The army must face up to Taliban ! 3 districts and FATA ! How much will they concede to the Taliban ?
Bravo Bravo MQM ! MQM is the only party that is crying hoarse on the Taliban's advance !
Where are the Civil Rights groups ? Lawyers anyone ? Iftikhar Chaudry - like hello ? 100's of judges and lawyers have been asked to wrap up and leave Swat, Dir and now Buner.
Please DO NOT tell me that the Pakistani Army is waiting for the Taliban to reach the Attock Bridge before they act ?
If the Pakistan Army acts now to evict the Taliban from the 3 districts the expected casualties at this time would be in access to a 100,000.
Pakistan army faces 5000 suicide bombers which will be leashed all over Pakistan to take revenge. LTTE got defeated after 30 years !
Wake up Pakistan. Its time to go for war !
The majority opinion which not so long ago favoured the Nizam-e Adl Regulation (NAR) in Swat is now shifting away from a pro-Taliban stance and conceding that Pakistan might have to fight them as Pakistan’s own war after all. This has happened owing to developments that were predictable to the entire world but not to most Pakistanis because of a media bias. The Swat Taliban have finally said that they are not bound to honour the peace accord between the government and the TNSM cleric Sufi Muhammad. That puts paid to the NAR.
Sufi Muhammad was supposed to declare war against the Taliban if they did not abide by the NAR, but he has instead condemned the Constitution of Pakistan as an infidel institution. A kind of jihadi nepotism has overcome him as he refuses to see what his son-in-law Fazlullah is doing in Dir and Buner in violation of the accord. Indeed, the Taliban spokesman Muslim Khan has denounced those who criticise the Sufi’s “verdict” against democracy and insists that his brand of shariat will be applied throughout Pakistan, with jiziya (protection tax) imposed on non-Muslims. (Jiziya can be retrospective, amounting to crores of rupees, as happened in the case of the Sikh community in Orakzai.)
There’s more disquieting news. Like all Taliban, including some pro-Pakistan warlords like Maulvi Nazir, the Taliban spokesman has welcomed Al Qaeda and its leadership to the areas conquered by the Taliban and vowed to help such formerly state-backed jihadi organisations as Lashkar-e Tayba and Jaish-e Muhammad in addition to the “foreign” outfits such as the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan, to consolidate their hold on Pakistan’s territory. The chief of the Lashkar is in protective custody and the Jaish chief has been made to “disappear” for the same reason — if they are visible, there may be pressure to extradite them.
The message is clear: the Taliban are linked to Al Qaeda and they are counting on such elements in Punjab to help them take their war down to other parts of Pakistan. When the Swat deal was being sewed up, only the MQM objected, but it was soon isolated in parliament when the National Assembly voted in favour of the NAR. The media-mujahideen acted in the same irresponsible manner in which they had acted during the Lal Masjid affair by siding with the Taliban over the videoed whipping of a 17-year-old girl. The Supreme Court added its bit by releasing the Lal Masjid cleric who immediately announced his resolve to spread the Taliban shariat in Pakistan.
Interior Adviser Mr Rehman Malik has growled ineffectually in reply and the advocate general in Peshawar has asserted that the High Court will exercise full authority over the qazi courts in Swat. But everyone knows that the advocate general will never go to Swat to say this and risk getting his head chopped off at a Mingora square. Mr Nawaz Sharif has expressed concern after his party kept saying it was not Pakistan’s war that the army was fighting against the Taliban. His refusal to morally support the PPP government earlier and his party’s rejection of an ISI briefing on the matter in a joint parliamentary session had actually made the army back off.
Finally, it is the army that has to step forward and face the Taliban. It has baulked so far because of adverse public opinion and an equally lethal media tilt. But now that the politicians are waking up to the danger and the media is increasingly disabused, the army must end its India-driven strategy and try to save Pakistan from becoming the caliphate of Al Qaeda. In fact, Islamabad has to reach an understanding with New Delhi over the matter in order to get the army to mobilise in the numbers required. However, if this is not done, the people will have to fight the war on their own. The MQM is asking the right question: what if the Taliban come and the army is not there to protect us?
Swat is the challenge staring us in the face. If we don’t accept it and fight the Taliban, then the world will have to come and fight it the way it thinks fit.
