Blasts hit ISI office in Land of Sufis

ISI office targeted in Sukkur (Credit: tribune.com.pk)
ISI office targeted in Sukkur (Credit: tribune.com.pk)

KARACHI, July 25: A series of blasts rocked the southern town of Sukkur late Wednesday as militants rammed an explosive-laden vehicle into a compound of Pakistan’s premier intelligence agency, security officials said.

At least nine people were killed, including five attackers and four agency officials in what was an unprecedented attack in the otherwise peaceful town.

Police said the attackers detonated two bombs — one outside a police building and a car bomb outside the ISI office in the town, located around 500 kilometres from Karachi, the main city of Sindh province.

A police official said apparently a suicide bomber first blew himself up in front of a police building and then a second suicide bomber detonated the explosive-filled car outside the ISI office.

The terrorists had seized control of one government building, sparking a shoot-out between the militants and security forces in the high-security Barrage Colony area.

The exact number of casualties was still unclear as TV channels put the death toll between seven to ten but there was no confirmation from the hospital.

Sources told Dawn that four agency officials were among the dead including ISI’s deputy director Maj Zeeshan, Azizullah, Asghar Ali and Nazeer Ahmed. There was no official confirmation of the death of the agency officials.

Major General Rizwan Akhtar, head of the paramilitary force, Sindh Rangers said that all attackers had been killed and the ISI compound had been cleared of the militants.

“All three militants who seized the compound have also been killed and the building completely cleared of terrorists,” said Akhtar.

He said the front wall and gate of the ISI office had been blown away by the impact of the first blast.

A senior police official said it appeared to be “an organised terrorist attack”. Militants have launched such sophisticated attacks before, but Sukkur has been traditionally immune from such violence.

No group has claimed responsibility for the attack so far.

In May 2009, a suicide attack outside a police building next to the local ISI headquarters in the eastern city of Lahore killed 24 people.

In November that year a powerful car bomb ripped through ISI’s headquarters in the northwestern city of Peshawar, killing 10 people and destroying part of the fortified building.

A month later in the central city of Multan two suicide attackers fired at soldiers while driving a truck bomb past security checkpoints in an attempt to approach the local office of the ISI.

In another elaborately planned attack last year, militants attacked Kamra, a major airbase, and damaged an aircraft.

The year before, Pakistani Taliban gunmen attacked a naval base in Karachi, the country’s biggest city. Ten military personnel were killed in the 16-hour assault.

In 2009, they attacked the national army headquarters in the garrison town of Rawalpindi, close to the federal capital.

Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif has strongly condemned the attack, which he said resulted in the “loss of precious human lives and injured many”.

—DawnNews correspondent Asif Mehmood contributed to reporting.

 

 

Pakistan President’s Security Guard Killed – Washington Post

Bilal Shaikh killed (Credit: nation.com.pk)
Bilal Shaikh killed (Credit: nation.com.pk)

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — One of Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari’s most trusted aides was killed in a suspected suicide bombing in the volatile port city of Karachi on Wednesday as he stopped his armored vehicle to buy some fruit, police said.

Pakistan has suffered a spate of attacks since Nawaz Sharif was sworn in as prime minister last month, underscoring the challenges facing the nuclear-armed nation in taming a Taliban-linked insurgency.

A senior police officer in the city said Bilal Shaikh — Zardari’s security chief, who was always spotted next to the president during public appearances — and two others were killed in a prosperous area of eastern Karachi.

“It seems that the suicide attacker walked up to Bilal Shaikh’s vehicle and blew himself up outside the front passenger seat of the vehicle where Shaikh was seated,” the officer, Raja Umar Khattab, said. About a dozen people were wounded. A police escort was accompanying Shaikh’s sport-utility vehicle at the time of the attack.

No one asserted responsibility for the blast, which took place on the eve of the start of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan, which begins in Pakistan on Thursday.

The latest wave of attacks has ended a period of relative calm after a May election that marked Pakistan’s first transition between elected civilian governments. In early June, Sharif won a parliamentary vote to become premier for the third time.

Last weekend, at least five people were killed when a bomb ripped through a busy restaurant street in the eastern city of Lahore, Sharif’s home city. On June 30, at least 28 people were killed in the southwestern city of Quetta when a suicide bomber struck in a largely Shiite neighborhood.

Shaikh, who had survived an assassination attempt near his home in Karachi about a year ago, used to change his routes several times while traveling around one of Pakistan’s most violent cities.

Like Zardari, he belonged to the Pakistan People’s Party, which had been in power before the May election. Taliban-linked militants had previously targeted the secular party.

Zardari and Sharif issued separate statements condemning the attack, a private TV channel reported.

It was the first attack in Karachi since mid-June. At least nine people were killed when a bomb targeting the convoy of a senior judge exploded in the old city area. The judge survived. The Pakistani Taliban asserted responsibility for that attack.

