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A Case of Exploding Guavas
The Killing and Crippling of Innocents in Islamabad

Islamabad fruit market (Credit: article.wn.com)
Islamabad fruit market
(Credit: article.wn.com)

The capital of the republic is hit. Perhaps, the attack on the wholesale market of fruits and vegetables the other day in Islamabad is the biggest terrorist attack in the capital since the massive bombing of the Marriott Hotel some years ago.

According to initial reports, explosives were packed into a crate of guavas. It took more than 20 lives instantly, and about the same number of people is told to be in a critical condition. We don’t know yet how many will survive and whether they will ever be able to lead a normal life. More than a hundred are injured and hospitalised. We don’t know how many will remain able-bodied afterward and whether it will be possible for them to work again to support their families.

No act of violence is welcome. But deplorable as it may be, attacking those who are in power and seen as making decisions that go against you, or killing those who are involved in a physical battle against you can be understood at one level. Killing innocent citizens in the name of an ideology, faith, liberation movement or political cause amounts to sheer callousness. It is a blatant crime committed against common people. In Pakistan, not only do terrorists of various hues and colours commit these crimes with complete impunity, the state collapses on a daily basis to protect the lives, liberties and properties of its citizens.

But what property is to be protected for a woman or a man belonging to the working class in Pakistan? It is only her or his life. S/he has a simple and difficult life to lead, perpetually struggling to support herself and the kith and kin in order to survive, and only enjoying the liberty to move to the workplace and be back home. Even that is being taken away. What hurts more is the pride terrorist outfits would take in killing the most ordinary women and men, seeing them as soft targets. What causes much greater pain is the inability of the Pakistani state to save its citizens.

As citizens, we will not hold the militant outfits and terror groups responsible for inflicting death, pain and suffering on the people of Pakistan. It is our state and successive governments that are responsible for their wrong actions in the past or concerted inaction at present, for their continuous failure to protect us. Not to mention their massive incompetence and failure to help all citizens lead a decent, prosperous and honourable life.

Let us have a look at the profile of those killed, injured or maimed in the wholesale market of Islamabad. Most of them must be fruit and vegetable vendors, hardly making their ends meet, or common citizens who think they will save a few rupees if they buy fruits and vegetables from wholesalers than retailers.

We do not know yet who perpetrated this attack as the claim made by a Baloch separatist outfit was rubbished by the interior ministry. Even if the Baloch separatists have made a rightful claim, does that particular group of Baloch secessionists think that the guava-sellers are consulted in by the federation while making policy or by the FC when it acts in Kalat, Khuzdar or Turbat? Has eliminating or pushing out barbers, milk sellers, schoolteachers, construction labourers, carpenters and masons from Balochistan helped the cause in anyway in the recent past?

Many of us believe that Balochistan as a province and the Baloch as a people have been denied their rights in our federation for too long. We stand with them in their struggle for realisation of their economic, political and cultural rights. We stand with them in asking for an immediate end to forced disappearances and military action by the Pakistani state. We condemn mass graves found anywhere. We do not accept the view of the powers that be, which squarely place the blame on Baloch tribal chieftains for the poverty and dispossession that Balochistan is subjected to.

Again, it was the failure of our state in meeting the basic needs and ensuring the fundamental rights of its Baloch citizens, not the responsibility of the sardars – many of who collaborated with the state anyway. We recognise that for decades when chappatis were baked in Lahore on the stoves fired by the natural gas piped from Balochistan and the industry in Karachi used natural gas supplied from and metals extracted from the ores in Balochistan, the province and its people neither had gas to cook with or to heat up their homes with during the harsh winters.

We also know that schools were not built, hospitals were not established, roads were not paved and industry was not set up in areas of Balochistan that fed the Pakistani elite and middle class in other provinces and the civil and military institutions they dominate. However, it is time for the disgruntled Baloch to ask how the killing of ordinary citizens and those belonging to the working class anywhere serve their cause. Will that not escalate violence in the province and make it increasingly difficult for their genuine advocates to plead their case?

The TTP has also denied its involvement but it is now increasingly obvious to most that the outfit is not necessarily a strong monolith. There may be some from the ranks of its coalition or outsiders who were involved even if the core was not. We don’t know. But if fruit and vegetable vendors are attacked in the name of faith or an ideology by anyone, one must ask if any of these people killed or injured participated in making decisions about their country playing a part in the war on terror in Afghanistan or in the tribal regions of Pakistan.

How many cauliflower sellers on the streets of Rawalpindi and Islamabad were consulted before the Swat operation or before making air sorties in Fata? Did they ever exist for those planning drone strikes in our tribal regions? Did they help the Americans smoke out Saddam Hussein in Iraq or get Osama bin Laden trapped in his hideout near Abbottabad?

As far as the state and its ruling elite are concerned, they need to be reminded again and again what Hazrat Ali once said. “A profane state or government can surely survive but a cruel one never can.” What is meted out to them is not what the already struggling working and lower middle classes of Pakistan deserve. For them, prosperity is far away. The state is not even able to defend their right to life.

Knowing how our country and its economy works for its less privileged classes, one such attack will push hundreds of families in the throes of abject poverty. Doling out a couple of hundred thousand rupees – at the most – for each casualty will serve no purpose either. This money will be spent in a few weeks if they have to nurse the injured or else used to pay off a part of the debt such families are normally trapped in.