Thursday, April 23, 2009
Friday, April 17, 2009
Pakistan on course to become Islamist state, U.S. experts say
WASHINGTON — A growing number of U.S. intelligence, defense and diplomatic officials have concluded that there's little hope of preventing nuclear-armed Pakistan from disintegrating into fiefdoms controlled by Islamist warlords and terrorists, posing the a greater threat to the U.S. than Afghanistan's terrorist haven did before 9/11.
"It's a disaster in the making on the scale of the Iranian revolution," said a U.S. intelligence official with long experience in Pakistan who requested anonymity because he wasn't authorized to speak publicly.
Pakistan's fragmentation into warlord-run fiefdoms that host al Qaida and other terrorist groups would have grave implications for the security of its nuclear arsenal; for the U.S.-led effort to pacify Afghanistan ; and for the security of India , the nearby oil-rich Persian Gulf and Central Asia , the U.S. and its allies.
" Pakistan has 173 million people and 100 nuclear weapons, an army which is bigger than the American army, and the headquarters of al Qaida sitting in two-thirds of the country which the government does not control," said David Kilcullen , a retired Australian army officer, a former State Department adviser and a counterinsurgency consultant to the Obama administration.
" Pakistan isn't Afghanistan , a backward, isolated, landlocked place that outsiders get interested in about once a century," agreed the U.S. intelligence official. "It's a developed state . . . (with) a major Indian Ocean port and ties to the outside world, especially the (Persian) Gulf, that Afghanistan and the Taliban never had."
"The implications of this are disastrous for the U.S.," he added. "The supply lines (from Karachi to U.S. bases) in Kandahar and Kabul from the south and east will be cut, or at least they'll be less secure, and probably sooner rather than later, and that will jeopardize the mission in Afghanistan , especially now that it's getting bigger."
The experts McClatchy interviewed said their views aren't a worst case scenario but a realistic expectation based on the militants' gains and the failure of Pakistan's civilian and military leadership to respond.
"The place is beyond redemption," said a Pentagon adviser who asked not to be further identified so he could speak freely. "I don't see any plausible scenario under which the present government or its most likely successor will mobilize the economic, political and security resources to push back this rising tide of violence.
"I think Pakistan is moving toward a situation where the extremists control virtually all of the countryside and the government controls only the urban centers," he continued. "If you look out 10 years, I think the government will be overrun by Islamic militants."
That pessimistic view of Pakistan's future has been bolstered by Islamabad's surrender this week for the first time of areas outside the frontier tribal region to Pakistan's Taliban movement and by a growing militant infiltration of Karachi , the nation's financial center, and the industrial and political heartland province of Punjab, in part to evade U.S. drone strikes in the tribal belt.
Civilian deaths in the drone attacks, the eight-year-old U.S. intervention in Afghanistan and U.S. support for Pakistan's former military dictatorship also have sown widespread ambivalence about the threat the insurgency poses and revulsion at fighting fellow Muslims.
"The government has to ratchet up the urgency and ratchet up the commitment of resources. This is a serious moment for Pakistan ," said Sen. John Kerry , D- Mass. , the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman, on April 14 in Islamabad . "The federal government has got to . . . define this problem as Pakistan's ."
Many Pakistanis, however, dismiss such warnings as inflated. They think that the militants are open to dialogue and political accommodation to end the unrest, which many trace to the former military regime's cooperation with the U.S. after 9/11.
Ahsan Iqbal , a top aide to opposition leader and former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif , said the insurgency can be quelled if the government rebuilds the judicial system, improves law enforcement, compensates guerrillas driven to fight by relatives' deaths in security force operations and implements democratic reforms.
"It will require time," Iqbal told McClatchy reporters and editors this week. "We need a very strong resolve and internal unity."
Many U.S. officials, though, regard the civilian government of Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari as unpopular, dysfunctional and mired in infighting. It's been unable to agree on an effective counterinsurgency strategy or to address the ills that are feeding the unrest. These include ethnic and sectarian hatreds, ineffective police, broken courts, widespread corruption, endemic poverty and a deepening financial crisis, they said.
