The Pakistan Update

By Muhammad Hamza

The details about Aafiya Siddiqui’s case have been deeply clouded. From the beginning almost every aspect of the case appeared to be driven by sentiment rather than logic and the prevailing atmosphere was extremely irrational. This was enhanced by the fact that the accused is a woman and perceived as the victim than the perpetrator of a crime. The image of a very fragile woman, wounded, unconscious with a 12-year old child led many to jump to conclusions regarding her guilt or innocence. Furthermore, the details of the case are controversial and have many flaws.

Ms. Siddiqui’s personality has been described as that of a passionate, committed and religious woman from early age. While studying in the United States, she was involved with religious preaching and charitable work for Muslims. She became increasingly upset after the incident of 9/11 because in her opinion the American government was hostile towards Muslims, but at the same time she wanted to live in the U.S. despite her ex-husband’s insistence that they should move back to Pakistan.

In 2002, she and her ex-husband were interrogated by the FBI for buying military equipment online. An allegation was unearthed in 2004 that she visited Liberia in June 2001 to participate in the diamond trade to raise funds for Al Qaeda. (more…)

Tags: aafia siddiqui, Afghanistan, Afia Siddiqui, Al Qaeda, CIA, Dr Afia, Featured, ISI, Lady Al Qaeda, NY Trial, Pakistan Media, Pakistan Update, Prisoner 650, Security agencies, Taliban, Terrorism, The Pakistan Update, US Supreme Court, USA, War on Terror

Posted in Blog | 1,076 Comments »

By Indira A.R. Lakshmanan – Bloomberg

Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said wealthy Pakistanis should pay a larger share of taxes to fund schools and other social spending and depend less on development aid from the U.S.
“The very well-off” in Pakistan “do not pay their fair share for the services that are needed, in health and education primarily,” the top U.S. diplomat told the Senate Foreign Relations Committee in a hearing today in Washington.

Clinton said the U.S., along with the International Monetary Fund and the World Bank, is looking for ways to pressure nations that receive loans and grants to broaden their tax base.
U.S. spending on Pakistan is designed to promote political stability, weaken terrorist elements and help the war effort in neighboring Afghanistan.

Clinton said while the U.S., which approved a non-military aid package granting Pakistan $1.5 billion annually for five years, is trying to boost trade and other investment opportunities in Pakistan, that country must also do more to generate its own revenue.

Tags: development aid, Non-Military Assistance, Pakistan Aid, Secretary Clinton

Posted in News | 891 Comments »

India and Pakistan agreed to keep going the process of foreign secretary-level dialogue launched here Thursday in order to restore confidence between the two countries, said Indian Foreign Secretary Nirupama Rao.

Rao told a press conference after the first formal talks between the two nuclear-armed old rivals since the deadly attack on the Indian city of Mumbai in late 2008 that both sides had promised to keep in touch to restore trust damaged by the Mumbai attacks.

According to Xinhua, Indian Foreign Secretary did not exclude the possibility that the prime ministers of the two countries would meet at a South Asian summit in the Bhutan capital Thimpu in April. The foreign secretary said India holds the conviction that the door of dialogue with Pakistan should not be shut.

During the talks, India demanded Pakistan take more action to curb terrorism and strongly called for the arrest of Jamaat-ud- Dawaah chief Hafiz Saeed, the alleged mastermind of Mumbai attacks, according to Indian official sources.

Rao said she also raised the issue of infiltration of militants into Indian-controlled Kashmir from the Pakistani-controlled Kashmir.

During the closed-door talks, India reportedly handed over a fresh dossier on Mumbai attacks, which contains the voice record of the Mumbai attack culprits.

The dossier also purportedly contains a fresh list of terrorists, including the details about a suspect in the Pune attack on Feb. 13, Illiyas Kashmiri, who claimed responsibility for the attack which killed 16 people.

Pakistan, on the other hand, put the long-standing Kashmir dispute on the table once again apart from alleged Indian involvement in the insurgency in Baluchistan.

