impending sense of doom – and yet (on the bottom right) there is a quarter-page ad placed by a large trading company showing the e mb lems of the Pakistan army, air-force and navy and assuring us that ‘Inshallah (God willing), the victory would be ours.’

In hindsight, one can suggest that denial is not exactly so new a trait that Pakistanis have acquired, post-9/11; because the truth is that to most Pakistanis the stunning 1971 surrender actually came as a rude and shocking surprise.

In fact, in the bulletin read out on Radio Pakistan only hours before the final defeat, the newscaster had reported that the Pakistan military was ‘continuing to deliver numerous setbacks and losses to the Indian army’. And we lapped it all up, like a kid smilingly licking an imaginary popsicle.

Taliban, who? No, this is not an image from a bygone hippie flick. It is a picture of real hippies enjoying a few puffs of hashish on the roof of a cheap hotel in Peshawar in 1972. Yes, Peshawar .

Pakistan was an important destination that lay on what was called the ‘hippie trail’ – an overland route taken by young western and American bag-packers between 1967 and 1979 and that ran from Turkey, across Iran, Afghanistan, Pakistan and India, usually ending in Nepal.

Numerous low-budget hotels and a thriving tourist industry sprang up (in Peshawar , Lahore and Karachi ) to accommodate these travellers.

The hippie trail began eroding after the 1977 military coup in Pakistan, the 1979 Islamic Revolution in Iran and the beginning of the Afghan civil war (in 1979).

Live music, great food, lots of booze and dancing were the hallmarks of the scene. Shown here is a club band playing to a happy audience at a ‘mid-range’ nightclub in Karachi (in 1972).

According to former nightclub owner and entrepreneur, Tony Tufail, ‘ Karachi would have gone on to become what Dubai later became if not for the ban.’*

*Nightclubs were closed down in April 1977.

Moonwalkers in Karachi , 1973: How many of you know or reme mb er that the entire crew of NASA’s Apollo 17 flight to the moon visited Pakistan ? In July 1973, astronauts of the United State ’s last mission to the moon arrived in Karachi .

Their visit was widely covered by the press and Pakistan Television (PTV). The astronauts were also honoured by a ‘welcome motorcade procession’ that travelled from Clifton Road till Tower area.

The photograph shows the motorcade reaching the Saddar area that was decorated with Pakistani, American and PPP flags and colourful banners.

Some of the astronauts travelled in an open truck (see picture). The truck also carries a banner that reads (in Urdu): ‘Welcome to the Apollo 17 astronauts.’

Safer days, shorter walls: This is a 1974 picture of Karachi ’s iconic Pearl Continental Hotel (then called the Intercontinental). Notice the short walls of the hotel, hardly 3 and a half feet tall!

Now compare them with the tall, thick walls and the chaotic barbed wire that surround the same hotel today and what with all the concrete barriers and dozens of armed security personnel that one has to go through.

Say, Vat? Nothing extraordinary about this old 1975 Urdu film poster of a movie released at a time when the country’s film industry was booming. However, check out the bottle of whiskey, Vat-69.

This brand of whiskey (according to late filmmaker and cinema historian, Mushtaq Gazdar), appeared in hundreds of Pakistani films between 1950s and late 1970s. But why Vat 69?

Gazdar wasn’t sure, but he did notice that (for whatever reasons), this brand of whiskey was used by most Pakistani directors if they had to show a ‘good person’ drowning their sorrows with the help of a stiff drink, whereas other brands were used if a ‘bad person’ was shown having a shot or two.

Also, bars and nightclubs in Karachi , though stuffed with local brands of beer, vodka and whiskey, mainly stocked Vat 69 as their vintage foreign/imported brand.

Interestingly, after sale of alcohol was banned in 1977 (to Muslims), Vat 69 lost its iconic status and was replaced by local brands (such as Lion Whiskey) now available in ‘licensed wine shops’ in Karachi and the interior Sindh, and Black Label  stocked by enterprising bootleggers.

At the art of it all: This 1975 photograph shows a group of some of Pakistan ’s famous painters and sculptors with a visiting British artist at the Karachi Arts Council. Check out the flares, the sideburns and all. And they’re smoking inside the building. Awesome.