By killing a cobbler in the Nazimabad neighbourhood of Karachi for being a Pakhtun, an office clerk in the Baldia neighbourhood of the same city for being a Mohajir, a student leader in Khuzdar for being a Baloch rights activist, an unemployed political activist in Ghotki for being a Sindhi, a primary schoolteacher in Mastung for being a Punjabi, a shopkeeper in Quetta for being Shia, a worshipper in Lahore for being Ahmadi, a labourer in a church in Peshawar for being Christian and a fruit vendor in Islamabad for a reason still unknown, nothing will be achieved. But the state, in no uncertain terms, will dwindle fast.

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Women Correspondents Shot Reporting Election in Afghanistan

Anja Niedringhaus (Credit: theguardian.uk.com)
Anja Niedringhaus
(Credit: theguardian.uk.com)

KABUL, April 4— For the two seasoned war correspondents, it was not an unusually risky trip. Getting out to see Afghanistan up close was what Anja Niedringhaus, a Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer for The Associated Press, and Kathy Gannon, a veteran reporter for the news agency, did best.

The eastern province of Khost, where Ms. Niedringhaus and Ms. Gannon traveled to cover Afghanistan’s presidential election on Saturday, is considered dangerous, still plagued by regular Taliban attacks. But they had carefully plotted their trip, arranging to move beyond the relatively safe confines of the provincial capital under the protection of Afghan Army troops and the police.

Yet it was those precautions that proved fatal for Ms. Niedringhaus on Friday morning. As she and Ms. Gannon waited outside a government compound, a police commander walked up to their idling car, looked in at the two women in the back seat, and then shouted “Allahu akbar!” — God is great — and opened fire with an AK-47, witnesses and The Associated Press said.

Ms. Niedringhaus was killed instantly, and Ms. Gannon, shot three times in the wrist and shoulder, was severely wounded. In the span of a few muzzle flashes, the two women, who had covered the war since it began in 2001, became victims of another attack that blurred friend and foe.

For both Afghans and Westerners, the list of adversaries has expanded beyond the resilient Taliban, who have staged a series of attacks in an attempt to disrupt the election. Afghan soldiers and the police have repeatedly turned on one another and their foreign allies. The squabbling between President Hamid Karzai and American officials has grown into a deep-seated animosity.

At the same time, Afghans have seen scores of their fellow citizens killed by errant American airstrikes. And even as the United States pushes for a long-term security deal that would allow it to keep troops here beyond the end of this year, it does so with the understanding that its forces will be largely hidden away behind the high walls of fortified bases.

The dwindling number of foreigners here already live that way, frightened by a recent surge in attacks aimed at Western civilians.

Ms. Niedringhaus, 48, and Ms. Gannon, 60, had no desire to hunker down. The focus of their work over the past dozen years has been putting a human face on the suffering inflicted by the war. As a pair, they often traveled to remote corners of Afghanistan to report articles, and Ms. Niedringhaus also spent significant time embedded with coalition forces.

Many of their colleagues noted sadly that they were attacked by a police officer who appeared to have seen in the back seat of the journalists’ Toyota Corolla a pair of anonymous Westerners on whom to vent his rage. If Afghans have a dominant complaint about the West, it is that they are often treated as faceless, dismissed as nonentities by the people who say they are here to help.

That was not the case with Ms. Niedringhaus and Ms. Gannon.

In this March 30, 2003 photo by Anja Niedringhaus, Iraqi women lined up for a security check by British soldiers on the outskirts of Basra. Credit Anja Niedringhaus/Associated Press

“They just seemed so bravely willing to go into these kinds of situations and get to the places that you needed to get to tell stories that weren’t being told,” said Heidi Vogt, a reporter who worked for The A.P. in Afghanistan until last year.

“They’re the last two people you’d expect this to happen to,” she added. “It felt like they had a little protective force field around them.”

Ms. Niedringhaus, a German citizen who was based in Geneva, first came to Afghanistan after joining The A.P. in 2002, and she quickly formed a partnership with Ms. Gannon. They were among a band of female photographers and correspondents who persevered through many years of conflict in Iraq as well as in Afghanistan.

In the process, they helped redefine traditional notions of war reporting. Even as they covered the battlefield, they also focused attention on the human impact of conflicts known for their random, unpredictable violence against civilians.

Ms. Niedringhaus’s fascination with Afghanistan continued to grow even as she was pulled away to other trouble spots, including Iraq, where she was part of a team of A.P. photographers who won a Pulitzer Prize in 2005.

“If I’d told her, ‘You don’t need to do this anymore, you’ve earned your spurs, leave it to another generation,’ ” said Tony Hicks, a photo editor at The A.P., “the response would have been a series of expletives, then laughing and another pint.”

But, Mr. Hicks pointed out, Ms. Niedringhaus was equally at home at major sports events and other less high-stakes diversions, such as the Geneva auto show.

Hundreds of U.S. Marines gathered at Camp Commando in Kuwait in 2002. Credit Anja Niedringhaus/Associated Press

She was on the finish lines when Usain Bolt, the Jamaican sprinter, broke the world record for the 100-meter dash. And “she loved Wimbledon,” he said. “It was almost her second home.”

Ms. Gannon, a Canadian who is a senior writer for The A.P., arrived in Peshawar, Pakistan, in 1986 when the Afghan mujahedeen were battling the forces of the Soviet Union. She went on to serve as The A.P.’s bureau chief in Islamabad, and she was one of the few Western reporters whom the Taliban permitted to work in Kabul when they ruled Afghanistan.

