Pakistan says starts fencing Afghanistan in `high threat zones’

Pakistan has begun building a fence on its disputed 2,500 km (1,500 mile) border with Afghanistan to prevent incursions by militants, Pakistan’s army chief said, in a move likely to further strain relations between the two countries.

Pakistan has blamed Pakistani Taliban militants it says are based on Afghan soil for a spate of attacks at home in recent months, urging Kabul to eradicate “sanctuaries” for militants.

Citing the attacks, Islamabad earlier this month temporarily shut the main crossing points along the colonial-era Durand Line border, drawn up in 1893 and rejected by Afghanistan.

General Qamar Javed Bajwa said initial fencing will focus on “high threat zones” of Bajaur and Mohmand agencies in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), which border eastern Afghan provinces of Nangarhar and Kunar.

“Additional technical surveillance means are also being deployed along the border besides regular air surveillance,” the military said in a statement over the weekend, citing Bajwa.

There was no immediate comment from Afghan authorities.

Relations between Kabul and Islamabad have been tense in recent years, with both countries accusing each other of not doing enough to tackle Pakistani and Afghan Taliban militants.

Afghanistan has accused Pakistan of turning a blind eye to Afghan Taliban commanders on its soil and even of supporting the militant group, something Islamabad denies.

Bajwa said Pakistan was working on plans to “evolve a bilateral security mechanism” with Afghanistan.

“A better managed, secure and peaceful border is in mutual interest of both brotherly countries who have given phenomenal sacrifices in war against terrorism,” Bajwa added.

Pakistan has long harbored ambitions to seal its border, which is largely unpatrolled and mountainous for large chunks.

In 2007, the military said it was fencing and mining a 35 km (22 miles) stretch of border in the North Waziristan region of FATA to prevent militants crisscrossing the rugged terrain.

Efforts to establish a more permanent presence on the disputed frontier have angered Kabul. Last year, Pakistan’s attempt to build a barrier on the main Torkham crossing ended in brief cross-border skirmishes.

In recent weeks at least two U.S. drone strikes have targeted Pakistani militants on the Afghan side of the frontier.

(Writing by Drazen Jorgic)

Laptop ban hits Dubai for 1.1 million weekend travelers

DUBAI, March 25: Dubai International Airport and its flag carrier Emirates began implementing a ban on laptops and tablets on direct flights to the US Saturday, on one of the busiest travel weekends of the year.

1.1 million people are expected to pass through the busiest international airport as the city marks UAE spring break, Dubai Airports’ senior vice president for communications Anita Mehra said.

An estimated 260,000 travellers were expected to pass through each day from Friday through Monday. Dubai International Airport expects 89 million passengers this year.

The United States announced a ban on all electronics larger than a standard smartphone on board direct flights out of eight countries across the middle East. US officials would not specify how long the ban will last, but Dubai-based Emirates told AFP that it had been instructed to enforce it until at least October 14.

Travellers using 10 airports across the Middle East and North Africa are subject to the ban.

The ban also covers all electronics sold at Dubai Duty Free, Dubai Airports CEO Paul Griffiths told local radio earlier this week.

Government-owned Emirates operates 18 flights daily to the United States out of Dubai. In an attempt to appease its customers, the airline announced it would be offering complimentary packing and shipping services at gates to enable passengers to use their electronic devices after check-in and until boarding.

Adding to the complication on Saturday, a number of flights out of Dubai and Abu Dhabi airports were delayed due to thunderstorms, including an Emirates flight to Houston.

The US ban affects nine airlines from eight countries: Turkey, Morocco, Jordan, Egypt, the United Arab Emirates, Qatar, Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.

Britain has also announced a parallel ban, effective Saturday, targeting all flights out of Egypt, Turkey, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, Tunisia and Lebanon.

Abu Dhabi, home to UAE national carrier Etihad Airways, is one of the few international airports with a US Customs and Border Protection Facility, which processes immigration and customs inspections before departure.

“All Etihad Airways guests travelling to the United States clear US Immigration and Customs at the US Preclearance facility in Terminal 3, the only one of its kind in the Middle East,” read a statement emailed to AFP.

“When guests land in the US, they arrive as domestic passengers with no requirement to queue for immigration checks again.”

The bans have come under criticism for targeting majority-Muslim countries. The US ban in particular has raised eyebrows for covering airports from which US airlines do not operate direct flights.

The United States and Britain have cited intelligence indicating passenger jets could be targeted with explosives planted in such devices.

US Investigating Mosul Strikes Said to Have Killed Up to 200 Civilians

Baghdad, March 24: The American-led military coalition in Iraq said Friday that it was investigating reports that scores of civilians — perhaps as many as 200, residents said — had been killed in recent American airstrikes in Mosul, the northern Iraqi city at the center of an offensive to drive out the Islamic State.

If confirmed, the series of airstrikes would rank among the highest civilian death tolls in an American air mission since the United States went to war in Iraq in 2003. And the reports of civilian deaths in Mosul came immediately after two recent incidents in Syria, where the coalition is also battling the Islamic State from the air, in which activists and local residents said dozens of civilians had been killed.

Taken together, the surge of reported civilian deaths raised questions about whether once-strict rules of engagement meant to minimize civilian casualties were being relaxed under the Trump administration, which has vowed to fight the Islamic State more aggressively.

American military officials insisted on Friday that the rules of engagement had not changed. They acknowledged, however, that American airstrikes in Syria and Iraq had been heavier in an effort to press the Islamic State on multiple fronts.

Col. John J. Thomas, a spokesman for the United States Central Command, said that the military was seeking to determine whether the explosion in Mosul might have been prompted by an American or coalition airstrike, or was a bomb or booby trap placed by the Islamic State.

“It’s a complicated question, and we’ve literally had people working nonstop throughout the night to understand it,” Colonel Thomas said in an interview. He said the explosion and the reasons behind it had “gotten attention at the highest level.”

As to who was responsible, he said, “at the moment, the answer is: We don’t know.”

Iraqi officers, though, say they know exactly what happened: Maj. Gen. Maan al-Saadi, a commander of the Iraqi special forces, said that the civilian deaths were a result of a coalition airstrike that his men had called in, to take out snipers on the roofs of three houses in a neighborhood called Mosul Jidideh. General Saadi said the special forces were unaware that the houses’ basements were filled with civilians.

