Adrift amidst the ‘fragile’ few

The government of Pakistan, comprising 80-odd self-adulators who serve but themselves, has been rated as ‘very fragile’ by the president of the sole superpower, Barack Obama.

Fragile: “Liable to break or be broken; brittle; easily destroyed.” Such is the condition of a government cobbled together with the participation of our friends and well-wishers, a compilation and combination of political parties out to do in those of us in the cold.

Fragile: Of persons: ‘Liable to err or fall into sin.’ Such are the 80-odd chosen few who form the fragile cabinet presided over by a fragile Asif Ali Zardari, our accidental president, who, it must never be forgotten, rules and misrules courtesy of the ghost of his assassinated wife to whom the Pakistani crown had been bequeathed by the 2007 government of the USA, the puppet master of the world. This new US government, it seems, is now unhappy with the George W. Bush-backed Zardari, which does not bode well for the president as when the US decided it had had enough of Gen Pervez Musharraf he was swiftly ‘eliminated’.

The sole institution of the country that functions with a good deal of freedom and to which we, the people, should be indebted as whatever we know about what may be happening in the country emanates from it, is the media, both press and electronic. Given the fragility that afflicts those selected by the ballot box to govern, the media must zealously guard itself against breaking or being broken — it is our lifeline to reality — or to as near reality as anything in this country can be.

And for this freedom, we must thank the man termed a dictator, Musharraf, who did what his preceding ‘democrats’ could or would not do. He gave the press as much freedom as it could digest and his media policies have allowed us as many channels on our televisions as we have ministers in our fragile government. That the freedom allowed to the electronic media is misused on occasion by certain eccentric unthinking commentators must not be a deterrent as it is up to the channel moguls to learn to exercise self-control rather than have control imposed upon them.

At a recent seminar there was discussion as to how the Pakistani media can be made ‘good,’ in other words, how it can be controlled. Luckily, many amongst us agreed that there must not be any restrictions imposed, give the media time, and it will settle itself. Obviously viewers are taking exception to the wild views aired by the wild and woolly, which is a good thing, as it will hasten the sorting out process. Freedom is all very well, but it must be tempered by good sense, particularly when it reaches a largely illiterate public liable to be easily influenced by outrageously rabid utterances spewed forth by brainwashed twits.

The press, at least as far as the English-language newspapers are concerned, is in control and provides us with enough news coverage for us not to have to rush to the Internet to find out what is happening within our midst and in the outer world. Few holds are barred when reporting on how we are perceived by commentators from abroad, whether such comments be realistic or unrealistic. Our homegrown commentators express their divergent views, with which we may or may not agree — we have the luxury of being able to sift out for ourselves what can be taken as the truth when it comes to news reporting or as valid comment when it comes to commentators.

There was not much sifting to be done when perusing the reports on what the world’s strongest man had to say about his grave concerns about the state of Pakistan, concerns centred on the fragility of the ‘civilian government’ which can neither deliver what it is supposed to deliver nor ‘gain the support and loyalty of their people”. We can only hope that he knows something that we do not know as he praised the “military side’ for having finally come round to the realisation that the danger to Pakistan lurks not on its borders with India but within its own country.

If this be a fact, full marks to the military for finally latching on to the reality of the situation and for deciding to take part in the civil war now being waged up north, on the borders with Afghanistan and further down towards the country’s capital. The question still exists, though, that after 60-plus years of indoctrination of both men and officers about the threat of the traditional enemy, India, has the army really seen the light, or is it merely succumbing to some very serious pressure being exerted upon it by the US, which pressure Obama referred to as “encouragement” which he said will be continued? Is it capable of such a swift change of mindset? Can it wage a sustained civil war opposing its own people, admittedly fanatics who give no quarter?

For those who have been wondering aloud whether President Obama has sent out signals that the US may be well thinking of cutting its losses and handing over the country once more to the army, this can only be wishful thinking. Under the present circumstances with a civil war on its hands, how can it be expected to run the country? It has more than enough to swallow, motivating itself to take on the Taliban and to wipe out of its mind the old belief that India is about to pounce at any moment.

There is little doubt that the nation as a whole has lost whatever patience it may have had with the Zardari dispensation, and that the sympathy vote that brought him and his party into power has evaporated. Then we have the economy. The government and its spokespeople may tell us at length that things are improving that we are on the up, but all signs are that we are on the down. The ‘friends’ of Pakistan, to whom the begging bowl has been held out, are all wary of those known as Pakistan’s ‘leaders’; they are not fools, they know well their reputations and their murky backgrounds. They are not going to easily hand out the goodies — what they give are but commitments. American money is naturally given for America’s own purposes.

Zardari will be in Washington soon. All he can do is hope he can hold his own when he and his fellow travellers face the American president and his tough-talking team.

Source: Dawn News

Protests against fees hike, student killing in Swat and Lahore

SWAT: The students of Jahanzeb College of Swat hold protest demonstration against increment in fees and blocked Syedo Sharif Road.

They were carrying placards and chanted slogans against fees increment. Meanwhile, students of a private university protest killing of fellow student who was hit by a car in Defence area. Two out of three persons traveling in the car that hit the student were arrested whereas third one was managed to flee from the scene.

The students of LUMS said they would continue protest till the arrest of third accused.

The negotiations between police and students in this connection ended at failure till the last reports came in.

IRSA says enough water available for Rabi season

ISLAMABAD: Enough water is available for the Rabi season especially for the crops of sugarcane, cotton and rice beside others as the water level is improving at Tarbela and Mangla ay by day, a senior official of the Indus River System Authority (IRSA) said on Monday.

Water level at Mangla, the second largest water reservoir of the country, will cross 100 feet above the dead level in a couple of days as it reached 97 feet on Monday according to expected water inflow.

Water level is improving specially in both the major reservoirs of the country Tarbela and Mangla besides in Kabul river day by day due to impact of snow melting.

According to data released by Indus River System Authority (IRSA), water level at Mangla, the second largest water reservoir of the country was recorded 1136.90 feet which was about 97 feet higher than the dead level which is 1040 feet.

Mangla Dam received total inflow 56, 627 cusecs water on Monday morning and only 35,000 cusecs water was released according to the official data.

However, 1408.80 feet water level was recorded at Tarbela, the largest water reservoir of the country which was more than 40 feet higher than the dead level 1369 at the dam.

Tarbela Dam received a total inflow 42,200 cusecs and only 15,000 cusecs water was released from the Dam.

Water inflow 45,000 cusecs was recorded in the River Kabul and18, 086 cusecs inflow was recorded at Marala of Chenab River.

British boy dies in Venezuela plane crash

CARACAS: A 6-year-old British boy was killed when a small plane carrying British tourists crashed shortly after takeoff from an airstrip near Venezuela’s Angel Falls.

The boy was traveling with eight other British tourists, including his parents, civil protection director Luis Diaz told on Saturday.

He said all 10 survivors on board, including a Venezuelan pilot and co-pilot, were flown to nearby Ciudad Bolivar and were being treated for injures at a hospital. The boy’s aunt, June Holman, said the dead child was 6-year-old Thomas Horne.

The single-engine plane, a Cessna 208 Caravan, crashed Friday afternoon near the runway in the popular tourist destination of Canaima, a national park where they went to visit Venezuela’s famed Angel Falls, Diaz said.

Situation in Swat returning to normal: PM

ISLAMABAD: Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani said on Monday that the situation in Swat was returning to normal and no one including the US should be worried about that.

Talking in Geo news program ‘Capital Talk’, Prime Minister Gilani said that he was not concerned at all with TNSM chief Maulana Sufi Mohammad’s statements. To a question, the prime minister said Pakistan knows well how to safeguard its national interests and the US special envoy Richard Holbrooke should not be worried about situation in Swat.

On lawyers’ long march, Gilani said that the Chief of the Army Staff (COAS) General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani phoned Barrister Aitzaz Ahsan with his prior approval.

US plans to stop use of radio stations by Taliban: WSJ

NEW YORK: The Obama administration has begun a broad-based effort to prevent the Taliban from using radio stations and Web sites in Pakistan and Afghanistan to intimidate and threaten civilians.

A report in the Wall Street Journal Saturday says: ‘As part of the classified effort, American military and intelligence personnel are working to jam the unlicensed radio stations in Pakistan’s lawless regions on the Afghanistan border that Taliban fighters use to broadcast threats and decrees.’

The Taliban and other armed groups have carried out a wave of attacks in the two countries. US officials believe the
Taliban enjoy an advantage by being able to freely communicate threats and decrees.

In Pakistan, Taliban leaders use unlicensed FM stations to recite the names of local Pakistani government officials, police officers and other figures who have been marked for death by the group. Hundreds of people named in the broadcasts have later been killed, WSJ said citing US and Pakistani officials.

‘The Taliban aren’t just winning the information war —we’re not even putting up that much of a fight,’ a senior US official in Afghanistan told WSJ. ‘We need to make it harder for them to keep telling the population that they’re in control and can strike at any time.’

A new push to contain the Taliban reflects the influence of Gen. David Petraeus, who runs the military’s Central Command and has long been a major proponent of using psychological operations to reduce popular support for armed Islamist groups.

Besides, the WSJ pointed out Richard Holbrooke, the administration’s special envoy for Pakistan and Afghanistan, publicly alluded to the new program late last month. He told reporters there were 150 illegal FM radio stations in Pakistan’s Swat Valley, which allowed militants to go ‘around every night broadcasting the names of people they’re going to behead or they’ve beheaded.’

Mr. Holbrooke likened the Taliban radio stations to Rwanda’s Radio Mille Collines, a virulently sectarian broadcaster widely believed to have helped fuel the Rwandan genocide. The US considered jamming the station in the 1990s, but ultimately chose not to.

‘Nothing has been done so far’ about impeding the Taliban communications, Mr. Holbrooke said. ‘We have identified the information issue … as a major, major gap to be filled.’

Psychological operations can be controversial. In Iraq, the US personnel are also trying to block the Pakistani chat rooms and Web sites that are part of the country’s burgeoning extremist underground. The Web sites frequently contain videos of attacks and inflammatory religious material that attempts to justify acts of violence, the newspaper said.