Ms. Gannon was in Kabul during the American invasion in 2001, and she wrote of covering the Taliban’s last days in the city with her Afghan colleague, Amir Shah. The two cowered in the basement of a house during air raids, often working by candlelight or lantern. They tried to avoid members of Al Qaeda, who were much more hostile than the Taliban. When a bomb struck nearby, she was thrown across the room — and then went straight back to work.

“She knows Afghanistan very well,” said Mr. Shah, an A.P. reporter in Kabul, according to an article by the news agency. “She knows the culture of the people.”

But the divide between Afghans and Westerners has been deepening for years, and so-called insider attacks in which Afghan security forces turn on their coalition counterparts or one another have been the most visible symptom. Afghan and Western officials say they believe that most of the attacks are driven by personal animosity or anger about the war in Afghanistan, where many have come to view foreign forces as occupiers.

Though Western civilians working with the coalition have at times been killed in such attacks, the shooting on Friday was believed to be the first time an Afghan police officer had intentionally killed a foreign journalist.

Afghan security officials said they believed that the shooting was an opportunistic attack, not the work of the Taliban, who offered no comment.

A Marine on his way to pick up food supplies in June, 2001. Credit Anja Niedringhaus/Associated Press

The police commander, whom officials identified as Naqibullah, 50, was known for his anti-Western views, one official said. The officials did not believe he had advance notice that Ms. Niedringhaus or Ms. Gannon was headed his way.

The two spent Thursday night at the compound of the provincial governor in Khost, and they left on Friday morning with a convoy of election workers delivering ballots to an outlying area in the Tanai district, The A.P. and Afghan officials said.

The convoy was protected by the Afghan police, soldiers and operatives from the National Directorate of Security, Afghanistan’s main intelligence agency, said Mubarez Zadran, a spokesman for the provincial government. Ms. Niedringhaus and Ms. Gannon were in their own car, traveling with a driver and an Afghan freelance journalist who was working with the news agency.

Mr. Naqibullah, the police commander, surrendered to other officers immediately after shooting the journalists and was arrested.

Ms. Gannon was taken to a hospital in Khost. She underwent surgery before being evacuated to one of the main NATO bases in the country, where there is a hospital equipped to handle severe battlefield trauma. She was said to be in stable condition.

Yet even as Friday’s shooting provided a stark reminder of how broader tensions can set off violence at the most personal level, its aftermath also highlighted the bonds between old friends and strangers alike, be they Afghans or foreigners.

Aides to Mr. Karzai, who has known Ms. Gannon for years, said he tried to get her on the phone to see she how she was doing after he heard about the attack. He later spoke with her husband, and his office then put out a statement condemning the attack.

The doctor who first treated Ms. Gannon, Muhammad Shah, was distressed by the shooting.

“Not only me, but all Afghans are disappointed and sorry for this loss of life,” he said by phone Friday night from Khost Provincial Hospital, between operations. “She was a guest here in Afghanistan, a foreigner.”

Matthew Rosenberg reported from Kabul, and Farooq Jan Mangal from Khost Province, Afghanistan.

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Raza Rumi Narrowly Escapes Death after Hosting TV Show
Driver Killed in Attack as Express Tribune is Targeted Again

Raza after attack (Credit: awampk.com)
Raza after attack
(Credit: awampk.com)

Finally, I countenanced what I had been dreading for quite some time. Journalists and media houses being under threat is a well-known story in conflict-ridden Pakistan. I had also heard about my name being on a few hit-lists but I thought these were tactics to scare dissenters and independent voices. But this was obviously an incorrect assessment of the situation.

On Friday night, when I had planned to visit Data Darbar after my television show, my car was attacked by “unknown” (a euphemism for lethal terror outfits) assailants. The minute I heard the first bullet, the Darwinian instinct made me duck under and I chose to lie on the back of the car.

This near death experience with bullets flying over me and shattered window glass falling over me reminded me of the way my own country was turning into a laboratory of violence. Worse, that when I saved myself, it was not without a price. A young man, who had been working as my driver for sometime, was almost dead. I stood on a busy road asking for help and not a single car stopped.

A crowd had gathered and I was seeking their assistance almost like someone in a hysterical sub-continental film. The nearest hospital was a private enterprise, which initially refused to treat all three of us. I had to protest, after begging on the street and then seeking emergency medical aid. Suddenly, all that afflicts Pakistan became clear: the violence, the impunity for murderers, the failing values of a society and privatisation of essential public services.

Within minutes, my driver was declared dead, my wounds were cleaned and a third victim of barbarity struggled with a fast receding blood count. Thankfully, officers from the Punjab Police were helpful and enabled me to sort out things. This was harrowing and I became an object of all that I have condemned in recent years.

I am now at a safe location, unable to move out and have been told that my case is exceptional with six men — most armed — had attempted to eliminate me and they failed. And that the security agencies can only protect me if I remain locked up in a “safe” location.

So what is my fault, I have been wondering? I am a relatively small fry in the media and opinion industry. I am a recent entrant in the mass (electronic) media, but my views, I am told, are dangerous and invite trouble. So, I wish to ask my well-wishers the following questions: is raising the issue of minority rights unacceptable? Is demanding the inclusion of Jinnah’s August 11 speech in our Constitution and state behaviour unacceptable?

I have written a book on the shared history of India and Pakistan and this irked some. I have argued for rational engagement with the West and the outside world and that is not kosher. I reject conspiracy theories as I prefer reason over totem and this does not fit in a mindscape that considers the outside, external enemies.