“After the bombing we were surprised by the civilian victims,” the general said, “and I think it was a trap by ISIS to stop the bombing operations and turn public opinion against us.”

General Saadi said he had demanded that the coalition pause its air campaign to assess what happened and to take stricter measures to prevent more civilian victims. Another Iraqi special forces officer, who spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the sensitivity of the subject, said that there had been a noticeable relaxing of the coalition’s rules of engagement since President Trump took office.

Before, Iraqi officers were highly critical of the Obama administration’s rules, saying that many requests for airstrikes were denied because of the risk that civilians would be hurt. Now, the officer said, it has become much easier to call in airstrikes.

Some American military officials had also chafed at what they viewed as long and onerous White House procedures for approving strikes under the Obama administration. Mr. Trump has indicated that he is more inclined to delegate authority for launching strikes to the Pentagon and commanders in the field.

This is the second time this week that the military has opened an investigation into civilian deaths reported to have been caused by American airstrikes. On Tuesday, Central Command said it was investigating an American airstrike in Syria on March 16 that officials said killed dozens of Qaeda operatives at a meeting place that activists and local residents maintain was part of a religious complex.

Pentagon officials said that intelligence had indicated that Al Qaeda used the partly constructed community meeting hall as a gathering place and as a place to educate and indoctrinate fighters.

This is indefensibly sloppy work by the military, and as the Commander-in-Chief will not take responsibility for his actions.

But the Syrian Observatory for Human Rights said that 49 people had been killed in what the group described as a massacre of civilians who were undergoing religious instruction in an assembly hall and dining area for worshipers. The group has produced photos taken at the site after the strike that show a black sign outside a still-standing adjoining structure that identified it as part of the Omar ibn al-Khatab mosque.

Chris Woods, director of the observatory, a nonprofit group that monitors civilian deaths from coalition airstrikes in Syria and Iraq, said that in March alone the number of reported civilian fatalities has shot up to 1,058, from 465 in December, the last full month of the Obama administration.

“We don’t know whether that’s a reflection of the increased tempo of the campaign or whether it reflects changes in the rules of engagement,” he said. But, he added, the recent spike in numbers “does suggest something has shifted.”

American military officials said that what has shifted is that the Iraqi military, backed by the American-led coalition, is in the middle of its biggest fight so far — the battle to retake Mosul from the Islamic State, also known as ISIS or ISIL.

In particular, the campaign for West Mosul has involved block-by-block fighting in an urban environment.
“There’s been no loosening of the rules of engagement,” said Capt. Jeff Davis, a Pentagon spokesman. “There are three major offensives going on right now, at the same time,” he said, citing the battle for West Mosul; the encirclement of Raqqa, Syria, the Islamic State’s de facto capital; and the fight for the Tabqa Dam in Syria.
Captain Davis said that the investigation was looking into whether Islamic State fighters were responsible for the explosion in Mosul, or if an airstrike set something off.

“There are other people on the battlefield, too,” he said. “It’s close quarters.”

American officials said that even the timing of the strike was still in question. Col. Joseph E. Scrocca, a spokesman for the American-led command in Baghdad, said in a statement Friday that the strike under investigation happened between March 17 and Thursday.

The civilian death toll in Mosul was already widely described as heavy on account of Islamic State snipers and bombs, and intensified urban fighting in which artillery has been used. But there have been numerous reports from witnesses, including rescue workers and residents fleeing the fighting, about bodies being buried under rubble after heavy air bombardment.

Many of the reports centered on the Mosul Jidideh neighborhood, where residents said airstrikes hit a number of houses in recent days, killing dozens, including many children.

Capt. Ahmed Nuri, a soldier with Iraq’s elite counterterrorism forces, who work closely with the American military and call in airstrikes, said on Thursday that his men, facing heavy sniper fire, helped collect five bodies from the rubble of a destroyed home. He said four of them were brothers — named Ali, Omar, Khalid and Saad — whose bodies were delivered to their grieving mother.

The mother, Captain Nuri said, identified the fifth dead body as that of an Islamic State sniper who had been firing at advancing Iraqi forces from the roof of their house.

Local officials have reacted with outrage at the latest civilian deaths, warning that they will make it more difficult to fully take the city, and will alienate civilians still in Mosul, whom the Iraqi government is counting on for assistance.

“The repeated mistakes will make the mission to liberate Mosul from Daesh harder, and will push civilians still living under Daesh to be uncooperative with the security forces,” said Abdulsattar Alhabu, the mayor of Mosul, using the Arabic acronym for the Islamic State.

Mr. Alhabu estimated that at least 200 civilians had been killed in airstrikes in recent days in Mosul.

Four dead, at least 20 injured in UK parliament “terrorist” attack

LONDON, March 22 (Reuters) – Four people were killed and at least 20 injured in London on Wednesday after a car plowed into pedestrians and an attacker stabbed a policeman close to the British parliament in what police called a “marauding terrorist attack.”

The dead included the assailant and the policeman he stabbed, while the other two victims were among those hit by the car as it tore along Westminster Bridge before crashing into railings just outside parliament.

“We’ve declared this as a terrorist incident and the counter-terrorism command are carrying out a full-scale investigation into the events today,” Mark Rowley, Britain’s most senior counter-terrorism officer, told reporters.

“The attack started when a car was driven over Westminster Bridge, hitting and injuring a number of members of the public, also including three police officers.

“A car then crashed near to parliament and at least one man, armed with a knife, continued the attack and tried to enter parliament,” Rowley said.

It was the deadliest attack in London since four British Islamists killed 52 commuters and themselves in suicide bombings on the city’s transport system in July 2005, London’s worst peacetime attack.

Reuters reporters inside parliament during Wednesday’s attack heard loud bangs and shortly afterwards saw the knifeman and the stabbed policeman lying on the ground in a courtyard within the gates of parliament.

A Reuters photographer saw at least a dozen people injured on the bridge. His photographs showed people lying on the ground, some of them bleeding heavily and one under a bus.

A woman was pulled alive, but with serious injuries, from the Thames, the Port of London Authority said. The circumstances of her fall into the river were unknown.

Three French schoolchildren aged 15 or 16 were among those injured in the attack, French officials said.