— Reuters

QUETTA, PESHAWARROCKED BY BLASTS: SUICIDE BOMBER KILLS 28 HAZARA MEN AND WOMEN

Hazara massacre in Quetta (Credit ipsnews.net)QUETTA, June 30: At least 28 men and women of Shia Hazara community were killed and 60 others injured in a suicide blast in the Aliabad area of Hazara town on Sunday night. “A suicide bomber blew himself up near a barrier close to Ali Ibn-Abu-Talib Imambargah,” DIG (Investigation) Syed Mobin Ahmed told Dawn.

The proscribed Lashkar-i-Jhangvi has claimed responsibility for the attack. A spokesman for the group who identified himself as Abubakar Siddique told a private TV channel that his group had carried out the attack in the Hazara town.

At least nine women were among the dead.

Sources said that an unidentified man on a bicycle tried to enter the area and when people standing near the barrier tried to stop him he blew himself up.

The blast occurred at the Balkhi Chowk which is near to the Imambargah.

Capital City Police Officer Mir Zubair Mehmood told reporters that prayers were being held inside the Imambargah when the blast took place.

He said the target of the bomber was Imambargah but he could not reach there because people responsible for security of the Imambargah stopped him at the barrier.

He said the head and parts of the bomber’s body had been found.

Eyewitnesses said a large number of people, including women and children, were at the place at the time of the blast.

Press photographer Saeed Ahmed told Dawn that human flesh and limbs were lying all over the place.

Soon after the blast, the sources said, security personnel rushed to the blast site and cordoned off the area. They did
not allow even rescue personnel to enter the area for fear of a second blast.

Hazara town resounded with gunfire after the explosion.

Two hand-grenades were found at the blast site which the suicide bomber reportedly carried.

The injured and the bodies were taken to the Bolan Medical College Hospital and the Combined Military Hospital.

Hospital sources said the death toll could rise because at least 10 of the injured were stated to be in serious condition.

Several nearby buildings and vehicles parked in the area were badly damaged by the blast.

This was second bomb attack in Hazara town over the past five months.

The previous blast, caused by explosive in a water-tanker on Feb 16, killed about 100 people and left over 200 injured.

Balochistan Governor Mohammad Khan Achakzai and Chief Minister Dr Abdul Malik Baloch condemned the blast and expressed grief over the loss of lives. They expressed sympathy with the bereaved families.

Official sources at the Chief Minister’s Secretariat told this reporter that the chief minister who was in Islamabad on an official visit, decided to return to Quetta after coming to know about the attack.

“The chief minister has directed officials concerned to ensure adequate medical treatment of the injured,” they said.

TTP and the Perils of Inertia

TTP spokespersons (Credit: dawn.com)
TTP spokespersons
(Credit: dawn.com)

IT is our war. It is America’s war. Thousands of Pakistanis have perished in this war. And all we do is take part in this debate. We do nothing to end it.

If one could put it down to a simple lack of will or spine it would have been bad enough. That a fair bit of the discourse on terrorism represents ideologically motivated obfuscation is unforgivable, particularly given how many compatriots have had to sacrifice so much.

The dominant argument is that Pakistan’s support to the US-led war in Afghanistan and the CIA’s drone attacks are the only drivers of terrorism in the country. Ergo, this support to the US is not just blamed for terrorism but also advanced as a justification for the mass murder of our people.

Refusal to accept this view in its entirety is immediately pounced upon as being tantamount to condoning or worse still supporting the drone attacks that mostly kill our civilians, women and children, and occasionally the militant in the tribal areas.

God help you if you happen to have doubts about talks with the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP): “Amreeka key agent media mein bethey huey hein jo amn ke khilaf hein” (There are American agents in the media opposed to peace), Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) leader Imran Khan said in his ‘first’ televised interview since his election campaign accident.

His utter contempt for anyone holding a view different to his own is always a bit upsetting but, on this occasion, it was reassuring because it established the PTI leader had been restored to good health and his former self.

Therefore, it wasn’t surprising to hear him say that if the US can facilitate the opening of an Afghan Taliban office in Doha and initiate a dialogue with them why couldn’t Pakistan do the same in case of the TTP.

Let me be open and admit that I have a soft corner for the great Khan. He gave me and countless others one of the finest moments of our lives by leading Pakistan to its only Cricket World Cup triumph. That is why we all forgave him for his “In the twilight of my career…” speech.

That the well-meaning, born-again Muslim then went on to a greater triumph in setting up and successfully running the Shaukat Khanum Memorial Hospital for specialised cancer care in memory of his mother who, like mine, died at the cruel hands of cancer was awe-inspiring.

So yes, I disagree with him but won’t call him Taliban Khan; even if he finds ideological compassion for the TTP and understanding for the atrocities committed by the group against thousands of Pakistanis.