Pakistan's army, meanwhile, is hobbled by a lack of direction from the country's civilian leaders, disparaged for its repeated coups and shaken by repeated defeats by the militants. It remains fixated on India to ensure high budgets and cohesion among troops of divergent ethnic and sectarian allegiances, U.S. officials and experts said.
Many officers and politicians also oppose fighting the Islamist groups that Pakistan nurtured to fight proxy wars in Afghanistan and Kashmir , and because they think the U.S. is secretly conspiring with India to destabilize their country.
Alarm rose in Washington this week after the parliament and Zardari agreed to impose Islamic law in the Swat district, where extremists have repelled several army offensives; closed girls' schools; and beheaded, hanged and lashed opponents and alleged criminals.
The government's capitulation handed the militants their first refuge outside the remote tribal area bordering Afghanistan , and less than 100 miles north of Islamabad . Taliban fighters also advanced virtually unopposed from Swat into the Buner district, 60 miles north of Islamabad .
Buner is close to a key hydroelectric dam and to the highways that link Pakistan to China , and Islamabad to Peshawar , the capital of the North West Frontier Province , much of which is already under Taliban sway.
Many U.S. officials and other experts expect the militants to continue advancing.
The Taliban "have now become a self-sustaining force," author Ahmed Rashid , an expert on the insurgency, told a conference in Washington on Wednesday. "They have an agenda for Pakistan , and that agenda is no less than to topple the government of Pakistan and 'Talibanizing' the entire country."
Iqbal, the adviser to Sharif, disagreed. While militants will overrun small pockets, most Pakistanis embrace democracy and will resist living under the Taliban's harsh interpretation of Islam, he said.
"The psychology, the temperament, the mood of the Pakistani nation does not subscribe to these extremist views," Iqbal said.
The U.S. intelligence official, however, said that Pakistan's elite, dominated since the country's independence in 1947 by politicians, bureaucrats and military officers from Punjab, have failed to recognize the seriousness of the situation.
"The Punjabi elite has already lost control of Pakistan , but neither they nor the Obama administration realize that," the official said. " Pakistan will be an Islamist state — or maybe a collection of four Islamic states, probably within a few years. There's no civilian leadership in Islamabad that can stop this, and so far, there hasn't been any that's been willing to try."
Several U.S. officials said that the Afghanistan - Pakistan strategy that President Barack Obama unveiled last month is being called into question by the accelerating rate at which the insurgency in Pakistan is expanding.
The plan hinges on the Pakistani army's willingness to put aside its obsession with Hindu-dominated India and focus on fighting the Islamist insurgency. It also presupposes, despite doubts held by some U.S. officials, that sympathetic Pakistani military and intelligence officers will sever their links with militant groups.
"It's a disaster in the making on the scale of the Iranian revolution," said a U.S. intelligence official with long experience in Pakistan who requested anonymity because he wasn't authorized to speak publicly.
Pakistan's fragmentation into warlord-run fiefdoms that host al Qaida and other terrorist groups would have grave implications for the security of its nuclear arsenal; for the U.S.-led effort to pacify Afghanistan ; and for the security of India , the nearby oil-rich Persian Gulf and Central Asia , the U.S. and its allies.
" Pakistan has 173 million people and 100 nuclear weapons, an army which is bigger than the American army, and the headquarters of al Qaida sitting in two-thirds of the country which the government does not control," said David Kilcullen , a retired Australian army officer, a former State Department adviser and a counterinsurgency consultant to the Obama administration.
" Pakistan isn't Afghanistan , a backward, isolated, landlocked place that outsiders get interested in about once a century," agreed the U.S. intelligence official. "It's a developed state . . . (with) a major Indian Ocean port and ties to the outside world, especially the (Persian) Gulf, that Afghanistan and the Taliban never had."
"The implications of this are disastrous for the U.S.," he added. "The supply lines (from Karachi to U.S. bases) in Kandahar and Kabul from the south and east will be cut, or at least they'll be less secure, and probably sooner rather than later, and that will jeopardize the mission in Afghanistan , especially now that it's getting bigger."
The experts McClatchy interviewed said their views aren't a worst case scenario but a realistic expectation based on the militants' gains and the failure of Pakistan's civilian and military leadership to respond.