Several members of parliament (MPs) and senior officials were caught up in the chaos. Tobias Ellwood, a junior Foreign Office minister, was pictured attempting to resuscitate a man lying unconscious, reported to be the stabbed policeman..

The attack took place on the first anniversary of attacks by Islamist militants that killed 32 people in Brussels.
Prime Minister Theresa May chaired a meeting of the government’s crisis response committee.

“The thoughts of the PM and the government are with those killed and injured in this appalling incident, and with their families,” her office said in a statement.

London Mayor Sadiq Khan said there would be additional police officers on the city streets to keep Londoners and visitors safe.

“We stand together in the face of those who seek to harm us and destroy our way of life. We always have, and we always will. Londoners will never be cowed by terrorism,” he said.

Parliament’s lower House of Commons, which was in session at the time, was suspended and lawmakers were asked to stay inside.

In a telephone call with May, President Donald Trump offered Britain the full cooperation and support of the United States, the White House said. U.S. Secretary of State Rex Tillerson condemned the attack as “horrific acts of violence.”

German Chancellor Angela Merkel and NATO Secretary-General Jens Stoltenberg were among foreign leaders who expressed shock and solidarity.

Eyewitnesses described scenes of panic during the attack.

“I just saw a car go out of control and just go into pedestrians on the bridge,” said Bernadette Kerrigan, who was on a tour bus on the bridge at the time, in an interview with Sky News.

“As we were going across the bridge, we saw people lying on the floor, they were obviously injured. I saw about 10 people maybe. And then the emergency services started to arrive. Everyone was just running everywhere.”

“NO SIGNS OF LIFE”
Polish former Foreign Minister Radoslaw Sikorski, who witnessed the attack from a taxi as he crossed the bridge, said he saw five victims and made a video of the scene.

“I heard something that sounded like a small car crash. Then I looked out of the window and saw that there was one person lying on the asphalt,” he told Reuters.

“I did not see the face of the person lying on the asphalt, but the person was not moving, it was not showing any signs of life. One of the men I saw, his head was bleeding very badly. But the person I filmed — no, that person was not showing any signs of life.”

Journalist Quentin Letts of the Daily Mail newspaper told LBC radio that he had witnessed the stabbing of the policeman and the shooting of the assailant from his office in the parliament building.

“He (the assailant) ran in through the open gates … He set about one of the policemen with what looked like a stick,” Letts said.

“The policeman fell over on the ground and it was quite horrible to watch and then having done that, he disengaged and ran towards the House of Commons entrance used by MPs and got about 20 yards or so when two plain-clothed guys with guns shot him.”

In Edinburgh, the Scottish parliament suspended a planned debate and vote on independence as the news from London came in.

Britain is on its second-highest alert level of “severe” meaning an attack by militants is considered highly likely.

The most recent deadly attack in London to be treated as a terrorist incident was in May 2013, when two British Islamists stabbed to death soldier Lee Rigby on a street.

(Additional reporting by Kylie Maclellan, Elizabeth Piper, Costas Pitas, Alistair Smout, Michael Holden, Kate Holton, Elisabeth O’Leary, Andy Bruce, David Milliken and William Schomberg, Lidia Kelly; Writing by Estelle Shirbon; Editing by Stephen Addison, Guy Faulconbridge, Giles Elgood and Catherine Evans)

PML-N looks to make inroads into PPP’s powerbase

KARACHI, March 19: The ruling PML-N, which has its powerbase in Punjab, is looking to make forays into the stronghold of rival PPP after neglecting its Sindh chapter for almost four years. And as part of the plan, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif will tour rural Sindh to announce development packages in an effort to garner support for his party.

Premier Sharif alluded to the plan during his interaction with the Sindh-based leaders of his party in Karachi last week. “After Lahore, we have to win Lyari [the stronghold of the PPP in Karachi],” he had said. Sharif was advised by party leaders to live up to his earlier pledges of turning the focus to Sindh in order to change the perception that the PML-N’s politics was Punjab-centric.

PM ‘committed to Balochistan uplift’
“We have planned a number of activities in the coming days. We will see him [Premier Sharif] amongst us. He will not only interact with the people at the district level, but will also announce development packages for different cities and towns in Sindh,” a senior PML-N leader told The Express Tribune requesting anonymity.

“After his recent visits to Thatta and Karachi, the prime minister will now travel to Hyderabad on March 25 where he will meet the office-bearers of his party and business community,” he said. “A development package will also be announced for the city.”

The next mega event, according to sources, will be held in April in Jacobabad where Premier Sharif will address a big public gathering. “Rallies have also been planned in Jamshoro, Badin, Mirpurkhas and Dadu districts in the next couple of months,” he added.

Once hit by terror: Balochistan becoming ‘economic tiger of Pakistan’
Karachi-based PML-N leaders say Premier Sharif has decided to focus on Sindh after dozens of politicians quit his party accusing the prime minister and the party leadership of neglecting them. Prominent among them are Ghous Ali Shah, Hakeem Baloch and Mumtaz Bhutto, Liaquat Jatoi and Arbab Ghulam Rahim.

However, the turning point came when the Sheerazi brothers of Thatta also threatened to quit the party. “We are being victimised by the PPP but the PML-N leadership has abandoned us as it does not care. This is the time to say goodbye to the party,” one of the Sheerazi brothers conveyed this message to Sharif in the first week of February.

Premier Sharif promptly responded to the message and called the Sheerazi brothers to Islamabad for a detailed meeting in the presence of Punjab Chief Minister Shehbaz Sharif. It was here that Premier Sharif decided to visit Thatta and announce a development package for the dirt-poor region.

PML-N, military not on same page over militancy: Imran
Subsequently, Sharif not only visited Thatta and announced many projects but also surprised many within one week by attending an event organised in connection with the Holi festival in Karachi where he announced a Rs500 million for the Hindu community.

When asked if the money would actually be provided, PML-N’s Minority Wing Secretary General Khehal Das said Sharif had already formed a committee to oversee this project and identity other neglected areas in various districts where development work would be started. “At least six hospitals funded by the government will be established in various districts, including Thatta, Badin, Tharparkar, Jacobabad and Mirpurkhas,” he said.
Political observers see these activities as part of preparations for the upcoming elections. “The prime minister is now trying to make inroads into the areas traditionally considered the turf of either MQM or PPP in Karachi and other districts of Sindh. You will soon see more activities,” a senior leader said.