He is free to call me an American agent or by whatever name he wishes because I oppose talks with the TTP. I do so because there is no parallel between that and the US starting a dialogue with the Afghan Taliban.

The US is now keen to get out of Afghanistan, a foreign country it invaded with UN approval and possibly a just cause, after the Taliban administration refused to hand over the mostly Saudi suspected perpetrators of the 9/11 attacks on US soil.

It went into the country seeking retribution. This retribution wasn’t possible without regime change. It did what it thought necessary. It may even have attained its main objective of attacking Al Qaeda in its sanctuary and denuding it of its capacity to attack the US on its soil again.

But a democracy it remains and its war-weary voting public is wary of continuing a bloody conflict which, they understand, cannot be won. So, the US has now embarked on its plan to shrink its giant footprint in that foreign country.

However, it also doesn’t wish a return of the pre-invasion situation in Afghanistan where Islamic militants from around the world found a safe haven and training ground to serve as a launching pad for their global jihad.

It wants guarantees that only the Taliban can give. It isn’t clear if, in line with ISI belief, the Taliban can return to their pre-war glory and rule over Kabul as well but it is clear to the US they’ll have large swathes of the country under their control as they do even now; hence, the talks.

If the admittedly imperfect Afghan democracy collapses post-US withdrawal so be it as long as the new power structures can guarantee no sanctuaries for global jihadis. The US doesn’t seem interested in ‘nation building’ any more. It’ll retain its drone programme, and possibly some residual air and special operations capability so nothing’s left to chance. We have our democracy to lose. Unless, that is, we actually believe that once the US has pulled out of Afghanistan or we have pulled out of the ‘US war’ all will be hunky-dory. We’ll need to forget the TTP is committed to their brand of Sharia in the country and beyond.

They find democracy, diversity of opinion and faith against their ideological beliefs. Groups of mass murderers such as the Lashkar-i-Jhangvi are either TTP allies or franchises. The TTP continues to offer sanctuaries to foreign fighters with global ambitions.

Thousands of soldiers have died clearing the bulk of the tribal areas of these militants. The TTP remains ensconced in its remaining stronghold of North Waziristan. That is where the serpent’s head is.

One would have said carry on with your obfuscation, talk about talks, do deals like in the past, if it wasn’t so dangerous. All this wasted time means wasted opportunities. The TTP gets bolder and bolder in its attacks; its ranks appear swollen by zealots; who knows what fear can do to people.

What if one day, battered by TTP’s bombings and filled with despair by the inertia of the state, more people turn to its ideology if only to find some respite, save themselves? What a horrifying thought. I’d rather be labelled an American agent and strive to salvage whatever is left of my Pakistan.

The writer is a former editor of Dawn.
abbas.nasir@hotmail.com

Militants kill 9 foreign tourists, 1 Pakistani at base of one of world’s highest mountains

Nanga Parbat base camp (Credit: halaat.com)
Nanga Parbat base camp
(Credit: halaat.com)
ISLAMABAD, June 23 — Islamic militants wearing police uniforms shot to death nine foreign tourists and one Pakistani before dawn Sunday as they were visiting one of the world’s highest mountains in a remote area of northern Pakistan, officials said.

The foreigners who were killed included five Ukrainians, three Chinese and one Russian, said Pakistani Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan. One Chinese tourist was wounded in the attack and was rescued, he said.

The local branch of the Taliban took responsibility for the killings, saying it was to avenge the death of a leader killed in a drone strike.

The shooting is likely to damage the country’s struggling tourism industry. Pakistan’s mountainous north — considered until now relatively safe — is one of the main attractions in a country beset with insurgency and other political instability.

The attack took place at the base camp of Nanga Parbat, the ninth highest mountain in the world at 8,126 meters (26,660 feet). Nanga Parbat is notoriously difficult to climb and is known as the “killer mountain” because of numerous mountaineering deaths in the past. It’s unclear if the tourists were planning to climb the mountain or were just visiting the base camp, which is located in the Gilgit-Baltistan region of Pakistan.

The gunmen were wearing uniforms used by the Gilgit Scouts, a paramilitary police force that patrols the area, said the interior minister. The attackers abducted two local guides to find their way to the remote base camp. One of the guides was killed in the shooting, and the other has been detained and is being questioned, said Khan.

“The government will take all measures to ensure the safety of foreign tourists,” said the interior minister in a speech in the National Assembly, which passed a resolution condemning the incident.

Pakistani Taliban spokesman Ahsanullah Ahsan claimed responsibility for the attack, saying their Jundul Hafsa group carried out the shooting as retaliation for the death of the Taliban’s deputy leader, Waliur Rehman, in a U.S. drone attack on May 29.

“By killing foreigners, we wanted to give a message to the world to play their role in bringing an end to the drone attacks,” Ahsan told The Associated Press by telephone from an undisclosed location.