"The place is beyond redemption," said a Pentagon adviser who asked not to be further identified so he could speak freely. "I don't see any plausible scenario under which the present government or its most likely successor will mobilize the economic, political and security resources to push back this rising tide of violence.
"I think Pakistan is moving toward a situation where the extremists control virtually all of the countryside and the government controls only the urban centers," he continued. "If you look out 10 years, I think the government will be overrun by Islamic militants."
That pessimistic view of Pakistan's future has been bolstered by Islamabad's surrender this week for the first time of areas outside the frontier tribal region to Pakistan's Taliban movement and by a growing militant infiltration of Karachi , the nation's financial center, and the industrial and political heartland province of Punjab, in part to evade U.S. drone strikes in the tribal belt.
Civilian deaths in the drone attacks, the eight-year-old U.S. intervention in Afghanistan and U.S. support for Pakistan's former military dictatorship also have sown widespread ambivalence about the threat the insurgency poses and revulsion at fighting fellow Muslims.
"The government has to ratchet up the urgency and ratchet up the commitment of resources. This is a serious moment for Pakistan ," said Sen. John Kerry , D- Mass. , the Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chairman, on April 14 in Islamabad . "The federal government has got to . . . define this problem as Pakistan's ."
Many Pakistanis, however, dismiss such warnings as inflated. They think that the militants are open to dialogue and political accommodation to end the unrest, which many trace to the former military regime's cooperation with the U.S. after 9/11.
Ahsan Iqbal , a top aide to opposition leader and former Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif , said the insurgency can be quelled if the government rebuilds the judicial system, improves law enforcement, compensates guerrillas driven to fight by relatives' deaths in security force operations and implements democratic reforms.
"It will require time," Iqbal told McClatchy reporters and editors this week. "We need a very strong resolve and internal unity."
Many U.S. officials, though, regard the civilian government of Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari as unpopular, dysfunctional and mired in infighting. It's been unable to agree on an effective counterinsurgency strategy or to address the ills that are feeding the unrest. These include ethnic and sectarian hatreds, ineffective police, broken courts, widespread corruption, endemic poverty and a deepening financial crisis, they said.
Pakistan's army, meanwhile, is hobbled by a lack of direction from the country's civilian leaders, disparaged for its repeated coups and shaken by repeated defeats by the militants. It remains fixated on India to ensure high budgets and cohesion among troops of divergent ethnic and sectarian allegiances, U.S. officials and experts said.
Many officers and politicians also oppose fighting the Islamist groups that Pakistan nurtured to fight proxy wars in Afghanistan and Kashmir , and because they think the U.S. is secretly conspiring with India to destabilize their country.
Alarm rose in Washington this week after the parliament and Zardari agreed to impose Islamic law in the Swat district, where extremists have repelled several army offensives; closed girls' schools; and beheaded, hanged and lashed opponents and alleged criminals.
The government's capitulation handed the militants their first refuge outside the remote tribal area bordering Afghanistan , and less than 100 miles north of Islamabad . Taliban fighters also advanced virtually unopposed from Swat into the Buner district, 60 miles north of Islamabad .
Buner is close to a key hydroelectric dam and to the highways that link Pakistan to China , and Islamabad to Peshawar , the capital of the North West Frontier Province , much of which is already under Taliban sway.
Many U.S. officials and other experts expect the militants to continue advancing.
The Taliban "have now become a self-sustaining force," author Ahmed Rashid , an expert on the insurgency, told a conference in Washington on Wednesday. "They have an agenda for Pakistan , and that agenda is no less than to topple the government of Pakistan and 'Talibanizing' the entire country."
Iqbal, the adviser to Sharif, disagreed. While militants will overrun small pockets, most Pakistanis embrace democracy and will resist living under the Taliban's harsh interpretation of Islam, he said.
"The psychology, the temperament, the mood of the Pakistani nation does not subscribe to these extremist views," Iqbal said.
The U.S. intelligence official, however, said that Pakistan's elite, dominated since the country's independence in 1947 by politicians, bureaucrats and military officers from Punjab, have failed to recognize the seriousness of the situation.