Pakistan’s journalists face the oddest of challenges. They are being coerced into silence or singing praises of extremists and advocating legitimacy for their operations. Pakistan’s politicians have almost given up, as their private and public statements are at variance and they have accepted that this “new Pakistan” of fear, threats and unpunished violence is what they have to deal with.

I also know that I am not alone. There are dozens of other voices that have to be silenced by some quarters. These voices are a threat as they stand by civilian victims of terror and shun attacks on our security forces. These are voices, which also refuse to make martyrs out of terrorists. And they also hold that the greatest blasphemy is undermining humanity and using faith for spreading hatred.

The choice for me is stark. I am not willing to accept death as an option. Nor am I going to accept forced silence. I am grateful to all those who have shown support for my plight.

But it would be far more important if our collective outrage turns into public pressure to change the direction of the state and stop it from committing hara-kiri at the altar of a fabricated ideology or regional ambitions. There are no good or bad extremists. And there can be no justification for any form of violence by private actors. Who else would know, if not me?

I am haunted by the fact that a precious life has been lost while some people wanted to target me. More than that, I am worried that there may be many more lives at risk. I am not too hopeful if the current set of federal and provincial governments would deliver on security and public safety.

There is little or no will to tackle the camel that has entered the Pakistani tent and is displacing reason and humanity. Yet, there is no other recourse. So I appeal to the government to provide me security and not let me remain a victim of an ideology asserted with bullets and bombers.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 30th, 2014.

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Taliban Tentacles Fasten Grip around Karachi

Taliban Penetrate Karachi (Credit: onlinewallstreetjournal.com)
Taliban Penetrate Karachi
(Credit: onlinewallstreetjournal.com)

KARACHI, Feb 2014 — The Pakistani Taliban have tightened their grip over the country’s commercial hub, officials and residents said, despite a five-month government crackdown here.

On Thursday, tentative peace talks with the government were thrown into disarray when the militants claimed responsibility for a roadside bombing that killed at least 12 police officers when the bus taking them to duty was destroyed near the city’s southeastern Landhi neighborhood, an area the Taliban dominate.

Karachi is likely to pay a steeper price if efforts by Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif’s government to forge a peace deal with the al Qaeda affiliate’s leadership in tribal areas collapse and a military operation is launched there.

“If the peace talks fail, we fear that a big terrorism wave will hit Karachi,” said Raja Umar Khattab, a senior officer in the counterterrorism Crime Investigation Department of the Karachi police.

The Pakistani Taliban are a national threat, with Karachi providing the group a vital financial lifeline. Money raised in Karachi from extortion, land-grabbing, kidnapping and robberies is sent to the group’s leadership in the tribal areas along the Afghan border, security officials said.

The January assassination of Karachi’s most prominent counterterrorism police officer, Chaudhry Aslam, showcased the militants’ reach and had a chilling effect on the police force, officers said.

“Everyone now is at a loss about who will step into Chaudhry Aslam’s shoes,” said Omar Shahid Hamid, a senior counterterrorism officer now on leave. “He had become a symbol, someone who is standing up to [Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan]

In January, the militant group attacked police officers, shot and killed three journalists, repeatedly bombed paramilitary Rangers who are helping carry out the crackdown, gunned down three polio-vaccination workers, and slit the throats of six devotees visiting a shrine. Karachi police said 27 officers were killed in January, after 168 were killed last year.

Mr. Sharif, concerned that his economic-revival plans would be undermined by spreading mayhem, initiated the security operation in September. Karachi, a fast-growing city of at least 20 million, has a huge industrial base, the country’s only major port and is the nation’s center of banking and finance.

Some officers said they fear local political support is fading for the Karachi operation, which they view as a last chance to regain control of the city from TTP and other militias. The operation’s implementation depends largely on the Sindh provincial government, which is run by the opposition Pakistan Peoples Party, and which controls Karachi’s police. There are signs of tension between the Rangers, who answer to Islamabad, and the provincial government, which is based in Karachi, security officials and politicians said.

“This is a difficult path,” said Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan, visiting Karachi on Thursday. “But, God willing, we will bring peace back to Karachi.”

Ahmed Chinoy, head of the Citizens Police Liaison Committee, a statutory body that works with the police to reduce crime, said parts of Karachi were still too dangerous for regular patrols, while the crackdown targeted regular crime. “While the focus of the operation was on other crimes, the militants got breathing space and took advantage.”

 

Last year, five different police chiefs served Karachi, disrupting the battle against crime. The current chief, Shahid Hayat, said that at any given time, he had about 7,000 officers available to be deployed on the streets, out of a total force strength of 27,000—9,000 officers are kept on personal security duty for politicians and other officials.

It is only in recent weeks, he added, that the operation has shifted focus to jihadi groups such as TTP.

“I’m being asked to control Karachi with such small numbers of police,” said Mr. Hayat. “Policemen are being killed day in, day out. But we’re still fighting.”

More than 13,000 people have been arrested in the sweep since September, in more than 10,000 raids by police and the paramilitary Rangers force, the provincial Sindh government said. But officials and residents said it has left largely untouched the poor outlying neighborhoods that remain under TTP control, encircling the city, including one adjacent to the new U.S. Consulate compound.

TTP is the most aggressive armed group operating in multiethnic Karachi, alongside the ethnic Baluch gangs in Lyari, and the Muttahida Qaumi Movement, a party that represents the descendants of Muslim migrants from current India, and that has traditionally dominated Karachi politics.

