Category: Pakistan Politics

Islamabad, July 25 –

The Pakistan government will hand over security of the capital Islamabad to the army from the beginning of next month, it was announced today.

The army is being called under article 245 of the constitution which authorises the civilian government to deploy the armed forces to maintain law and order in the country.

Interior Minister Nisar Ali Khan told media outside the parliament house that the army will stay in the capital for three months from August 1 to the end of October.

He said Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif had decided on July 4 to deploy army to maintain security at key places in the country.

Article 245 which deals with the functions of the armed forces states says that “armed forces shall, under the directions of the federal government, defend Pakistan against external aggression or threat of war, and, subject to law, act in aid of civil power when called upon to do so”.

The decision will give the army control over Islamabad’s law and order situation ahead of a key protest march announced by Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf (PTI) chief Imran Khan on August 14.

It is widely believed that the decision to invoke article 245 was taken to thwart the rally of Imran who threatened yesterday that the march would seal the fate of the government. Khan is protesting over alleged rigging in last year’s general election.

After several small rallies during the previous months to force the government for a recount of at least four selected national assembly seats which his party lost in 2013, he has given the call for a major protest in the capital.

The Sharif government has so far reacted in panic to the threat from Imran’s party.

Initially, it planned to organise month-long celebrations in August and a big function in front of the parliament house on August 14, Pakistan’s independence day.

As Imran and his party have refused to budge and have announced to hold the rally at the same venue, the government has now announced to hand over security to the armed forces.

Nisar tried to play down the threat of Imran’s march and said the government has not taken any decision to let PTI hold the rally, as the organisers had so far not sought formal permission for the event in the capital.

Kabul/Islamabad, July 17: Pakistani troops in Miran Shah, North Waziristan amid a government operation to clear the area in north-western Pakistan of extremists. Photograph: Rebecca Santana/AP

Afghan officials have accused Pakistan of letting Afghan militants escape a complex crackdown on insurgent hideouts, after a massive truck bomb killed dozens of civilians in a crowded bazaar earlier this week.

The vehicle was packed with explosives across the border and driven into Afghanistan even as the Pakistani military battled to extend their control of North Waziristan beyond the administrative headquarters of Miran Shah, according to a spokesman for Afghanistan’s intelligence agency, the National Directorate of Security.

“The Haqqani network was behind this attack,” Abdul Haseeb Sadique said of the bombing on Tuesday. “It was planned and designed in Miran Shah. The aim of this attack was to inflict maximum casualties, regardless of whether they were civilians or military.”

The Haqqani network is perhaps the wealthiest and most ruthless of several Taliban-linked groups that operate out of western Pakistan; much of their support comes from their home province, Khost.

The Afghan government has long accused its neighbour’s intelligence service of supporting insurgents with money, arms, advice and safe havens. Islamabad says the accusations are groundless and it has no control over areas that were ceded long ago to groups fighting their own state.

Operation Zarb-e-Azb, a long-delayed effort to seize back the area from militant groups, began on 15 June. It has effectively emptied the area of civilians, with nearly a million fleeing within Pakistan and tens of thousands across the border into Afghanistan, raising worries that insurgents might be lying low among them.

The Pakistani army insists that all insurgents will be targeted and says more than 400 have been killed so far, but a senior Afghan intelligence official said he was not aware of any Afghans among the dead or captured.

“Haqqani network has planned and has managed to organise such a large, spectacular intelligence-led operation inside Waziristan … coordinate the transport to Afghanistan, cross the border, come to the attack area and blow it up,” the official said.

“It tells us a story that something is wrong, either the operation is a failure or there is an intention that the Haqqanis are not going to be the target.” The official said he had reports of Haqqani leaders evacuated to safety and small “safe havens” set up for lower-level fighters to escape the crackdown.

Tuesday’s attack was far beyond the capacities of local Taliban, and fits with a pattern of similar assaults and attempted attacks by Haqqani fighters. Authorities have intercepted five truck bombs in the past 16 months, mostly heading for Kabul, and one other reached its target in a province just south of Kabul, killing dozens in an attack on the governor’s compound.

