PAKISTAN
 ESSENTIAL READING: http://www.bbc.co.uk/radio4/pakistan/

Latest JAN 13th 2012

By Carlotta Gall, David Rohde and Jane Perlez

WASHINGTON: Bush administration officials are expressing increasing alarm that a deal being negotiated between the new Pakistani government and militant tribes in the country's unruly border area will lead to further unraveling of security in the region.

Cross-border attacks into Afghanistan by militants based in Pakistan doubled in March from the same period a year ago and have not diminished in April, a Western military official said, while Pakistani counterinsurgency operations in the tribal areas have dropped sharply during the talks.

American counterterrorism officials express concern that the new coalition government in Islamabad may withdraw some of the 120,000 Pakistani troops in the border area or curtail flights by the Central Intelligence Agency's armed Predator aircraft in the region.

Indeed, Washington and Islamabad seem to be on dueling timetables, with the Bush administration trying to cripple Al Qaeda's safe havens before leaving office, and the new Pakistani government seeking to establish credibility with its public by distancing itself from the American-backed policies of President Pervez Musharraf.

American officials say that Washington's options now are even more limited, in part because Musharraf is no longer calling the shots, and that the situation in the tribal areas is unlikely to significantly improve before President George W. Bush leaves office. American economic and development aid aimed to help wean the region off the militants' influence is just now seeping into the tribal areas, while a tribal paramilitary force still needs years of training and equipping to be an effective counterinsurgency unit.

The problems confronting the administration reflect what critics say is a failure over the past several years to pay sufficient attention to the growing numbers of Qaeda and Taliban fighters drawn to safe havens in the tribal area. Even under Musharraf, the administration's main ally in Pakistan, the United States failed to develop a governmentwide plan to combat the militancy in the turbulent borderlands, these critics say.

The leaders of Pakistan's new government, Asif Ali Zardari of the Pakistan Peoples Party and Nawaz Sharif of the Pakistan Muslim League-N, have vowed to honor their campaign pledges to break with Musharraf's emphasis on using military force in the tribal areas, a practice critics say has been heavy-handed and has undercut the government's goals.

The government has begun a negotiating strategy that officials hope will win over those in the tribal areas who in recent years have been caught up in a wave of anti-American sentiment and, in some cases, who are actively helping Al Qaeda.

American policy makers, diplomats and senior military officers voice fears that a new agreement, like past accords brokered with the militants by Musharraf, would allow Al Qaeda and the Taliban to regroup, rearm and plot new attacks in Pakistan, Afghanistan, Europe and the United States. American defense officials and independent analysts estimate between 150 and 500 hard-core Qaeda fighters are operating in the tribal areas.

But administration officials concede they have limited leverage with Pakistan's new government and, for now, may have to allow the talks to play out and then press the government to enforce any deals. "We have only a marginal ability to influence actions right now," said one senior administration official who is involved in Pakistan policy and who agreed to speak candidly on condition of anonymity.

Members of the new government believe that the current peace talks have a better chance for lasting success that those by Musharraf's government because this time around it is civilian Pashtun officials, rather than military leaders, who are negotiating directly with tribal elders in the mountainous provinces.

For example, they believe that negotiations with the Mehsud tribe can help isolate militants from the clan of Baitullah Mehsud, whose network is believed responsible for the killing of former Prime Minister Benazir Bhutto in December.

A spokesman for Mehsud, one of most hard-line militants, said Tuesday that talks with the government had been temporarily suspended over the army's refusal to withdraw from all of the tribal areas. But other Pakistani officials said the stalemate could be a momentary bargaining ploy.

Members of the new government argue that since negotiations during Musharraf's administration had usually occurred after the Pakistani military was soundly defeated by militants in the tribal areas, the government was forced to negotiate from a position of weakness.

"The Pakistan government has no plans to diminish its military presence in the Pakistan-Afghanistan border region," said Husain Haqqani, who has been tapped to be Pakistan's new ambassador to the United States. "Negotiations with tribesmen are aimed at supplementing military efforts with political ones. The security requirements will not be abandoned or ignored."

Still, Pakistani officials acknowledge that it could take several years to achieve the ultimate goal: peeling hard-line militants, so-called irreconcilables, from what they see as a majority of tribal area residents who have little desire to support international terrorism. And American counterterrorism officials say that a peace accord could sap momentum from Pakistan's broader campaign against militants.