The Karachi security operation led to the arrest of just 63 TTP members through the end of January, police said. That compared with the arrest of 296 people affiliated with the MQM, 101 with links to the Awami National Party—a secular Pashtun political party—and 171 members of Lyari gangs.

Sharfuddin Memon, the adviser to the Sindh provincial chief minister on security issues, said the operation had led to a 50% drop in assassinations and kidnapping for ransom in the city. He said police “morale is high” but the conviction rate for serious crimes is just 5%.

“There has been an impact from the operation, but if we don’t sustain it, we are in trouble,” said Mr. Memon.

Research by The Wall Street Journal, based on conversations with security officials and urban planners, shows TTP still control or dominate about 470 square miles of Karachi, or nearly a third of its area, where at least 2.5 million people live.

TTP’s sway in Karachi extends right up to Saddar—the city center—and into areas such as Sultanabad, a ramshackle community next to the new U.S. Consulate compound.

These are districts with a majority population of Pashtuns, the same ethnic group as TTP’s leadership. These areas that encircle the city include Baldia and the Sindh Industrial Trading Estate to the west and Gadap in the north. Residents in these areas said TTP’s hold had gotten stronger over the past year.

“There’s been no action against the main body of the TTP, just against some smaller factions,” said Khawaja Izharul Hassan, a provincial MQM lawmaker.

In addition to the main TTP faction from the Mehsud tribe of South Waziristan in the tribal areas, long established in Karachi, the city is increasingly plagued by another TTP faction from the Mohmand tribal area, police officers said, along with TTP Swat.

Islamist militants also have influence over some non-Pashtun districts of the city, such as Lyari in the southwest where TTP ally Lashkar-e-Jhangvi has a base. TTP has an ability to stage attacks across Karachi.

TTP dominates 33 of Karachi’s 178 administrative units—known as union councils— security officials said. These tend to be the larger, peripheral, districts, with ever expanding shanty settlements that eat into the surrounding desert. The militants are also now getting more educated recruits, including non-Pashtuns, and spreading to neighboring areas outside Karachi, including Hub to the west and Jamshoro to the northeast.

In the areas it controls, TTP is levying a tax on residents and businesses, said a businessman in Sohrab Goth, a Taliban-run neighborhood just north of the city center.

The militant group has set up courts in neighborhoods to resolve disputes, which give written judgments, handling matters that include disagreements over land ownership and regulating levels of theft from power lines that they allow, residents said.

“The Taliban milk money from their own communities,” the businessman said. “They have calculated the worth of every person here.”

For instance, on a monthly income of 40,000 rupees ($380), TTP takes a levy of 1,000 rupees. Concentrate blocks made for use in construction—a major business in the Pashtun areas—are sold for 18 rupees each, of which three rupees goes to the Taliban. The businessman said TTP’s hold had hardened over the past year.

“The Taliban have complete control of Karachi,” said Bashir Jan, a senior member of the Awami National Party, the main secular Pashtun political party in the city. “They can go anywhere and do what they want.”

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Gas shortage after blasts brings misery to Punjab

Gas pipelines to Punjab (Credit: bbc.co.uk)
Gas pipelines to Punjab
(Credit: bbc.co.uk)

LAHORE, Feb 10: Civic, industrial and commercial activities almost came to a halt as most areas of Punjab passed Monday without gas due to an explosion in three main pipelines in Rahimyar Khan the previous day. Gas authorities say the situation will start improving from Tuesday (today).

“It is perhaps the worst-ever gas pipeline blast in Punjab as it caused over 45 per cent gas shortfall (700mmcfd) in the 1650mmcfd quota allocated for the province in winter. Before the incident, 950mmcfd was flowing in the blown-up pipelines,” Minister for Petroleum and Natural Resources Shahid Khaqan Abbasi told Dawn on Monday.

He said SNGPL teams had started repair work and hoped that supply to domestic consumers would be restored by Tuesday afternoon and that to industry by Wednesday afternoon.

He said the gas pipelines of 18-, 42- and 36-inch diameter had been damaged by the blasts, but luckily a 24-inch pipeline remained safe. This enabled the SNGPL to provide gas to domestic consumers partially on Monday. “However, most domestic consumers are either facing extreme low gas pressure or getting no gas,” Mr Abbasi said.

He said he had asked an additional secretary of the ministry to hold an inquiry into the blast. Rahimyar Khan District Police Officer Sohail Zafar Chattha said initial police findings suggested that the blasts might have been caused by gas leakage. He said police had collected some metal parts from the site and sent them to a laboratory for analysis. Police will be in a position to say whether it was a terrorist activity or accident only after receiving a report from the laboratory.

Mr Chattha said police had found an IED (improvised explosive device) in the same site a month ago. “We gave a cash award of Rs10,000 to the man who provided the information about presence of the IED.”

He said police had recently provided SNGPL security guards to protect its pipelines and other installations, but the company was required to hire its own guards.

Life was badly affected in Lahore, Faisalabad, Multan, Sargodha, Sahiwal and other towns and cities in the province.

In Lahore, the situation was miserable as a majority of people, including schoolchildren, left homes without having breakfast. There was no gas for commercial ovens (Tandoor), leaving the people with no option but to arrange food from bakeries.

People were also seen either buying firewood or LPG cylinders for cooking.

“You cannot imagine how we spent the whole day. After sending my children to school and husband to his office on empty stomach, I myself came out to purchase some wood to prepare lunch,” said Sakina of Rehmanpura (Ichra).

Aqeel Ahmad, of Wapda Town, said he burnt some waste furniture wood lying at his home to help his wife cook something.