"The Punjabi elite has already lost control of Pakistan , but neither they nor the Obama administration realize that," the official said. " Pakistan will be an Islamist state — or maybe a collection of four Islamic states, probably within a few years. There's no civilian leadership in Islamabad that can stop this, and so far, there hasn't been any that's been willing to try."
Several U.S. officials said that the Afghanistan - Pakistan strategy that President Barack Obama unveiled last month is being called into question by the accelerating rate at which the insurgency in Pakistan is expanding.
The plan hinges on the Pakistani army's willingness to put aside its obsession with Hindu-dominated India and focus on fighting the Islamist insurgency. It also presupposes, despite doubts held by some U.S. officials, that sympathetic Pakistani military and intelligence officers will sever their links with militant groups.
Wednesday, April 15, 2009
Taliban : Quick Summary of the Taliban Reign in NW Pakistan !
Pakistani Army withdraws from 3 key Districts :
Pakistani Army are sitting Ducks and watch three districts taken away ! What are they waiting for ? It will be a very sorry state if General Kiani acts against the Taliban after they reach the Attock Bridge. Are the people of Swat and Dir chicken feed ?
Talibaan carry out daily Killings of the "accused" ! The more Drones bomb the border towns the Taliban quietly moves inwards into Pakistan ! They have now have control of these areas in Pakistan and FATA !
FATA,
Swat,
Dir
and Buner.
Quetta and DI Khan are next ?
Watch Hamid Mir on Fora.tv on the Taliban :
http://fora.tv/2009/04/01/Resurgence_of_the_Taliban_in_Pakistan_Hamid_Mir#chapter_06
Time line of Taliban Rule in Pakistan :
February 7, 2009 :
1100 ANP works were killed in a span of 3 months.
March 1, 2009 :
A Hijra (Eunuch) was hung from a pole in Swat because of his 'ways'
March 14, 2009 :
Threatened by the so called Islamic Taliban 100 Pushtoon Hindu and Sikh families migrate to India from Swat. Swat had been their home for centuries.
April 4, 2009:
Taliban flog a 17 year old Minor girl for taking a walk with her Father in Law !
April 10, 2009 :
Taliban Kill a couple who were accused of falling in love. They had eloped.
April 14, 2009
KOHAT: Local Taliban killed three men who were accused of assaulting an eight-year-old boy and threw their bodies in Arakhel square in the Kohat Frontier Region on Monday. A Taliban spokesman said the ‘accused’ had admitted before their shura and tribal elders to have assaulted the boy. The shura sentenced them to death before a firing squad. The Taliban had announced last month that they would enforce religious laws in the region.
April 14, 2009
Militants in Punjab allying with Taliban: NYT
http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/news/world/militant-group-coalescing-with-taliban-in-punjab-nyt--bi
NEW YORK: The militant groups in Punjab are coalescing with Taliban reinvigorating an alliance which is a serious ‘risk to the stability of the country.’ The New York Times reported Tuesday quoting American and Pakistani officials.
In a dispatch from Dera Ghazi Khan, the newspaper pointed out that manifestation of such an alliance was witnessed in the deadly assault in March in Lahore, Punjab’s capital, against the Sri Lankan cricket team, and the bombing last fall of the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad.
At least 20 militants killed in American strikes in the tribal areas since last summer were Punjabi, according to people from the tribal areas and Pakistani officials. One Pakistani security official estimated that 5 per cent to 10 per cent of militants in the tribal regions could be Punjabi.
April 15, 2009 :
Armed militants occupy Sikhs' homes in Pak
Armed militants have occupied four homes of members of the minority Sikh community in Pakistan's restive Aurakzai tribal region near the northwestern city of Peshawar, a media report said on Wednesday. About 200 armed militants arrived at Qasimkhel village in Aurakzai Agency yesterday and demanded Rs 40 million from the Sikhs, said Galyan Singh, an elder of the minority community. "We failed to pay the amount and they forced the 38-member Sikh community to vacate houses," Singh told The News daily. The families that were evicted from their homes have taken refuge in Manikhel area, Singh said. Local residents of Qasimkhel condemned the incident and said injustice had been done to the Sikhs. There is a sizeable number of Sikhs living in Peshawar and adjoining semi-autonomous tribal regions.