On 11 June another massive truck bomb was destroyed by a US drone just 20km north of Miran Shah as it was travelling the short distance to the Afghan border, from where insurgents can easily reach major provincial capitals.

After just a month of operations, Pakistan does not yet fully control Waziristan, a large and partly mountainous region. However on Wednesday it was reported that leading Pakistani Taliban commander Adnan Rashid had been captured, although officials refused to confirm the arrest.

While Pakistan has been accused of colluding with militants vying for power in Kabul, Rashid, a former air force technician, is regarded as an arch member of the “bad Taliban” that Islamabad wants to uproot because they target Pakistan.

He was the mastermind of a 2003 suicide car bomb plot to kill former president Pervez Musharraf, and escaped from a prison near North Waziristan during a mass jailbreak organised by the Pakistani Taliban in 2012.

The Pakistani government has also complained to Afghanistan that it is providing shelter to militants in its own lawless border regions, and requested their eviction. It was a demand that many in Kabul found ironic after years of making similar pleas to no effect in Islamabad.

BANNU, July 6: Hundreds of Taliban fighters rushed to disguise themselves with new haircuts in the weeks before the launch of the North Waziristan operation, it has emerged, as refugees revealed details of life under the militants – and their taste for imported luxuries.

Azam Khan was one of the top barbers in Miramshah until he, like nearly half a million others, fled the long-awaited offensive unleashed by the military on the tribal area in June.

He told AFP his business boomed in the month leading up to the army assault as the militants sought to shed their distinctive long-haired, bearded look.

“I have trimmed the hair and beards of more than 700 local and Uzbek militants ahead of the security forces’ operation,” he said while cutting hair in a shop in Bannu, the town where most civilians fled.

For years he cut Taliban commanders’ hair to match the flowing locks of former Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) leader Hakimullah Mehsud, killed by a US drone last November, but in May a change in style was called for.

“The same leaders came asking for trimming their beards and hair very short, saying that they were going to the Gulf and wanted to avoid problems at Pakistani airports,” Khan said.

Even Uzbeks and Tajiks with little knowledge of the local language came to him, he said.

“Knowing little Pashto, they used to utter four words: ‘mulgari (friend), machine, zero, Islamabad’,” said Khan — asking him to shave their beards to nothing so they could go to Islamabad.

French perfume

The military launched the offensive against militants in North Waziristan tribal area on June 15, vowing to wipe out the strongholds they have used to wreak countless deadly terror attacks across the country.

The rugged, mountainous area on the Afghan border has been a hideout for years for Islamist militants of all stripes – including Al Qaeda and the homegrown TTP as well as foreign fighters including Uzbeks and Uighurs.

For years people from North Waziristan remained tight-lipped about life in a Taliban fiefdom, scared of being kidnapped or even beheaded if they shared information about the militants.

But as the exodus of people has grown, some have found the confidence to tell their stories.

While the militants bombed and maimed thousands in their fight to install an austere sharia regime in Pakistan and publicly professed contempt for the West, in North Waziristan they indulged themselves with fancy imported goods.

Hikmatullah Khan, a shopkeeper in Miramshah, said that at the same time as commanders were insisting he pay 300 rupees a month “tax”, their fighters were stocking up on grooming products.

“They were very keen to buy foreign-branded shampoos, soaps and perfumed sprays,” Khan told AFP.

“They had a lot of eagerness for French and Turkish perfumes, body sprays and soaps. “Muhammad Zarif, a wholesale merchant in Datta Khel, near Miramshah, said fighters would buy large quantities of British detergent and American cooking oil, much of it smuggled from Dubai.

Militants gone?

Pakistan’s allies, particularly the United States, have long called for an operation to flush out groups like the Haqqani network, which use the area to target Nato troops in neighbouring Afghanistan and are thought to have links to Pakistani intelligence services.

The military has said it will target militants “of all hue and colour” but the scant resistance troops have encountered has led many to believe the insurgents fled before the offensive, limiting its effectiveness.

The army says the operation has killed nearly 400 militants and will rid North Waziristan of their bases, denying them the space to plan attacks and allowing investment to come to one of the country’s poorest areas.