Marriot, 1977: This is a 1977 photograph showing Islamabad ’s Marriot Hotel (then called Holiday Inn) being constructed. Almost three decades later this famous hotel was blown up by suicide bo mb ers and/or psychotics who were in a hurry to reach the rooms their handlers had booked for them in paradise.

Notice the almost barren area in front of the hotel – a far cry from the wide roads, traffic signals and lines of trees and traffic that surrounds the area today.

Talking heads: A terrific 1975 photograph of a scholarly talk show on PTV. Intellectual talk shows were rather popular on TV in Pakistan in the 1970s. This one shows renowned playwrights, Ashfaq Ahmed and Bano Qudsia (centre right), talking about ‘socialist plays’ with the host.

Damned greatness: A 1976 photo of Pakistan ’s Nobel Prize winning scientist, Dr. Abdus Salam (right), with a colleague at a summer college held at Pakistan ’s scenic Nathiyagali resort.

Considered to be one of the greatest minds produced by Pakistan , Dr. Salam, a devout me mb er of the Ahmadi community, was associated with various scientific and developmental projects undertaken by the government from the 1950s till 1974.

He quit and left Pakistan in protest after the Ahmadis were declared as non-Muslim (in the 1973 Constitution).

However, he kept returning to the country on the invitation of friends, but he never reconciled with those who’d pushed to declare his community a non-Muslim minority in the country of his birth and work.

Hippie invasion: Cover of the soundtrack album (LP) of 1974 box-office hit, Miss Hippie. The film depicted the ‘effect hippie lifestyle and fashion were having on Pakistani youth.’ (sic)

Starring popular 1970s Pakistani film actress, Shabnam, the film conveniently forgot that more than half of the hashish that was being consumed by the ‘invading hippies’ was actually being produced and smuggled in and from Pakistan !

However, a commotion broke out between the religious leaders of the movement when JI and JUI men refused to pray behind JUP leader, Shah Noorani.

JUI was inclined towards Sunni Deobandi school of thought whereas Noorani was from the pro-Barelvi JUP. Though united in their opposition to Bhutto’s ‘socialism’, both men thought the other was a ‘misguided Muslim.’

Perversity thy name is morality: A disturbing 1978 photo of one of the first public floggings ordered by General Ziaul Haq’s military courts.

Hundreds of student leaders, trade union activists, journalists and petty criminals were flogged between 1978 and 1981.

Here, floggers with lethal leather sticks in their hands and belonging to the Punjab police are seen stepping on a sentenced man’s back after delivering a flogging ordered by a Lahore military court.

Not in our name: Women organisations were at the forefront of the many movements that took place against the brutal Ziaul Haq dictatorship. This 1980 photograph is from a violent protest held by female college students (in Lahore ) against the Zia regime’s ‘masochistic attitude’ towards women.

Desperado, 1981: This is a rare photograph of notorious Pakistani left-wing radical, Salamulla Tipu, hanging out from the cockpit of a PIA plane that he had hijacked with three other colleagues in 1981.

Tipu, a leftist student leader from Karachi, had joined Murtaza Bhutto’s Al-Zulfikar Organisation (AZO) to instigate an urban guerrilla war against the Ziaul Haq dictatorship (1977-88).

The plane was hijacked from Karachi , flown to Kabul and then to Damascus . Tipu and co. (armed with AK-47s and hand grenades), only released the passengers after the Zia regime agreed to release 50-plus political prisoners from jails.

In 1984, however, in an ironic twist of fate, Tipu the Marxist revolutionary, was executed by the pro-Soviet regime in Kabul after he’d fallen out with Murtaza Bhutto, while the other hijackers travelled to Libya where they are said to be still living.

Before the lights went out: Great photograph of former Pakistani fast bowlers and best mates, Imran Khan and Sarfraz

Nawaz. The picture was taken at a nightclub in Melbourne in 1981, where the two fast men were on a cricket tour with the Pakistan team.

Known to be hearty ‘party boys’, Khan and Nawaz were invited at the inauguration of the nightclub (called ‘Sef’).

According to the owner of the club (a Pakistani-Australian), Nawaz ‘loved to drink’ while Khan was ‘always a hit with the women and a great dancer.’

Khan and Nawaz remained best buddies till the early 1990s before becoming bitter foes after Khan became a ‘born-again Muslim’ and Nawaz joined the PPP.