The attackers beat up the Pakistanis who were accompanying the tourists, took their money and tied them up, said a senior local government official. They checked the identities of the Pakistanis and shot to death one of them, possibly because he was a minority Shiite Muslim, said the official, speaking on condition of anonymity because he was not authorized to talk to the media. Although Gilgit-Baltistan is a relatively peaceful area, it has experienced attacks by radical Sunni Muslims on Shiites in recent years.

The attackers took the money and passports from the foreigners and then gunned them down, said the official. It’s unclear how the Chinese tourist who was rescued managed to avoid being killed.

Local police chief Barkat Ali said they first learned of the attack when one of the local guides called the police station around 1 a.m. on Sunday.

The Pakistani government condemned the shooting in a statement sent to reporters.

“The government of Pakistan expresses its deep sense of shock and grief on this brutal act of terrorism, and extends its sympathy to the families of the victims,” said a statement issued by the Foreign Ministry. “Those who have committed this heinous crime seem to be attempting to disrupt the growing relations of Pakistan with China and other friendly countries.”

Pakistan has very close ties with neighboring China and is very sensitive to an issue that could harm the relationship. Pakistani officials have reached out to representatives from China and Ukraine to convey their sympathies, the Foreign Ministry said.

Many foreign tourists stay away from Pakistan because of the perceived danger of visiting a country that is home to a large number of Islamic militant groups, such as the Taliban and al-Qaida, which mostly reside in the northwest near the Afghan border. But a relatively small number of intrepid foreigners visit Gilgit-Baltistan during the summer to marvel at the peaks of the Himalayan and Karakoram ranges, including K2, the second highest mountain in the world.

Syed Mehdi Shah, the chief minister of Gilgit-Baltistan, condemned the attack and expressed fear that it would seriously damage the region’s tourism industry.

“A lot of tourists come to this area in the summer, and our local people work to earn money from these people,” said Shah. “This will not only affect our area, but will adversely affect all of Pakistan.”

Shah said authorities are still trying to get more information about exactly what happened to the tourists. The area where the attack occurred, Bunar Nala, is only accessible by foot or on horseback, and communications can be difficult, said Shah. Bunar Nala is on one of three routes to reach Nanga Parbat, he said.

The area has been cordoned off by police and paramilitary soldiers, and a military helicopter is searching the area, said Shah. The military plans to airlift the bodies of the foreign tourists to Islamabad, he said.

“God willing we will find the perpetrators of this tragic incident,” said Shah.

The government suspended the top police chief in Gilgit-Baltistan following the attack and has ordered an inquiry into the incident, said Khan, the interior minister.

_____

Associated Press writer Rasool Dawar contributed to this report from Peshawar, Pakistan.

Multi-pronged attack in Balochistan kills 23

Jinnah's Ziarat residence burnt (Credit: facebook.com)
Jinnah’s Ziarat residence burnt
(Credit: facebook.com)
DAWN.COM | Syed Ali Shah

QUETTA/ISLAMABAD, June 15: At least 23 people, including 14 female students and the deputy commissioner Quetta, were killed Saturday in multiple bomb and gun attacks by militants in the capital of insurgency-hit Balochistan province.

Interior Minister Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan told reporters at a press conference that several parts of the Bolan Medical Complex, taken under siege by terrorists, have now been cleared by security forces.

An operation was being carried out by security personnel to free the Bolan Medical Complex from heavily armed militants who had taken over parts of the hospital and were reported to have taken several people hostage.

A large number of patients and doctors were trapped inside the complex when heavily armed militants took the hospital under siege.

According to security forces, parts of the hospital have been cleared while four gunmen are still believed to be inside the complex.

Nisar confirmed that 35 hostages had now been freed by security forces.

“According to our official reports, four terrorists have been killed in the operation while one suspect has been arrested from outside the hospital,” said the interior minister.

The interior minister said further details of the ongoing operation to clear the hospital would be announced later.

Condemning the earlier attack on Ziarat Residency, he said that orders have been issued to re-build the historic monument of the country. Chaudhry Nisar also revealed that outlawed Balochistan Liberation Army (BLA) has claimed responsibility of the rocket attacks in Ziarat.

Nisar said the total death toll from the attacks in Quetta has now risen to 22, including four terrorists, four Frontier Corps personnel, Deputy Commissioner Quetta Abdul Mansoor Khan and 14 female students of the Sardar Bahadar Khan Women’s University.

The female students were killed earlier when an improvised explosive device ripped through a bus inside the university campus.

“The bomb exploded just when female teachers and students gathered inside the bus around 3 pm to proceed for Quetta city from the university,” CCPO Mir Zubair Mehmood said.

The CCPO said that most of the victims were female teachers and students. He said the bus caught fire after the powerful blast.