"An agreement will preclude the need of the Pakistani government to enter into serious dialogue and planning with its military to develop a national, even regional, counterinsurgency strategy," one senior American military officer said in an e-mail message from the region, speaking on condition of anonymity because of diplomatic considerations.

Discussions between senior American officials and Pakistan's new leaders have not gone particularly well. Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte and Richard Boucher, one of his top aides, traveled to Islamabad in March to discuss plans to combat militants in the tribal areas.

During the meetings, Pakistani officials bristled at what they saw as an American determination to ignore the results of the recent Pakistani elections that had stripped Musharraf's party of power. "The Americans were acting as if nothing had changed," said one senior Pakistani official.

After the meetings, Pakistani officials told reporters that the new government's counterterrorism strategy would be significantly different from that of Musharraf.

American officials in Islamabad are trying to adapt to the new government's strategy, and in some cases resisting pleas by American commanders to step up unilateral strikes on Pakistani militants in the tribal areas.

Pakistani officials said that Anne Patterson, the American ambassador in Islamabad, is particularly concerned about the fragility of the coalition government. It was this concern, they said, that has led her to turn down requests by American military officials in Afghanistan to hit targets in the tribal areas. The senior Pakistani official said, "What she was saying was, do not go around bombing — and missing — targets inside Pakistan and embarrassing the new government."

Administration officials said the ability of the United States to help the Pakistani Army, and the Frontier Corps in the tribal areas, was constrained. American officials say the Pakistani Army remains focused on India, its traditional adversary, despite efforts by the new army chief of staff, General Ashfaq Parvez Kayani, to step up counterinsurgency operations.

"I have no information to suggest that what Pakistanis have done in past two to three months has seriously impeded Al Qaeda's ability" to recruit new members and train them in small compounds in the tribal areas, said a senior American intelligence official who spoke on the condition of anonymity.

Ismail Khan contributed reporting from Peshawar, Pakistan.

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From The Independent

October 23, 2008      "We must throw the Taliban out... we cannot surrender.
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/exclusive-dispatch-pakistans-hidden-war-969784.html

There was a loud, sharp sound followed by flames and massive blast of wind that threw the young boy twenty yards through the air. It felt as if he had fallen off the mountain.

When he pulled himself to his feet, dazed and battered, he discovered nine members of his family were dead and that his mother was badly wounded. All were victims of a deadly artillery shell fired by the Pakistani military battling with Taliban fighters in the country's mountainous border region. As soon as they were able, the boy's remaining family and the rest of his village fled.

That was two months ago. Now 12-year-old Ikram Ullah sits with thousands of others in a wretched, fly-ridden refugee camp close to the north-west city of Mardan, his face streaked with dirt and tears as he tells his story and wonders what will happen to him. The food is poor, there are few proper facilities and there is nothing to do. "Life here," he says, crouching in the dust among rows of canvas tents, "is filled with sadness and grief."

Ikram is not alone. Aid agencies estimate up to 200,000 desperate people have been forced to leave their villages as a result of the fighting. Scattered in camps across northern Pakistan, they offer a glimpse into a deadly conflict largely overlooked by the West but which has created chaos and misery for the region's civilian population. All the while, as the Pakistan Army bends to pressure from the US to do more to confront the Taliban militants building strongholds and extending their influence in the tribal areas, so the fall-out for the civilians gets worse. Every day their lives are threatened both by the pounding jets that sweep into the valleys on bombing runs and by the clattering helicopter gunships that the Pakistan military is using to spearhead its assaults. The people sitting in the dust are the so-called "collateral damage" of Pakistan's own war on terror.

But the danger goes far beyond that. The spread of the Taliban and the seemingly endless cycle of violence they have created threatens the very fabric of Pakistan, an unstable nuclear-armed state that at times appears on the very brink of unraveling. Were that to happen the consequences both for the country and the region would be unthinkable. The civilian administration elected earlier this year, pulled back and forth by the various pressures upon it and its stalted, stuttering approach to confronting the militants, at times looks ill-prepared to tackle this most pressing of problems.