Nadeem F. Paracha is a cultural critic and senior columnist for Dawn Newspaper and Dawn.com

 

Pakistan Helpless at the Hand of the Taliban Kidnappers

by Declan Walsh/ NYT

A campaign of high-profile kidnappings has provided the Pakistani Taliban and its allies with new resources, arming insurgents with millions of dollars, threatening foreign aid programs and galvanizing a sophisticated network of jihadi and criminal gangs whose reach spans the country.

Wealthy industrialists, academics, Western aid workers and relatives of military officers have been targets in a spree that, since it started three years ago, has spread to every major city, reaching the wealthiest neighborhoods, Pakistani security officials say.

For many hostages, the experience means a harrowing journey into the heart of Waziristan, the fearsome Talibanredoubt along the Afghan border that has borne the brunt of a CIA drone-strike campaign.

One young Punjabi businessman who spent six months there in Taliban hands last year described it as a terrifying time of grimy cells, clandestine journeys, brutal beatings and grinding negotiations with his distraught, distant family.

For all that, his captors betrayed glimpses of humanity, even humor: small acts of kindness; quirky after-dinner games; shared confidences and reminiscences. But their ruthless intent was never in doubt, the former hostage said, speaking anonymously because he feared reprisals against his family.

During his captivity, four teenage suicide bombers were undergoing instruction, taking indoctrination classes in the morning and carrying mock explosive vests equipped with push-button detonators in the afternoon.

“Their mantra was: ‘One button and you go to heaven,’ ” he recalled.

Kidnapping is a centuries-old scourge in parts ofPakistan, from the tribesmen who snatched British colonists in the 19th century to the slum gangs that have preyed onKarachibusiness families since the 1980s. The national total has varied only slightly in recent years: from 474 kidnappings for ransom in 2010 to 467 last year, according to Interior Ministry figures.

What has changed, however, is the level of Taliban involvement.

In one case, a 70-year-old German aid worker and his 24-year-old Italian colleague, who disappeared from the city ofMultanon Jan. 20, are being held by militants inNorth Waziristan, a senior security official confirmed.

Others in militant captivity include Shahbaz Taseer, son of the assassinated former Punjab governor Salmaan Taseer; two Swiss tourists who vanished as they drove toward the Iranian border; the son-in-law of a retired four-star army general; and Warren Weinstein, a 70-year-old American snatched from his home last August, days before he was due to leave Pakistan, and said to be held by Al Qaeda.

The Pakistani Taliban are unapologetic, saying the kidnappings earn valuable funds, offer leverage to free imprisoned fighters and are a political statement against longstanding American efforts to drive Al Qaeda from the tribal belt. “We are targeting foreigners in reaction to government demands that we expel the foreign mujahedeen,” said the deputy leader of the Pakistani Taliban, Wali ur-Rehman, during an interview at hisNorth Waziristanstronghold.

The kidnappings are continuing even as Pakistani security forces have seemed to blunt the militants’ ability to inflict mass casualties: suicide attacks fell by 35 percent in 2011, according to the annual report of the Pak Institute for Peace Studies, while the number of people killed in attacks fell from 3,021 in 2009 to 2,391 last year.

But the lull may be temporary, experts warn, and meanwhile the militants are filling their coffers with ransom money.

The business is run like a mobster racket. Pakistani and foreign militant commanders, based inWaziristan, give the orders, but it is a combination of hired criminals and “Punjabi Taliban” who snatch the hostages from their homes, vehicles and workplaces.

Ransom demands typically range between $500,000 and $2.2 million, although the final price is often one-tenth of the asking amount, security experts say. The kidnappers’ methods are sophisticated: surveillance of targets that can last months; sedative injections to subdue victims after abduction; video demands via Skype; use of different gangs for different tasks, often with little knowledge of one another.

The victims tend to be wealthy — the police have recovered lists of prominent stock market players from kidnappers — and, often, from vulnerable sectarian minorities such as Hindus, Shiites and Ahmadi Muslims.

So it was with the young Punjabi businessman held inWaziristanlast year. “They told me upfront I had been taken because I was an Ahmadi,” he said. “They consider us fair game.”

Snatched by armed men as he drove home from work, the hostage was locked in a cellar for a month before being driven to Miram Shah, the capital of North Waziristan, under the cover of a woman’s all-covering burqa. He would spend five months there, imprisoned in a house with about 20 fighters from the various Taliban strands: Afghans, plotting to attack NATO soldiers across the border inAfghanistan, and Pakistani Taliban, drawn largely from the Mehsud tribe, pitted against their own government.