The injured were shifted to the Bolan Medical Complex, where half an hour later sounds of explosions and gunfire spread panic and chaos among the patients and doctors.

Several people were trapped inside the complex for hours as security personnel engaged in a grueling operation against the militants.

Security forces have now cleared most of the complex and evacuated the civilians, although CCPO Mir Zubair Mehmood said it might take another three hours to confirm that the hospital was clear of all terrorists.

Meanwhile, the Balochistan government has officially announced to observe a “day of mourning” on Sunday.

Earlier Saturday, militants attacked the Quaid-e-Azam residency in Ziarat with hand grenades, destroying the historical monument where the founder of Pakistan Mohammad Ali Jinnah spent his last days.

A policeman was killed in the attack on the Jinnah’s monumental residency.

Officials had confirmed that most of the old memorials inside the monument were destroyed, with historic photographs of the founder burnt to the ground in the resulting fire.

It was unclear if the attack on the Quaid’s residency in Ziarat was related to the later attacks in Quetta.

Federal Minister for Information and Broadcasting Senator Pervez Rashid assured full support to the Balochistan Government in the wake of the terrorist attacks in Balochistan.

Speaking to media representatives in Islamabad, Rashid strongly condemned the attacks. He said that those involved in these terrorist acts were the enemies of Pakistan and Balochistan.

He said that the entire nation was with the people of Balochistan at this critical juncture.

‘US secretly collected 13.5 bn reports from Pakistan in March’

NSA Whistleblower Edward Snowden (Credit: businessinsider.com)
NSA Whistleblower Edward Snowden (Credit: businessinsider.com)
LONDON, Jun 10: The United States National Security Agency (NSA) has intercepted 13.5 billion reports for intelligence purposes during a period of 30 days in March 2013 from Pakistan.

The UK’s Guardian newspaper has acquired top secret documents about the NSA data mining tool, called Boundless Informant, that details and even maps by country the voluminous amount of information it collects from computer and telephone networks.

Iran was the country where the largest amount of intelligence was gathered, with more than 14 billion reports in that period, followed by 13.5 billion from Pakistan. Jordan, one of America’s closest Arab allies, came third with 12.7 billion, Egypt fourth with 7.6 billion and India fifth with 6.3 billion.

The focus of the internal NSA intelligence agency tool is on counting and categorising the records of communications, known as metadata, rather than the content of an email or instant message.

The Boundless Informant documents show the agency collecting almost 3 billion pieces of intelligence from US computer networks over a 30-day period ending in March 2013. One document says it is designed to give NSA officials answers to questions like, “What type of coverage do we have on country X” in “near real-time by asking the SIGINT (signals intelligence) infrastructure.”

An NSA factsheet about the programme, acquired by the Guardian, says: “The tool allows users to select a country on a map and view the metadata volume and select details about the collections against that country.”

Under the heading “Sample use cases”, the factsheet also states the tool shows information including: “How many records (and what type) are collected against a particular country.” A snapshot of the Boundless Informant data, contained in a top secret NSA “global heat map” seen by the Guardian, shows that in March 2013 the agency collected 97bn pieces of intelligence from computer networks worldwide.

The disclosure of the internal Boundless Informant system comes amid a struggle between the NSA and its overseers in the Senate over whether it can track the intelligence it collects on American communications. The NSA’s position is that it is not technologically feasible to do so.

At a hearing of the Senate intelligence committee in March this year, Democratic Senator Ron Wyden asked James Clapper, the director of national intelligence: “Does the NSA collect any type of data at all on millions or hundreds of millions of Americans?”

“No sir,” replied Clapper. Judith Emmel, an NSA spokeswoman, told the Guardian in a response to the latest disclosures: “NSA has consistently reported — including to Congress — that we do not have the ability to determine with certainty the identity or location of all communicants within a given communication. That remains the case.”

Other documents seen by the Guardian further demonstrate that the NSA does in fact break down its surveillance intercepts which could allow the intelligence agency to determine how many of them are from the US. The level of detail includes individual IP addresses.

On Friday, in his first public response to the disclosures this week on NSA surveillance, Barack Obama said that that congressional oversight was the American peoples’ best guarantee that they were not being spied on.

“These are the folks you all vote for as your representatives in Congress and they are being fully briefed on these programmes,” he said. Obama also insisted that any surveillance was “very narrowly circumscribed”.

Emmel, the NSA spokeswoman, told the Guardian: “Current technology simply does not permit us to positively identify all of the persons or locations associated with a given communication (for example, it may be possible to say with certainty that a communication traversed a particular path within the internet. It is harder to know the ultimate source or destination, or more particularly the identity of the person represented by the TO:, FROM: or CC: field of an e-mail address or the abstraction of an IP address).