Sources in the PML-N say Sindh Governor Mohammad Zubair has been tasked to approach the estranged PML-N leaders in Sindh before the 2018 general elections. “Now, the Governor House will be the epicentre of the PML-N’s political activities,” one leader said.

Governor Zubair has started meeting PPP’s rivals for possible alliances and has activated the PML-N’s social media wing to counter the opposition’s allegations and to defend the government’s policies.

However, some political analysts do not take these efforts seriously given the past record of the PML-N. “Premier Sharif and his team have been making and breaking promises. I don’t see the party winning more seats in Sindh,” said senior journalist Ayoub Shaikh. “Mumtaz Bhutto and Murtaza Jatoi had merged their parties with the PML-N, but now they regret their decision,” he said.

According to some experts, there is a possibility to fill the political gap in the province as people have no alternate for the PPP in Sindh. However, they believe Premier Sharif’s efforts are little late to give Sindh’s ruling party a tough time in the next general election. “I think he has little time to prove something before the next elections,” Shaikh added.

Published in The Express Tribune, March 19th, 2017.

In Pakistan, Carrying On a Legacy of Answering SOS Calls

KARACHI, Pakistan — For decades, the sight of Abdul Sattar Edhi pleading for donations was enough to press even the most tightfisted of Pakistanis into reaching for their wallets.

Such was the impact of Mr. Edhi, a humanitarian icon in Pakistan who died last summer after a prolonged illness. In a country where many citizens have given up on the government, Mr. Edhi’s expansive philanthropic network acts as a benefactor, providing everything from emergency assistance to welfare services.

Now his son Faisal Edhi is carrying on his legacy and trying to ensure the survival of the philanthropic foundation at a time when donors have grown tired of being asked to respond to a string of disasters and as competition from Islamic charities mounts.

“I would ask him how we would continue in his absence,” Faisal Edhi said. “He would say: ‘I have put up the building. Now you have to paint and decorate it.’”

as support of the foundation in Pakistan has declined. Faisal Edhi has accused the government of impeding the import of vehicles for ambulances, and has reported a drop in donations since his father’s death.
The word Edhi is akin to an SOS call for many Pakistanis. They trust the foundation with their donations and with performing last rites for the dead. The Edhi Foundation runs Pakistan’s largest free ambulance service and its network includes shelters, nursing homes, orphanages and morgues.

Edhi volunteers appear at every disaster zone and crime scene, bearing stretchers and shrouds. It is hard to imagine Pakistan’s cities functioning without the Edhi Foundation. As the noted urban planner Arif Hasan put it in the 1990s, “Without the Edhi Trust one does not know how Karachi would cope with its victims of violence.”

“He carries this huge responsibility on his shoulders,” said Dr. Seemin Jamali, the head of emergency services at the Jinnah Postgraduate Medical Center in Karachi, who has worked with the Edhi Foundation for 25 years. “He is upbeat, and with a lot of public support, he can do it. The foundation has already been set, and now he needs to carry it forward.”

Mr. Edhi, 40, spent time as a teenager in Florida and New York. He has worked with the Edhi Foundation for half of his adult life, mostly handling administrative affairs, and slowly trying to raise the standard of services and digitize record keeping.

The foundation’s systems are antiquated — records and receipts are mostly on paper — and the voluntary nature of the organization comes with its set of challenges.

“The staff is sometimes hesitant when they don’t know how to use a computer,” he said. “We’re trying to train them. It’s a slow process.”

“A revolution causes a lot of damage,” he added with a laugh. “So we’re trying to do this through evolution.”
At the foundation’s offices in the historic Mithadar district of Karachi, where Abdul Sattar Edhi began work in the 1960s, a large painting of him cradling a baby is propped up in the reception area. A “get well soon” card is still affixed to the wall, along with a fading calendar that juxtaposes his image with that of Mother Teresa, and a framed commemorative stamp issued by the government after his death.

In the later years of his life, he made headlines with politically charged statements, like calling for a military takeover of Pakistan, and declaring politicians corrupt, or sounding alarmist notes about the state of the country.

At work, he would meet with the dozens of people who needed assistance with everything from adoptions to ambulances, or answer the phone himself, a rarity in a country where meeting anyone requires going through layers of middlemen and assistants.

It is the part of the job with which Faisal Edhi is still struggling. “I’m stretched,” he said.
The foundation is managed by a trust that comprised its founder, his wife, Bilquis — a philanthropist in her own right — and their children, Faisal and Kubra, while managers from outside the family handle the daily operations.
“The children are all very hard-working and down to earth, and they’re always available,” said Jameel Yusuf, the former head of Karachi’s Citizens-Police Liaison Committee. “It’s a tough job. Edhi covered everything from east to west, north to south; he didn’t leave any stone unturned on all issues involving citizens and their plight.”
Faisal Edhi’s loss is double-edged: He lost a father and his backbone of support at work. “Now I’m alone,” he said. “I don’t feel like leaving his room empty. I still sleep on a cot near his, because that’s where I’d slept for the last few years.”

He is excited about an ambitious new project to train midwives, nurses and paramedic staff at an Edhi-run hospital, just as he worries about the financial health of the organization.

Islamic charities, he said, have undercut individual donations to Edhi by dividing people along sectarian lines, since Islamic charities are often closely linked to a particular sect.

Religious pressures have long been a challenge for the foundation. Detractors of the elder Mr. Edhi accused him of apostasy and questioned why he would rescue and take in abandoned babies, or work for non-Muslims.
Faisal Edhi recalled that people from the family’s Bantva Memon ethnic community would even sometimes refuse to greet his father.

But Mr. Edhi is adamant about upholding the policies set by his father, such as the foundation’s refusal to accept donations from donor agencies or any government. “It has always been supported by ordinary Pakistanis,” he said.

Work at the foundation has not stopped for a day, he said, not even for his father’s state funeral in July.
“The government may have announced a three-day mourning period,” he said. “But we kept working.”

On a Monday morning, volunteers at the Edhi office in Mithadar fielded myriad queries from people stopping by and answered a near-constantly ringing phone. In another corner, a volunteer wrote out donation receipts worth $250 for Edhi to enact the ritual of animal sacrifices and meat distributions on their behalf before the Islamic holiday of Eid. Mr. Edhi occasionally popped out of his office to talk to staff members.

