May 22, 2010 (Pen Men at Work): A month ago, a mother and father recognized a dead body in a morgue as their daughter’s. She was laid to rest and grieved over, only to be found alive this week.
The 39-year-old Tea Buric was found when the police personnel put in an appearance at an apartment house in the southern city of Split on account of domestic brutality.
Tea Buric was at a complete loss and did not possess the papers of classification. Therefore, the police officers analyzed her fingerprints and unearthed that she had been recognized by her family unit as deceased.
The corpse discovered in a floating state in the Split harbor on April 15 has turned out to be that of a 44-year-old woman, who had vanished earlier that month. This data was mentioned by the Split police officers.
The police spokesperson, Marina Kraljevic-Gudelj, mentioned in a dialogue on Thursday that the police did not employ DNA to classify the well-preserved carcass since four relatives, counting the parents, had recognized it.
Local specialists also divulged that the DNA process, regarded to be costly in Croatia, is normally utilized only if a dead body cannot be acknowledged or seems to have been the casualty of a felony. The parents of Tea Buric and the 44-year-old departed female rejected to talk about the case.
Sarah Palin’s New Book Titled “America By Heart: Reflections On Family, Faith And Flag”
New York, May 12, (THAINDIAN NEWS) Sarah Palin is all set to pen down her thoughts for the second time. After her first book “Going Rogue” became a bestseller with a sale of more than two million copies, the former Alaskan governor and GOP vice-presidential candidate Sarah Palin is planning to write a second book titled reportedly “America By Heart: Reflections On Family, Faith And Flag”. The announcement was made on Tuesday by the famous publisher HarperCollins who said that the book is scheduled to be released in the market on November 23 this year.
As per the announcement made by HarperCollins, readers can expect to find in this book Sarah Palin’s take on family, faith and patriotism. The book is inspired not only by her strong feelings for these but also by the people whom she met last year while promoting her first book “Going Rogue”. According to HarperCollins the new book will accommodate the portraits of “the extraordinary men and women” whom Sarah Palin admires and “who embody her deep love of country” along with her strong “rootedness” in faith and her love for her family.
It will include those classics and contemporary books that have touched her and molded her thoughts. However the selection will not be restricted to that only but will also have speeches, letters, biographies, literature and poetry that have been associated with the nation-building process. HarperCollins said that it might include some songs and movie references as well that have been her favorite. Tina Andreadis, the spokeswoman for HarperCollins said that Sarah Palin would most likely go on tour for “America by Heart: Reflections On Family, Faith And Flag” but the details are yet to be arranged.
Zardari issues ‘charge-sheet’ to The deposed Judges!
ISLAMABAD: Pakistan People's Party (PPP) Co-chairman Asif Ali Zardari has issued a long charge-sheet against the deposed superior court judges, saying they never came to his rescue and were responsible for his eight years in jail.
In the clearest indication that the PPP may not stand by the Murree Declaration to restore the judges, the PPP leader told his central executive committee in Naudero that he was not interested in the restoration of personalities but wanted a judicial reforms package.
Analysts said things were getting complicated for Zardari, both within the PPP and outside, as he was moving closer to allies of President Musharraf and drifting away from his coalition partner Nawaz Sharif.
As Zardari issued his charge-sheet against the judges, Makhdoom Amin Fahim demanded the disbandment of the Pakistan People's Party Parliamentarians which he heads. Others in the PPP blasted the party leadership's decision to join hands with the MQM.
On the other hand, the PML-N is determined not to compromise on the issue of restoration of the deposed judges through a resolution in the National Assembly. The party says it seeks strict adherence to the Murree Declaration and would not accept any formula or constitutional amendment that restores all the deposed judges minus chief justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry.
"After gaining so much because of the political initiative that Zardari has taken in the recent weeks, the PPP co-chairperson is on the verge of losing all," a senior PPP leader told this correspondent from Naudero, revealing the situation in the interior Sindh was extremely tense after Zardari's visit to the MQM headquarters popularly known as Nine Zero.
In a post-dinner gathering of the PPP's central executive committee, the source said, many PPP leaders minced no words in criticising Zardari's decision to woo the MQM. PPP MNA Shugufta Jamani and Sethi Ishaq were among those who expressed strong resentment and wondered how the PPP could join hands with the MQM, which was responsible for the killing of PPP workers.
"The Sindhi people have not given a mandate to Zardari to thrust upon them his personal agenda of humiliation in the name of reconciliation," a PPP leader told The News, adding, "We strongly oppose and condemn the PPP-MQM coalition in Sindh."
The leader asked: "Who caused the May 12th incident? Who was behind the Oct 18 blast? Who killed Murad Baloch and Munawar Suhrawardy? But you still went to the Nine Zero to express solidarity with the MQM against the wishes of the nation. Now it's time for us to rethink our support for you, Mr Zardari," said the source, who sounded quite disturbed.
"There is a wave of anger," a PPP leader said. The likes of Raja Pervez Ashraf, Shah Mehmud Qureshi, Jahangir Badr, however, showered Zardari with praises and called him a great leader. Badr even crossed all limits by saying that the PPP had become more popular under Zardari.
Zardari, however, defended his party's rapprochement with the MQM and termed it a sensible political move having far-reaching impact. He said he wanted to open all political avenues for his son, Bilawal, and never liked to see the doors of Nine Zero closed for him. He said the MQM would be forming a government with the PPP.
Aitzaz Ahsan, who sought the restoration of the deposed judges, told the meeting that it would be in the interest of the party to get the judges restored.
Zardari, according to sources, came hard on the issue of the judges’ restoration. According to one source, Zardari snubbed the widely-respected lawyer leader and said he knew the worth of the judges whose restoration was being sought by the lawyers' community.
Zardari said these were the same judges who had earlier taken oath under the PCO and validated the military rule. Referring to his jail life, a source quoted him as saying that he was let down by these judges, who had even refused to release him on parole to attend the funeral of his nephew. He said he was allowed only a two-hour parole despite Farooq H Naek's pleading before the same judges.
He said the then Justice Wajihuddin Ahmed had also refused him a parole. He termed the same judiciary biased, which he said was responsible for his eight years in jail. Party sources reported that Asif Ali Zardari was quite emotional while speaking on the judges' issue. One source said he talked of the restoration of the judges but linked it to a constitutional package. He said the party was interested in the independence of the judiciary and not in personalities.
A party leader said he was disappointed to hear what he termed the charge-sheet issued by the PPP co-chairperson against the deposed judges. According to him, almost 60 per cent of the co-chairman's speech was on Aitzaz Ahsan and the judges.
While the PPP is clearly seen connecting the judges restoration issue with a constitutional package, the PML-N is determined not to budge from what had been agreed between the two parties in Murree on March 9, 2008.
"We don't accept the 'Minus-One Formula' or any such solution that excludes Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry," PML-N minister Ahsan Iqbal told this correspondent, adding the "Minus-One Formula" would mean accepting March 9, 2007 Gen Musharraf's action of suspending chief justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry as legitimate.