“Thus, we apply rigorous training and technological advancements to combine both our automated and manual (human) processes to characterise communications — ensuring protection of the privacy rights of the American people. This is not just our judgment, but that of the relevant inspectors general, who have also reported this.”

She added: “The continued publication of these allegations about highly classified issues, and other information taken out of context, makes it impossible to conduct a reasonable discussion on the merits of these programmes.”

The Drone War Is Far From Over

WHEN people in Washington talk about shrinking the drone program, as President Obama promised to do last week, they are mostly concerned with placating Pakistan, where members of the newly elected government have vowed to end violations of the country’s sovereignty. But the drone war is alive and well in the remote corners of Pakistan where the strikes have caused the greatest and most lasting damage.

Drone strikes like Wednesday’s, in Waziristan, are destroying already weak tribal structures and throwing communities into disarray throughout Pakistan’s tribal belt along the border with Afghanistan. The chaos and rage they produce endangers the Pakistani government and fuels anti-Americanism. And the damage isn’t limited to Pakistan. Similar destruction is occurring in other traditional tribal societies like Afghanistan, Somalia and Yemen. The tribes on the periphery of these nations have long struggled for more autonomy from the central government, first under colonial rule and later against the modern state. The global war on terror has intensified that conflict.

These tribal societies are organized into clans defined by common descent; they maintain stability through similar structures of authority; and they have defined codes of honor revolving around hospitality to guests and revenge against enemies.

In recent decades, these societies have undergone huge disruptions as the traditional leadership has come under attack by violent groups like the Taliban, Al Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula and Somalia’s Al Shabab, not to mention full-scale military invasions. America has deployed drones into these power vacuums, causing ferocious backlashes against central governments while destroying any positive image of the United States that may have once existed.

American precision-guided missiles launched into Pakistan’s Pashtun tribal areas aim to eliminate what are called, with marvelous imprecision, the “bad guys.” Several decades ago I, too, faced the problem of catching a notorious “bad guy” in Waziristan.

It was 1979. Safar Khan, a Pashtun outlaw, had over the years terrorized the region with raids and kidnappings. He was always one step ahead of the law, disappearing into the undemarcated international border between Afghanistan and Pakistan, the very area where Osama bin Laden would later find shelter.

I was then the political agent of South Waziristan, a government administrator in charge of the area. When Mr. Khan kidnapped a Pakistani soldier, the commanding general threatened to launch military operations. I told him to hold off his troops, and took direct responsibility for Mr. Khan’s capture.

I mobilized tribal elders and religious leaders to persuade Mr. Khan to surrender, promising him a fair trial by jirga, a council of elders, according to tribal custom. Working through the Pashtun code of honor, Mr. Khan eventually surrendered unconditionally and the writ of the state was restored. The general who had argued for using force was delighted.

We were able to get Mr. Khan without firing a single shot by relying on the three pillars of authority that have traditionally provided stability in Pashtun tribal society: elders, religious leaders and the central government.

Over the past few decades, these pillars have weakened. And in 2004, with the Pakistani army’s unprecedented assault and American drones’ targeting suspected supporters of Al Qaeda in Waziristan, the pillars of authority began to crumble.

In the vacuum that followed, the Tehrik-e-Taliban Pakistan, or Pakistani Taliban, emerged. Its first targets were tribal authorities. Approximately 400 elders have been killed in Waziristan alone, a near-decapitation of traditional society.

Large segments of the tribal population were displaced to shantytowns surrounding large cities, bringing with them traditional tribal feuds and a desire for revenge against those they saw as responsible for their desperate situation.

As the pace of the violence in the tribal areas increased, the Pakistani Taliban sought to strike the central government. They kidnapped Pakistan’s ambassador to Afghanistan, stormed Army General Headquarters in Rawalpindi, and assaulted a naval base in Karachi. In 2009, fighters attacked a military mosque, killing 36 people, including 17 children. Taking hold of children’s hair and shooting them point-blank, they yelled “Now you know how it feels when other people are killed.”

For the first time tribesmen resorted to suicide strikes — in mosques, bazaars and offices in which women and children were often the victims — something categorically rejected by both Islam and the Pashtun tribal code.

The tribesmen of Waziristan have for years seen the Pakistani government as colluding on drone strikes with the Americans, against whom their tribal kin are fighting across the border in Afghanistan. Therefore, they take revenge against the military and other government targets for those killed by drones.

Their suspicions of Pakistan complicity proved correct. Former President Pervez Musharraf admitted to CNN last month that his government had secretly given permission to the United States to operate drones inside Pakistan.

Drone strikes have made Waziristan’s already turbulent conflict with the central government worse. Almost 3,500 people have been killed by drones in Waziristan, including many innocent civilians.

Those at the receiving end of the strikes see them as unjust, immoral and dishonorable — killing innocent people who have never themselves harmed Americans while the drone operators sit safely halfway across the world, terrorizing and killing by remote control.