But it remains to be seen what the long-term impact of the offensive will be. Local intelligence and militant sources told AFP that up to 80 per cent of fighters fled after rumours of an army assault emerged in early May, most over the porous border into Afghanistan.

These sources estimate the present number of militants as around 2,000, down from around 10,000 before the operation. The figures are uncertain and difficult to confirm.

The army has asked Afghanistan to crack down on TTP refuges across the border and this week top brass from both sides met in Islamabad to discuss the issue.

“It is clear that militants were aware that the offensive was coming before it started. Lots of them fled,” a Western diplomat told AFP.

“The big question is: after the offensive, will Pakistan allow the Haqqanis and others to come back?

 

LONDON JUNE 6, 2014  — The Pakistani government on Friday suspended the broadcasting license of Geo News, a popular television news channel, in a major escalation of Geo’s dispute with the country’s powerful Inter-Services Intelligence spy agency.

The Pakistan Electronic Media Regulatory Authority said the off-air suspension would last for 15 days. It also imposed a $104,000 fine.

The dispute between the channel and the spy agency began with accusations that the agency was behind a gun attack on a senior Geo journalist on April 19. It has broadened into a wider confrontation that is seen as a threat to press freedom in Pakistan and a sign of growing tensions between the country’s civilian and military leaders.

Even before Friday’s announcement, Geo News and its sister channels for sports and entertainment were effectively off the air in much of Pakistan because cable television operators had pulled the stations from their services, apparently under pressure from the military.

Station managers say advertising revenue has collapsed, four of their vehicles have been burned in different cities, and a journalist in Multan, a large city in central Pakistan, was beaten up by unidentified assailants who called him a traitor.

“It seems that justice has bowed down to forces that are above the law,” said Imran Aslam, the president of Geo.

The station’s chief executive, Mir Ibrahim Rahman, said, “We are left alone, as usual.”

Geo News stopped transmission within an hour of Friday’s suspension. The channel has come to dominate Pakistan’s thriving television news media sector over the past decade, with punchy programming and an often populist tone that has prompted accusations of sensationalism.

The channel’s initial commercial success and editorial heft made it a lucrative asset for its owner, the Jang Group, but also made it a source of worry for powerful institutions like the military.

The current dispute started after the attack, on Hamid Mir, a senior Geo newscaster. The station prominently aired angry accusations from Mr. Mir’s relatives that the ISI was behind the attack. The military rejected the accusations, and days later asked the national media regulator to cancel Geo’s broadcast license.

The Jang Group, a media company headed by Mr. Rahman, appeared to have anticipated Friday’s suspension. Morning editions of The News, an English-language newspaper that it owns, announced that Jang was suing the ISI for defamation over accusations that the company was “anti-state.” Lawsuits of that nature against the feared spy agency are extremely rare in Pakistan, and likely to further increase the stakes in the dispute.

“More than 8,000 journalists, workers and professionals attached to the group and their families are not only being harassed but also attacked and tortured across Pakistan,” the group said in a statement.

The Pakistan Tehreek-e-Insaf, a political party that has joined the ISI criticism of Geo in recent weeks, said the 15-day suspension was not enough.

“What happens after 15 days?” asked Shireen Mazari, the party’s information secretary. “Will Geo be allowed to go back to its old ways?” Imran Khan, a former cricket star who runs the party, has accused Geo of colluding with the senior judiciary to fix the results of the May 2013 general elections.

For many Pakistani journalists, the dispute is an ominous sign of the military’s intent to influence media coverage of sensitive topics, like the insurgency in Baluchistan Province and relations with India.

Mr. Mir, who is recovering from his injuries, had prominently covered reports of human rights abuses by the military in Baluchistan, while Geo had participated in a peace initiative with Indian news outlets that has come under fierce attack in recent weeks.

The battle is also a product of broader tensions between Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s government, which is viewed as siding with Geo, and the military, which has clashed with Mr. Sharif over Gen. Pervez Musharraf, the former military ruler charged with treason.

Salman Masood contributed reporting from Islamabad, Pakistan.