Over time the hostage developed relationships, of a sort, with his captors. Allowed to roam the compound, he fell into casual conversation with some, helped others with the cooking; sometimes, after meals, the militants would sit in a circle and make funny faces at each other.

The hostage was encouraged to join in.

“The idea was to keep a straight face. At the end, everyone would burst into laughter,” he recalled with a wry smile. “It was funny and surreal.”

Some offered strange privileges. Before recording one hostage video, his captors thrashed him with a water hose. But afterward, two apologetic Afghan fighters sent for painkillers from the bazaar, and insisted on massaging his bruises with olive oil.

Still, there were frequent reminders of the militants’ cold-steel ideology and readiness to kill. As reading material, they offered a treatise by Al Qaeda’s ideological leader, Ayman al-Zawahri; at night they watched, on laptops, videos of Pakistani soldiers being executed, or carefully chosen excerpts from Hollywood titles: Muslims killing Christian crusaders in Ridley Scott’s “Kingdom of Heaven,” or Sylvester Stallone battling Soviet soldiers inAfghanistanin “Rambo 3.”

Help seemed tantalizingly near at times. The sounds of chatting women and playing children drifted from the house next door. Climbing to the rooftop for exercise, he could see a Pakistani military base, its flag fluttering, on the other side of town. Twice, CIA drone  aircraft passed overhead. Yet no rescuers arrived.

“Waziristanis very safe for the Taliban; the place is crawling with them,” he said. “Even the non-Taliban carry weapons, so it’s hard to know who is who.”

Not all militant kidnappings are Taliban-related. In 2009, nationalist rebels in westernBaluchistanProvinceheld an American United Nations official for two months; Baluch nationalists are also suspects in the case of a British Red Cross doctor snatched from Quetta in January.

But no group can match the Taliban’s reach. In the seaside megalopolis ofKarachi, Islamist kidnappers lurk in the sprawling slums, targeting rich business families. Sharfuddin Memon, an adviser to the home minister ofSindhProvince, said militants recently demanded $6.6 million in return for a wealthy industrialist. But in December, the police cornered the kidnappers on the city outskirts; after a shootout, three were killed and the hostage walked free.

“We’ve learned to tell the difference,” Mr. Memon said. “With local criminals, it can take six weeks to resolve a case; with the Taliban it’s more like six months.”

The Taliban’s extended range is most striking, however, in Punjab,Pakistan’s most populous province, where it has allied with criminal gangs to mount daring abductions, often in broad daylight.

One morning last August a gang driving motorbikes and a black S.U.V. dragged Mr. Taseer, the son of the assassinated governor, from his Mercedes sports car in a wealthy district of Lahore. Now Mr. Taseer is being held by Uzbek militants inWaziristan, said Mr. Rehman, the deputy Taliban commander.

Aiding the Taliban’s reach into Punjabis its alliance with Lashkare Jhangvi, a vicious Sunni sectarian group whose cadres dominate the Punjabi Taliban and which has developed strong ties with Al Qaeda. “We see the nexus between the two groups in most cases,” Interior Minister Rehman Malik said.

Sometimes the kidnappers demand more than money. When the son-in-law of Gen. Tariq Majid, a former chairman of the military’s Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee, appeared in a hostage video last year, he reportedly called for the release of 153 prisoners as well as $1.4 million in cash. The hostage identified his captors as Lashkare Jhangvi.

The problem is hurting foreign aid efforts on behalf of poor Pakistanis.

In 2010, Mercy Corps closed 44 offices in two provinces after the Taliban executed an employee taken hostage inBaluchistan. Mercy Corps reportedly paid $250,000 to free four others who had been captured. The abduction of the two Europeans inMultanlast month, and the disappearance of a Kenyan aid worker two days later, stirred fresh alarm among aid workers.

Interior Minister Malik said the government did not encourage payment of ransom, but conceded that, for those who ended up inWaziristan, there were few alternatives — even if it meant financing the insurgency.

When the young Punjabi businessman was freed last year, his family sent a cash payment to the Taliban. Just before his departure from the Miram Shah compound, a handful of fighters bid him farewell.

It was summer, they explained, so it was time to trek across the jagged mountains into Afghanistan, for a fresh season of battle against American and NATO forces.