Aprils 17, 2009 :
Taliban execute man, woman in Hangu
Footage shows Taliban militants shooting a man and woman charged with adultery in front of their relatives.
April 18, 2009:
Tehsildar dies in Taliban custody
GHALANAI: The Taliban in Mohmand Agency said on Saturday that the Yakaghund tehsildar they had abducted last month was dead. Taliban spokesman Ikramullah told Daily Times that Arshad Ali had died due to kidney failure. The government official was kidnapped on March 8, after a fierce gunfight between troops and the Taliban. Fourteen soldiers had been killed in the clash.Taliban had demanded the release of their arrested accomplices in return for the tehsildar’s release. They have declined to return the body until their demand was met. mukaram khan
April 19, 2009
(Keep watching the show )
Pakistani Army are sitting Ducks and watch three districts taken away ! What are they waiting for ? It will be a very sorry state if General Kiani acts against the Taliban after they reach the Attock Bridge. Are the people of Swat and Dir chicken feed ?
Talibaan carry out daily Killings of the "accused" ! The more Drones bomb the border towns the Taliban quietly moves inwards into Pakistan ! They have now have control of these areas in Pakistan and FATA !
FATA,
Swat,
Dir
and Buner.
Quetta and DI Khan are next ?
Watch Hamid Mir on Fora.tv on the Taliban :
http://fora.tv/2009/04/01/Resurgence_of_the_Taliban_in_Pakistan_Hamid_Mir#chapter_06
Time line of Taliban Rule in Pakistan :
February 7, 2009 :
1100 ANP works were killed in a span of 3 months.
March 1, 2009 :
A Hijra (Eunuch) was hung from a pole in Swat because of his 'ways'
March 14, 2009 :
Threatened by the so called Islamic Taliban 100 Pushtoon Hindu and Sikh families migrate to India from Swat. Swat had been their home for centuries.
April 4, 2009:
Taliban flog a 17 year old Minor girl for taking a walk with her Father in Law !
April 10, 2009 :
Taliban Kill a couple who were accused of falling in love. They had eloped.
April 14, 2009
KOHAT: Local Taliban killed three men who were accused of assaulting an eight-year-old boy and threw their bodies in Arakhel square in the Kohat Frontier Region on Monday. A Taliban spokesman said the ‘accused’ had admitted before their shura and tribal elders to have assaulted the boy. The shura sentenced them to death before a firing squad. The Taliban had announced last month that they would enforce religious laws in the region.
April 14, 2009
Militants in Punjab allying with Taliban: NYT
http://www.dawn.com/wps/wcm/connect/dawn-content-library/dawn/news/world/militant-group-coalescing-with-taliban-in-punjab-nyt--bi
NEW YORK: The militant groups in Punjab are coalescing with Taliban reinvigorating an alliance which is a serious ‘risk to the stability of the country.’ The New York Times reported Tuesday quoting American and Pakistani officials.
In a dispatch from Dera Ghazi Khan, the newspaper pointed out that manifestation of such an alliance was witnessed in the deadly assault in March in Lahore, Punjab’s capital, against the Sri Lankan cricket team, and the bombing last fall of the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad.
At least 20 militants killed in American strikes in the tribal areas since last summer were Punjabi, according to people from the tribal areas and Pakistani officials. One Pakistani security official estimated that 5 per cent to 10 per cent of militants in the tribal regions could be Punjabi.
April 15, 2009 :
Armed militants occupy Sikhs' homes in Pak
Armed militants have occupied four homes of members of the minority Sikh community in Pakistan's restive Aurakzai tribal region near the northwestern city of Peshawar, a media report said on Wednesday. About 200 armed militants arrived at Qasimkhel village in Aurakzai Agency yesterday and demanded Rs 40 million from the Sikhs, said Galyan Singh, an elder of the minority community. "We failed to pay the amount and they forced the 38-member Sikh community to vacate houses," Singh told The News daily. The families that were evicted from their homes have taken refuge in Manikhel area, Singh said. Local residents of Qasimkhel condemned the incident and said injustice had been done to the Sikhs. There is a sizeable number of Sikhs living in Peshawar and adjoining semi-autonomous tribal regions.