Saleem Shahid adds from Quetta: The banned Baloch Republican Army has claimed responsibility for the blasts in the gas pipelines in Rahimyar Khan. Calling journalists from an unidentified place on Monday, its spokesman Sarbaz Baloch said the BRA had blown up the pipelines because these were supplying gas to Punjab from the Sui gas field in Dera Bugti district, Balochistan.

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Missing Persons found in Mass Graves in Balochistan

Baloch youth picked up (Credit: balochistanhcrblogspot.com)
Baloch youth picked up
(Credit: balochistanhcrblogspot.com)

KHUZDAR – Khuzdar administration on Monday exhumed at least 11 more decomposed bodies from a mass grave discovered in Mayy area of Tutak, about 50-kilometre from Khuzdar city. The bodies are too decomposed to be recognised. A couple of days earlier on Sunday, two bodies were recovered from same area.

“At least 11 decomposed bodies were brought to District Headquarters Hospital Khuzdar,” said medics at hospital adding, “The bodies were decomposed beyond recognition like the two discovered earlier in Tutak, a desolate place far away from the main population centre.”

Total 13 bodies have so far been recovered and all of them were buried in Police Line graveyard in Khuzdar in presence of law enforcing agencies.

Deputy Commissioner Khuzdar Waheed Shah said that Balochistan levies personnel have again started digging the area. The identity of the bodies could not be ascertained; however, he added, that DNA test might help determine the identities.

“There could be few more, as we saw human remains,” said an official on the condition of anonymity. Presence of vulture and other wild birds attracted the attention of the shepherds who informed the district administration about the mass grave.

Baloch nationalist parties and relatives of the missing persons claimed that the victims could have been abducted and killed in official custody. “We fear that these bodies belonged to missing persons. Judiciary and Human Rights Watch should press the government to carryout a transparent investigation into this humanitarian issue,” said nationalists.

A shutter-down strike was observed in different Baloch-dominated districts on the call of Baloch National Front. The strike was observed in Turbat, Panjgour, Nushki, Kalat, Mastung and others area of the province where shops and markets remained shut.
Meanwhile, the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan voiced its serious concern over the discovery of decomposed bodies in Khuzdar district, calling upon the federal and Balochistan government to urgently establish identity of the deceased and their killers.

In letters written to the federal interior minister and Balochistan chief minister, the HRCP noted that the bodies were far too decomposed to be recognisable. So far there was no information about who the deceased were and who killed them. Initial reports suggested that the persons had died around a month earlier and parts of their bodies had been eaten by wild animals.

According to reports and eye-witness accounts, there was a camp in the neighbourhood where some proxy gangs operated against the tribesmen who were not supporting them. It is more possible that the opponents were picked up, killed and dumped in the mass grave as a part of policy.

The HRCP demanded that a thorough probe must be initiated and all efforts made to establish the facts in the case and bring the perpetrators to justice. If necessary, DNA tests should be conducted at the earliest to identity the deceased, it added.
“Such an investigation is all the more vital in view of the spate of violence, targeted killings and enforced disappearance and dumping of dead bodies of missing persons in Balochistan in recent years. The HRCP also called upon the government to facilitate relatives of missing persons who are keen to learn if the deceased included their dear ones.

The HRCP also urged the federal and provincial governments to find a solution to the violence, lawlessness and killings in Balochistan and stressed that such a solution must respect due process and human rights and that emphasis should be placed on finding political means to address the challenges.

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US Puts Lashkar-i-Jhangvi chief on Global Terror List

LEJ chief Malik Ishaq (Credit: pakistantoday.com)
LEJ chief Malik Ishaq
(Credit: pakistantoday.com)

LAHORE, Feb 7- The US has added the founder of a banned Pakistani militant group to its list of global terrorists, blaming him for the deaths of hundreds of Pakistanis.

Malik Ishaq is the founding member and leader of the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LJ), a banned Sunni Muslim organization dedicated to killing or driving out Pakistan’s minority Shi’ite Muslims.

“In 1997, Malik Ishaq admitted his involvement in terrorist activity that resulted in the deaths of over 100 Pakistanis,” the US State Department said on its Web site in a statement posted on Thursday.

It noted he had also been arrested in connection with twin bombings in the western Pakistani city of Quetta that killed about 200 people last year.

“LJ specializes in armed attacks and bombings and has admitted responsibility for numerous killings of Shi’ite religious and civil society leaders in Pakistan,” the State Department said.

The designations means anyone who supports Ishaq or Lashkar-e-Jhangvi could have their assets frozen by the US government.

Ishaq’s deputy and spokesman said the decision to list Ishaq was the result of a conspiracy between the United States and Iran, a majority Shi’ite country.

About 20 percent of Pakistan’s 180 million people are Shi’ite.

“The US administration took the step on Iran’s instigation,” said the spokesman, Hafiz Ghulam Rasool Shah.

“Malik Ishaq was acquitted by Pakistan’s courts and he is leading the life of an honorable and peaceful citizen of Pakistan.”

Ishaq has spent 14 years in jail on dozens of murder or terrorism charges and was in prison when some of the attacks happened. He was eventually acquitted.

“The US made the decision in the wake of attack on Sri Lankan Cricket team in Lahore. When the incident occurred, Ishaq was in Multan district jail,” he said, referring to a deadly 2009 attack on the sports team.

“Right now, Ishaq is in jail on the charges of making hatred speeches only.”

In 2012, Ishaq told Reuters that Shi’ites were the “greatest infidels on earth” and that Pakistan should declare them non-Muslims.