Ahsan said as per the Murree Declaration, the deposed judges would be restored through a resolution. Ahsan categorically said that the question of any constitutional amendment for the judges' restoration did not arise.
Ahsan said the coalition was committed to the Murree Declaration and clarified that the PML-N was not averse to a mutually-agreed constitutional package having no link with the restoration of the judges.
Thanks to Mr. Ansar Abbasi, The NEWS
In the clearest indication that the PPP may not stand by the Murree Declaration to restore the judges, the PPP leader told his central executive committee in Naudero that he was not interested in the restoration of personalities but wanted a judicial reforms package.
Analysts said things were getting complicated for Zardari, both within the PPP and outside, as he was moving closer to allies of President Musharraf and drifting away from his coalition partner Nawaz Sharif.
As Zardari issued his charge-sheet against the judges, Makhdoom Amin Fahim demanded the disbandment of the Pakistan People's Party Parliamentarians which he heads. Others in the PPP blasted the party leadership's decision to join hands with the MQM.
On the other hand, the PML-N is determined not to compromise on the issue of restoration of the deposed judges through a resolution in the National Assembly. The party says it seeks strict adherence to the Murree Declaration and would not accept any formula or constitutional amendment that restores all the deposed judges minus chief justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry.
"After gaining so much because of the political initiative that Zardari has taken in the recent weeks, the PPP co-chairperson is on the verge of losing all," a senior PPP leader told this correspondent from Naudero, revealing the situation in the interior Sindh was extremely tense after Zardari's visit to the MQM headquarters popularly known as Nine Zero.
In a post-dinner gathering of the PPP's central executive committee, the source said, many PPP leaders minced no words in criticising Zardari's decision to woo the MQM. PPP MNA Shugufta Jamani and Sethi Ishaq were among those who expressed strong resentment and wondered how the PPP could join hands with the MQM, which was responsible for the killing of PPP workers.
"The Sindhi people have not given a mandate to Zardari to thrust upon them his personal agenda of humiliation in the name of reconciliation," a PPP leader told The News, adding, "We strongly oppose and condemn the PPP-MQM coalition in Sindh."
The leader asked: "Who caused the May 12th incident? Who was behind the Oct 18 blast? Who killed Murad Baloch and Munawar Suhrawardy? But you still went to the Nine Zero to express solidarity with the MQM against the wishes of the nation. Now it's time for us to rethink our support for you, Mr Zardari," said the source, who sounded quite disturbed.
"There is a wave of anger," a PPP leader said. The likes of Raja Pervez Ashraf, Shah Mehmud Qureshi, Jahangir Badr, however, showered Zardari with praises and called him a great leader. Badr even crossed all limits by saying that the PPP had become more popular under Zardari.
Zardari, however, defended his party's rapprochement with the MQM and termed it a sensible political move having far-reaching impact. He said he wanted to open all political avenues for his son, Bilawal, and never liked to see the doors of Nine Zero closed for him. He said the MQM would be forming a government with the PPP.
Aitzaz Ahsan, who sought the restoration of the deposed judges, told the meeting that it would be in the interest of the party to get the judges restored.
Zardari, according to sources, came hard on the issue of the judges’ restoration. According to one source, Zardari snubbed the widely-respected lawyer leader and said he knew the worth of the judges whose restoration was being sought by the lawyers' community.
Zardari said these were the same judges who had earlier taken oath under the PCO and validated the military rule. Referring to his jail life, a source quoted him as saying that he was let down by these judges, who had even refused to release him on parole to attend the funeral of his nephew. He said he was allowed only a two-hour parole despite Farooq H Naek's pleading before the same judges.
He said the then Justice Wajihuddin Ahmed had also refused him a parole. He termed the same judiciary biased, which he said was responsible for his eight years in jail. Party sources reported that Asif Ali Zardari was quite emotional while speaking on the judges' issue. One source said he talked of the restoration of the judges but linked it to a constitutional package. He said the party was interested in the independence of the judiciary and not in personalities.
A party leader said he was disappointed to hear what he termed the charge-sheet issued by the PPP co-chairperson against the deposed judges. According to him, almost 60 per cent of the co-chairman's speech was on Aitzaz Ahsan and the judges.
While the PPP is clearly seen connecting the judges restoration issue with a constitutional package, the PML-N is determined not to budge from what had been agreed between the two parties in Murree on March 9, 2008.
"We don't accept the 'Minus-One Formula' or any such solution that excludes Chief Justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry," PML-N minister Ahsan Iqbal told this correspondent, adding the "Minus-One Formula" would mean accepting March 9, 2007 Gen Musharraf's action of suspending chief justice Iftikhar Muhammad Chaudhry as legitimate.
Ahsan said as per the Murree Declaration, the deposed judges would be restored through a resolution. Ahsan categorically said that the question of any constitutional amendment for the judges' restoration did not arise.
Ahsan said the coalition was committed to the Murree Declaration and clarified that the PML-N was not averse to a mutually-agreed constitutional package having no link with the restoration of the judges.
Thanks to Mr. Ansar Abbasi, The NEWS
FBI says U.S. violent crime rate dropped in 2009
WASHINGTON, D.C. (BNO NEWS) — Violent crime in the U.S. decreased by more than five percent in 2009, compared to a year earlier, according to the Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) on Monday.
The figures were released in the FBI’s Preliminary Annual Uniform Crime Report, which compiled data from 13,237 law enforcement agencies that submitted six to twelve months of data in both 2008 and 2009.
Overall, the rate of violent crime offenses dropped by 5.5 percent while property crime declined by 4.9 percent. Violent crimes include murder and non-negligent manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery, and aggravated assault. All of those declined in 2009.
Robberies had the biggest drop in 2009, which decreased by 8.1 percent. The murder rate dropped by 7.2 percent, aggravated assault by 4.2 percent, and forcible rape by 3.1 percent.
Violent crime declined 4.0 percent in the nation’s metropolitan counties and 3.0 percent in non-metropolitan counties.etropolitan counties reported a 3.7 percent decline in the number of rapes, but the number of rapes reported in non-metropolitan counties rose slightly, by 0.3 percent.
Per regions, violent crime decreased 6.6 percent in the South, 5.6 percent in the West, 4.6 percent in the Midwest, and 3.5 percent in the Northeast.
Further, all property crime offenses decreased. Motor vehicle theft showed the largest drop in volume at 17.2 percent, larceny-thefts declined 4.2 percent, and burglaries decreased 1.7 percent.
Arson offenses, which are tracked separately from other property crimes, declined 10.4 percent nationwide.
(© 2010 BNO News B.V. All rights reserved. This material may not be redistributed without prior permission. Contact sales@bnonews.com for information about wire subscriptions.)