Tags: Mumbai Attacks, Pak India Dialogue, Pak-India Relations, Pakistan Update, Peace dialogue, Peace Talks

Posted in Around, India, News | 362 Comments »

Mullah Abdul Salaam Zaeef is a former Taliban ambassador to Pakistan. He spent almost four years in Guantanamo. He wears a black turban, has a thick beard – and is never without his Apple iPhone. The Sydney Morning Herald reports.

Hamish Macdonald, a reporter for the Al Jazeera TV channel reported on the unlikely development in Afghanistan’s mobile phone market. The reporter also interviewed Mullah Zaeef and asked about his gadget. His response was pretty much the same as everyone who owns an iPhone. “I’m addicted,” he said, “the internet is great on this, very fast.”

Mullah Zaif held senior posts during the Taliban regime and was the ambassador to Pakistan when the US attacked Afghanistan in 2001. The Pakistanis later handed Zaif over to the US and he spent four years in Guantanamo. Though he is no longer a Taliban member, many see him as an unofficial mediator between the government and the Taliban.

Considering how the iPhone would have probably been banned in Afghanistan during the Taliban rule, the decision of a former Taliban ambassador to adopt such technology, and so readily has understandably caused quite a stir. Although insurgents do at times target mobile phone towers, claiming that the government and military use them to track mobile phone locations, the populace which is increasingly reliant on phone services are often found protecting the towers from attack.

It should be noted though, that mobile phones were not totally banned during the Taliban regime – as there was a very small GSM network in Kabul, although use was limited to government officials.

According to a Mobile World report, Afghanistan ended last September with nearly 7 million mobile phone users.

Posted in News | 1,415 Comments »

By David B. Rivkin Jr. and Lee A. Casey

When U.S. President Barack Obama sharply challenged a recent Supreme Court decision in his State of the Union address, prompting a soto voce rejoinder from Justice Samuel Alito, nobody was concerned that the contretemps would spark a blood feud between the judiciary and the executive. The notion that judges could or would work to undermine a sitting U.S. president is fundamentally alien to America’s constitutional system and political culture. Unfortunately, this is not the case in Pakistan.

Supreme Court Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry, the country’s erstwhile hero, is the leading culprit in an unfolding constitutional drama. It was Mr. Chaudhry’s dismissal by then-President Pervez Musharraf in 2007 that triggered street protests by lawyers and judges under the twin banners of democracy and judicial independence. This effort eventually led to Mr. Musharraf’s resignation in 2008. Yet it is now Mr. Chaudhry himself who is violating those principles, having evidently embarked on a campaign to undermine and perhaps even oust President Asif Ali Zardari. (more…)

Tags: Asif Zardari, Chief Justice, CJ Iftikhar Chaudhry, Democracy, Featured, Judiciary, Lawyers Movement, NRO, Pakistan Update, Pervaiz Musharraf, Politics, President Zardari, Supreme Court, Ziaul Haq

Posted in News | 2,254 Comments »

Top US General David Petraeus arrived in Pakistan to bolster the relationship with Pakistan and met Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani and army chief General Ashfaq Kayani. “General Petraeus appreciated the commitment and sacrifices made by the security forces, armed forces and the people of Pakistan in eradicating militancy and terrorism,” PM office said.

General Petraeus assured the prime minister of his support for “Pakistan’s demand for early reimbursement of the Coalition Support Fund,” the statement issued by the PM office stated, referring to US cash for Pakistan’s participation in its “war on terror.” “PM Gilani said that the gap between culmination of operations and reconstruction of the militancy affected areas needs to be plugged to develop the confidence of the people in the process of consolidation.”

Gilani said that “the long-term strategic relations between the US and Pakistan needs to be made more meaningful to further bridge the trust deficit and help develop closer cooperation in all sectors,” the statement said.