The work of the foundation carries on.
“He wanted to make Pakistan a social welfare state without participating in politics,” Mr. Edhi said of his father. “That was his dream, and this will be my aim as well; to go from village to village, to make a parallel setup that can help improve people’s lives.”

He added that he believed the state was unwilling to help the people. “In smaller districts, you can find advanced weaponry at local police stations, but when you go to the local hospitals, there’s no advanced equipment,” he said. “Our ruling class is not ready to give services to the people.”

Federal Judge Blocks Trump’s Latest Travel Ban Nationwide

A federal judge in Hawaii issued a nationwide order Wednesday evening blocking President Trump’s ban on travel from parts of the Muslim world, dealing a stinging blow to the White House and signaling that Mr. Trump will have to account in court for his heated rhetoric about Islam.

The ruling was the second major setback for Mr. Trump in his pursuit of a policy he has trumpeted as critical for national security. His first attempt to sharply limit travel from a handful of predominantly Muslim countries ended in a courtroom fiasco last month, when a federal court in Seattle halted it.

Mr. Trump issued a new and narrower travel ban, affecting six countries, on March 6, trying to satisfy the courts by removing some of the most contentious elements of the original version.

But in a pointed decision that repeatedly invoked Mr. Trump’s public comments, the judge, Derrick K. Watson of Federal District Court in Honolulu, wrote that a “reasonable, objective observer” would view even the new order as “issued with a purpose to disfavor a particular religion, in spite of its stated, religiously neutral purpose.”

Mr. Trump lashed out at Judge Watson during a campaign-style rally in Nashville late on Wednesday. Raising his voice to a hoarse shout, Mr. Trump accused the judge of ruling “for political reasons” and criticized the United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit, which upheld the earlier decision against his administration and will hear any appeal to the Hawaii ruling.

“This ruling makes us look weak, which by the way we no longer are, believe me,” Mr. Trump said, to mounting cheers from a loyal crowd.

Mr. Trump even said he might reissue the initial version of the order, rather than the one blocked on Wednesday, which he described as “a watered-down version of the first one.”

After he signed the revised ban, Democratic attorneys general and nonprofit groups that work with immigrants and refugees raced back into court against Mr. Trump, alleging that his updated decree was still a thinly veiled version of the ban on Muslim migration that he had pledged to enact as a presidential candidate.

Judge Watson, who was appointed by President Barack Obama, ruled that the State of Hawaii and an individual plaintiff, Ismail Elshikh, the imam of the Muslim Association of Hawaii, had reasonable grounds to challenge the order as religious discrimination. And he concluded that allowing the travel restrictions to go into effect at midnight, as scheduled, could have caused them irreparable harm.

Judge Watson flatly rejected the government’s argument that a court would have to investigate Mr. Trump’s “veiled psyche” to deduce religious animus. He quoted extensively from the remarks by Mr. Trump that were cited in the lawsuit brought by Hawaii’s attorney general, Doug Chin.

“For instance, there is nothing ‘veiled’ about this press release,” Judge Watson wrote, quoting a Trump campaign document titled “Donald J. Trump is calling for a total and complete shutdown of Muslims entering the United States.”

Judge Watson singled out Mr. Elshikh, an American citizen whose Syrian mother-in-law had been pursuing a visa to enter the United States, as having an especially strong claim that the travel regulations would harm him on the basis of his religion.

“This is a great day for democracy, religious and human rights,” Mr. Elshikh, who was out of the country, said in a message relayed through Hakim Ouansafi, the chairman of the Muslim Association of Hawaii. “I am very pleased that the processing of my mother-in-law’s paperwork will not stop now but more importantly that this Muslim ban will not separate families and loved ones just because they happen to be from the six countries.”

Mr. Elshikh, who is Egyptian and previously worked in Michigan, was recruited to the Hawaii mosque more than a decade ago, Mr. Ouansafi said. And when the association began recruiting someone to serve as a plaintiff, the imam, who became a citizen last year, agreed to do so without reservation, Mr. Ouansafi said.

After Mr. Elshikh became the face of the lawsuit, he received several threats from the mainland, Mr. Ouansafi said. “If we lived in any other state, I would not have asked him to come forward,” he said.

In addition to the Hawaii suit, federal judges in Washington State and Maryland heard arguments in several other cases challenging the constitutionality of Mr. Trump’s order, including one brought by a coalition of Democratic attorneys general, and others from a collection of nonprofit groups. Judge Watson was the only one who ruled on Wednesday.

Administration lawyers have argued that the president was merely exercising his national security powers. In the scramble to defend the executive order, a single lawyer in the United States solicitor general’s office, Jeffrey Wall, argued first to a Maryland court and then, by phone, to Judge Watson in Honolulu that no element of the order, as written, could be construed as a religious test for travelers.

Mr. Wall said the order was based on concerns raised by the Obama administration in its move toward stricter screening of travelers from the six countries affected.

“What the order does is a step beyond what the previous administration did, but it’s on the same basis,” Mr. Wall said in the Maryland hearing.

After Mr. Trump’s speech in Nashville, the Justice Department released a more muted statement disputing the Hawaii decision, calling it “flawed both in reasoning and scope.” Sarah Isgur Flores, a spokeswoman for the department, said it would continue to defend the legality of the presidential order.

Refugee organizations and civil rights groups greeted the ruling with expressions of triumph and relief.

Marielena Hincapié, executive director of the National Immigration Law Center, hailed the ruling on a conference call as “a strong and unequivocal rejection of the politics of hate.”

At the same time, advocates for refugees and immigrants acknowledged that significant uncertainty would hang over some of their more practical decisions, as a longer legal process plays out around Mr. Trump’s order.

“It’s a preliminary decision, but it recognizes that there continue to be problems with the constitutionality of this revised order, particularly with discriminatory intent toward Muslims,” said Betsy Fisher, policy director at the International Refugee Assistance Project at the Urban Justice Center.