The figures were released in the FBI’s Preliminary Annual Uniform Crime Report, which compiled data from 13,237 law enforcement agencies that submitted six to twelve months of data in both 2008 and 2009.
Overall, the rate of violent crime offenses dropped by 5.5 percent while property crime declined by 4.9 percent. Violent crimes include murder and non-negligent manslaughter, forcible rape, robbery, and aggravated assault. All of those declined in 2009.
Robberies had the biggest drop in 2009, which decreased by 8.1 percent. The murder rate dropped by 7.2 percent, aggravated assault by 4.2 percent, and forcible rape by 3.1 percent.
Violent crime declined 4.0 percent in the nation’s metropolitan counties and 3.0 percent in non-metropolitan counties.etropolitan counties reported a 3.7 percent decline in the number of rapes, but the number of rapes reported in non-metropolitan counties rose slightly, by 0.3 percent.
Per regions, violent crime decreased 6.6 percent in the South, 5.6 percent in the West, 4.6 percent in the Midwest, and 3.5 percent in the Northeast.
Further, all property crime offenses decreased. Motor vehicle theft showed the largest drop in volume at 17.2 percent, larceny-thefts declined 4.2 percent, and burglaries decreased 1.7 percent.
Arson offenses, which are tracked separately from other property crimes, declined 10.4 percent nationwide.
(© 2010 BNO News B.V. All rights reserved. This material may not be redistributed without prior permission. Contact sales@bnonews.com for information about wire subscriptions.)
Lahore High Court issues notice to Zardari over holding two offices
Lahore, May 18 (ANI): The Lahore High Court (LHC) has issued a notice to President Asif Ali Zardari over the legality of holding two offices of interest.
Hearing a petition filed by the Pakistan Lawyers Forum (PLF) challenging the right of Zardari to hold on to the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) chief’s post, the high court directed Zardari’s Principal Secretary to explain the legality of President dual posts.
“Since the president could not appear because of security reasons, the court asked his principal secretary to appear in court on May 25,” The Daily Times quoted PLF president A.K. Dogar, as saying.
Dogar said that though there was no constitutional bar on the President holding office in a political party, the Supreme Court had barred a president from holding a party post.”Our Supreme Court judges decided in 1993 that the president should be non-partisan. He should not involve himself in political battles. He should shun politics but here he is a party head, which is illegal,” he said.
Meanwhile, Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani has come out openly in favour of Zardari over the issue, saying there are no legal bar on holding two offices at a time.
President Zardari can keep two offices at a time and there is no constitutional or legal bar whatsoever, Gilani told media persons during a brief interaction here. (ANI)
Holder Backs a Miranda Limit for Terror Suspects
WASHINGTON — The Obama administration said Sunday it would seek a law allowing investigators to interrogate terrorism suspects without informing them of their rights, as Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. flatly asserted that the defendant in the Times Square bombing attempt was trained by the Taliban in Pakistan.
Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. said the Taliban in Pakistan had helped the Times Square bomber.
Mr. Holder proposed carving out a broad new exception to the Miranda rights established in a landmark 1966 Supreme Court ruling. It generally forbids prosecutors from using as evidence statements made before suspects have been warned that they have a right to remain silent and to consult a lawyer.
He said interrogators needed greater flexibility to question terrorism suspects than is provided by existing exceptions.
The proposal to ask Congress to loosen the Miranda rule comes against the backdrop of criticism by Republicans who have argued that terrorism suspects — including United States citizens like Faisal Shahzad, the suspect in the Times Square case — should be imprisoned and interrogated as military detainees, rather than handled as ordinary criminal defendants.
For months, the administration has defended the criminal justice system as strong enough to handle terrorism cases. Mr. Holder acknowledged the abrupt shift of tone, characterizing the administration’s stance as a “new priority” and “big news” in an appearance on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
“We’re now dealing with international terrorists,” he said, “and I think that we have to think about perhaps modifying the rules that interrogators have and somehow coming up with something that is flexible and is more consistent with the threat that we now face.”
The conclusion that Mr. Shahzad was involved in an international plot appeared to come from investigations that began after his arrest and interrogation, including inquiries into his links with the Taliban in Pakistan.
“We know that they helped facilitate it,” Mr. Holder said of the Times Square bombing attempt. “We know that they helped direct it. And I suspect that we are going to come up with evidence which shows that they helped to finance it. They were intimately involved in this plot.”
Mr. Holder’s statement, and comments by President Obama’s counterterrorism adviser, John O. Brennan, were the highest-level confirmation yet that the authorities believe the Pakistani branch of the Taliban was directly involved. Investigators were still pursuing leads based on what Mr. Shahzad has told them, and the officials did not describe their evidence in detail.
Mr. Brennan appeared to say even more definitively than Mr. Holder did that the Taliban in Pakistan had provided money as well as training and direction.
“He was trained by them,” Mr. Brennan said. “He received funding from them. He was basically directed here to the United States to carry out this attack.”
He added: “We have good cooperation from our Pakistani partners and from others. We’re learning more about this incident every day. We’re hopeful we’re going to be able to identify any other individuals that were involved.”
Even before the attempted Times Square attack, the administration had been stretching the traditional limits of how long suspects may be questioned without being warned of their rights.
After the attempted bombing of a Detroit-bound jet on Dec. 25, for example, the F.B.I. questioned the suspect, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, for about 50 minutes without reading him his rights. And last week, Mr. Brennan said, the F.B.I. interrogated Mr. Shahzad for three or four hours before delivering a Miranda warning.
In both cases, the administration relied on an exception to Miranda for immediate threats to public safety. That exception was established by the Supreme Court in a 1984 case in which a police officer asked a suspect, at the time of his arrest and before reading him his rights, about where he had hidden a gun. The court deemed the defendant’s answer and the gun admissible as evidence against him.
Conservatives have long disliked the Miranda ruling, which is intended to ensure that confessions are not coerced. Its use in terrorism cases has been especially controversial because of concerns that informing a suspect of his rights could interrupt the flow of the interrogation and prompt him to stop disclosing information that might prevent a future attack.
Rudolph W. Giuliani, the former New York City mayor and Republican presidential candidate, said Sunday on “This Week” on ABC that he supported Mr. Holder’s proposal. However, he also suggested that enacting it would not quell conservative criticism, arguing that it would be even better to hold suspects like Mr. Shahzad as military detainees for lengthier interrogation.
“I would not have given him Miranda warnings after just a couple of hours of questioning,” Mr. Giuliani said. “I would have instead declared him an enemy combatant, asked the president to do that, and at the same time, that would have given us the opportunity to question him for a much longer period of time.”
Attorney General Eric H. Holder Jr. said the Taliban in Pakistan had helped the Times Square bomber.
Mr. Holder proposed carving out a broad new exception to the Miranda rights established in a landmark 1966 Supreme Court ruling. It generally forbids prosecutors from using as evidence statements made before suspects have been warned that they have a right to remain silent and to consult a lawyer.