Tags: General Kiani, general Petraeus, Pakistan Update, PM office, Yousaf Raza Gilani

Posted in News | 1,256 Comments »

By Yasser Latif Hamdani

Warning: SPOILERS

Late last week I attended a packed show of “My Name Is Khan” in Lahore’s DHA Cinema and while I went through all the emotions the film maker wanted to evoke, I found the film entirely misplaced and misdirected. The film itself was well made 70 percent of the way. It began to go downhill from the time our hero returned to Georgia to find it stuck in the Civil War era and by the time President Elect Obama made his appearance the film which is essentially Khuda Ke Liye meets Forest Gump meets Rainman meets Milk was completely over the top.

My objections however have nothing to do with Karan Johar’s Masala mix which was to be expected from a Bollywood film. After all Karan Johar is no Shoaib Mansoor and for Karan Johar this is not a life-long undertaking. Instead my issues arise from the point of view of someone who is self conscious and self styled as a secular-minded modernist of Muslim background who wants to see the Muslim world re-join the world in its march of human progress. (more…)

Tags: Bollywood, Entertainment, Film, Fundamentalism, India, Islamization, Kajol, Pakistan, Shahrukh Khan, Terrorism

Posted in Blog | 1,923 Comments »

By Eric Rosenbach – Boston Globe

For most of the past decade, Republicans and Democrats have agreed on one aspect of counterterrorism strategy: Pakistan needs to act more aggressively against Al Qaeda and Taliban militants operating from the western part of its country. President Obama’s recent decision to deploy additional troops to Afghanistan redoubled pressure on Pakistan. The White House knew that without Pakistani action, militants would simply increase attacks against new troops in Afghanistan and then disappear unscathed across the border into a Pakistani safe haven.

That’s why last week’s news that a joint Pakistani-American operation captured several senior Afghan Taliban leaders, including its top military commander, is a strategic game-changer for the Obama administration. On the tactical level, Mullah Baradar’s removal is a major military victory that eliminates their most important leader from the battlefield. More importantly, (more…)

Tags: Afghan Taliban, Afghanistan, Al Qaeda, CIA, Featured, ISI, Militants, Mullah Baradar, Mullah Omer, Pakistan Army, Pakistan Update, Taliban

Posted in News | 409 Comments »

By Steve Coll

The news that a joint C.I.A.-Pakistani raid in Karachi resulted last week in the capture of Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar is a big deal. If it is true that the C.I.A. participated, then this would seem to be a different sort of operation—a more committed effort—than the Pakistani-only “catch and release” operations that Islamabad has occasionally mounted against the Taliban in the past to appease the United States.

Why would Pakistan move decisively against Afghan Taliban leadership now? The Times suggests that Pakistani generals under the lame-duck Army chief, General Ashraf Kiyani, are coming around to the view that they require a national-security doctrine that does not involve sheltering the Afghan Taliban. Perhaps. (more…)

Tags: Afghan Taliban, Al Qaeda, CIA, ISI, Islamabad, karachi, Mullah Baradar, Pak US Joint Operation, Pakistan Security Forces, Pakistan Update, Quetta Shura, Taliban, Terrorism

Posted in Blog | 1,928 Comments »

Pakistan has captured two more leaders of the Afghan Taleban, Afghan officials revealed today, in the latest indication of a new level of cooperation between US and Pakistani intelligence agencies.

Mullah Abdul Salam and Mullah Mir Mohammad were the “shadow governors” of the northern Afghan provinces of Kunduz and Baghlan respectively, running the Taleban’s increasingly powerful parallel administrations there.
They were detained 10 days ago by Pakistani intelligence agents in Quetta, the capital of Pakistan’s south-western province of Baluchistan, according to Engineer Mohammad Omar, the official governor of Kunduz. (more…)

Tags: Afghan War, Al Qaeda, Hilmand, karachi, Pakistan Army, Quetta, Taliban, Terrorism, War on Terror, Yousaf Raza Gilani

Posted in News | 947 Comments »