The original ban, released on Jan. 27, unleashed scenes of chaos at American airports and spurred mass protests. Issued abruptly on a Friday afternoon, it temporarily barred travel from seven majority-Muslim nations, making no explicit distinction between citizens of those countries who already had green cards or visas and those who did not. It also suggested that Christian refugees from those countries would be given preference in the future.
After the federal court in Seattle issued a broad injunction against the policy, Mr. Trump removed major provisions and reissued the order. The new version exempted key groups, like green card and visa holders, and dropped the section that would have given Christians special treatment.

Mr. Trump also removed Iraq from the list of countries covered by the ban after the Pentagon expressed worry that it would damage the United States’ relationship with the Iraqi government in the fight against the Islamic State.
Yet those concessions did not placate critics of the ban, who said it would still function as an unconstitutional religious test, albeit one affecting fewer people — an argument Judge Watson concurred with in his ruling.
The lawsuits have also claimed that the order disrupts the operations of companies, charities, public universities and hospitals that have deep relationships overseas. In the Hawaii case, nearly five dozen technology companies, including Airbnb, Dropbox, Lyft and TripAdvisor, joined in a brief objecting to the travel ban.

The second, now-halted executive order preserved major components of the original. It would have ended, with few exceptions, the granting of new visas and green cards to people from six majority-Muslim countries — Iran, Libya, Somalia, Sudan, Syria and Yemen — for at least 90 days. It would have also stopped all refugees from entering for 120 days and limited refugee admissions to 50,000 people in the current fiscal year.

Mr. Obama had set in motion plans to admit more than twice that number.

Mr. Trump has said the pause is needed to re-evaluate screening procedures for immigrants from the six countries. “Each of these countries is a state sponsor of terrorism, has been significantly compromised by terrorist organizations, or contains active conflict zones,” he wrote in the order.

Judge Watson’s order was not a final ruling on the constitutionality of Mr. Trump’s ban, and the administration has expressed confidence that courts will ultimately affirm Mr. Trump’s power to issue the restrictions.
But the legal debate is likely to be a protracted and unusually personal fight for the administration, touching Mr. Trump and a number of his key aides directly and raising the prospect that their public comments and private communications will be scrutinized.

The lawsuits against the ban have extensively cited Mr. Trump’s comments during the presidential campaign. Attorney General Bob Ferguson of Washington, who successfully challenged Mr. Trump’s first order, has indicated that in an extended legal fight, he could seek depositions from administration officials and request documents that would expose the full process by which Trump aides crafted the ban.

As a candidate, Mr. Trump first proposed to bar all Muslims from entering the United States, and then offered an alternative plan to ban travel from a number of Muslim countries, which he described as a politically acceptable way of achieving the same goal.

The lawsuits also cited Rudolph W. Giuliani, the former New York City mayor who advises Mr. Trump. Mr. Giuliani said he had been asked to help craft a Muslim ban that would pass legal muster.

And they highlighted comments by Stephen Miller, an adviser to the president, who cast the changes to Mr. Trump’s first travel ban as mere technical adjustments aimed at ushering the same policy past the review of a court.

Yes, the Russian ambassador met Trump’s team. So? That’s what we diplomats do.

At the center of many allegations swirling around the Trump administration’s relationship with Moscow is one man: Sergey Kislyak, the Russian ambassador. As U.S. intelligence agencies contend that his country attempted, through hacking and other efforts, to influence November’s election, Kislyak’s discussions with Trump campaign associates — including former national security adviser Michael Flynn (who resigned for not disclosing them) and Attorney General Jeff Sessions (who did not) — have been the subject of intense reporting and speculation.

While it is one thing to question Russia’s efforts or the truthfulness of American officials, this debate is threatening the time-honored tradition of foreign ambassadors freely meeting political figures in their country of accreditation. There is nothing inherently wrong with meeting a foreign ambassador — even one from a rival nation; even one from a rival superpower on which the United States has imposed sanctions. As Pakistan’s ambassador to the United States, I saw firsthand, in the assassination of Osama bin Laden, just how essential such consultations were.

[Chill, America. Not every Trump outrage is outrageous.]
We don’t know what Kislyak’s particular motivations were or what he discussed in these meetings, but the question before the American public is whether Trump’s allies comported themselves honorably and legally, not whether Kislyak did. Diplomacy is the process by which foreign enemies are turned into friends and friends are converted into allies. Democratic countries such as the United States have always taken pride in the relative ease with which foreign diplomats can meet Americans of all political persuasions. (This is not the case in more-restrictive nations, such as Russia.) No matter what Moscow’s policy holds, the free interaction of Americans with foreign ambassadors works to America’s advantage.
* * * * * * * *
I became Pakistan’s ambassador in May 2008, soon after the country’s return to civilian rule after nine years of military dictatorship under Gen. Pervez Musharraf. The George W. Bush administration had forged an alliance with Musharraf in the aftermath of the 9/11 terrorist attacks, hoping that economic incentives and offers of military hardware would turn Pakistan away from its long-standing policy of supporting Islamist militants, including the Afghan Taliban, as instruments of regional influence.

By 2007, Bush had realized that Musharraf either “would not or could not” fulfill his promises in fighting terrorism, as he wrote later, and the president welcomed Pakistan’s return to democracy. The civilian leaders who appointed me as ambassador — President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani — looked forward to U.S. backing in reversing Musharraf’s policies at home and abroad. They said they wanted to end Pakistan’s support for the Taliban, improve relations with India and Afghanistan, and limit the role of Pakistan’s military intelligence service in defining the country’s foreign policy. In return, they sought generous U.S. aid to improve the ailing Pakistani economy.

[How Trump got his party to love Russia]
I had an advantage most ambassadors did not: I’d lived most of the Musharraf years in exile in Washington and had established close ties with members of Congress and others influential in policymaking. But I began my job in the middle of the 2008 election campaign, and I knew that the Bush administration’s policies might not continue under a new president. Within weeks of presenting my credentials to Bush that June, I was communicating with campaign officials in both parties, and soon had meetings with aides to both Sen. John McCain and Sen. Barack Obama.
The State Department facilitated the participation of Washington-based ambassadors in the Democratic and Republican national conventions that year. In Denver and in Minneapolis-St. Paul, we were briefed by officials from both campaigns. More active and better-connected ambassadors, including myself, were able to meet personally with people we expected to have major roles in the conduct of foreign policy after the election. There was nothing unusual, let alone treasonable, in this.