He said interrogators needed greater flexibility to question terrorism suspects than is provided by existing exceptions.
The proposal to ask Congress to loosen the Miranda rule comes against the backdrop of criticism by Republicans who have argued that terrorism suspects — including United States citizens like Faisal Shahzad, the suspect in the Times Square case — should be imprisoned and interrogated as military detainees, rather than handled as ordinary criminal defendants.
For months, the administration has defended the criminal justice system as strong enough to handle terrorism cases. Mr. Holder acknowledged the abrupt shift of tone, characterizing the administration’s stance as a “new priority” and “big news” in an appearance on NBC’s “Meet the Press.”
“We’re now dealing with international terrorists,” he said, “and I think that we have to think about perhaps modifying the rules that interrogators have and somehow coming up with something that is flexible and is more consistent with the threat that we now face.”
The conclusion that Mr. Shahzad was involved in an international plot appeared to come from investigations that began after his arrest and interrogation, including inquiries into his links with the Taliban in Pakistan.
“We know that they helped facilitate it,” Mr. Holder said of the Times Square bombing attempt. “We know that they helped direct it. And I suspect that we are going to come up with evidence which shows that they helped to finance it. They were intimately involved in this plot.”
Mr. Holder’s statement, and comments by President Obama’s counterterrorism adviser, John O. Brennan, were the highest-level confirmation yet that the authorities believe the Pakistani branch of the Taliban was directly involved. Investigators were still pursuing leads based on what Mr. Shahzad has told them, and the officials did not describe their evidence in detail.
Mr. Brennan appeared to say even more definitively than Mr. Holder did that the Taliban in Pakistan had provided money as well as training and direction.
“He was trained by them,” Mr. Brennan said. “He received funding from them. He was basically directed here to the United States to carry out this attack.”
He added: “We have good cooperation from our Pakistani partners and from others. We’re learning more about this incident every day. We’re hopeful we’re going to be able to identify any other individuals that were involved.”
Even before the attempted Times Square attack, the administration had been stretching the traditional limits of how long suspects may be questioned without being warned of their rights.
After the attempted bombing of a Detroit-bound jet on Dec. 25, for example, the F.B.I. questioned the suspect, Umar Farouk Abdulmutallab, for about 50 minutes without reading him his rights. And last week, Mr. Brennan said, the F.B.I. interrogated Mr. Shahzad for three or four hours before delivering a Miranda warning.
In both cases, the administration relied on an exception to Miranda for immediate threats to public safety. That exception was established by the Supreme Court in a 1984 case in which a police officer asked a suspect, at the time of his arrest and before reading him his rights, about where he had hidden a gun. The court deemed the defendant’s answer and the gun admissible as evidence against him.
Conservatives have long disliked the Miranda ruling, which is intended to ensure that confessions are not coerced. Its use in terrorism cases has been especially controversial because of concerns that informing a suspect of his rights could interrupt the flow of the interrogation and prompt him to stop disclosing information that might prevent a future attack.
Rudolph W. Giuliani, the former New York City mayor and Republican presidential candidate, said Sunday on “This Week” on ABC that he supported Mr. Holder’s proposal. However, he also suggested that enacting it would not quell conservative criticism, arguing that it would be even better to hold suspects like Mr. Shahzad as military detainees for lengthier interrogation.
“I would not have given him Miranda warnings after just a couple of hours of questioning,” Mr. Giuliani said. “I would have instead declared him an enemy combatant, asked the president to do that, and at the same time, that would have given us the opportunity to question him for a much longer period of time.”
U.S. Urges Action in Pakistan After Failed Bombing
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — The Obama administration has delivered new and stiff warnings to Pakistan after the failed Times Square car bombing that it must urgently move against the nexus of Islamic militancy in the country’s lawless tribal regions, American and Pakistani officials said.
The American military commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, met with the Pakistani military chief, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, at his headquarters here on Friday and urged Pakistan to move more quickly in beginning a military offensive against the Pakistani Taliban and Al Qaeda in North Waziristan, Americans and Pakistanis familiar with the visit said. The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the delicacy of continuing diplomatic efforts here.
The Pakistani-American man who admitted to the Times Square attack, Faisal Shahzad, 30, told American investigators that he had received training in North Waziristan, the main base for the Pakistani Taliban, Al Qaeda and other militant groups.
The new pressure from Washington was characterized by both the Pakistani and American officials as a sharp turnaround from the relatively polite encouragement adopted by the Obama administration in recent months. And it comes amid increasing debate within the administration about how to expand the American military’s influence — and even a boots-on-the-ground presence — on Pakistani soil.
Though the bombing in Times Square failed, Mr. Shahzad’s ability to move back and forth between the United States and Pakistan has heightened fears in the Obama administration that another attempt at a terrorist attack could succeed.
“We are saying, ‘Sorry, if there is a successful attack, we will have to act’ ” within Pakistan, one of the American officials said.
That issue has been a source of growing tension between the countries. Pakistani officials, already alarmed by the increase in American drone aircraft attacks against militants in northwestern Pakistan, have been extremely sensitive about any hint that American ground troops could become involved in the fight. And attempts by the United States to increase the presence of Special Operations forces there even in an advisory or training role have been met with great resistance by the Pakistanis.
The Pakistani military has stepped up its campaigns against militants in the past year, including an offensive in South Waziristan that has been praised by American officials. It has said that it is preparing to take up the fight against militants in North Waziristan. But Pakistani officials have insisted that the expanded campaign will happen completely on their own terms, and they have warned the Obama administration not to push so hard that it uses up the good will it has tried to foster here.
But the Americans’ urgency has been increasing on multiple fronts. With an intensified American military campaign raging against the Taliban next door in Afghanistan, and now with the renewed evidence of Pakistani sources for plots to attack on American soil, it was clear the Pakistani government had to do more, and more urgently, a senior American official said Saturday.
General Kayani, with whom General McChrystal has forged a positive relationship, was essentially told, “ ‘You can’t pretend any longer that this is not going on,’ ” another American official said. “ ‘We are saying you have got to go into North Waziristan.’ ”
The American ambassador to Pakistan, Anne Patterson, met Pakistan’s president, Asif Ali Zardari, after the failed bombing and used “forceful” language to convey the American point that the Pakistanis had to move more assertively against the militants threaded through the society, a Pakistani official said.
“The element of threat is definitely different from the last few months,” said Tariq Fatemi, a former Pakistani ambassador who also served in the United States. .
The Obama administration was planning to use the failed terrorist attack to impress on the Pakistanis of the urgency of getting American development aid in place in the tribal areas where militancy thrives, and into Karachi, the biggest city, where radical religious schools, known as madrasas, are popular.
“Last week’s incident makes it more urgent and more true” of the need to bring stability and security to these areas where the militants have multiplied, an American official said.
About $150 million was appropriated by Congress for assistance to the tribal areas in the coming period for reconstruction and other projects. But a host of problems, including American insistence on being able to monitor the money being spent, has made it a slow process.