Mr. Obama should not assume that his pledge to scale back the drone war will have an appreciable impact on America’s image or Pakistan’s security unless the strikes stop and the old pillars of tribal authority can gradually be rebuilt.

Until then, American policy makers would do well to heed a Pashto proverb: “The Pashtun who took revenge after a hundred years said, I took it quickly.”

Akbar Ahmed, the Islamic Studies chair at American University and the former Pakistani high commissioner to Britain, is the author of “The Thistle and the Drone: How America’s War on Terror Became a Global War on Tribal Islam.”

Drone Kills Tehrik-i-Taliban’s Second Senior Most Commander

Wali-ur-Rehman (rewardsforjustice.com)
Wali-ur-Rehman (rewardsforjustice.com)

At least six people were killed in a drone strike Wednesday in northwest Pakistan, reportedly including a top Pakistani Taliban official, in the first publicized US drone attack since President Barack Obama announced he was changing policy on such strikes.

According to multiple reports, Wali-ur-Rehman, the second in command of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, was killed in the attack in North Waziristan, a militant stronghold. The drone reportedly fired two missiles into a mud house in the village of Chashma, killing at least six and wounding four others. Reuters reports that Mr. Wali-ur-Rehman had been poised to succeed TTP leader Hakimullah Mehsud.

“This is a huge blow to militants and a win in the fight against insurgents,” one security official told Reuters, declining further comment.

RECOMMENDED: How much do you know about Pakistan? Take this quiz.

The Pakistani Taliban are a separate entity allied to the Afghan Taliban. Known as the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP), they have launched devastating attacks against the Pakistani military and civilians.

Reuters reports that the Pakistani Foreign Office expressed concern over the attack, stating that “Any drone strike is against the territorial integrity and sovereignty of Pakistan and we condemn it.” Reuters notes, however that the comment was made before Wali-ur-Rehman had been identified as a casualty.

Pakistani newspaper The News International reports that the TTP denied that Wali-ur-Rehman was killed.

The drone strike comes at a precarious time for both Washington and Islamabad. Last week, President Obama announced that the White House had codified new policy guidance on the use of lethal force against terrorists, including the use of drones, The Christian Science Monitor reported.

Generally speaking, the US government has to determine that a potential drone target poses a “continuing and imminent threat to the American people,” the president said.

Drones can be used only if the US can’t capture individual terrorists.

“Our preference is always to detain, interrogate, and prosecute them,” Obama said.

And finally, before any strike occurs, there must be “near certainty” that no civilians will be killed or injured, according to the president.

Experts note, however, that at least rhetorically, the president’s guidelines match what has been said before about US drone policies, and it is unclear whether this announcement marks a change in process – particularly as most of the relevant information on drone policy remains classified.

At the same time, Pakistan is in an interim period between its recent presidential election and the formation of a new government led by Nawaz Sharif, who “has made it very clear through the election campaign that he wants all drone strikes to stop all together,” reports the BBC’s Richard Galpin.

“The plain fact here is that the drone strikes are extremely unpopular, the vast majority of the population opposed to them – recent research showing two-thirds of them, of the population were opposed to them. Nawaz Sharif, I think is pretty much obliged to bring this issue up in negotiations with the American government to see if he can persuade them to stop the strikes.”

But at the same time, says the BBC’s M Ilyas Khan, “any strike against the Pakistan Taliban would be welcomed by the Pakistani authorities because the group has for several years been exclusively focused on pursuing Pakistani – rather than Afghan – military and civilian targets.”

Our correspondent says it comes on the same day that the newly-elected parliament of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province – which adjoins North Waziristan – holds its first meeting.

The province is now being ruled by former cricketer Imran Khan’s PTI party, which has in recent months repeatedly spoken out against drone attacks, as has Prime Minister-elect Nawaz Sharif.

First they came for the Communists…

Zahra Shahid Hussain (Credit: thenews.com.pk)
Zahra Shahid Hussain
(Credit: thenews.com.pk)
Islamabad, May 22: It was a cold, misty evening in Karachi some months ago. At a friend’s place, Zahra Shahid Hussain was trying to convince a motley group of PTI enthusiasts and critics from different social and professional backgrounds on why Imran Khan showed promise like no other political leader and why the PTI must be given a chance to run the country.

The criticism we offered was harsh at times. She took it with great poise and tried her best to answer the questions raised against the party, its politics and the choices made by her leader. She was receptive, gentle and accepting – qualities rarely found in PTI neo-converts. They usually neither take any criticism in good stride nor try to respond to your comments logically. They counter you with hate mails, write against you and snub you privately or publicly. Zahra Shahid Hussain was different – an elderly, mature, self-assured and polite woman. Her cold-blooded murder outside her residence in Karachi reflects the barbarity of the perpetrators and our growing insensitivity as a people towards such gruesome acts of violence. My heart goes out to her family and friends. May she rest in peace.