As a presidential candidate, Obama argued that U.S. success in Afghanistan was more important than the war in Iraq, which he had opposed. In a major speech that summer, he pledged to make “the fight against al-Qaeda and the Taliban the top priority.” He also had a particular message for my country: He said terrorists and insurgents in Pakistan’s tribal areas were waging war against the Afghan government. “We must make it clear that if Pakistan cannot or will not act, we will take out high-level terrorist targets like bin Laden if we have them in our sights.”

From Obama’s public positions and from my meetings with his aides, it was clear that a democratic, civilian government in Pakistan could join with him to help attain his objectives in Afghanistan in exchange for support of consolidation of democracy with greater U.S. economic assistance. I sent this message to my bosses in Islamabad and told Obama’s campaign team that we would be willing to play ball. Once Obama took office, this is exactly what happened: Civilian aid to Pakistan was enhanced to record levels in an effort to secure greater cooperation in defeating the Taliban.

[Trump is getting payments from foreign governments. We have no idea what they are.]
What’s more, the relationships I forged with members of Obama’s campaign team also led to closer cooperation between Pakistan and the United States in fighting terrorism over the 31/2 years I served as ambassador. These connections eventually enabled the United States to discover and eliminate bin Laden without depending on Pakistan’s intelligence service or military, which were suspected of sympathy toward Islamist militants. Friends I made from the Obama campaign were able to ask, three years later, as National Security Council officials, for help in stationing U.S. Special Operations and intelligence personnel on the ground in Pakistan. I brought the request directly to Pakistan’s civilian leaders, who approved. Although the United States kept us officially out of the loop about the operation, these locally stationed Americans proved invaluable when Obama decided to send in Navy SEAL Team 6 without notifying Pakistan.

Unfortunately, the United States did not attain victory in Afghanistan, and the Pakistani government’s behavior toward militant Islamists did not change on a permanent basis. But for the period I was in office, the two nations worked jointly toward their common goals — the essence of diplomacy.
* * * * * * * *
After I began reading about the affairs of Kislyak, I rummaged through my files and diaries to retrace my steps as ambassador in the fall of 2008. I maintained relations with three teams of American officials, politicians and professional staffers: the Bush administration and the two major-party candidates. I met senior members of the Republican and Democratic national committees, more than a dozen senators and congressmen from each party, and several individuals from both sides who were tipped to emerge in senior government positions after the election. This is totally normal for ambassadors.

Kislyak, who presented his credentials just a couple of months after I did, has probably advanced shared Russian-American interests through similar contacts in the three U.S. presidential election cycles that he has covered as ambassador. I do not know if he reached out to Hillary Clinton’s camp as vigorously as he did to Trump’s (he probably already knew Clinton’s top foreign policy players from his work with the Obama administration, in which many of them had served), but it does not matter: Ambassadors do not make policy. They only facilitate understanding between countries that leads to policymaking in their respective capitals. Any Russian decision to covertly interfere in the U.S. election would have been made in Moscow, not necessarily with Kislyak’s knowledge, just as Pakistan’s breach of promises with the Obama administration occurred in Islamabad, not in my embassy.
[How Russian ‘kompromat’ destroys political opponents, no facts required]

In November 2011, I was forced to resign as ambassador after Pakistan’s military-intelligence apparatus gained the upper hand in the country’s perennial power struggle. Among the security establishment’s grievances against me was the charge that I had facilitated the presence of large numbers of CIA operatives who helped track down bin Laden without the knowledge of Pakistan’s army — even though I had acted under the authorization of Pakistan’s elected civilian leaders.

Russia is, of course, unlike Pakistan, but U.S.-Russia relations have seesawed, too, and Kislyak’s means were no different from what probably every ambassador of every country hopes to use, even if his ends were unique.
Americans have a legitimate interest in figuring out whether Russia tried to covertly influence U.S. politics. Investigating officials who may have perjured themselves about their diplomatic contacts also seems reasonable. It should not, however, create the impression that engagement between a foreign ambassador — even one from a country with which relations are strained — and people who might hold senior positions in a future administration is inherently sinister. Such engagement is essential if new presidents want to translate their foreign policy plans into reality.

Book Readers at Karachi Press Club get International Perspective on Pak Politics

Karachi, March 10: Journalists, writers, poets and political activists heard Nafisa Hoodbhoy speak about the final updated edition of her book, `Aboard the Democracy Train, Pakistan Tracks the Threat Within,’ at an event held at the Karachi Press Club on Friday.

Moderated by senior journalist and anchor person, Mujahid Barelvi, the audience also heard from former assistant editor of Dawn and writer Zubeida Mustafa. A 20 minute presentation about the book by the author was followed by questions and comments from the audience.

The author said that while her original book was published in 2011 by Anthem Press, London, the updated edition was reprinted in 2016 in hard cover by Paramount Books, Pakistan, and is now available in leading book stores around the country.

She said that the story begins when Gen Zia ul Haq’s plane explodes in 1988 and she is deputed by Dawn newspaper to cover the bid by Benazir Bhutto to become the first woman prime minister of Pakistan.

In response to critique about her coverage of ethnic conflict of the 1980’s, she said that “without prejudice toward any ethnic group,” her day-to-day reporting in Karachi’s hospitals had exposed her to the deep sense of insecurity suffered by Sindhis in the aftermath of the September 30, Hyderabad carnage case.

The author said that the third section of the book views Pakistan from the US, when both nations entered an uneasy relationship after the events of 9/11. It includes narrations about the tenure of former Gen. Pervaiz Musharraf and first hand meetings with Benazir Bhutto in Washington DC – shortly before the aspiring prime minister was assassinated.

The author said that she decided to expand the book and have it reprinted in Pakistan in 2016, to address the policy shift in the army that finally acknowledged that the `enemy within’ was a bigger threat than India.

According to her, this last chapter, written from Washington, captures the somersaults that Pakistani politicians made to fall in line with the military’s decision to eliminate the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan. It further encapsulates Pakistan’s drift away from the US, and realignment with China.

In his remarks, Mujahid Barelvi said that the author has been a `hard core’ news reporter. Despite the `dry’ nature of the subject, he said she had made the book readable because of an engaging style.