Since Mr. Shahzad’s arrest in the Times Square attack, each country has, to some extent, blamed the other. Many Pakistanis insist that Mr. Shahzad is an American citizen who was radicalized in the United States by the difficulties he found living there as a Muslim. The Americans stress that Mr. Shahzad has traveled more than a dozen times back to Pakistan from the United States since 1999, and appeared to have received his military training in the epicenter of militancy, North Waziristan.
Mr. Shahzad’s background as the son of a senior Pakistani military officer has embarrassed the Pakistani Army, the most powerful institution in the country, and which receives generous financing from the United States. Mr. Shahzad’s father was a vice marshal in the Pakistani Air Force, and it appears that Mr. Shahzad grew up around senior military officers.
After Mr. Shahzad told American investigators that he was trained in bomb making in North Waziristan, the Pakistani Army tried to play down that claim, portraying it as unlikely.
The Pakistani Taliban took initial responsibility for the bombing attempt. Days later, though, their spokesman denied any involvement, a statement that may have been prompted by fears that their early claim of ownership of Mr. Shahzad might result in a direct attack on the North Waziristan enclave by the Americans, or the Pakistanis.
The American military commander in Afghanistan, Gen. Stanley A. McChrystal, met with the Pakistani military chief, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, at his headquarters here on Friday and urged Pakistan to move more quickly in beginning a military offensive against the Pakistani Taliban and Al Qaeda in North Waziristan, Americans and Pakistanis familiar with the visit said. The officials spoke on the condition of anonymity because of the delicacy of continuing diplomatic efforts here.
The Pakistani-American man who admitted to the Times Square attack, Faisal Shahzad, 30, told American investigators that he had received training in North Waziristan, the main base for the Pakistani Taliban, Al Qaeda and other militant groups.
The new pressure from Washington was characterized by both the Pakistani and American officials as a sharp turnaround from the relatively polite encouragement adopted by the Obama administration in recent months. And it comes amid increasing debate within the administration about how to expand the American military’s influence — and even a boots-on-the-ground presence — on Pakistani soil.
Though the bombing in Times Square failed, Mr. Shahzad’s ability to move back and forth between the United States and Pakistan has heightened fears in the Obama administration that another attempt at a terrorist attack could succeed.
“We are saying, ‘Sorry, if there is a successful attack, we will have to act’ ” within Pakistan, one of the American officials said.
That issue has been a source of growing tension between the countries. Pakistani officials, already alarmed by the increase in American drone aircraft attacks against militants in northwestern Pakistan, have been extremely sensitive about any hint that American ground troops could become involved in the fight. And attempts by the United States to increase the presence of Special Operations forces there even in an advisory or training role have been met with great resistance by the Pakistanis.
The Pakistani military has stepped up its campaigns against militants in the past year, including an offensive in South Waziristan that has been praised by American officials. It has said that it is preparing to take up the fight against militants in North Waziristan. But Pakistani officials have insisted that the expanded campaign will happen completely on their own terms, and they have warned the Obama administration not to push so hard that it uses up the good will it has tried to foster here.
But the Americans’ urgency has been increasing on multiple fronts. With an intensified American military campaign raging against the Taliban next door in Afghanistan, and now with the renewed evidence of Pakistani sources for plots to attack on American soil, it was clear the Pakistani government had to do more, and more urgently, a senior American official said Saturday.
General Kayani, with whom General McChrystal has forged a positive relationship, was essentially told, “ ‘You can’t pretend any longer that this is not going on,’ ” another American official said. “ ‘We are saying you have got to go into North Waziristan.’ ”
The American ambassador to Pakistan, Anne Patterson, met Pakistan’s president, Asif Ali Zardari, after the failed bombing and used “forceful” language to convey the American point that the Pakistanis had to move more assertively against the militants threaded through the society, a Pakistani official said.
“The element of threat is definitely different from the last few months,” said Tariq Fatemi, a former Pakistani ambassador who also served in the United States. .
The Obama administration was planning to use the failed terrorist attack to impress on the Pakistanis of the urgency of getting American development aid in place in the tribal areas where militancy thrives, and into Karachi, the biggest city, where radical religious schools, known as madrasas, are popular.
“Last week’s incident makes it more urgent and more true” of the need to bring stability and security to these areas where the militants have multiplied, an American official said.
About $150 million was appropriated by Congress for assistance to the tribal areas in the coming period for reconstruction and other projects. But a host of problems, including American insistence on being able to monitor the money being spent, has made it a slow process.
Since Mr. Shahzad’s arrest in the Times Square attack, each country has, to some extent, blamed the other. Many Pakistanis insist that Mr. Shahzad is an American citizen who was radicalized in the United States by the difficulties he found living there as a Muslim. The Americans stress that Mr. Shahzad has traveled more than a dozen times back to Pakistan from the United States since 1999, and appeared to have received his military training in the epicenter of militancy, North Waziristan.
Mr. Shahzad’s background as the son of a senior Pakistani military officer has embarrassed the Pakistani Army, the most powerful institution in the country, and which receives generous financing from the United States. Mr. Shahzad’s father was a vice marshal in the Pakistani Air Force, and it appears that Mr. Shahzad grew up around senior military officers.
After Mr. Shahzad told American investigators that he was trained in bomb making in North Waziristan, the Pakistani Army tried to play down that claim, portraying it as unlikely.
The Pakistani Taliban took initial responsibility for the bombing attempt. Days later, though, their spokesman denied any involvement, a statement that may have been prompted by fears that their early claim of ownership of Mr. Shahzad might result in a direct attack on the North Waziristan enclave by the Americans, or the Pakistanis.
A small victory
At least three major Taliban groups emerged. The first was the group headed by Mullah Omar who had led the government the Taliban had formed in Kabul in the mid-1990s. It is widely believed that this group was led by leaders of the ‘Quetta shura’ whose main goal is said to be to bring Afghanistan under the control of the Taliban. That could happen only if the Americans were made to leave Afghanistan. The bulk of support for this group came from the many local commanders involved in various insurgencies in Afghanistan.
The second group was led initially by Jalaluddin Haqqani and is now under the control of his son Sirajuddin. The older Haqqani had been helped by the Americans, the Saudis and the Pakistanis to fight the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. Having achieved that objective they were unable to work together to govern the liberated country, paving the way for the Taliban regime.
When the Americans moved into Afghanistan in late 2001 and pushed the Taliban out of Kabul, the Haqqani group shifted to Pakistan’s North Waziristan. It has remained there, supporting the insurgents in the areas adjoining their sanctuary in Pakistan. Since the senior Haqqani had served in Mullah Omar’s government his Taliban movement retained some contacts with the Quetta shura. But the linkages are believed not to be strong.
The third group had little to do with the insurgency in Afghanistan but wanted to bring about change in Pakistan. It was formed out of several small tribal groups and was given the name of Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). Initially led by Baitullah Mehsud who was killed last year in a drone attack, the TTP quickly expanded its reach.