The push takes the administration deeper into ‘psychological operations,’ which attempt to influence how people see the US, its allies and its enemies. Officials involved with the new program argue that psychological operations are a necessary part of reversing the deterioration of stability in both Afghanistan and Pakistan.

Psychological operations have long been a part of war, famously in World War II when ‘Tokyo Rose’ broadcast English-language propaganda to Allied troops. More recently, some militaries have used high-tech methods. During the December-January war in Gaza, Israeli forces sent cellphone text messages to alert Palestinian civilians to impending strikes and encourage them to turn against the militant group Hamas.

The Obama administration’s recently released strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan calls for sending 4,000 US military trainers to Afghanistan and sharply expanding economic aid to Pakistan. The US may also provide radio-jamming equipment to the Pakistani government, according to officials familiar with the plans.

Henry A. Crumpton, a former State Department counterterrorism chief who led the CIA’s Afghanistan campaign in 2001 and 2002, warned against relying too heavily on high-tech solutions such as disrupting militant radio broadcasts.

‘Those can be very effective, but they’re —underscore —short-term tactics,’ he told WSJ.

Still, many military officials believe that stabilising Afghanistan and Pakistan requires gradually diminishing the Taliban’s public standing while simultaneously building popular support for more moderate local political and religious institutions allied with the US

‘It’s not an issue of trying to persuade your average Pakistani farmer to love the US,’ a US official told W SJ. ‘The idea, frankly, is to muddy the water a bit.’

As part of this push, the US has started US-funded radio stations in many rural parts of Afghanistan.

In one example, Army Special Forces teams in eastern Paktia, a restive Afghan province that abuts the Pakistani frontier, put on air a radio station late last year called ‘the Voice of Chamkani,’ referring to the village where the US base is located, and distributed hundreds of radio receivers.

Bomber eliminates 23 troops in Hangu attack

KOHAT: The country’s security apparatus suffered a devastating blow on Saturday when a suicide bomber rammed an explosives-laden vehicle into a military checkpost in Hangu, eliminating 23 soldiers.

Seven policemen, 10 security personnel and nine civilians were injured in the blast.

‘A suicide bomber rammed his explosives-laden vehicle into our check-post close to a police station in Doaba,’ a security official said. ‘We suffered the most casualties.’

Some officials said the bomber had rammed his vehicle into a Thall-bound military convoy in Doaba, on Hangu-Parachinar highway.

They said 11 vehicles, which were part of the convoy, had been destroyed in the attack, which happened not far from the army camp. The military, however, denied its convoy had been hit.

Eyewitnesses said security forces cordoned off the area and blocked the Kohat-Parachinar highway at Doaba and nobody was allowed to go near the scene of the explosion.

The army called its own bomb disposal squad from Thall Garrison. The check-post was located on the Hangu-Parachinar road, which remained closed for more than a year when militants blocked the artery to stop food and fuel supplies from reaching Parachinar, the Kurram Agency’s headquarters.

In another incident earlier on Saturday morning, one person was killed and three were injured in a blast in Malikabad area of Hangu bazaar.

The SHO of Doaba police station, Ammal Khan, and constable Asal Murad, who were sitting in a mobile van close to the army camp, were injured.

Police said the bomber had used 100kg of explosives. They blamed the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan for the strike, but the banned militant outfit did not claim responsibility for the bombing.

The dead and the seriously injured were taken to the civil hospital in Hangu and the Combined Military Hospital in Thall, a police spokesman for the Kohat region said.

Preliminary reports suggested that the suicide bomber had come to the area on Friday and took up residence in Hangu. ‘It was in the knowledge of the terrorists that a convoy would pass through the camp on Saturday afternoon,’ a local said.

Hangu has seen bloodletting bred by sectarianism over the past two years. A total of 48 people had died in sectarian clashes during Muharram last year.

The military had carried out a major clean-up operation in Doaba in August last year to flush out militants who had infiltrated from nearby Kurram and Orakzai regions.

Helicopter gunships have been attacking suspected militant hideouts in Orakzai during the last couple of weeks. ‘Most of the casualties are security forces and some policemen have also been killed,’ a security official said.

‘The bomber was driving a pick-up truck which he rammed into a convoy passing by a security checkpost,’ senior police officer Fareed Khan said in Kohat.

President Asif Ali Zardari, who is in China attending an international economic conference, ‘condemned the attack and vowed to root out terrorism and extremism from the country’, the presidency said in a statement.

Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani ‘strongly condemned’ the incident, describing the suicide attack as ‘a cowardly act of terrorism’, his office said in a statement.

Obama urged not to interfere in Pakistan politics

WASHINGTON: The US administration should not interfere in the domestic politics of Afghanistan and Pakistan despite the temptation to do so, the Washington Post said on Saturday.

A senior Post columnist Jim Hoagland noted that one of US President Barack Obama’s senior analysts had been telling think-tanks that ‘President Asif Ali Zardari should step aside and let Nawaz Sharif, his chief rival, take power’.

Mr Hoagland also noted that ‘muttering about ditching Afghanistan’s Hamid Karzai was rampant at the White House’ while the administration was reviewing its policies for Afghanistan and Pakistan.

But the writer advises Mr Obama to resist such temptations and not to ‘play power chess on a global scale, bypassing or replacing national leaders who balk at grand US designs’.

The journalist warns that such intervention would be particularly disastrous for Pakistan as it ‘would open Pandora’s box for the rest of your presidency —especially since Mr Sharif seems no more capable or honest than Mr Zardari.’

He urges President Obama not to emulate John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon in South Vietnam, or Jimmy Carter in Iran.

‘Micromanaging leadership changes abroad becomes all-consuming,’ he adds. ‘So be economical with your personal investment in volatile situations. You have a capable secretary of state in Hillary Clinton. Give her more of the spotlight and the authority.’

The comments followed newspaper reports that Admiral Mike Mullen and Richard Holbrooke met Mr Sharif last week and assured him that he would be acceptable to the US as a future president or prime minister.

Swat deal to remain intact if peace lasts: Gilani

KARACHI: Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani said on Saturday that Pakistan would coordinate with the United States on its policy to combat terrorism during talks in Washington next month.

The prime minister told a press conference here, after chairing a meeting of the Sindh cabinet, that it was wrong to think that Pakistan did not have a policy on the war on terror. ‘Our policy is ready and President Asif Ali Zardari, Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi and the ISI chief will share it with the US administration.’

In reply to a question about the acrimony between the Muttahida Qaumi Movement and the Awami National Party following the Swat accord, the prime minister said the two parties had different agenda, but it was his government’s endeavour to defuse the tension.

He said the Swat deal was linked to restoration of peace in the valley. ‘The agreement will remain intact if peace endures,’ he said, adding that the president had signed the Nizam-i-Adl regulation only after 80 per cent peace was restored to Swat.

He said the new accord was an improved version of the agreements signed in 1994 and 1999. He said the government’s reconciliation efforts would strengthen the country’s economy and its institutions and urged political forces to show maturity because the people had voted for a change.

Mr Gilani said Pakistan wanted good relations with neighbouring countries, including Iran, Afghanistan and India.

However, he admitted that the composite dialogue with India had been affected after the Mumbai attacks, but added that efforts were being made to revive the dialogue.

In reply to a question about Sindh government’s demand for announcing the NFC Award before the budget and resolving the issue of GST, Prime Minister Gilani said he would discuss the matter with his Finance Adviser Shaukat Tarin.

The Sindh government has said that GST is provincial matter and it should be distributed on the basis of collection or else the provincial governments should be allowed to collect the tax at their own level. It also sough reimbursement of Rs11.374 billion accumulated since 2000 and resolution of the GST issue on services (Central Excise Mode).

The Sindh Sales Tax Ordinance 2000 empowers the federal government to collect the GST on services on behalf of the province. However, proceeds of the tax are being transferred on the basis of population, resulting in transfer of proceeds collected from one province to another.

According to sources, the ordinance did not empower the federal government to transfer proceeds collected from Sindh to other provinces.

Earlier speaking at the Sindh cabinet meeting, Prime Minister Gilani said the federal government would support infrastructure and social sector development projects in Sindh.

Governor Dr Ishratul Ibad Khan, Chief Minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah, federal Food Minister Nazar Mohammad Gondal, provincial ministers, advisers and special assistance to the chief minister attended the meeting.

According to sources, the prime minister said his government was working to restore the 1973 Constitution and implement the Charter of Democracy singed by the PPP and the PML-N.

He said the country’s economy was showing a positive trend because of measures taken by the government.

About the unannounced loadshedding by the KESC, he said the issue would be resolved soon and the people of Karachi would get rid of the
loadshedding with the help of better management and improved efficiency.

The prime minister expressed satisfaction over the law and order situation in Sindh. The chief minister briefed the prime minister about law and order, development schemes and other matters.

Three dead in suspected US strike in Pakistan: officials

PESHAWAR: Three people were killed Sunday in a suspected US missile attack targeting a militant hideout in Pakistan’s tribal area bordering Afghanistan, officials said.

‘It was a drone attack,’ local administration official Shahab Ali Shah told AFP. He said two missiles hit a house in Gangi Khel town in the tribal South Waziristan district.

Another official speaking on condition of anonymity said the attack targeted a militant hideout where three people were killed. He gave no details.

A security official confirmed that death toll, saying that five other people were wounded. The targeted house, belonging to a local tribesman, was ‘destroyed in the strike,’ he said.

Three people were killed in a similar attack in the area earlier this month

Pakistan must do more to erase Taliban: US

KABUL: Pakistan must do more to ‘erase’ Taliban bases inside its territory which are destabilising the
entire region, the US commander of Western troops in neighbouring Afghanistan said on Sunday.

US President Barack Obama’s administration has pledged 21,000 more troops to join 39,000 American soldiers fighting Taliban guerrillas in Afghanistan.

It has also stepped up attacks by drones on suspected militant bases across the border in Pakistan.

US Army General David McKiernan, who commands more than 70,000 US and Nato-led troops in Afghanistan, said he was confident the new troops would bring improvements in security to southern Afghanistan this year after years of rising violence.