 

Pakistan Cannot Progress with Siphae Sahaba Given a Free Hand

Sipahe Sahab Pakistan(SSP, currently camouflaged as Ahle Sunnat Wal Jamaat ASWJ) is a banned extremist organization.

Comprising radicalised Jihadi-sectarian assets of Pakistan army, the SSP-SWJ represents a tiny minority of the Deobandi sub-sect of Sunni Islam, and per se does not represent the majority of Sunni Barelvi, Deobandi or Salafi Muslims.

Sunni Muslims inPakistanare divided into three main sects or sub-sects: Barelvis (70%), Deobandi (25%) and Ahl-e-Hadith (5%).

During the CIA-Saudi sponsored Jihad against the Soviet-backed regime in Afghanistan (1979-87), Pakistan army (ISI in particular) recruited and brainwashed thousands of Deobandi Muslims, most of them from Deobandi madarasahs (seminaries) in Pakistan and Afghanistan, to deploy cheap mercenaries in the so called Jihad in Afghanistan.

There were two types of Deobandi Jihadis produced by Pakistan army: Internal and External.

The Internal Jihadis were tasked to attack all those individuals and groups (political parties, religious sects, rights groups etc) who could cause an obstruction in the way ofPakistanarmy’s international Jihadist agenda. WithinPakistan, the internal jihadis focused on killing leaders of progressive political parties (e.g., ANP, PPP, other progressive intellectuals etc) as well as religious sects opposed to radical Deobandi-Wahhabi agenda. Shias, Sunni Barelvis, Ahmadis and Christians were particularly targeted by the brainwashed Jihadist Deobandis.

The External Jihadis were tasked to operate in Afghanistan, India, Bosnia, Chechnya and other countries to promote the goal of international Islamic Empire or Caliphate.

In view of the mounting international pressure in the aftermath of the 9/11, General Musharraf declared the extremist Deobandi organization (the internal Jihadi branch) Sipahe Sahaba as outlawed in 2002. The organization was banned in 2002 as a terrorist organization under the Anti-Terrorism Act of 1997.

However, while the SSP was apparently banned, the organization was secretly allowed to operate byPakistan’s military establishment. The organization continued its Jihadi-sectarian activities by simply adopting a new name “Ahle Sunnat Wal Jamaat” (ASWJ).

The adopting of the ASWJ was a cunning move by the SSP leadership because Ahl-e-Sunnat Wal-Jamaat or Jamaat-e-Ahle-Sunnat is a name particularly used byPakistan’s Sunni Barelvis, moderate Sufi Muslims who constitute a dominant majority ofPakistan’s Sunni Muslims and are strictly opposed to extremist Deobandis’ (SSP) Jihadi-sectarian agenda.

In fact, Jihadi-sectarian militants of SSP (which also operates as Lashkar-e-Jhangvi LeJ) have conducted numerous attacks not only on Shias, Ahamdis and Christians but also on Sunni Barelvis in which hundreds of Barelvi Muslims have been killed or injured.

Jihadi-sectarian militants of the SSP-LeJ are pro-Wahhabi and puritanical in their ideological interpretation and practice of Islam and consider Sunni-Barelvi Muslims as polytheists (mushrik) and deviant Muslims. In the last few years, LeJ-SSP-Taliban terrorists have attacked dozens of Sunni Barelvi congregations including attacks on sufi shrines in Islmabad, Karachi, Lahore, Peshawar etc and also attacks on Eid Milad-un-Nabi’s processions and Sunni Barelvi mosques. Numerous Sunni Barelvi leaders have been killed by the LeJ-SSP militants including but not limited to Saleem Qadri, Abbas Qadri, Sarfraz Naeemi and several others.