Aprils 17, 2009 :
Taliban execute man, woman in Hangu
Footage shows Taliban militants shooting a man and woman charged with adultery in front of their relatives.
April 18, 2009:
Tehsildar dies in Taliban custody
GHALANAI: The Taliban in Mohmand Agency said on Saturday that the Yakaghund tehsildar they had abducted last month was dead. Taliban spokesman Ikramullah told Daily Times that Arshad Ali had died due to kidney failure. The government official was kidnapped on March 8, after a fierce gunfight between troops and the Taliban. Fourteen soldiers had been killed in the clash.Taliban had demanded the release of their arrested accomplices in return for the tehsildar’s release. They have declined to return the body until their demand was met. mukaram khan
April 19, 2009
(Keep watching the show )
Friday, April 10, 2009
Indian Caught planning attack on Police Academy in Rawalpindi
This is the most significant news of the year !
RAWALPINDI: Police arrested five more suspects in Sihala on Friday, after an Indian national arrested earlier in the day confessed to planning an attack on Police College Sihala, DawnNews reported.
Interrogation of the five arrested was underway. They were seized on a tip off by the arrested Indian.
The earlier arrest was made in the jurisdiction of Police College Sihala, near Rawalpindi, DawnNews reported.
He was arrested on suspicion after being seen in the area, officials said.
An investigation team has been set up to question him, Deputy Inspector General of Police and commandant of the college Fateh Sher Joyia told DawnNews.
However, sources said the alleged Indian spy admitted that he and others were planning terror attacks on Police College Sihala, DawnNews reported.
The alleged spy has been handed over to secret agencies for further investigation, sources told DawnNews.
Officials declined to give the name and other information on the Indian saying details could be shared only after the investigation process has been completed.
However the DIG confirmed that maps of important Pakistani cities along with some phone numbers were recovered from his possession.
The Indian was wearing five thick shirts and a belt, a police official said.
RAWALPINDI: Police arrested five more suspects in Sihala on Friday, after an Indian national arrested earlier in the day confessed to planning an attack on Police College Sihala, DawnNews reported.
Interrogation of the five arrested was underway. They were seized on a tip off by the arrested Indian.
The earlier arrest was made in the jurisdiction of Police College Sihala, near Rawalpindi, DawnNews reported.
He was arrested on suspicion after being seen in the area, officials said.
An investigation team has been set up to question him, Deputy Inspector General of Police and commandant of the college Fateh Sher Joyia told DawnNews.
However, sources said the alleged Indian spy admitted that he and others were planning terror attacks on Police College Sihala, DawnNews reported.
The alleged spy has been handed over to secret agencies for further investigation, sources told DawnNews.
Officials declined to give the name and other information on the Indian saying details could be shared only after the investigation process has been completed.
However the DIG confirmed that maps of important Pakistani cities along with some phone numbers were recovered from his possession.
The Indian was wearing five thick shirts and a belt, a police official said.
Wednesday, April 8, 2009
"Murtids" Flog a 17 year old Girl - watch complete Video
Swat Valley flogging video reveals harsh Taliban justice.
A video showing a teenage girl being flogged by Murtid Taliban fighters has emerged from the Swat Valley in Pakistan. The Taliban Cult claims that they are Muslims and are implementing their 'own' version of Islam.
WARNING: This video contains images some people may find disturbing
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/video/2009/apr/02/swat-valley-flogging
A video showing a teenage girl being flogged by Murtid Taliban fighters has emerged from the Swat Valley in Pakistan. The Taliban Cult claims that they are Muslims and are implementing their 'own' version of Islam.
WARNING: This video contains images some people may find disturbing
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/video/2009/apr/02/swat-valley-flogging
Immigration and Jobs: Where the Workers Come From !
Immigration interactive map from NY Times !
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2009/04/07/us/20090407-immigration-occupation.html#view=all
http://www.nytimes.com/interactive/2009/04/07/us/20090407-immigration-occupation.html#view=all
Thursday, April 2, 2009
$500m investment expected from UAE
KARACHI: FPCCI Pak-UAE Business Council Chairman Dr Mirza Ikhtiar Baig has said that investments worth $500 million are expected to come from UAE during the current year and a trade delegation from the emirate is also likely to visit Pakistan in November.