But he described insecurity as a regional problem that could only be resolved by a stronger effort from Pakistan’s embattled government to tackle safe havens for militants.

‘There must be an improved effort on the other side of the border against these safe havens that many of these insurgent groups operate from in Pakistan,’ he told a news conference.

‘There are sanctuary areas that have existed for many years across the border. They feed terrorism and insecurity on both sides of the border,’ McKiernan said.

‘I think it is safe to say there is an expectation that the government of Pakistan must erase these safe havens so that they are not a threat to their own country and the region. They will have the full support of the international community to do that.’

CHALLENGES

Pakistani authorities bristle at any suggestion that they have been lax in battling Taliban guerrillas on their side of the border. They say thousands of Pakistani troops have died fighting militants, and criticism of their effort only serves to increase anti-Americanism and boost support for the militants.

But international concern over Pakistan’s ability to fight the militants has grown in recent months as attacks by militants have increased both in Pakistan and Afghanistan. In the latest strike in Pakistan, a suicide car bomber killed 25 soldiers and police and two passers-by in on Saturday.

Afghanistan expressed worry last week about the impact on its own security of a decision by Pakistan’s President Asif Ali Zardari to accept Taliban demands and impose Islamic law on the Swat valley, where militants have gained ground.

On the Afghan side of the border, Taliban attacks have increased to the highest levels seen since the militants were driven from Kabul in 2001.

‘Challenges, generally, have increased in past years,’

Afghan Defence Minister Abdul Rahim Wardak told the news conference in Kabul alongside the US commander.

‘The level of enemy attacks have gone up, there are foreign combatants (in their ranks), the way they operate has become complex, they have access to better training and equipment.’

McKiernan said he would send most of the new US troops to southern provinces near Pakistan that have seen the greatest rise in instability, and he expected the influx to help.

But he said he had no power to intervene on the Pakistani side of the border. ‘Insecurity and instability is a regional problem and will require regional approaches,’ he said.

No room for democracy in Islam: TNSM Chief

MINGORA: While addressing a large rally here on Sunday, Chief of the Tehreek Nifaz-e-Shariat, Maulana Sufi Mohammed said that the movement for the implementation of Sharia began in 1994.

‘The fifteen year struggle of the TNSM for the implementation of Sharia in Malakand is now bearing results,’ the Chief of the Tehreek Nifaz-e-Shariat said.

He said the democratic system is an un-Islamic one and the judicial system of Pakistan should be according to the Sharia.

‘Now any appeal against the Qazi courts’ decisions can be made only through the Darul Qaza,’ he added. ‘There is no room for democracy in Islam.’

In line with these statements, Sufi has demanded the abolition of all judges in Malakand, giving April 23 as a deadline for the establishment of Darul Qaza.

Sufi wants Qazis appointed in all the districts within one month and also said that the government should start giving decisions in criminal and other cases according to the Sharia.

Sharia regulation in Swat

NO one can deny the enormously serious political impact that the Sharia regulation will have. Our major political parties bury their heads in the sand when a meteorite hits our political landscape and jolts our whole constitutional infrastructure. Alongside the adverse effects it will have on the overall governance of the state, the Nizam-i-Adl regulation will have widespread legal repercussions.

A reading of the text of the Regulation 2009 indicates that members of our parliament hurriedly passed the resolution without exerting their right of reading and carefully studying several provisions of the regulation. The regulation lacks all the essential qualities of good legislation: clarity, accuracy and constitutionality. Ambiguity and vagueness ruin the very purpose of the legislation and are the two qualities that one may find floating on the surface of this law.

Had Mr M.D. Tahir been alive he certainly would have challenged this law under the constitution as it makes not only various constitutional provisions redundant but also marginalises the role of constitutional bodies, for instance, the Islamic Ideology Council, and even parliament.

According to the 1973 Constitution, as it was originally drafted, to legislate law in consonance with the Quran and Sunnah is the task assigned to parliament. Even when Zia amended the constitution and established the federal sharia court (FSC) and granted it the power to examine laws on the touchstone of the Quran and Sunnah (Article 203D), the FSC was bound to refer the matter to the president to make amendments in case the court found any law or its provision repugnant to the injunctions of Islam.

The FSC is not empowered to make law and proclaim that this law will now be applicable. In the absence of such a provision, when qazis will declare any law un-Islamic, they will also assert what the Islamic law is. Then, their version of Islamic law will begin to apply.

To pass on this burden of legislation to qazis is delegating their responsibility to individuals who will enforce their personal interpretation of Sharia on others. It is beyond comprehension as to how and on what basis the parliament can pass on its role of legislation to another body of the state, more so when the authority is passed to individuals, who have neither technical education nor the experience of dispensation of justice, keeping in view the fundamental human rights enshrined in our constitution.

Anyone who has not been educated about the Pakistani constitution and various other fundamental procedural statutes and their principles cannot dispense justice that is in consonance with our basic law and the treaties that Pakistan has signed in the UN. Sharia under Section 2 (j) of this Regulation means: ‘the injunctions in Islam as laid down in Quran, Sunnah, ijma and qiyas’. Now what are these injunctions? Where is codification of these injunctions? Most lay Muslims believe that whatever law, ritual and custom they practise in their everyday life, including wife-beating, killing in the name of honour, depriving women of higher education, are based on these four sources of law.

Sub-clause 3 of paragraph 6 of the Regulation enables qazis to deal with the cases on the basis of the ‘established principles of Shari’h’. Is there any definitive and exhaustive list of these principles that one may study and refer to? If there is no provision or clear legislation to interpret then qazis are, in effect, empowered to legislate what is Sharia and what are its established principles. This is not the application or interpretation of law, a specific role that is constitutionally assigned to the judiciary. In effect, this is lawmaking.

The sources of law cited in this regulation were employed by the great imams of various Muslim schools of law when they interpreted various commands of the Quran and Sunnah. Generally speaking, this was an exercise in ijtihad carried out by the imams of the majority sects of Pakistan. All of their fatwas, though based on the use of these four sources of Islamic law, are markedly different from each other. In modern times, and especially when we have elected national and provincial assemblies, the responsibility to legislate lies with these bodies, an exercise of the right of ijma. They are duty bound to lay down the law and provide clear legislation to the administration for its application. The judiciary then will make sure that the law is applied in letter and spirit.

According to this regulation the duty to make law has been bestowed upon qazis who would declare what is and what is not in accordance with the Quran, Sunnah, ijma and qiyas. Until a qazi, in a particular case, lays down a ruling the administrative machinery would not be certain if an individual or an agency is acting in accordance or in violation of the injunctions laid down in the four sources of Islamic law.

Even if the administrative authority does exercise its discretion and takes a view, there is no surety that the qazi or qazis above him will agree with that particular interpretation of the sources. This regulation will play havoc with people’s lives as there is no final interpretation of any Islamic injunction and since no one can claim any particular authority over others in a better understanding of the injunctions of Islam.

It was the function of parliament to legislate laws which do not violate the injunctions of Islam and treaties Pakistan is a signatory to. To delegate such an authority to qazis who enjoy ample discretionary powers will espouse sectarian interpretations of Islamic law and dispense injustice. It is a dangerous trend that will influence the members of the judiciary all over Pakistan and they will begin to legislate what they think is based on the ‘true’ interpretation of Islamic injunctions.

Another important character of this piece of legislation that shows its departure from the constitutional norms is the emphasis of the four sources of the injunctions. The constitution does not warrant that laws should be in accordance with the four sources cited in the Regulation. It clearly lays down that the laws must be in accordance with the Quran and Sunnah. The constitution does not permit that a law should be in conformity with one source only. It stipulates that a law be in conformity with both. That is why various legislations for instance, the punishment of stoning to death and consuming alcohol or intoxicants were challenged in the FSC, since both are based only on Sunnah.

The other two sources — qiyas and ijma — were available to the assembly of 1973 and their non-inclusion in the language of the 1973 Constitution means that the assembly was cognisant of the fact that the inclusion of these two sources would breed sectarianism and a polemical interpretation of Islamic laws.

Qiyas and ijma are defined differently not only by various scholars and sects but even the imams of five established schools of thought describe qiyas and ijma in dissimilar forms. Therefore, if an injunction is based on the Quran and Sunnah it may be acceptable to most Muslims but if it is based on qiyas and ijma it will not be acceptable to those who do not accept these two sources of Islamic law.

US policies alienating Pakistan, warn scholars

WASHINGTON: The United States has alienated Pakistan by demanding that they divert troops from the Indian border to fight the Taliban, says former US ambassador to Islamabad Robert Oakley.

‘We’ve alienated them tremendously. Whether we agree or not, the Pakistanis consider India to be the biggest threat to their security,’ Oakley told a US think-tank, the Atlantic Council.

Oakley, who served in Islamabad from 1988 to 92, also criticised the restrictions proposed in a congressional bill on US aid to Pakistan.

‘What we’re calling ‘benchmarks’ remind them very much of the ‘sanctions’ they had hanging over their heads for so many years,’ he said.

Ahmed Rashid, a leading Pakistani journalist and Taliban expert, said that the United States would do well to set more general parameters for aid.

Rashid told another US think-tank, the Jamestown Foundation, that he was ‘absolutely shocked’ by the conditions in drafts of the US congressional aid bill to his country.

‘No political government can accept a bill like this in Pakistan, even if it is on its knees — which it is, economically speaking,’ he said.

The proposed restrictions require Pakistan to improve its relations with India, whether New Delhi reciprocates those efforts or not. Pakistan also needs to undertake not to support any person or group involved in activities meant to hurt India.

Another proposed requirement will allow US investigators access to individuals suspected of engaging in nuclear proliferation, such as Dr AQ Khan.

Oakley, in his interview to the Atlantic Council, also criticised the US drone attacks inside Pakistan.

The US, he said, needed to ask itself: ‘Are we creating more terrorists than we’re killing?’ And the drone attacks, he said, were probably creating more terrorists.

‘The drones may be killing a lot of Taliban and al Qaeda but they’re alienating the tribesmen we need to win the war,’ he said.