Last summer its affiliate in Swat took over the district and advanced into Buner. They were only a short distance away from Islamabad. It was then that the army moved to reclaim the areas, carrying out a successful operation. It followed it up with an equally successful operation in South Waziristan. Recently, newspapers carried the story that Hakimullah Mehsud, Baitullah’s successor, had died of injuries sustained in a drone attack sometime earlier.
While Pakistan drew a sharp distinction between these three groups, the Americans were of the view that all of them had to be treated the same way. They were pleased with Pakistan’s move against the TTP in Swat, Buner and South Waziristan but were unhappy that Islamabad was not anxious to go into North Waziristan against the Haqqani group or to hit the Quetta shura.
Neither of the two groups had launched attacks against Pakistan while the TTP was involved in many terrorist activities that had killed hundreds of people in various parts of Pakistan. Also, Islamabad, worried about the political vacuum that might occur once the Americans and Nato forces began the promised withdrawal from Afghanistan. It wanted a situation where it could depend on these two groups of Taliban to help establish a regime in Kabul that would be friendlier towards it than the one headed by President Hamid Karzai. What motivated the Afghan president to dispense with his enduring antipathy towards the Taliban movement to hold out an olive branch to some of them in London?
In fact, Karzai and his associates went to London to get the support of the countries assembled there to help him win over those in the Taliban movement who were its foot soldiers for economic reasons and not out of ideological compulsions. His finance minister asked for assistance amounting to $1.2bn, with $200m dispersed immediately so that employment opportunities could be created for these people. The regime held out the assurance that this money would not be used to bribe the Taliban but for promoting development. This, in fact, is a recognition by Karzai that an important reason for his mounting troubles was of the poor governance of Pakhtun areas, most of which border Pakistan. The president was also thinking of the time when the Americans would not be present in large numbers to prop up his administration. The time had come for him to bring under his tent those Pakhtuns who were prepared to work with him.
While the outcome of the London conference vindicates Pakistan’s long-held position, it also points to the importance of focusing on economic development as a way of countering insurgency. It is important for Pakistan to launch a massive programme for the development initially of Malakand division and South Waziristan — two areas where the army has scored impressive successes — in order to ensure that the people there remain loyal to the Pakistani state.
A well-articulated programme of economic development will have the support of the West and should not impose a heavy financial burden on Islamabad. This is a good time to start work on it.
Judicial reform in Swat
In the launch of the drive to reform Swat’s legal system, it is apparent that the state is aware of the sort of steps needed to alter some of the realities that had formerly led the people of the area to extend support to the Taliban before disowning them. For nearly four decades, the area’s judicial system had been notoriously slow-moving and corrupt, leading to the erosion of the residents’ faith in the state. Little wonder then that the Taliban’s promise of a ‘quick, Sharia-based’ justice system resonated with Swat’s people. To the consternation of many, it became clear after the ‘peace deal’ brokered between the government and the militants by the Tehrik-i-Nifaz-i-Shariat Mohammadi that the Taliban’s version of the Sharia consisted of beheadings, floggings, the repression of women and other gross violations of fundamental human and constitutional rights. It appears that Swat’s rejection of the Taliban has finally been seen as an opportunity by the state to win over the population by installing a judicial system that will hopefully be quick, inexpensive and unbiased.
Judicial officials have launched a drive to speed up and reform the area’s legal system. Sixteen new judges have been hired and new courts have been created with the laudable aim of processing new criminal cases within four months and civil ones in six. The backlog of cases has reportedly been reduced from 18,000 to 2,300. The significance of this reduction ought not be underestimated given that each resolved case means a large number of people with newfound confidence in the state and government, which is crucial to the project of preventing the Taliban or other anarchist elements from regaining influence in the area. Legal and judicial systems in other parts of the country must make similar efforts. According to a statistical report released recently by the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, 1.52 million cases were pending in the superior and lower courts at the end of 2009. Each of these represents a miscarriage of justice, since justice delayed is justice denied. The project to build Pakistanis’ faith in the state and government must include an overhaul of the judicial process.
Judicial officials have launched a drive to speed up and reform the area’s legal system. Sixteen new judges have been hired and new courts have been created with the laudable aim of processing new criminal cases within four months and civil ones in six. The backlog of cases has reportedly been reduced from 18,000 to 2,300. The significance of this reduction ought not be underestimated given that each resolved case means a large number of people with newfound confidence in the state and government, which is crucial to the project of preventing the Taliban or other anarchist elements from regaining influence in the area. Legal and judicial systems in other parts of the country must make similar efforts. According to a statistical report released recently by the Human Rights Commission of Pakistan, 1.52 million cases were pending in the superior and lower courts at the end of 2009. Each of these represents a miscarriage of justice, since justice delayed is justice denied. The project to build Pakistanis’ faith in the state and government must include an overhaul of the judicial process.
Encouraging signs
Are consumers no longer suffering power cuts as claimed by a Pepco official? No. But the severe crisis in April has eased, partly because of the measures announced at the energy conference held in Islamabad last month and partly because of more tolerable weather in some parts of the country and more water becoming available for hydel power generation.
It is relatively clear that a large portion of the blame for the acute crisis last month can be laid at the door of the circular debt issue. During peak summer there is certainly an issue of power generation capacity, but that was not the case last month. Unfortunately, dealing with the problem of circular debt appears to have been put off, perhaps with an eye towards containing the fiscal deficit for the financial year ending in June. The government has been kept on a tight leash by the IMF, and adding to borrowings can compound the crisis. The problem for consumers, though, is that delaying the resolution of the circular debt issue may aggravate the situation in the months ahead, leading to a double whammy of sorts as the gap between supply and demand will keep growing in the summer months.
Nevertheless, it is encouraging that at long last the national and provincial leadership appears to have awakened to the need to deal with the power crisis. A second energy conference has been convened by the prime minister and once again all the provincial chief ministers have been invited. The measures taken at the last round of meetings have somewhat eased the consumers’ torment in many places. Yes, there have been problems, as evidenced by the flouting in Karachi of the ban on supplying CNG to motor vehicles one day a week. Punjab is feeling aggrieved that the other provinces have not acted with as much alacrity to implement the energy-saving measures. However, it is encouraging that there appears to be at least some commitment by all sides to continue with a national response to the energy crisis as opposed to Islamabad issuing orders that the provinces ignore.
It is relatively clear that a large portion of the blame for the acute crisis last month can be laid at the door of the circular debt issue. During peak summer there is certainly an issue of power generation capacity, but that was not the case last month. Unfortunately, dealing with the problem of circular debt appears to have been put off, perhaps with an eye towards containing the fiscal deficit for the financial year ending in June. The government has been kept on a tight leash by the IMF, and adding to borrowings can compound the crisis. The problem for consumers, though, is that delaying the resolution of the circular debt issue may aggravate the situation in the months ahead, leading to a double whammy of sorts as the gap between supply and demand will keep growing in the summer months.