A delegation of FPCCI Pak-UAE Business Council comprising 35 members visited the UAE from March 24 to 27. The main purpose of the visit was to attract investment, specifically in the Coastal Refinery Oil Terminal, agriculture, textile city and alternative energy resources, Baig announced while speaking at a press conference on Wednesday. Listing the successful meetings the delegation had conducted, Baig said the National Bank of Dubai SANA Capital had shown interest in investing $200 million in the country whereas Bosicor, a sub-company of UAE’s Abraaj Group, also announced an investment of $10 million in projects of Khalifa Point Hub Coastal Refinery Oil Terminal.
Baig said Dubai Export Development Corporation CEO Saeed Al Awadi had promised to introduce an export insurance scheme in Pakistan under it 90 per cent protection would be provided to companies for their shipment money. Baig said no such export insurance was available in Pakistan and this would be a pioneer move by the UAE-based corporation.
He said an alternative energy company, Bin Din Group, had agreed to invest in the Thar coal project and produce 1,000 megawatts of energy and at the same time would provide employment to 90,000 labourers.
Similarly, another company Mazdar had announced to work on the carbon credit project in the country besides working for a scheme which would provide 15 per cent guaranteed return on alternative energy investments. Baig further said the Sharjah Chamber of Commerce and Industry had allotted a plot of 20,000 yards for the Pakistan Trade and Display Centre in Sharjah for which construction would commence soon under the public-private partnership scheme.
He further said Dubai Investment Bank had announced to open 60 branches in Pakistan. Meanwhile, Emirates Investment Group announced investments in livestock sector for importing 50 thousand superior quality breed cows. He also commented that an Abu Dhabi based company ALDAR had assigned a Pakistani company, Descon to construct the race tracks for the Formula One car race to be held in November this year.
Baig said the cement for the project was being exported from Pakistan whereas 20,000 Pakistani labours were also working on the construction project. He said UAE is the largest investor in Pakistan among Gulf states and during 2004-2008 had invested $3.74 billion. He said about 800,000 Pakistanis are employed in UAE who send remittances to the country to the tune of $1 billion annually.
A delegation of FPCCI Pak-UAE Business Council comprising 35 members visited the UAE from March 24 to 27. The main purpose of the visit was to attract investment, specifically in the Coastal Refinery Oil Terminal, agriculture, textile city and alternative energy resources, Baig announced while speaking at a press conference on Wednesday. Listing the successful meetings the delegation had conducted, Baig said the National Bank of Dubai SANA Capital had shown interest in investing $200 million in the country whereas Bosicor, a sub-company of UAE’s Abraaj Group, also announced an investment of $10 million in projects of Khalifa Point Hub Coastal Refinery Oil Terminal.
Baig said Dubai Export Development Corporation CEO Saeed Al Awadi had promised to introduce an export insurance scheme in Pakistan under it 90 per cent protection would be provided to companies for their shipment money. Baig said no such export insurance was available in Pakistan and this would be a pioneer move by the UAE-based corporation.
He said an alternative energy company, Bin Din Group, had agreed to invest in the Thar coal project and produce 1,000 megawatts of energy and at the same time would provide employment to 90,000 labourers.
Similarly, another company Mazdar had announced to work on the carbon credit project in the country besides working for a scheme which would provide 15 per cent guaranteed return on alternative energy investments. Baig further said the Sharjah Chamber of Commerce and Industry had allotted a plot of 20,000 yards for the Pakistan Trade and Display Centre in Sharjah for which construction would commence soon under the public-private partnership scheme.
He further said Dubai Investment Bank had announced to open 60 branches in Pakistan. Meanwhile, Emirates Investment Group announced investments in livestock sector for importing 50 thousand superior quality breed cows. He also commented that an Abu Dhabi based company ALDAR had assigned a Pakistani company, Descon to construct the race tracks for the Formula One car race to be held in November this year.
Baig said the cement for the project was being exported from Pakistan whereas 20,000 Pakistani labours were also working on the construction project. He said UAE is the largest investor in Pakistan among Gulf states and during 2004-2008 had invested $3.74 billion. He said about 800,000 Pakistanis are employed in UAE who send remittances to the country to the tune of $1 billion annually.
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