‘We’ve pushed the Pakistani army to fight our war and created a huge backlash. They’re not trained or equipped for counterterrorism and they’re getting killed and killing the wrong people, essentially fighting their own.’

Oakley said that right now, the Pakistani military had control over their nukes. ‘But, if the Islamists gain ground, who knows what’s going to happen?’ he asked.

Oakley was also unhappy with the current Pakistani leadership, particularly the president. They were ‘both incompetent and corrupt and had no clue on the economic side of things.’

Oakley said that unless the US contained the problem in Pakistan, ‘we don’t have any chance in Afghanistan.’

At the Jamestown Foundation, analyst Shuja Nawaz said the Obama team did not make a positive impression during their last two visits to Islamabad.

‘This was probably the worst ever visit by an American team to South Asia in history,’ said Nawaz, director of the South Asia Center at the Washington-based Atlantic Council. ‘It was a complete disaster.’

If this is how the Obama planned to ‘win friends, I just wonder how you are going to create enemies,’ he said.

Nawaz faulted US special envoy Richard Holbrooke and Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff Mike Mullen for publicly demanding that Pakistan’s civilian President Asif Ali Zardari rein in elements of the intelligence service believed to support extremists.

Stephen P. Cohen, an expert on South Asia at the Brookings Institution, said that the United States has made excessive demands of a weak Pakistani leadership — from fighting extremists to safeguarding its nuclear program to treating women better and reforming its economy.

‘If we think that they can do everything, they will wind up doing nothing well.’

At a separate seminar at the Woodrow Wilson Centre for Scholars, Khalid Aziz, a former chief secretary of NWFP who heads the Regional Institute of Policy Research, screened ‘Cries of Anguish,’ a short documentary about Fata.

The film recounted the many unsuccessful foreign attempts to conquer the region. It also focused on the tribal society of Fata’s 3.5 million ethnic Pashtuns.

A major theme of the documentary was Fata’s lack of development, which the film’s commentators attributed to the region’s inaccessibility but also to a lack of funds from Islamabad.

While development aid has increased in recent years, this assistance was now threatened by the rapid spread of extremism.

The documentary depicted Fata’s Pashtuns as demoralized, their hopes shattered ‘for reasons beyond their control’ and their lives threatened ‘by a war not of their own asking.’

After the film, Aziz addressed what he described as the ‘burning issue:’ How to pacify the region.

He noted that, historically, ‘scorched earth’ campaigns and other strictly military approaches had failed. More ‘indirect political approaches,’ however, had succeeded.

Aziz said that current pacification policies, such as the use of unmanned US drones, had increased radicalization not just in FATA but across all of Pakistan.

Aziz offered a range of solutions: Strong US rhetoric should be tempered, while better trust should be promoted between the American and Pakistani militaries. Tight border controls should be introduced. Counterinsurgency methods should be better implemented. Pakistani institutions should be strengthened.

And as for the drones, Aziz acknowledged their effectiveness and value. He championed their continued use — though under a Pakistani flag.

Situation dangerous in Pakistan: Holbrooke

WASHINGTON: US special envoy for Pakistan and Afghanistan Richard Holbrooke warned on Sunday that no other place in the world today faced a more dangerous situation than Pakistan.

In an interview to CNN, Holbrooke said that Pakistan also faced a ‘very difficult economic situation’ and needed immediate help.

‘This is a really dangerous situation in Pakistan today and we are focused on this very heavily,’ said Holbrooke.

Asked if the terrorist threat could cause Pakistan to collapse, the US envoy said that President Asif Ali Zardari and other Pakistani leaders too conceded that it was a very dangerous situation.

‘Swat is not in the tribal areas. It is only 100 miles from Islamabad … it is like East Hampton and Manhattan … people from Islamabad went to Swat for holidays … it is really an extraordinary situation.’

‘Pakistan mattered to the national security of the United States; ‘These are the people who can attack Mumbai, who attack Islamabad, Holbrooke said.

David Axelrod, a senior adviser to President Obama, told ‘CBS Face the Nation’ that Pakistan needed to ‘really focus in on what is a threat to their own stability and what is a threat to the security of the world.’

White House Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel, however, told ABC News that the Obama administration had put ‘in place a policy in Afghanistan and Pakistan area that will change that area’ and bring stability to the region.

Axelrod said the biggest threat confronting Pakistan was the ‘growing hegemony of the Taliban and allies of Al Qaeda’ and urged Pakistanis to realise how serious this threat was.

Ambassador Holbrooke termed the current situation in Pakistan as ‘very perilous’ and claimed that the militants operating from Swat and Fata had already increased their reach to Punjab. ‘There can be more terrorist attacks in cities like Lahore, Islamabad and Karachi,’ he warned.

He said the Swat truce always seemed like a confused deal to him.

The Pakistani military, he said, felt that it was ‘stretched thin’ and that’s why it concluded this deal.

Holbrooke pointed out that if the Pakistani military wanted to persuade the militants to lay down their arms by concluding this deal, it did not succeed in doing so.

The chief spokesman for the Swat Taliban ‘publicly renounced the part of the deal that requires the militants to lay down arms,’ he said.

‘You cannot deal with these people by giving away territory. They are now getting closer and closer to Islamabad and Punjab.’

Ambassador Holbrooke said he was witnessing a ‘very dangerous phenomenon’ in Swat which had equally dangerous consequences for both Pakistan and Afghanistan.

The US envoy, however, acknowledged that ‘hitting the militants hard” will not help.

‘First of all, we need to do deal with economic and social roots,’ he said, adding that more economic aid was needed to do away with the breeding grounds for the kind of rebellions witnessed in Swat more than once.

Holbrooke said Pakistan also needed to strengthen its military, particularly the Frontier Corps, to deal with the terrorists and also needed to win the propaganda battle.

Asked who ran Pakistan, President Zardari or Gen Ashfaq Kayani, Holbrooke said: ‘The clear answer is that Mr Zardari is the president, and Gen Kayani is the army chief.’

The Pakistani constitution, he said, gave more powers to the president but the army had played a very powerful role.

Gen Kayani, he said, was a ‘sincere, intelligent and decent person,’ who has said ‘does not wish to get involved in political issues and we believe him.’

Twenty militants killed in Orakzai air raid: official

PARACHINAR: Pakistani jets and helicopter gunships killed 20 militants, residents and a military official said on Monday, in an attack on a Taliban commander who claimed responsibility for a bombing last week.

Escalating militant violence has raised fears that nuclear-armed Pakistan, a US ally whose cooperation is vital for efforts to bring stability to Afghanistan, will fail to stop the spread of the Taliban and al Qaeda.

Pakistani aircraft attacked three camps of Pakistani Taliban commander Hakimullah Mehsud in the Orakzai ethnic Pashtun tribal region, 170 km (100 miles) west of Islamabad, on Sunday, residents and a military official said.

‘Our jets and helicopters attacked suspected hideouts of militants in the Ghiliju area and killed 20 militants,’ said a military official who declined to be identified.

Mehsud, an ally of Pakistani Taliban leader Baitullah Mehsud, claimed responsibility for a suicide car-bomb attack on a security convoy, near the town of Kohat, near Orakzai, on Saturday. The bomber killed 25 soldiers and two passers-by.

Hakimullah Mehsud said the suicide attack was in response to attacks by missile-firing US drone aircraft on militant targets in northwest Pakistan. There was no information about Mehsud’s fate in Sunday’s air attacks.

Drones have killed about 350 people, including some mid-level al Qaeda leaders and many of their followers, in about 35 attacks since last year.

A resident of Ghiliju, Abdul Wakeel, said jets bombed a government school being used by Mehsud’s militants as a training camp. He put the death toll at 22.

Orakzai had been one of Pakistan’s most peaceful northwestern border regions, but Taliban are known to have infiltrated the area, as they they have done elsewhere in the northwest.

Residents said helicopter gunships also attacked the Tabori and Dabori areas of Orakzai on Monday.

Eight killed in fresh Kashmir violence

oubled Indian-administered Kashmir, police said on Monday, as the region prepared for another round of voting in general elections.

Two security force personnel and a militant were killed during a fierce gunbattle in southern Doda district late Sunday, a police statement said.

A Muslim woman injured in the cross-fire later died in hospital.

In the districts of Kupwara and Baramulla, two militants and a member of the security forces were killed during two separate gunbattles.

‘Four policemen were hurt during the fighting,’ the statement said.

Meanwhile suspected militants late Sunday shot dead a former rebel who had reportedly renounced violence after his release last year from an Indian jail.

Violence linked to the long-running Muslim insurgency against Indian rule in Kashmir has increased in the past month, with the disputed region participating in a general election boycotted by most separatist leaders.

At least eight Indian soldiers and 17 militants have been killed in a series of battles along the Line of Control separating Indian- and Pakistan-controlled Kashmir.

Voting in Indian Kashmir has been staggered over five phases in order to provide adequate security.

Israel primed for strikes on Iran nuclear sites: daily

LONDON, April 18: Israel’s military is preparing so it could launch major aerial attacks on Iranian nuclear sites if ordered to by the new government, a British newspaper said Saturday, quoting Israeli defence and intelligence sources.

An unnamed senior defence official told The Times: “They are making preparations on every level for this eventuality. The message to Iran is that the threat is not just words.”

Israel, widely considered to be the Middle East’s sole nuclear armed power, suspects the Islamic Republic of using the programme to develop atomic weapons, a charge that Tehran has repeatedly denied.

Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who took power on April 1 at the helm of a right-wing government, has repeatedly made clear that his priority is confronting Iran.

In his inaugural address, Netanyahu said the biggest threat Israel faced was the possibility of “a radical regime armed with nuclear weapons” — an apparent reference to Iran.

Israeli officials quoted by The Times said more than a dozen targets could be envisaged, including Tehran’s main nuclear sites at Natanz, Isfahan and Arak.

“We would not make the threat without the force to back it,” an official from Israel’s intelligence community said. “There has been a recent move, a number of on-the-ground preparations, that indicate Israel’s willingness to act,” the official said. He added it was unlikely Israel would strike without at least tacit approval from the US.