“Whoever insults the companions of the Holy Prophet should be given a death sentence,” Ishaq declared.

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UK probes links between MQM chief & party leader’s murder

UK prosecutors have asked Pakistan to trace two suspects believed to have been involved in the 2010 murder of Imran Farooq, a senior leader of the Muttahida Qaumi Movement (MQM).

He was stabbed outside his home in Edgware, London, close to the Pakistani political party’s international HQ.

Documents obtained by BBC Newsnight name the suspects as Mohsin Ali Syed and Mohammed Kashif Khan Kamran.

They are believed to be in Pakistani custody but not under formal arrest.

The investigation into Mr Farooq’s murder has seen more than 4,000 people interviewed, but so far the only person arrested in the case has been Iftikhar Hussain, the nephew of MQM’s London-based leader Altaf Hussain.

Iftikhar Hussain was arrested on suspicion of conspiracy to murder, but is now on police bail. It is an arrest the party says was based on wrong information.

MQM senator Farogh Naseem has described Iftikhar Hussain as “not a person who is really with himself mentally”. He said Iftikhar Hussain had suffered at the hands of the Pakistani authorities.

In November 2011 – 14 months after the murder – Metropolitan Police chief Bernard Hogan-Howe said his force was liaising with Pakistani authorities over two arrests believed to have been made in Karachi.

Since then, however, the force has refused to confirm or deny that it is seeking Pakistani assistance.

The Pakistani government has denied anyone has been arrested and officials have failed to respond to questions about the request from the UK’s Crown Prosecution Service.

The documents, obtained by Newsnight from official sources in Pakistan, suggest Mohsin Ali Syed and Mohammed Kashif Khan Kamran secured UK visas on the basis of being granted admission to the London Academy of Management Sciences (LAMS), in east London.

The documents name two other men. One is Karachi-based businessman Muazzam Ali Khan, of Comnet Enterprises, who is believed to have endorsed the suspects’ UK visa applications and was in regular contact with Iftikhar Hussain throughout 2010.

In 2011, police released an e-fit image of a suspect in the murder case

The other is Atif Siddique, an educational consultant in Karachi, who is believed to have processed them.

Atif Siddique said he was not the agent of LAMS and did not know the two suspects.

Mr Ali Khan has not responded to e-mails and phone calls offering him the chance to respond.

A director of the college, Asif Siddique – Atif Siddique’s brother – has confirmed the two students were meant to study there. One of them registered, but failed to attend.

LAMS is designated as a “highly trusted” partner of the UK Border Agency, which means it is supposed to report the non-attendance of students within 10 days of the 10th missed student encounter with staff. Asif Siddique said the college had reported one of the student’s non-attendance to the UK authorities in May 2012.

‘Under surveillance’

The Home Office has refused to say whether or not it believes LAMS broke the rules for reporting non-attendance, but has said it is not currently investigating the college.

Mohsin Ali Syed, in his late 20s, arrived in the UK in February 2010. He moved between a number of London addresses, including bedsits in Tooting, in south London, and Whitchurch Lane, in Edgware.

Mohammed Kashif Khan Kamran arrived in the UK in early September 2010. Phone records indicate the two moved around together and it is believed they kept Mr Farooq under surveillance.

Altaf Hussain has widespread support in Karachi but is based in Edgware

The murder weapons were left at the scene of the crime and the documents seen by Newsnight state that the British authorities are seeking DNA samples as evidence that could be used in a British court.

Records show that both men left the UK on 16 September 2010, a few hours after the murder had happened, and flew to Sri Lanka, and then on to Karachi on the 19 September.

According to immigration officials in Pakistan, security officials picked them up on the tarmac before they left Karachi airport. Pakistani security sources deny that the men were picked up as a result of a British tip-off.

Whereabouts unknown

Documents lodged with Sindh High Court refer to another man, Khalid Shamim, who is believed to have helped the two suspects return to Pakistan. His wife has started legal proceedings in the court in an attempt to trace his whereabouts.

The MQM, Karachi’s dominant political party, describes itself as a modern, secular and middle class party. Senior party figures say it offers the best chance of opposing the rise of the Taliban in Pakistan’s largest city.

It insists it is a peaceful party, but its opponents complain that the UK allows it to use London as a safe haven from which it can organise its violent control of Karachi.

The party says it wants to co-operate with the murder inquiry, but insists it has nothing to do with the case and accuses UK police of harassment.

Last month, Altaf Hussain complained police were making his life “hell”.

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The end of an era in Kabul: Taliban attack on cherished restaurant shatters illusion of oasis

La Taverna in Kabul (Credit: businessweek.com)
La Taverna in Kabul
(Credit: businessweek.com)

Washington, Jan 19: On a recent Friday evening in Kabul, I gathered with friends at the Lebanese restaurant that had long been a convivial and secure oasis in a harsh and unpredictable country. The occasion was a farewell meal before I left for the States — a cherished ritual in my many visits to Afghanistan over the past decade.

As always, after an abundant assortment of mezze, we raised our discreet cups of “white tea” and promised to meet there next time. As always, the proprietor, Kamel Hamade, a dapper businessman from Beirut, refused to let us pay. “Give the money to help the animals instead,” he would insist.

Kamel was an animal lover, political gadfly and the genial host of La Taverna du Liban, a cozy bistro that catered to the foreign and local elite — Western aid workers, Middle Eastern entrepreneurs, Afghan ministry officials. There was a frisson of intrigue amid the hookah smoke and hushed chatter. We jokingly called it the “Rick’s Café” of Kabul.