While the PTI leadership in Karachi was a little more cautious and asked for immediate investigation and demanded the killers be arrested, Imran Khan was swift in apportioning blame on the MQM chief Altaf Hussain. His justification was Hussain’s earlier threats to the PTI’s demonstrators who complained of rigging and asked for a fresh round of balloting in some polling stations in Karachi. Khan’s statement came on the eve of the re-election on a select number of polling stations in NA-250, the constituency where the polling process was challenged by his party. The MQM had already rejected the ECP’s decision and boycotted the re-polling while demanding that it should be done across the constituency. The PPP and the JI had also boycotted the process for different reasons.

The MQM leader was incensed after he was blamed for being responsible for Zahra’s murder. He was also unhappy with the local MQM leadership for letting that happen. As a consequence, the workers of the party roughed up the local leaders. The party then decided to hold protest demonstrations against Khan and the PTI. Tensions have escalated in Karachi and the two parties are at daggers drawn. The MQM says that the protests will be peaceful in nature. However, the politics of Karachi tells a different story if you take stock of what has happened on the streets and in the neighbourhoods of the city over the past 25 years. Since he is also a British citizen, British authorities had already received thousands of complaints about Altaf Hussain’s incitement to violence in a speech made just after the elections – even before the murder took place.

In fairness, no one can be charged of a crime unless proper investigation is carried out. However, there are lessons to be learnt by both the MQM and the PTI from the tragic murder of Zahra Shahid Hussain. The MQM is still perceived to be a party that takes to violence if its wish and will are not followed by all concerned. No doubt it has a popular base but the realisation has to come sooner than later that it is increasingly impossible to coerce the electorate, influence the electoral process by force or keep getting the number of seats that defy the changes that have taken place over the years in both demography and political opinion in Karachi and Hyderabad.

On top of that, the MQM chief makes indefensible statements from time to time and its second-tier leadership keeps busy for weeks in contextualising and clarifying what has been said. If there are no good or bad Taliban, there is no good or bad violence either. If violence in the name of faith or sect has to be rejected, violence in the name of ethnicity or political difference cannot be accepted either – even for short-term ideological or political gains.

Zahra Shahid Hussain could have been killed by a reckless criminal or any third force but the MQM has to reflect on why it has always been blamed for such acts by its political adversaries. The party has so much ammunition in stock and there is much circumstantial evidence from the past to support these assertions. The liberal, plural and inclusive politics of the MQM and the initiatives it has taken to serve its constituents suffer a huge setback by its political tactics rooted in the late 1980s and 1990s. It is time a party as big and influential as the MQM comes of age. It is time for its leadership to realise that their clout increases across Pakistan if their image changes. Their image changes if they change their old tactics.

For the PTI, the death of one of their veteran leaders, someone who believed in the party from day one and did not opt for it after being rejected by other political forces, or after the October 2011 public meeting in Lahore, is a great loss. She is the first victim of violence from among the PTI leadership. It is time that the party leadership, its workers and supporters understand what it means to be hit by death and violence.

For instance, in case of the ANP, rather than blaming the victims and holding them responsible for their own suffering, the PTI rank and file needs to realise what happened to Bashir Ahmed Bilour, Mian Iftikhar Hussain’s son and more than 700 party leaders and workers who were killed in the last five years, including more than 100 during the election campaign and on election day. Likewise, when Ali Haider Gilani, the former PPP prime minister’s son, was kidnapped and his two aides shot down in broad daylight just two days before the general elections, the response from PTI’s supporters on social media was callous, calling the entire incident a political stunt.

When Imran Khan said – before the elections – that militants should not kill political workers and bomb political rallies but wait for the PTI tsunami to come and sweep away the political forces they dislike, imagine how an ordinary worker belonging to the ANP or the PPP would have felt. If he had let out the statesman in him, Khan would have rather clearly said that all parties must get a level playing field and no party should be threatened and kept out of the campaigning race. Like the MQM condemns faith-based and sectarian oppression and persecution but does not shun its own coercive methods, the PTI has come down hard on the MQM while being soft and apologetic to the TTP.

Violence – religious or political, in any form or for any reason – has to be condemned. Violence begets violence and spares no one in the end. Those who think they can be saved live in a fool’s paradise. Here, I remember the famous lines of Martin Niemoller, the anti-Nazi German pastor and theologian:

“First they came for the communists/and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a communist/Then they came for the socialists/and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a socialist/Then they came for the trade unionists/and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a trade unionist/Then they came for the Jews/and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a Jew/Then they came for the Catholics/and I didn’t speak out because I wasn’t a Catholic/Then they came for me/and there was no one left to speak for me.”

Email: harris.khalique@gmail.com