The governments’ fading actions

The Feb 16 suicide attack on the shrine of Shahbaz Qalandar has sent shockwaves across the country, especially in Sindh which is considered as the last bastion of religious and sectarian harmony in Pakistan.
The shrine is revered by millions of devotees. Its characteristic drumbeat and dhamaal is an icon of spiritual ecstasy.

Sindh, the land of Sufis, has endured traumatic incidents of terrorism during recent years, yet Sindhi society is responding to this challenge with towering spirit and unflinching resolve — political leadership, civil society, local media and common people will not be cowed by this wave of terrorism.

More than 80 people died in the evening on February 16, yet the following day began with the roar of dhamal when mourners broke all barriers and thronged the shrine to demonstrate their defiance to terrorism. After a few days, the shrine was visited by a group of civil society activists that performed dhamal to fight fear.

A hairline crack is already conspicuous in Sindh despite being largely liberal, harmonious and secular. Sufi saints of Sindh are revered by people beyond identities that symbolises the Sindhi culture of inclusiveness, tolerance, diversity and harmony. Perhaps, that is the main reason behind targeting of shrines by obscurantist elements. Bloodshed at the Qalandar’s shrine is a continuity of the streak of blood smeared at the shrines of Shah Noorani, Abdullah Shah Ghazi, Data Gunj Bakhsh, Bari Imam and Rehman Baba.

The fact that the terrorist involved in the recent incident was brought from the other side of the border indicates sheer incompetence of the security web. He must have breached several tiers of security, and several facilitators, before detonating himself.

Such failure of intelligence and security merits serious introspection.

Lahore also witnessed a similar carnage only a few days ago, which was followed by a series of terrorist attacks in Balochistan and KP. These incidents should have been considered as a forewarning by the Sindh government.
Sehwan was among the predictable targets, yet the provincial government took no security precautions to avert any mishap. A place routinely frequented by flocks of thousands was left at the mercy of five policepersons, two dysfunctional walkthrough gates and a bunch of malfunctioning cameras.

After an illusive hiatus, terrorism has returned with its usual horror. Lack of political will is an undeniable reality that revitalises terrorist groups.

Local health facility is grossly understaffed supported by only one ambulance and inadequate supplies. A place like Sehwan should not be equated with normal taluka headquarters to determine the status of health, security and emergency services. Rather than its administrative status, the number of visitors routinely swarming the town and the level of alert should have been used as a benchmark to provide emergency response facilities.

The provincial government underestimated the threat level and failed to act proactively. Two day after the blast was too late for the chief minister of Sindh to order a security audit of worship places.

We know that in recent years militancy has crept into Sindh. The intelligence agencies informed the provincial government only a few months ago about 93 madrassas having solid links with proscribed outfits. Only two months ago, provincial home ministry reported that 62 banned groups were active in the province. The Sindh government had been wrangling with the Federal Interior Ministry over its slouchy response on a 46-page report sent by the provincial government.

The Sindh government’s own inaction was equally confounding, as it possesses constitutional and legal powers to take action against such potentially subversive bodies. The provincial government also failed to implement hitherto announced actions to forestall the terrorists’ onslaught.

In October 2016, the chief minister ordered a crackdown against 93 seminaries for having links with terrorists groups, and on unregistered immigrants living in Karachi. In August 2016, the Sindh cabinet approved a draft of the bill to register all madrassas in Sindh. In the meeting of the provincial Apex Committee, IG police informed that out of 9,590 seminaries reported in the province, 3,087 were unregistered. In February 2016, the provincial government decided to regulate the Friday sermon. According to newspaper reports, the Sindh police had started analysis and audit to trace the funding of seminaries in the province.

Regrettably, all these lofty ideas have yet to see the light of day.

Cowardice on part of the government of Sindh is also evident from the fact that it hastily scuttled an operation launched in November 2016 to lay hands on suspects taking shelter in 93 seminaries under question. The provincial government also backtracked on unanimously adopted landmark legislation against forced conversions to placate religious parties.

The provincial government belatedly decided to launch a crackdown on the Sindh-Balochistan border district one week after the carnage. These areas are infested by extremist groups and the provincial government knew it long before. It needs a comprehensive strategy and a long term plan rather than a reactionary crackdown which will end up in random police witch-hunting mostly targeting innocent people to extract money. Such perfunctory roars are commonly witnessed after every massacre, but each time the government cringes on the promised actions and capitulates before the pressure of religious groups. With the passage of time, the government actions fade away.
The federal government’s slumber on the National Action Plan (NAP) and the absence of a credible action in Punjab has also been a root cause of incessant terrorist acts. It is widely believed that certain elements in the Punjab-rooted ruling party have been pandering to proscribed militant outfits. An uncanny state of denial persists among the PML-N stalwarts.

Two days after a suicide assault that killed 73 people in a recreational park in Lahore in March 2016, Rana Sanaullah challenged that everyone can visit any region of Punjab and show him a single safe haven of militants. Repeated repudiation of action against militants’ sanctuaries in Punjab is commonly construed as an implicit complicity of the ruling establishment of the province.

In January 2017, the federal interior minister flabbergasted the Senate by justifying his meeting with a delegation that included a banned outfit. In February 2016, the minister had also said that madrassas are like a bulwark against terrorism. In the first week of February 2017, Rana Sanaullah successfully exhorted a PML-N legislator to withdraw her resolution seeking sanitisation of syllabus of seminaries by expunging hate speech. A newspaper report on February 20, 2017 revealed that some powerful government functionaries were opposing effective action against sectarian outfits in Punjab for political reasons.

While security establishment liberally uses its muscle to operate in other provinces, its reluctance to launch a decisive purge in Punjab triggers many questions. The Punjab dominated establishment’s laxity on eradicating militants’ safe havens is now spewing its perils in all parts of the country. After failure in containing terrorism, the security establishment found a reason to launch a fresh operation in the country.

After an illusive hiatus, terrorism has returned with its usual horror. Lack of political will is an undeniable reality that revitalises terrorist groups. There is no dearth of verbal gallantry but words often lack congruent actions of the government. Security establishment can use arsenal to halt terrorists’ advance but its more formidable political dimensions need a complex, multidimensional and compressive response that falls under the ambit of political government.

Unless the political leadership stands steadfast with its own towering claims, terrorism cannot be eradicated.