The New York Times reported Tuesday that the Obama administration could drop a long-held US insistence that Tehran suspend uranium enrichment in the early stages of any negotiations on the issue.

One analyst, Ephraim Kam of the Institute for National Security Studies in Israel, told The Times he thought it unlikely the US would approve an attack.—AFP

FBI agents to testify at Kasab’s trial

MUMBAI, April 18: More than 100 witnesses, including FBI agents, would testify at the trial of Mohammad Ajmal Kasab, Indian prosecutors said on Saturday.

Five foreign experts would present evidence against Kasab, special public prosecutor Ujjwal Nikam told the court on the second day of the trial.

Kasab is accused of being one of 10 gunmen who killed 166 people, including several Americans, in a three-day rampage through the city that targeted a train station, two luxury hotels and a Jewish centre.

Nikam said the FBI had analysed four global positioning devices found on the dead gunmen after the attacks and these would be instrumental in proving the men had come from Pakistan.

On Friday Nikam had said that Kasab had a direct hand in the deaths of 72 people and was part of “a criminal conspiracy hatched in Pakistan” which could not have been undertaken without training from “intelligence professionals”.

Kasab and his co-defendants — two Indians accused of helping plot the attack — have been charged with 12 criminal counts, including murder and waging war against India. If convicted, all could face death by hanging.

“FBI investigators have played a vital role in disclosing the truth in this case… and exposing the nexus between (Kasab) and the deceased accused,” said Nikam.

He said in his opening remarks that the FBI and other specialists had discovered a number of clues that strengthened the prosecution case.

They include:

— A fingerprint from Kasab’s left hand on a glass door of the MV Kuber, an Indian fishing vessel the gunmen allegedly hijacked to take them to Mumbai from Karachi.

— DNA on a number of items found on board that exactly matched that of Kasab and his fellow attackers.

— A diary written in Urdu detailing all the gunmen’s names and what arms and ammunition they had been given.

The FBI examined the inflatable speedboat that took the gunmen from the fishing vessel to the Mumbai shoreline and found that the Japanese-manufactured engine had been shipped to Pakistan, Nikam said.

Five Nokia mobile phone handsets recovered from three locations after the attacks were found to have been made in China and shipped to Pakistan for sale, he said.

“This evidence can be relied upon. This is strong evidence,” even if Kasab now claims he was forced to sign a “confession” and had been tortured in police custody, he said.

Eyewitness testimony, CCTV footage and even press photographs would place Kasab at the scenes of the crimes, Nikam added.

The trial was adjourned until Monday.—Agencies

Obama urged not to interfere in Pakistan politics

WASHINGTON, April 18: The US administration should not interfere in the domestic politics of Afghanistan and Pakistan despite the temptation to do so, the Washington Post said on Saturday.

A senior Post columnist Jim Hoagland noted that one of US President Barack Obama’s senior analysts had been telling think-tanks that “President Asif Ali Zardari should step aside and let Nawaz Sharif, his chief rival, take power”.

Mr Hoagland also noted that “muttering about ditching Afghanistan’s Hamid Karzai was rampant at the White House” while the administration was reviewing its policies for Afghanistan and Pakistan.

But the writer advises Mr Obama to resist such temptations and not to “play power chess on a global scale, bypassing or replacing national leaders who balk at grand US designs”. The journalist warns that such intervention would be particularly disastrous for Pakistan as it “would open Pandora’s box for the rest of your presidency — especially since Mr Sharif seems no more capable or honest than Mr Zardari.”

He urges President Obama not to emulate John F. Kennedy and Richard Nixon in South Vietnam, or Jimmy Carter in Iran. “Micromanaging leadership changes abroad becomes all-consuming,” he adds. “So be economical with your personal investment in volatile situations. You have a capable secretary of state in Hillary Clinton. Give her more of the spotlight and the authority.”

The comments followed newspaper reports that Admiral Mike Mullen and Richard Holbrooke met Mr Sharif last week and assured him that he would be acceptable to the US as a future president or prime minister.

Swat deal to remain intact if peace lasts, says Gilani

KARACHI, April 18: Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani said on Saturday that Pakistan would coordinate with the United States its policy to combat terrorism during talks in Washington next month.

The prime minister told a press conference here, after chairing a meeting of the Sindh cabinet, that it was wrong to think that Pakistan did not have a policy on the war on terror. “Our policy is ready and President Asif Ali Zardari, Foreign Minister Shah Mehmood Qureshi and the ISI chief will share it with the US administration.”

In reply to a question about the acrimony between the Muttahida Qaumi Movement and the Awami National Party following the Swat accord, the prime minister said the two parties had different agenda, but it was his government’s endeavour to defuse the tension.

He said the Swat deal was linked to restoration of peace in the valley. “The agreement will remain intact if peace endures,” he said, adding that the president had signed the Nizam-i-Adl regulation only after 80 per cent peace was restored to Swat.

He said the new accord was an improved version of the agreements signed in 1994 and 1999.

He said the government’s reconciliation efforts would strengthen the country’s economy and its institutions and urged political forces to show maturity because the people had voted for a change.

Mr Gilani said Pakistan wanted good relations with neighbouring countries, including Iran, Afghanistan and India.

However, he admitted that the composite dialogue with India had been affected after the Mumbai attacks, but added that efforts were being made to revive the dialogue.

In reply to a question about Sindh government’s demand for announcing the NFC Award before the budget and resolving the issue of GST, Prime Minister Gilani said he would discuss the matter with his Finance Adviser Shaukat Tarin.

The Sindh government has said that GST is provincial matter and it should be distributed on the basis of collection or else the provincial governments should be allowed to collect the tax at their own level. It also sough reimbursement of Rs11.374 billion accumulated since 2000 and resolution of the GST issue on services (Central Excise Mode).

The Sindh Sales Tax Ordinance 2000 empowers the federal government to collect the GST on services on behalf of the province. However, proceeds of the tax are being transferred on the basis of population, resulting in transfer of proceeds collected from one province to another.

According to sources, the ordinance did not empower the federal government to transfer proceeds collected from Sindh to other provinces.

Earlier speaking at the Sindh cabinet meeting, Prime Minister Gilani said the federal government would support infrastructure and social sector development projects in Sindh.

Governor Dr Ishratul Ibad Khan, Chief Minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah, federal Food Minister Nazar Mohammad Gondal, provincial ministers, advisers and special assistance to the chief minister attended the meeting.

According to sources, the prime minister said his government was working to restore the 1973 Constitution and implement the Charter of Democracy singed by the PPP and the PML-N.

He said the country’s economy was showing a positive trend because of measures taken by the government.

About the unannounced loadshedding by the KESC, he said the issue would be resolved soon and the people of Karachi would get rid of the loadshedding with the help of better management and improved efficiency.

The prime minister expressed satisfaction over the law and order situation in Sindh.

The chief minister briefed the prime minister about law and order, development schemes and other matters.

Criticism of Nizam-i-Adl unjustified: Asfandyar

KARACHI, April 18: The criticism of the recently-concluded agreement in Swat and the enforcement of the Nizam-i-Adl regulation is unjustified, Awami National Party chief Asfandyar Wali Khan said on Saturday.

Addressing a joint press conference with NWFP Chief Minister Amir Haider Khan Hoti at the residence of Sindh ANP chief Shahi Syed, Mr Khan said the law was in force in Malakand since 1994, when it was signed by then prime minister Benazir Bhutto and chief minister Aftab Ahmed Khan Sherpao.

According to him, all stakeholders were taken into confidence on the Swat accord, which had also been approved by the National Assembly.

“My prime interest is Pakistan. We are protecting national interests. In 1998, the ’94 agreement was re-endorsed by then prime minister Nawaz Sharif. At that time, Sardar Mehtab Khan Abbasi was NWFP’s chief minister.

“Iqbal Haider, who was federal law minister in 1994, supported the agreement at that time. Surprisingly, he is now opposing it,” said the ANP president.

He said under the Nizam-i-Adl agreement, the Mingora bench of the Peshawar High Court and its appellate bench are required to decide cases in a certain time limit.

The Peshawar High Court also has benches in Abbotabad and Dera Ismail Khan.

Mr Asfandyar said that the NWFP government would appoint the head of Qazi courts in consultation with the high court.

Mr Asfandyar said that Karachi belonged to all nationalities — “Urdu-speaking, Sindhis, Pukhtuns, Baloch, Punjabis. Ninety per cent of population of Karachi is from outside. We believe in peace in Karachi. In Karachi, Pukhtuns are driving rickshaws and working as night watchmen, jobs others don’t do”.

“We oppose a clash of interest and strongly believe in peaceful co-existence by tolerating each other in Karachi. We will never allow peace to be disturbed in Karachi.”—PPI

Zardari links financial crisis to terrorism

“China’s stimulus package has already shown results, the economy has seen positive changes and the situation is better than expected,” Mr Wen said at the opening of the Boao Forum.

He said that progress had been made in several key economic indicators despite the onset of the financial crisis.

“Investment growth has accelerated, consumption has increased quite rapidly and domestic demand continues to rise,” Mr Wen said in the keynote speech.

His comments came two days after China posted growth of 6.1 per cent in the first quarter of the year, the slowest in at least a decade.

Despite his upbeat assessment, Mr Wen said there were still challenges ahead and that “China’s economic and social development faced big difficulties”.

“The main ones are: external demand continues to shrink, there has been a large drop in exports… there is overcapacity in some industries, the pick-up in industrial growth is sluggish, economic efficiency continues to drop.”

He added that fiscal revenue was slowing and that the employment situation was still serious.

The Chinese premier pointed to a 28.6 per cent rise in urban fixed asset investments in the first quarter as an example of this, while calling for closer cooperation between Asian nations and warning against protectionism.

“To counter the financial crisis effectively, Asian countries should each run their own affairs well but also step up cooperation… and make Asia a key engine in reigniting world economic growth,” he said.