Until now, the conflict - which can trace its roots to the 1970s and 1980s when the Pakistani military and US government funded and encouraged Islamic mujahideen fighters to wage guerilla war against Soviet forces in Afghanistan - has largely played out in remote tribal areas located along its north-western border. For those in the West it has been a conflict easy enough to ignore, should they choose. The tribal agencies have long been considered an area all but outside the control of the central government.

But that has started to change. In recent months, militants have escalated their attacks on targets linked to either the Pakistani military and police or the West in what they say is a direct response to the government's decision to bow to US pressure. The most stunning of these was the truck-bomb attack on the Marriott Hotel in Islamabad in September that more than 50 people dead, including half-a-dozen foreigners. There have also been attacks on the country's prime minister and the Anti-Terrorism Police's headquarters, while in August the Taliban claimed responsibility after two suicide bombers killed around 70 people at a munitions plant at Wah, 20 miles from the capital. A Taliban spokesman said afterwards: "Only innocent people die when the Pakistan army carries out airstrikes in Bajaur or Swat."

At the same time, areas outside of the tribal regions have seen the increasing influence of the Taliban. There was panic earlier this summer when it was claimed militants were threatening to lay siege to the strategically important city of Peshawar, capital of the North West Frontier Province. (NWFP). In the province's Swat Valley, once a leading tourist attraction and considered the "Switzerland of Pakistan", the army has also stepped operations against militants. And last week shopkeepers in Lahore, long considered a bulwark against extremism, began publicly setting fire to DVDs of pornographic movies after receiving threats from militants.

* * *

The tribal areas are a world apart. Officially known as Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA), they are squeezed in between Afghanistan and Pakistan's NWFP in a strip that runs north to south-west and contain some of the most mountainous and inhospitable terrain in the region. Large parts of these seven rugged agencies - North and South Waziristan, Kurram, Orakzai, Khyber, Mohmand and Bajaur - are also utterly lawless.

Peopled by Pashtun tribes famous both for their fierceness and code of traditional hospitality, the area has only ever nominally been in the control of the central government and has instead been governed by tribal leaders and their traditional jirgas, or community meetings.

The region's virtual autonomy dates to the creation of Pakistan. After the British left the subcontinent following Partition, the tribal areas technically became independent and it was up the tribal chiefs or maliks to agree whether or not to become part of Pakistan. As part of the deal that was agreed, the tribal chiefs managed to ensure they would retain the large degree of autonomy they had enjoyed under the British empire.

Following the Soviet invasion of Afghanistan in 1979, it was through these tribal areas that dictator Zia ul-Haq - with funding from the US and Saudi Arabia - dispatched thousands of young fighters to join Afghan militias opposing the Red Army. Training camps were set up by the ISI intelligence agency along the border to prepare these fighters for battle. Praised by Ronald Reagan as "freedom fighters", these mujahideen, or holy warriors, were a crucial factor in the Soviet's decision a decade later to withdraw.

In 1994, following years of civil war in Afghanistan, the government of Benazir Bhutto, provided financial and military backing to a group of Afghan fighters based in the city of Kandahar and calling themselves "the students" or Taliban in their efforts to take control of the country. Bhutto argued that stability in Afghanistan and a government of its own sponsorship would help Pakistan. "I don't know how much money they were ultimately given," she later recalled. "I know it was a lot. It was just carte blanche." Two years later the Taliban seized Kabul and set in place an increasingly authoritarian rule that only ended when the US invaded following the 2001 al-Qa'ida attacks on New York and Washington.

When the Taliban and al-Qai'da fighters they had given refuge to were forced from Afghanistan, it was into the tribal areas of Pakistan that many fled. Bin Laden himself managed to slip away in late 2001 through the White Mountains after apparently having been surrounded by Afghan militia at Tora Bora. Eversince, he and his deputy Ayman al-Zawahiri have been linked to both the South Waziristan and Bajaur areas.

In these tribal areas, among fellow Pashtuns, the Taliban received warm welcome. As they were able to regroup and rebuild and to again take up battle against US and Nato forces inside Afghanistan. At the same time, their influence spread and increasing number of Pakistan Taliban were recruited to an anti-American jihad. A number of Pakistan Taliban leaders are now firmly established in the tribal areas.