List of key attacks on Sunni Barelvis by extremist Deobandis of SSP:

18 May 2001:  Sunni Tehreek leader Saleem Qadri was assassinated by the SSP.  His successor, Abbas Qadri, charged President Pervez Musharraf’s regime with “patronising terrorists” and “standing between us and the murderers.” (Source). Various Sunni Barelvi outfits alleged that the country’s intelligence agencies were responsible for the killing of Maulana Saleem Qadri. According to these outfits, the agencies were utilising the SSP to trigger sectarian violence among the Shia, Deoband and Sunni Barelwi sects. (Source). When the SSP’sKarachifinance secretary was arrested after the murder of Sunni Tehreek chief Saleem Qadri, he revealed that his organisation received 32 lakh rupees a year from Karachi for the purposes of posting bail, assisting its imprisoned activists and the families of deceased activists. This entire amount was reportedly kept as amanat (safe custody) with one Maulvi Saadur Rehman, head of a religious school inKarachi, and the withdrawals were made through written messages. (Source). Qadri, a high-profile Muslim cleric of the Sunni Barelvi school, was ambushed, apparently by a team of six well-trained assassins riding three motorbikes while he was on his way to Noorani Masjid in Rasheedabad no 7 for the Friday congregation. Qadri and five others were killed on the spot, and three others, including his six-year-old son Bilal Raza, and eight-year-old nephew, Ahmed Raza, were wounded. The dead include Anis Qadri, 23, Mohammed Altaf Junejo, 40 (Qadri’s nephew and brother-in-law), Ibrahim Qadri, 30, van driver Abid Baloch, 30, and police constable, Hafeez Qadri. The corpse of one of the killers, who was later identified as “Arshad alias Polka, an activist of the Sipha-e-SahabaPakistan(SSP)”, was also found in the vicinity of the Qadri killing soon afterwards, who was killed in retaliatory firing by Saleem Qadri’s guards. (Source)

19 March 2005: An SSP-LeJ suicide bomber killed 36 at the shrine of Pir Rakhel Shah in Jhal Magsi, Balochistan.

27 May 2005: As many as 20 people were killed and 100 were injured on May 27, 2005 when an extremist Deobandi suicide-bomber attacked a gathering at Bari Imam Shrine during the annual festival. According to the police the two men, said to be active members of Sipah-e-SahabaPakistan(SSP), were arrested from Thanda Pani and police seized two hand grenades from their custody. The police said that the two men brought the suicide-bomber from Northern Areas and provided him boarding at the house of another member of the SSP inRawalpindibefore sending the attacker to the shrine.

11 April 2006: A grand Sunni Barelvi congregation celebrating the birthday of the Prophet Muhammad on Eid Milad un Nabi was suicide-bombed by an extremist Deobandi. 57 died including almost the entire leadership of the Sunni Tehrik; over 100 were injured. T

16 December 2008: Pir Samiullah was killed by extremist Deobandis in Swat, his dead body was exhumed and desecrated.

17 January 2009: Pir Rafiullah was killed inPeshawar.

18 February 2009: JUP-Noorani’s provincial leader Maulana Iftikhar Ahmed Habibi was killed inQuetta.

8 March 2009: Attack on Rahman Baba Shrine by extremist Deobandis

12 June 2009: Mufti Sarfraz Ahmed Naeemi was killed by an extremist Deobandi. He was a leading Sunni Islamic cleric fromPakistanwell known for his moderate and anti-terrorist views. He was killed in a suicide bombing in Lahore, Pakistan after publicly denouncing the Taliban’s terrorist actions and ideologies.

2 September 2009: Attack on Hamid Saeed Kazmi in Islamabad. He sustained injuries but survived.

1 July 2010: The July 2010Lahorebombings occurred in Lahore. Two suicide bombers blew themselves up at the Sufi shrine, Data Durbar Complex. At least 50 people died and 200 others were hurt in the blasts.

7 October 2010: 10 people killed, 50 injured in an attack on Abdullah Shah Ghazi shrine in Karachi

25 October 2010: 5 killed, several injured in an attack on the shrine of Baba Farid Ganj Shakar in Pakpattan.

14 December 2010: Attack on Ghazi Baba shrine in Peshawar, 3 killed.

3 April 2011: At the annual festival of Sakhi Sarwar Shrine near D.G.Khan, a twin suicide attack left 42 dead and almost a hundred injured.

List of Deobandi and Wahhabi Muslims killed by SSP:

30 May 2004: A senior Deobandi religious scholar and head of Islamic religious school Jamia Binoria, Mufti Nizamuddin Shamzai, was gunned down in his car while leaving his home in Karachi.

17 September 2007: Maulana Hasan Jan was killed in Peshawar.

19 September 2008: A bomb exploded at an Islamic religious school inQuettakilling five people and wounding at least eight. The school was run by Jamiat Ulemae Islam of Maulana Fazal-ur-Rehman.

2 October 2010: Dr Muhammad Farooq Khan, Mardan