The Boao Forum has been an annual event since 2001, bringing together leaders in government, business and academia in Asia and other continents to discuss pressing issues in the region and the rest of the world. Reportedly modeled on the World Economic Forum in Davos, former US president George W. Bush will also be attending this year’s three-day meeting.–Agencies

Former President Musharraf leaves for Saudi Arabia

ISLAMABAD: Former President, General (retired) Pervez Musharraf left for Saudi Arabia in a special plane provided by the King of Saudi Arabia, Shah Abdullah bin Abdul Aziz for his performing ‘Umra’.

Before boarding the plane, talking to newsmen at the airport, Pervez Musharraf said that the country was in great danger and advised all to shun looking into the past instead urged upon the nation, especially the media to focus on the current myriad challenges haunting Pakistan.

Bomber eliminates 21 troops in attack on Hangu post

KOHAT, April 18: The country’s security apparatus suffered a devastating blow on Saturday when a suicide bomber rammed an explosives-laden vehicle into a military checkpost in Hangu, eliminating 21 soldiers.

Seven policemen, 10 security personnel and nine civilians were injured in the blast.

“A suicide bomber rammed his explosives-laden vehicle into our check-post close to a police station in Doaba,” a security official said. “We suffered the most casualties.”

Some officials said the bomber had rammed his vehicle into a Thall-bound military convoy in Doaba, on Hangu-Parachinar highway. They said 11 vehicles, which were part of the convoy, had been destroyed in the attack, which happened not far from the army camp. The military, however, denied its convoy had been hit.

Eyewitnesses said security forces cordoned off the area and blocked the Kohat-Parachinar highway at Doaba and nobody was allowed to go near the scene of the explosion.

The army called its own bomb disposal squad from Thall Garrison.

The check-post was located on the Hangu-Parachinar road, which remained closed for more than a year when militants blocked the artery to stop food and fuel supplies from reaching Parachinar, the Kurram Agency’s headquarters.

In another incident earlier on Saturday morning, one person was killed and three were injured in a blast in Malikabad area of Hangu bazaar.

The SHO of Doaba police station, Ammal Khan, and constable Asal Murad, who were sitting in a mobile van close to the army camp, were injured.

Police said the bomber had used 100kg of explosives. They blamed the Tehrik-i-Taliban Pakistan for the strike, but the banned militant outfit did not claim responsibility for the bombing.

The dead and the seriously injured were taken to the civil hospital in Hangu and the Combined Military Hospital in Thall, a police spokesman for the Kohat region said.

Preliminary reports suggested that the suicide bomber had come to the area on Friday and took up residence in Hangu. “It was in the knowledge of the terrorists that a convoy would pass through the camp on Saturday afternoon,” a local said.

Hangu has seen bloodletting bred by sectarianism over the past two years. A total of 48 people had died in sectarian clashes during Muharram last year.

The military had carried out a major clean-up operation in Doaba in August last year to flush out militants who had infiltrated from nearby Kurram and Orakzai regions.

Helicopter gunships have been attacking suspected militant hideouts in Orakzai during the last couple of weeks.

Agencies add: “Most of the casualties are security forces and some policemen have also been killed,” a security official said.

“The bomber was driving a pick-up truck which he rammed into a convoy passing by a security checkpost,” senior police officer Fareed Khan said in Kohat.

President Asif Ali Zardari, who is in China attending an international economic conference, “condemned the attack and vowed to root out terrorism and extremism from the country”, the presidency said in a statement.

Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani “strongly condemned” the incident, describing the suicide attack as “a cowardly act of terrorism”, his office said in a statement.

Army, Govt. will have to finalize a joint strategy against terrorism: Musharraf

ISLAMABAD: Former President Pervez Musharraf has said that Pakistan army and the government would have to finalize a joint strategy for combating terrorism.

Prior to his departure for Saudi Arabia for ‘Umra’, he told newsmen that the people should get inexpensive and instant justice. He advised evolving indigenous strategy for combating terrorism. He said if the Swat peace agreement was only for peace, then it was welcoming, but if this agreement was against the writ of the government, then it not right.

When quizzed on Lal Masjid incident, Pervez Musharraf said that no child or woman was killed and insisted that not more than 94 persons were killed, while all of them were terrorists and re0-iterated no child or woman was included.

He earnestly urged ending the evils of lies and hypocrisy in the country and said, “We should focus on the dangers facing Pakistan.”

Three dead in suspected US missile strike in SWAT

WANA: At least three persons were killed in a suspected US missile strike in South Waziristan agency.

Sources said that US drone fired two missiles on a house at Gangikhel are aof South Waziristan, which killed at least three persons.

According to a foreign news agency three persons were killed in the incident, while the drones still hovering over the skies of South Waziristan, unleashing fears in the area.

What the Taliban ideology means

The footage recently made public showing the flogging of a girl in Swat and the execution of a man and woman in their 40s reportedly in the Hangu district must have sickened anyone with respect for human rights and dignity. As such, these videos constitute a graphic reminder of the fact that behind the rhetoric of religion, the real face of the Taliban is one of unmixed brutality and murderousness.

This should come as no surprise. Since the rise of the Taliban in Afghanistan during the 1990s and in Pakistan more recently, there has been ample evidence that the otherwise harmless moniker — which means ‘students’ — is a mask worn by an ideologically united group that uses tactics of violence, fear and gross coercion to get its way.

Given this, it is alarming that Pakistan’s state and society continue to bury their heads in the sand and resort to denial of either specific acts of brutality or the threat in general posed by the Taliban. The most recent example of this approach is an investigation team’s conclusion that the video depicting the whipping of the young woman in Swat was ‘fake and false’, as indicated by Interior Secretary Kamal Shah.

He quoted the final report as saying that that no such incident took place since the girl in question denied it and the area’s residents also expressed their ignorance. Yet anyone who has suffered such an act of barbarity, and who continues to live under the shadow of his or her persecutors, is unlikely to risk inducing their ire further. More dangerous, however, is the reduction of the issue to a debate over whether or not the video was ‘real’ and when exactly the incident took place.

This constitutes yet another example of the manner in which the Pakistani state and its citizenry live in denial of the clear and present danger to their personal freedoms. It is precisely this attitude that has allowed the Taliban and others of their ilk to make such deep inroads. Even if this particular video was faked, there is ample evidence otherwise of the Taliban’s brutality. Reports of beheadings, shootings and the coercion of people — who are citizens of Pakistan and residents of Swat — are made public practically everyday.

For the survival of values pertaining to freedom, democracy and citizens’ rights, the threat posed by the Taliban must be combated not only militarily but also by taking up positions on the ideological battleground from where they fire the salvos. For this to happen, the grotesqueness of the Taliban worldview must first be recognised and then rejected wholesale.

The Swati girl’s ordeal sparked outrage across the country; but such graphic footage ought not to be necessary to convince the citizenry of the Taliban’s real face. Living in denial is a luxury that is no longer available to us.

Sectarianism greatest threat to Pakistan: Manmohan Singh

GAUHATI: Indian Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh has said that sectarianism was the greatest threat to Pakistan.

Addressing a public meeting in Assam province’s capital city here, he said that Congress was not responsible for the martyrdom of Babri Masjid. He further said, “There was no room for violence in our politics.” Manmohan Singh said that he would not like to talk much about Lal Krishna Advani.

As regards, Pakistan’s nuclear assets, he said that this has been assured that it was in safe hands.

Anti-Taliban demos held across Sindh

HYDERABAD: The Sunni Tehrik activists vented their ire over the desecration of shrines of saints and holy men in Swat and other parts of the NWFP through protests and demonstrations all over Sindh on Friday.

Rejecting the enforcement of Nizam-i-Adl Regulation by Taliban in the NWFP through force and gun, they reminded the so-called patriots of religion that Islam was enforced through love and forgiveness, and not terror. Islam is a religion of tolerance and piety and renounces oppression of all kinds.

Garbed in shrouds, Sindh convener Maulana Noor Ahmed and scores of activists condemned the sacrilege of shrines and killing of Pir Sharifullah Mujjadidi in Swat and Ajmal Darbari in Mirpurkhas. They demanded immediate arrest of the culprits.

Maulana Ahmed was aghast as to how blood-thirsty law-breakers could guarantee peace and justice and why without proper understanding of the Nizam-i-Adl regulation the Parliament endorsed it and the government okayed this anti-people system.

He said that the government had given a license to lawlessness and one feels ashamed to call it a justice system.

How come people unaware of the essence of Shari at can enforce it through gun and powder and which religion allows killing followers of sects, other than theirs. It’s disgusting to see the Taliban indulging into bombing and rocket attacking places, sacred to followers of other sects – Islam is against bigotry, he said.

Acts of the Taliban are apt to defame Islam and may stamp its followers as ‘terrorists’, he said.

In Nawabshah, the Sunni Tehrik (ST) activists demonstrated outside the press club on Friday in protest against the demolition and occupation of shrines in Swat and other parts of the NWFP.

Protesters carrying placards raised slogans against the wave of Talibanisation.

ST leaders Sikandar Ali Qadri, Abdul Raheem Qadri and others said that the Taliban were demolishing and occupying the shrines of Sufi saints and also killing Ulema in Swat and other areas of Malakand.

They said that they do not recognize and accept the so-called Shariat of Taliban and would not allow its implementation in the country. They said that the Taliban were spreading their tentacles to the rest of the country, moreover after the promulgation of Nizam-i-Adl Regulation in Malakand division of the NWFP by the government.

They criticised the government for exposing its weakness by agreeing to Taliban’s terms and conditions but vowed that people would resist any illegal action.

Meanwhile, the Muttahida Qaumi Movement’s Interior Sindh chapter also condemned the promulgation of Nizam-i-Adal Regulation by the government.

Siraj Rajput, member MQM’s Interior Sindh Organising Committee, speaking to party workers at different places emphatically refused to let Talibanisation take its roots in Sindh.

The Taliban cannot impose their version of Islamic laws or so-called Shari at on gun-point or through force, he said.

Taliban attacks kill five policemen: official

He said the attackers, believed to be in their dozens, fled after reinforcements were sent to the area. An operation to hunt down the militants was underway, the official said.

The Taliban also suffered some casualties, Rasouli said, but could not give a figure.

‘According to intelligence reports we received from the area, foreign terrorists like Pakistanis and Arabs were also among the attackers,’ he said.