It is these fighters that have been the focus of on-and-off operations by the military since Pakistan signed up to George Bush's war on terror. Both Pervez Musharraf and the recently elected civilian government have backed both negotiated settlements and military force to try and deal with the militants.

But in August, after constant pressure from Washington to do more to stop the flood of militants crossing into Afghanistan and attacking US and Nato troops, the Pakistan military launched a major operation in the Bajaur agency - home of the 12-year-old Ikram and his family. The effect has been devastating.

"When the fighter jets came into our valley four people were killed," says Abdul Rauf, a creased-faced 50-year-old refugee from a Bajaur village called Tauheedabada. "All the people were crying, we were frightened. After that we started to run away."

There are thousands of people like Rauf, thousands who have suffered tragedies like endured by Ikram. Aid agencies say a little under 200,000 people have been forced from their homes, but that is partly guesswork. "Since mid-August, we've seen an exodus of about 190,000 people from areas bordering Afghanistan. This includes Bajaur and Swat," said Vivian Tan of UNHCR. "The government tells us over 168,000 people are internally displaced in NWFP, while the Afghan authorities in Kunar province have reported about 20,000 people arriving since mid-August. We have no access to most of these border areas, so we're relying completely on government figures."

* * *

Pakistan's army is headquartered in the neat and well-tended cantonment district of Rawalpindi, the garrison city located near Islamabad. It from here that the fight against the militants is overseen and officers bristle at the suggestion that the military's efforts to root out the militants is only half-hearted.

On the wall of Lt Col Haider Baseer's office, beneath of photograph of Pakistan's founder, Mohammad ali-Jinnah, is pinned a photocopied map showing the location of some of the ongoing operations. A total of 120,000 troops are currently deployed. "We are operating in Swat, in Bajaur, in

Darra Adam Khel and North and South Waziristan," says the colonel, a military spokesman, whose office is located in a quadrangle containing sweet-smelling roses.

The colonel admits the military has been surprised by the resistance offered by the Taliban. A total of 1,400 soldiers and paramilitaries (from the Frontier Corps or FC) have been lost in operations since 2001. He says the Taliban is fighting a classic guerilla war and that both the terrain and the enemy is difficult. "Everybody has a gun," he says. "It's their culture."

The situation is made more difficult by the fact that this conflict pitches Muslim against Muslim and often - in the case of the FC - Pashtun against Pashtun. There have been reports of desertion and surrender. One military officer who has been based in Swat and Warisistan admitted this was, at least initially, a problem for many troops. "At the beginning, before we were inducted into this war, it was troubling. We asked ourselves, how are we going to fight against fellow Muslims? In the Pakistan army we were motivated to fight against India and if we die, we were told we become martyrs who go to heaven," he says. "Now I am convinced that I am fighting this war for my country and my religion. When I arrived in the tribal areas, I saw how the militants, the terrorists were working against the country and the religion. Now we see all the criminal elements getting into their fold. They do not represent Islam in any way."

What has certainly complicated matters in recent months is the involvement of US forces in the battle against militants. For a long time, the US has been using unmanned drones flown out of Afghanistan to attack suspected militant hideouts. Sometimes they claim to kill al-Qa'ida members, often they kill civilians. In June, a US airstrike killed 11 members of the FC.

Such unathourised air strikes have steadily fuelled popular sentiment against the US. But the situation was brought to boiling point in early September 3 when it was revealed US special forces had entered Pakistan and attacked the village of Jalal Khel in the Angoor Adda area of South Waziristan. Up to 20 people were killed, including women and children. The incident triggered angry protests from both villagers and Pakistan's political and military leaders. There were also a series of incidents of Pakistani and US troops exchanging fire along the border. "Obviously this is difficult. No-one wants to see foreign soldiers entering the country," says Col Baseer. "We have asked the US to stop the border incursions."

Yet the most serious allegation concerning Pakistan's seemingly lacklustre effort to confront the militants is that parts of the military establishment do not wish to. In particular, the shadowy ISI intelligence agency (whose director was recently changed) has been accused of maintaining operational links with the Taliban, the organisation it helped create three decades ago. Such allegations are nothing new; in 2002, for example, critics seized on a decision by Musharraf to arrest up to 2,000 militants in a purported crackdown only to release them all a few weeks later.