There was also real danger lurking outside, we all knew. Taliban militants often targeted establishments where Westerners worked or met, and Kamel had beefed up security repeatedly against possible attacks. He was a gentleman, but also a survivor of civil war and a scrappy businessman who never shied from a fight. He kept a loaded gun in his room upstairs and a formidable mastiff named Jeff in a pen by the front door.

“I’ve got to get out of here,” he swore to me a dozen times in the past several years. “There’s too much tension, too much difficulty. I’m going to open a restaurant somewhere nice, like Geneva or New Zealand.”

But although he often travelled home to Beirut or abroad on business, Kamel never did abandon Kabul and La Taverna. He stayed on, even as foreign missions began closing in anticipation of Western troop withdrawals, political instability and growing violence. He stayed on even after other restaurants folded, reservations flagged due to diplomatic security alerts, and a business dispute led to a shootout at the restaurant and landed him briefly in an Afghan jail.

As long as La Taverna remained open — as long as Kamel was there in his favorite corner, smoking cigarettes and counting change and yelling at the waiters and surveying his domain and leaping up to greet old friends — I felt as if I still had a familiar sanctuary, a small zone of comfort in Kabul.

On Friday evening, that illusion was violently shattered. At 7 p.m., the busiest dinner hour of the week, a Taliban suicide bomber detonated himself outside the front gate, right next to Jeff’s pen, and two gunmen shot their way inside, raking the dining room with gunfire. By the time Afghan security forces stormed the premises and shot them, at least 21 people were dead, including Kamel and dinner guests from half a dozen countries. So was Jeff.

I was back in Washington by then, working at my desk, when a colleague called unexpectedly from Kabul, then a friend e-mailed. A loud blast had been heard. More messages and news bulletins followed, the focus narrower, the details still sketchy but horrific. It was La Taverna. There was shooting and commotion outside but no news, nothing, from inside.

I reached an Afghan friend whose brother was a cook. He had escaped over the back wall and had seen Kamel running into the dining room with his gun. My stomach knotted in dread. I imagined him plunging into a scene of chaos and screams and blood, defending his guests and his property to the death.

Within two hours, those fears were confirmed. My friend was dead, my convivial war-zone sanctuary a charnel house. I also knew this attack had changed everything for me, my friends and the entire international community in Kabul.

There had been other Taliban assaults in the capital over the years — against international hotels and agencies and military compounds. But this was more intimate, more savage, more personal. The Taliban crowed in an e-mail Friday about eliminating foreign “occupiers,” but all I could think about was Kamel fretting over his ailing orange cat, Boy, or trying to find Jeff a mate to make him less ferocious, or refusing to let his friends pay for a meal.

I also thought about the dozens of wonderful evenings over the past decade I had shared at La Taverna with friends and colleagues and fellow animal rescuers — a veterinarian from Maine, an aid supervisor from France, an engineer from Prague, a security contractor from Australia, a diplomat from Canada, a nurse from Nashville, a lawyer from Ireland, an anthropologist from Rome, and many Afghan friends and co-workers. Now, the Taliban had made sure we would never meet there again.

On Saturday, I found my e-mail inbox flooded with messages from these now-scattered friends, some wondering if I was safe, some recounting memories of Kamel’s attentiveness to us and his beloved four-legged companions.

One close friend in Kabul wrote what we were all thinking: “Is this a horrid, isolated incident, or does it have greater long-term consequences and ramifications?”

Of Kamel, she wrote, “he still remains perhaps the kindest, most gentle, and respected of men I have met in this city. He created a unique space for himself, for the restaurant, and for all of us — expat and Afghan alike. A culture, a sanctuary and a place of civility have been lost, and will not be replaced.”

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TTP Owns Attack on Security Forces, says Ready for “Talks”

Bannu attack (Credit: dunyanews.tv)
Bannu attack
(Credit: dunyanews.tv)

PESHAWAR, Jan 19: A bombing, targeting a security forces convoy, killed 20 people and injured 30 others near Razmak gate in Cantt area of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa’s Bannu district on Sunday. The Pakistani Taliban claimed the attack.

An ISPR spokesman said that in the attack, 20 security personnel were killed and 30 were injured.

Speaking to CNN, Shahidullah Shahid, spokesman for the proscribed Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) claimed that the militant organisation was responsible for the attack and said that their attacks on security forces would continue.

On the other hand, intelligence sources say that a convoy, comprising military and civilian vehicles, was ready to move towards Miramshah in the North Waziristan tribal region from a ground near Razmak Gate in Cantt area of Bannu when the explosion occurred in one of the coaches.

The sources added that the explosives were planted in one of the vehicles hired from a private party.

Federal Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan condemning the incident has sought a report from the Inspector General of Frontier Corps with the details related to the hiring of the private vehicles for transportation.

Emergency and security forces reached the attack site and shifted the victims to a nearby hospital. Those killed in the attack included civilians and security forces personnel.

Moreover, security forces cordoned off the area as a probe into the incident went underway.

Within hours of the attack, the TTP spokesman said that the Taliban were ready for meaningful dialogue, however, the government should show its sincerity.

The northwestern town of Bannu, which stands at the gateway to the semi-autonomous Waziristan tribal region, is 150 kilometres southwest of Peshawar, the capital of KP.

The town has witnessed a number of attacks and was the scene of a massive jail break in April 2012 during which 384 prisoners escaped from its central prison.