Nevertheless, it is encouraging that at long last the national and provincial leadership appears to have awakened to the need to deal with the power crisis. A second energy conference has been convened by the prime minister and once again all the provincial chief ministers have been invited. The measures taken at the last round of meetings have somewhat eased the consumers’ torment in many places. Yes, there have been problems, as evidenced by the flouting in Karachi of the ban on supplying CNG to motor vehicles one day a week. Punjab is feeling aggrieved that the other provinces have not acted with as much alacrity to implement the energy-saving measures. However, it is encouraging that there appears to be at least some commitment by all sides to continue with a national response to the energy crisis as opposed to Islamabad issuing orders that the provinces ignore.
US Pressure
In the immediate aftermath of Faisal Shahzad’s arrest in the US, the Obama administration acted to reassure Pakistan that the event was not automatically going to strain ties between the two countries. However, there appears to have been some change in the tone and tenor of comments by American officials over the past couple of days.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has warned that there will be “severe consequences” for Pakistan if a successful terrorist attack in the US is traced to this country. Meanwhile, unnamed officials have voiced fresh concerns about militancy in Pakistan to The New York Times and The Washington Post. What are we to make of this? First of all, Ms Clinton’s comments are unfortunate and will rekindle suspicions here that America is no real friend of Pakistan. The Shahzad case is cause for serious concern and the possible nexus between American citizenship holders and Pakistan-based militants needs to be investigated thoroughly. But why is America’s top diplomat venturing into hypotheticals and suggesting an intention to visit harm on Pakistan as some sort of possible retribution? It is odd, to say the least. Perhaps Ms Clinton was speaking more to the domestic American audience, some members of which have been critical of the Obama administration’s being ‘soft’ on Pakistan. But her words were heard in Pakistan too and they would not have gone down well.
Curiously, in more or less the same time frame, Gen Petraeus, the head of the US military in this region, spoke to the Council of Foreign Relations after returning from a trip to Pakistan and struck a far more conciliatory tone. When asked if the timing of the Shahzad plot would adversely impact military-to-military cooperation between the US and Pakistan, Gen Petraeus replied: “The attempted New York attack in Times Square, if anything, may strengthen the relationship. In fact, the Pakistani intelligence services, or its police, quite quickly carried out some operations related to this.” So is this a case of the good-cop, bad-cop routine once again being rolled out to get Pakistan to ‘do more’ in the fight against militancy?
If so, it is a bad idea. The Pakistani state is unlikely to respond to threats or inducements on this count. Assistance in relation to the Shahzad case is, both sides appear to agree, being extended by Pakistan. There appears to be some friction, but disagreements are very likely in the course of such investigations. Everything is not a conspiracy; the American side, after all, almost let Shahzad fly out of America. However, the Times Square plot must not be used as a stick to beat Pakistan with. It is the common enemy — the militants — that need to be fought.
Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has warned that there will be “severe consequences” for Pakistan if a successful terrorist attack in the US is traced to this country. Meanwhile, unnamed officials have voiced fresh concerns about militancy in Pakistan to The New York Times and The Washington Post. What are we to make of this? First of all, Ms Clinton’s comments are unfortunate and will rekindle suspicions here that America is no real friend of Pakistan. The Shahzad case is cause for serious concern and the possible nexus between American citizenship holders and Pakistan-based militants needs to be investigated thoroughly. But why is America’s top diplomat venturing into hypotheticals and suggesting an intention to visit harm on Pakistan as some sort of possible retribution? It is odd, to say the least. Perhaps Ms Clinton was speaking more to the domestic American audience, some members of which have been critical of the Obama administration’s being ‘soft’ on Pakistan. But her words were heard in Pakistan too and they would not have gone down well.
Curiously, in more or less the same time frame, Gen Petraeus, the head of the US military in this region, spoke to the Council of Foreign Relations after returning from a trip to Pakistan and struck a far more conciliatory tone. When asked if the timing of the Shahzad plot would adversely impact military-to-military cooperation between the US and Pakistan, Gen Petraeus replied: “The attempted New York attack in Times Square, if anything, may strengthen the relationship. In fact, the Pakistani intelligence services, or its police, quite quickly carried out some operations related to this.” So is this a case of the good-cop, bad-cop routine once again being rolled out to get Pakistan to ‘do more’ in the fight against militancy?
If so, it is a bad idea. The Pakistani state is unlikely to respond to threats or inducements on this count. Assistance in relation to the Shahzad case is, both sides appear to agree, being extended by Pakistan. There appears to be some friction, but disagreements are very likely in the course of such investigations. Everything is not a conspiracy; the American side, after all, almost let Shahzad fly out of America. However, the Times Square plot must not be used as a stick to beat Pakistan with. It is the common enemy — the militants — that need to be fought.
Paths of terrorism lead but to Pakistan
The adoption of terrorism tactics can no longer be merely attributed to ignorance, poverty, deprivation or hardship.
Many of our neo-terrorists are schooled and brainwashed beings, with a grudge, or several grudges, imbued with bravado, intent on disrupting what is left of civilised life, with nary a care as to how many complete strangers they either blow to smithereens or maim, or how much they destroy.
Pakistan of course has its daily dose of terrorism, in one form or another. Schools are blown up with regularity in the newly-named K-P province, bodies of men executed by the local Taliban are found, men have their hands chopped off, women are ‘dishonoured’ and our main cities are under siege, bunkered and concreted, awaiting the suicide bomber from up north or from down south in Punjab where they are said to be heavily congregated (for one, Ajmal Kasab).
Unless one of those strange and much despised creatures known as VIPs or often VVIPs are targeted, suicide and other bombings no longer earn headlines in the media. They are now taken as a matter of course.
But apart from terrorism connections within Pakistan, we have those outside Pakistan, the paths of which lead straight into our heartland. The latest New York Times Square failed car bomber is but one of a string of notable Pakistanis who have garnered academic degrees and are not materially down and out in any way. What is it about Pakistan that it manages to produce so many young men who are violence prone, caring neither for their own or other people’s lives? We seriously need to ask ourselves this question.
It was asked and partially answered in the Wall Street Journal of May 3 by Sadanand Dhume under the heading ‘Why Pakistan Produces Jihadists’. He firstly asks: “Why do Pakistan and the Pakistani diaspora churn out such a high proportion of the world’s terrorists?” He cites Mir Aimal Kasi, the CIA shooter, Ramzi Yousef, the 1993 World Trade Centre bomber, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed of 9/11 fame, Omar Saeed Sheikh, the Daniel Pearl kidnapper, and three of the four July 2005 London train bombers as being ‘made in Pakistan’.