It was the latest in an increasingly bloody insurgency being waged by the remnants of the Taliban, an ultra-conservative militant group which is trying to topple the US-backed government in Kabul.

The Taliban were in power between 1996 and 2001 before being toppled in a US-led offensive launched to kill and capture Al-Qaeda leaders then sheltered by Taliban.

The insurgency has gained pace in recent years, prompting the United States and its Western allies to boost their military efforts by sending thousands of extra troops.

Back with the maulana

We are back — probably a few steps even further back — to the point where we were some 22 months ago. Many days into the siege of Lal Masjid in the heart of Islamabad in July 2007, analysts had pinned their hopes on the good sense of the two religious leaders who commanded a group of rebels inside the mosque.

After many tense hours, television channels beamed images of Maulana Abdul Aziz emerging from the mosque compound. Hope was kindled for a negotiated and quick end to the drama that threatened so many lives. Unfortunately, the standoff had a bloody ending.

Maulana Aziz was taken into custody while his younger brother Abdul Rashid Ghazi was killed. So many other lives were lost in the episode and many of the violent incidents that have followed since have been linked to the tackling of the Lal Masjid affair by the Pakistani state under the then president, Gen Pervez Musharraf.

As Maulana Aziz, out of prison on bail, returned to lead a large Friday prayers congregation in the capital, we found ourselves hoping that he, an extremist yesterday, would now help the state to rein in the fundamentalists of today — perhaps the same kind of expectation that one has of Sufi Mohammad in Swat but in the maulana’s case, right in the heart of the federal capital.

The state’s dealings with the fundamentalists have generated all kinds of public responses. In the wake of the Swat affair and the promulgation of the Nizam-i-Adl, too, Islamabad has been praised and, at the same time, accused of capitulating to the ‘blackmailers’.

Lal Masjid and its legacy are reflective of just how very inconsistent and clueless the administration has been in its tackling of the ‘jihadi’ situation. The July 2007 raid on the mosque came moments after a deal was said to have been brokered, signifying our confused approach to the problem and underlining the presence of too many commanders, with separate agendas, in the control room. Opting for a tactic that is questionable invites trouble, but implementing it in a half-hearted fashion can unleash further complications.

Province-district tussle

It was just a month or two after the military coup of October 1999 that a retired lieutenant general, Tanvir Naqvi, propounded the coup maker’s ‘vision’ of governance before a group of journalists in Karachi.

As Naqvi launched himself on a discourse on ‘power to the people at the grass roots’ by radically altering the country’s political, administrative and judicial structures, an impish hack rose from among the gaggle to interrupt him:‘General, who has given you the authority to bring about a revolution?’

The retired general’s quick response ‘we have assumed this authority ourselves’ was drowned in a roar of laughter as he gloated over the impact of his repartee. It was a display of hubris uncommon even for a dictator. He dismissed the dissenters seated on the stage with him (this writer among them) as relics of a slavish past.

Naqvi might as well have added that his self-assumed authority was reinforced by the Supreme Court (all of its then 12 judges) which while validating the extra-constitutional intervention ‘on the basis of the doctrine of state necessity and the principle of salus populi suprema lex’ also permitted Gen Musharraf to amend the constitution ‘for the attainment of his declared objectives’. The doctrine and the principle, the court went on to observe, were recognised in Islam. What more could a coupster have asked for?

Naqvi’s harangue at Karachi marked the beginning of a ‘road show’ that ended in the mutilation of the constitution and the destruction of the country’s age-old administrative and judicial system. But the Supreme Court didn’t feel persuaded enough to exercise its power of judicial review which it had promised in the coup-validating order.

Having thus assumed total power under the deceptively modest and commercial-sounding title of chief executive, Gen Pervez Musharraf embarked on a course to change the political, legal and administrative structures as no other chief martial law administrator had done before him — not even Z.A. Bhutto who was the most dominant political figure of his time in addition to being CMLA. Musharraf strode into a territory which the military commanders and elected leaders with greater credentials before him had feared to tread.

He imagined himself to be the messiah that a misgoverned country had been waiting for. In his retirement he must be puzzled to see how what he had done in years was being undone in months. But his inept, confused successors are unable to decide how to rebuild whatever he had destroyed nor do they seem inclined to retain whatever little good he had done — just because he had done it. No one is willing to separate the little grain that was in his reforms, from the abundance of chaff. Such is the degree of vengeance. That grain is the local government.

The departing British had bequeathed to the subcontinent a system of local government comprising chiefly the district boards, municipal councils and panchayats. The children of the generation spanning the partition were educated in schools and treated in dispensaries that were run by the councils. The schools and hospitals run by the government or denominational missions were all in large towns. Minor disputes were mostly settled in the village panchayats. India and Sri Lanka preserved and strengthened the local councils. Here we ran them down. For long years they were either extinct or controlled by government officials.

When revived, as by Ayub Khan in the 1960s, and by Pervez Musharraf in 2002, the dominant consideration was to create a base of electoral support for the rulers. Ayub Khan’s elected councils were led by bureaucrats — district councils were chaired by the deputy commissioner and city corporations by officials of equal rank. Yet they gave a new impetus to development in backward areas. The first school for girls was built and a public well dug for the Mohmand tribes (now up in arms) in the 1960s when this writer was the political agent and chairman of the agency council there. It was the political part of the field marshal’s plan that failed. The combined support of basic democrats and bureaucrats could not sustain him in power for ever.

Pervez Musharraf tried the opposite approach. He placed all officials in a district under elected nazims, transferred almost every provincial function to the governments in the districts, took them under his own wing and gave them a lot of money. Karachi city district, for instance, received from the centre three times as much as its own income from taxation and services. The district nazims became his personal, pampered representatives.

By now it is obvious that overweening nazims are not going to outlast Musharraf just as the subservient basic democrats didn’t Ayub Khan. The lesson to be drawn is that only such local government institutions will endure that are not controlled by the bureaucrats or do not trample on the regulatory jurisdiction of the provincial government.

Legislators, ministers and chief ministers are all justifiably outraged by the power and patronage that Musharraf conferred on the nazims at their cost. The looming danger is that in their vengeance they might altogether abolish the district government or reduce it to a mere appendage of the provincial government.
The civic and regulatory roles are quite distinct. A political nazim cannot be a deputy commissioner just as a deputy commissioner should not be a mayor. A local government (as in Karachi) should not be seen building ‘state-of-the-art’ cardiac centres while its dispensaries are crumbling, or constructing free corridors for motorists when there is no bus for the people to ride nor a footpath to walk on, or build skyscrapers while raw sewers pollute the sea.

And a provincial government should not be running primary schools or health centres in far-flung villages which do not exist on the ground. In any case the nazims who were all staunch party men could not ever measure up to the responsibility of maintaining law and order in a highly partisan environment. The obvious result has been lawlessness and disorder.

The future role of the local government should be restricted to local affairs but, at the same time, its jurisdiction should be defined and protected in the constitution and the provincial governments must not be empowered to supersede the councils as they had been routinely doing in pre-Musharraf times. The parliamentary committees which are soon expected to consider the transfer of subjects from the centre to the provinces should also decide which of their functions are better left to the districts and tiers below. n kunwaridris@hotmail.com

Nifaz-e-shriat notification not enough, practical measures imperative: Sufi Muhammad

MINGORA: Tahrik-e-Nifaz Shariat Muhammadi (TNSM) chief Maulana Sufi Muhammad said that God’s Nizam should be enforced on the land of the God.

Addressing a public meeting at the Gassy ground here, he said that the rulers were appeasing the West by thrusting the Nizam of Kufr. He said that he wanted peace and affection among the Muslims and wish to set up an environment of brotherhood, but the Muslims were divided in different parties, we direly need unity at this time.

Maulana Sufi Muhammad said that there were two types of people in Pakistan—the rulers and the ruled. He said that one has to self-appraise whether one’s faith was intact or not and added that presently the citizens of Pakistan should take care of their faith.
He urged upon the Ulemas, rulers and the people to get united.

Maulana Sufi Muhammad said that only black turban was ‘Sunnat-e-Nabvi’ and using turban of any other colour was not ‘Sunnat-e-Nabvi’. He said that the existing system was in contravention of Nizam-e-Islam and the Holy Quran.

High Courts and Supreme Court were ‘Ghair Sharaiee’ institutions and going for appeal in ‘Ghair Sharaiee’ institutions was ‘Haram’. He said Darul Qaza could be approached in case of any reservations on our verdicts, but the final decisions of Darul Qaza not allowed to be challenged in the High Courts and Supreme Court.

Three dead in suspected US strike in Pakistan: officials

PESHAWAR: Three people were killed Sunday in a suspected US missile attack targeting a militant hideout in Pakistan’s tribal area bordering Afghanistan, officials said.

‘It was a drone attack,’ local administration official Shahab Ali Shah told AFP. He said two missiles hit a house in Gangi Khel town in the tribal South Waziristan district.

Another official speaking on condition of anonymity said the attack targeted a militant hideout where three people were killed. He gave no details.

A security official confirmed that death toll, saying that five other people were wounded. The targeted house, belonging to a local tribesman, was ‘destroyed in the strike,’ he said.

Three people were killed in a similar attack in the area earlier this month.

Five militants killed in Afghanistan: US military

KABUL: The US military said Friday that its troops working with Afghan soldiers killed five militants from a network linked to a suicide attack that claimed the life of a foreign soldier earlier this year.

The operation late Thursday was conducted in the Maywand district of the southern province of Kandahar, a Taliban stronghold where the US-led coalition has conducted other raids in the past week that it said killed 10 militants.

‘Afghan and coalition forces killed five combatants in Kandahar province during an operation to disable a Taliban network that facilitates logistics for attacks in the province,’ a statement said.

‘The cell was directly linked to the suicide attack in Maywand district that killed four Afghan civilians and a coalition forces member in January.’

The force could not immediately confirm exactly which attack it was referring to.

A suicide attack in the district killed two US soldiers and two Afghans on January 8, but there was a rash of attacks that month, when 25 international soldiers lost their lives in Afghanistan.

The Taliban rose from Kandahar to sweep into government in Kabul in 1996.

They were ousted in a US-led invasion in late 2001 that sent many of their
leaders and their allies in Al-Qaeda into sanctuaries across in Pakistan.

With extremist violence on the rise in both countries, US President Barack Obama last month unveiled a new anti-terror strategy intended to eliminate the threat from extremists.

He put Pakistan at the centre of the fight against Al-Qaeda and announced 4,000 more troops to train Afghan forces in addition to an extra 17,000 already committed for the war-torn country.

US think-tank’s recipe for peace in South Asia

WASHINGTON: Recognition of the Durand Line as an international border, a resolution of the Kashmir dispute and the acceptance of Pakistan’s nuclear status are necessary ingredients for a lasting peace in South Asia, says an influential US think-tank.

In a report released this week, the Asia Society also warns that Pakistan will continue to depend on non-state actors as an instrument of foreign policy as long as it feels threatened.

The task force that authored the report – ‘Back from the Brink? A Strategy for Stabilising Afghanistan-Pakistan’ – included US special envoy Richard Holbrooke and National Security Adviser General James Jones but they stepped down to assume their new appointments.

Bruce Riedel, a key member of the team that reviewed the Obama administration’s new strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan, is also a member of the team that wrote the Asia Society report.

The report claims that Pakistan’s security establishment believes that it faces an existential threat from India and uses armed extremist groups to counter this real or perceived threat.

The Pakistani establishment is ‘unlikely to eliminate the means it has developed to counter that threat unless its most basic concerns … are addressed,’ the report adds.

To ally Pakistan’s security concerns, the report adds, it’s necessary to stabilise the country so that it ‘abandons the use of armed extremist groups as a tool of policy.’

AFGHAN-PAKISTAN DISPUTES
As the first step towards stabilisation, the authors suggest resolving the long-standing issues over the status of Pashtuns in Pakistan and Afghanistan.

Resolving these problems will require working with both governments and their people to reform the status of Fata, improve governance and security throughout the North-West Frontier Province and enable Afghanistan to recognise the Durand Line as an official open border’s the report adds.

It also advocates guaranteeing Afghanistan’s access to the port of Karachi, assuring free land transit of Afghan products across Pakistan to India, and eliminating suspicions of support for separatism or subversion from either side.

PAKISTANI DEFENCE ESTABLISHMENT AND INDIA
The report claims that the Pakistani security establishment has had an ambiguous attitude towards the militants and ‘has always considered both the Afghan Taliban and militant groups fighting in Kashmir to be strategic assets.’

Transfixed by what it views as a far greater Indian threat, Pakistan has been ‘reluctant to recognise’ that the support structures and networks for these groups have also provided a safe haven for al Qaeda and groups fighting the Pakistani state under the banner of the Pakistan Taliban Movement, led by Baitullah Mehsud.

‘The United States should continue to encourage Pakistan and India to build on their existing composite dialogue to normalise their relations, including their behind-the-scenes efforts to deescalate tensions over Kashmir and find a lasting settlement to this dispute,’ the report adds.

It notes that Kashmir has provided the rationale for decades for support of guerrilla and terrorist operations by groups based in Pakistan that have escaped the control of the state apparatus that established and protected them.

PAKISTAN’S NUCLEAR STATUS
The report also urges the United States to seek out ways to incorporate Pakistan into the global nuclear non-proliferation regime.

The task force that wrote the report takes note of a 2005 statement by International Atomic Energy Agency director Mohamed ElBaradei that ‘India, Pakistan and Israel, in my view, are not going to come to the NPT through the normal route.’

Mr ElBaradei suggested accepting that India and Pakistan are declared nuclear weapons states as a fact and endorsed the US–India civilian nuclear agreement as a way to bring a declared nuclear state closer to the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty.

The task force concedes that under existing circumstances (especially given concerns over terrorism and proliferation); it is not possible to duplicate that agreement with Pakistan.

‘But it is worth starting a dialogue with Pakistan to explore what might be possible, and under what conditions, to acknowledge Pakistan’s nuclear weapons status, provide assistance to ensure the safety and security of its nuclear assets, and bring Pakistan into greater conformity and closer cooperation with the global non-proliferation regime,’ the report recommends.

Source: Dawn news

General Tariq Majid leaves for Saudi Arabia

ISLAMABAD: General Tariq Majid, Chairman Joint Chiefs of Staff Committee (CJCSC) left on an official visit to Saudi Arabia today.

The senior Tri Services officers and Defence Attaché of Saudi Arabia Colonel Saeed Mashafi saw him off at Islamabad airport.

During his four-day visit to Saudi Arabia, General Tariq Majid is expected to meet the King Abdullah Bin Aziz Al-Saud and other Saudi military and civil leadership.

Suspected US strike kills 13 in North Waziristan

ISLAMABAD: A suspected US drone fired two missiles at an alleged militant hide-out Saturday in northwestern Pakistan, killing 13 people in the latest strike, intelligence officials and residents said.

The US is suspected of carrying out more than three dozen such strikes over the past year in Pakistan near the Afghan border.

The drone attacks have caused tension with the Pakistani government, which frequently complains about the US carrying out strikes on its territory.

The home targeted just after dawn Saturday was located in North Waziristan, one of Pakistan’s tribal regions, said the intelligence officials.

The dead and injured included local and foreign militants, but women and children were also killed in the attack, said the officials, requesting anonymity.

A local tribal elder, Dilawar Khan, confirmed that 13 people were killed in the strike, saying the owner’s family was among the dead. He said he didn’t know the identities of the other people killed in the attack or whether there were militants staying at the home, which was located in Data Khel village very close to the Afghan border.

Government officials were not immediately available for comment.

Pakistan has criticized the drone strikes, saying they are a violation of the country’s sovereignty and kill innocent civilians. The government has said such deaths generate sympathy for the militants. But the US believes the attacks are an effective tool to combat militants in the region.

President Barack Obama has said he will step up the pressure on Pakistan to crack down on militants in its territory by making aid to the country conditional on the government’s anti-terrorism efforts. Pakistan has said it is committed to the fight, but many western officials suspect the country’s military intelligence agency of maintaining links with militant groups.

Obama said last month the US would insist that action be taken ‘one way or another’ when the country has intelligence about high-level terrorist targets in Pakistan, a likely reference to the drone strikes.

Source: Dawn News

Going back to the Quran

BUT first the one in the English-language daily. This report was based on interviews with young madressah-going girl students from Kerala. The madressah authorities had banned the press from talking to the girls. It is interesting to note that these girls, like others elsewhere, conveyed aspirations of their own. A 15-year-old said, ‘I want to become a pilot,’ another said, ‘I wish to become a doctor.’ A third girl said she wanted to become a civil servant. Most other girls also showed similar aspirations to achieve something great in life.

The other story in the Urdu daily reported a speech by Maulana Shamsuddin Chaturvedi who, while conferring the ‘turban of merit’ on students who had completed memorising the Quran, said that Islam was a complete code of life and that we must observe its teachings, not allow our women outside the home and make them observe the veil.

The maulana further said that women were the embellishment of the home and that they should not venture out; that unlike our ancestors, we do not observe the teachings of Islam today; that we dishonour our families by allowing women to become ‘lax’ in their morals.

The sum and substance of his exhortations was that Muslims should exercise strict control over their women. It is such ideas that have contributed significantly to decline amongst Muslims today.

Going back to the madressah girls’ story, what does the contrast in their thinking and that of the maulana show? That Muslim women want what some of our ‘ulema’ don’t desire for them. It clearly shows that many sections of the ulema today live in a world of their own. This, while they keep saying that even they do not live in an ideal world as endorsed by Islam. They live in the world of Islam but with a mediaeval mindset.

This is precisely the world in which the Taliban also live, and that is why they persecute, harass and even kill those, including women, who want to achieve something in this life. Just before I read these reports I was surrounded by some Hindu women who worked among Muslim women for their uplift in Bihar. They asked me why so many restrictions were put on women and why Muslims could divorce their wives by pronouncing the word talaq thrice. I began to explain to them that it was not the true teaching but that some Muslims used controversial traditions to allow these things to happen.

Two Muslim journalists who had come to interview me were also sitting by my side. When I used the words ‘controversial traditions’, they became angry and began arguing with me as to ‘whose’ Islam I was talking about. It is your Islam, not the real Islam, they said. They were apparently ‘educated’; yet they had a similar attitude to the faith as our traditionalist ulema do. These days our institute in Mumbai is conducting interviews with noted ulema in order to codify the Sharia laws pertaining to Muslim marriage, divorce, inheritance etc. as they are applied today very loosely in India. When they were asked about codifying rules for regulating polygamy, most of them maintained it could not be regulated as men had the ‘right’ to take up to four wives without even consulting the existing wife or wives.

This is necessary, they maintained, to check prostitution. The Holy Quran does not even indirectly justify polygamy on such grounds. When one points out that the verse on polygamy was revealed after the battle of Uhad, in which 10 per cent of Muslim males were killed and it was meant for taking care of widows and orphans, not to check prostitution, they say it is one’s own invention.

Some of the ulema interviewed even showed ignorance of Verse 129, which says you cannot do justice to more than one wife, even if you desire and do not leave the first wife suspended (mu’allaqatan). They still argued that a man had the unrestricted right to marry four wives. It is ironical that to such traditional ulema, the tradition as practised in mediaeval times should be more important than what the Quran spells out in clear terms.

There is thus an urgent need to re-educate our ulema running the madressahs so that Muslim women can breathe easy and be able to realise their potential in society, something on which we spend so much of our oratorical skills but then go on to deny them these rights in practice. One form of jihad in our times must be to struggle for women’s rights which are so concretely and precisely spelled out in the Quran, and which they continue to be denied.

The faith can no more be practised the way it was during the mediaeval ages. Islam must always be seen as being in conformity with the Quran over and above all else. The Quran is the revealed word of Allah; any departure from it and giving mediaeval tribal traditions precedence over it can only produce the Islam practised by the Taliban.

The writer is an Islamic scholar, who also heads the Centre for Study of Society & Secularism, Mumbai.

Source: Dawn News