He goes on to list a few “whose passage to jihadism passes through” Pakistan — Osama bin Laden himself, Ayman al-Zawahiri, Mohamed Atta, Richard Reid and his shoe, and John Walker Lindh of the so-called American Taliban. These are not lists to be proud of. Something is radically wrong and heaven alone knows how long it will take to even start to put it right. With the governments and leadership we have suffered and still suffer it is not likely that in the foreseeable future our production line will decrease, let alone cease.
Dhume puts much of it down to the distant past, to the formation of the country when he claims it “was touched by the messianic zeal of pan-Islamism”, with men such as Muhammad Asad (an early ambassador to the UN), Said Ramadan who collaborated with Abul Ala Maududi and with the 1949 establishment by Pakistan of the world’s first transnational Islamic organisation, the World Muslim Congress.
All this possibly may have set the trend — with massive help from Liaquat Ali Khan’s 1949 Objectives Resolution — but it was not until Ziaul Haq, army general and devout worshipper at the altar of his own dangerous brand of Islam, that bigotry and the inevitable violence that must accompany it truly set in. Even the mighty army was tainted, to a certain extent brainwashed by the joys of jihad.
The seal on the full conversion of the Pakistani mind towards militancy was stamped by the support given by Zia to the Mujahideen in Afghanistan and then by the adoption of the Taliban by Benazir Bhutto’s second government.
No one, not even the most nationalistic Pakistani, can deny that the country is used as a training ground for terrorists or jihadists or whatever.
It is open knowledge that both the ignorant poor and deprived and the university-educated youth, and even adult men, can come to Pakistan and learn how to make bombs to blow up themselves, if they so wish, and as many others that they can either take with them or leave dead and maimed while they flee.
Can some bright psychologist work out why Faisal Shahzad, a college graduate, son of a Pakistani air force officer, married with two children, was prompted to do what he did on May Day?
Friend I.A. Rehman has written an excellent column, finely tuned and finely balanced, published in this newspaper on May 6 on the subject of anarchy in Pakistan. It sets out many of the acts of government in recent days which come under the heading of anarchy. It should be widely disseminated so that people realise just what their lives are all about under this present dispensation which is at as much a loss with itself as it is with the governance of this unruly country. It is a sad commentary on the seemingly deliberate acts of commission and omission which so relentlessly beset us.
Strangely, the sole anarchic activity he has missed out on is the terrorism and jihad factor. Perhaps he, like so many, is hardened to the fact that it exists, that it has become a way of life and that it seemingly cannot be dealt with by the civilian government we have lurking on the ground, or will not be dealt with, for reasons we can but guess at, by the army that is the de facto ruler of this country for which the world at large has no love lost.
Many of our neo-terrorists are schooled and brainwashed beings, with a grudge, or several grudges, imbued with bravado, intent on disrupting what is left of civilised life, with nary a care as to how many complete strangers they either blow to smithereens or maim, or how much they destroy.
Pakistan of course has its daily dose of terrorism, in one form or another. Schools are blown up with regularity in the newly-named K-P province, bodies of men executed by the local Taliban are found, men have their hands chopped off, women are ‘dishonoured’ and our main cities are under siege, bunkered and concreted, awaiting the suicide bomber from up north or from down south in Punjab where they are said to be heavily congregated (for one, Ajmal Kasab).
Unless one of those strange and much despised creatures known as VIPs or often VVIPs are targeted, suicide and other bombings no longer earn headlines in the media. They are now taken as a matter of course.
But apart from terrorism connections within Pakistan, we have those outside Pakistan, the paths of which lead straight into our heartland. The latest New York Times Square failed car bomber is but one of a string of notable Pakistanis who have garnered academic degrees and are not materially down and out in any way. What is it about Pakistan that it manages to produce so many young men who are violence prone, caring neither for their own or other people’s lives? We seriously need to ask ourselves this question.
It was asked and partially answered in the Wall Street Journal of May 3 by Sadanand Dhume under the heading ‘Why Pakistan Produces Jihadists’. He firstly asks: “Why do Pakistan and the Pakistani diaspora churn out such a high proportion of the world’s terrorists?” He cites Mir Aimal Kasi, the CIA shooter, Ramzi Yousef, the 1993 World Trade Centre bomber, Khalid Sheikh Mohammed of 9/11 fame, Omar Saeed Sheikh, the Daniel Pearl kidnapper, and three of the four July 2005 London train bombers as being ‘made in Pakistan’.
He goes on to list a few “whose passage to jihadism passes through” Pakistan — Osama bin Laden himself, Ayman al-Zawahiri, Mohamed Atta, Richard Reid and his shoe, and John Walker Lindh of the so-called American Taliban. These are not lists to be proud of. Something is radically wrong and heaven alone knows how long it will take to even start to put it right. With the governments and leadership we have suffered and still suffer it is not likely that in the foreseeable future our production line will decrease, let alone cease.
Dhume puts much of it down to the distant past, to the formation of the country when he claims it “was touched by the messianic zeal of pan-Islamism”, with men such as Muhammad Asad (an early ambassador to the UN), Said Ramadan who collaborated with Abul Ala Maududi and with the 1949 establishment by Pakistan of the world’s first transnational Islamic organisation, the World Muslim Congress.
All this possibly may have set the trend — with massive help from Liaquat Ali Khan’s 1949 Objectives Resolution — but it was not until Ziaul Haq, army general and devout worshipper at the altar of his own dangerous brand of Islam, that bigotry and the inevitable violence that must accompany it truly set in. Even the mighty army was tainted, to a certain extent brainwashed by the joys of jihad.
The seal on the full conversion of the Pakistani mind towards militancy was stamped by the support given by Zia to the Mujahideen in Afghanistan and then by the adoption of the Taliban by Benazir Bhutto’s second government.
No one, not even the most nationalistic Pakistani, can deny that the country is used as a training ground for terrorists or jihadists or whatever.
It is open knowledge that both the ignorant poor and deprived and the university-educated youth, and even adult men, can come to Pakistan and learn how to make bombs to blow up themselves, if they so wish, and as many others that they can either take with them or leave dead and maimed while they flee.
Can some bright psychologist work out why Faisal Shahzad, a college graduate, son of a Pakistani air force officer, married with two children, was prompted to do what he did on May Day?
Friend I.A. Rehman has written an excellent column, finely tuned and finely balanced, published in this newspaper on May 6 on the subject of anarchy in Pakistan. It sets out many of the acts of government in recent days which come under the heading of anarchy. It should be widely disseminated so that people realise just what their lives are all about under this present dispensation which is at as much a loss with itself as it is with the governance of this unruly country. It is a sad commentary on the seemingly deliberate acts of commission and omission which so relentlessly beset us.
Strangely, the sole anarchic activity he has missed out on is the terrorism and jihad factor. Perhaps he, like so many, is hardened to the fact that it exists, that it has become a way of life and that it seemingly cannot be dealt with by the civilian government we have lurking on the ground, or will not be dealt with, for reasons we can but guess at, by the army that is the de facto ruler of this country for which the world at large has no love lost.
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