But this summer the CIA's deputy director, Stephen Kappes, travelled to Islamabad and presented what is said was evidence that mid-level ISI officials were involved in a suicide bomb plot hatched by a veteran Taliban leader Jalaluddin Haqqani that targeted the Indian embassy in Kabul, killing 54 people. Haqqani had previously been described by an ISI official as an "asset".

Remarkably, members of Pakistan's government agree with the US assessment that such links remain. One recent afternoon in Islamabad, seated on the kind of overstuffed sofa so commonly found in South Asian sitting rooms, one minister said Pakistan had always considered Afghanistan its "fifth province". Such a view had created the problems the country was now facing. "The Taliban was created by the Pakistanis and the CIA. All the problems were created here. Who do you think created these people?" said the minister, who asked not to be identified. "That is why they are not prepared to take them on. They consider them their assets."

Even military officers who reject such claims admit that the US and Pakistan have different priorities when it comes to confronting the militants. This could explain why US military operations inside Pakistan using unmanned drones have largely targeted militants blamed for attacks inside Afghanistan, such as Jalaluddin Haqqani, his son, Serajuddin, and members of their network including brothers Daud Jan and Abdur Rehman. This network has been blamed by Washington being largely responsible for a 40 per cent increase in attacks in eastern Afghanistan this year.

The Pakistan military, meanwhile, has focused its efforts on militants believed responsible for attacks inside Pakistan such as Baitullah Mehsud, who operates out of South Waziristan and who was blamed for the assassination of Benazir Bhutto last December, Maulana Fazlullah, the Taliban leader in the Swat Valley and Faqir Mohammed, a Taliban leader in Bajaur.

"The priorities are mismatching," concedes the military's chief spokesman, Maj Gen Athar Abbas. "We cannot risk opening up another front while we don't have the resources." And while Maj Gen Abbas strenuously denies the charge of supporting the re-energised Taliban, he admits too, that indirect links are maintained. "Which agency in the world would break its last contact with them?"

* * *

One morning in mid-August, the day crisp and clean, up to 4,000 Pashtuns from the town of Salarzai in the Bajaur agency gathered to talk. Some had come from up to 10 miles away to attend the meeting, arriving in pick-ups and trucks. The younger men were dressed in Salwar Kameez and vests, while some of the older tribesman wore rough woollen clothes. Many were wearing traditional Chitrali turbans, worn only for special occasions. Almost everyone was armed with many carrying Kalashnikov rifles and rocket-launchers - "a gift from the Soviet jihad".

The jirga had been called by tribal elders after Taliban militants attacked and killed two chiefs, or maliks, and a Muslim priest just days before. One of the slain maliks was Shah Zarin Khan and it was his supporters who addressed the jirga first.

For centuries, the system of jirgas - which women are not permitted to attend - have been used by the Pashtun tribes to decide important issues and make rulings. On this morning, the meeting had been called to discuss setting up a defence force or lashkar, to take on the Taliban, who had increasingly been vying for power with the tribal elders.

Syed Akhunzada Chattan, the local MP, was among those subsequently called to speak. He told the people, sitting on stones that have for decades been used as seats: "The sanctuary that we gave the Taliban was because we thought they were good people, because they had established peace in Afghanistan, because they fought against a superpower in the form of America. Then the Taliban started hurting us. These people are the enemy of Pakistan, they want a weak Pakistan. We cannot surrender our area to these people. We have to throw them out."

As Chattan spoke, the villagers raised their fists in a show of solidarity. There and then it was decided to set up the defence force and to target the Taliban leaders. An announcement went out that anyone with information about a Taliban fighter would receive a reward of 10,000 rupees. On the other hand, anyone found harbouring such fighters would be fined 1m rupees and their home burned down. Within a week, claims Chattan, the Taliban had been driven from the area.

Against the backdrop of rising militant violence, the establishment of traditional lashkars has been promoted by the military and the government as a homegrown means of confronting the Taliban. While some reports suggest the tribes are acting against the Taliban's efforts to impose the strictest of moral codes, there appears to be more evidence that the tribes object mainly to the militants' efforts to seize control in the areas and to criminal elements and "miscreants" who use the cloak of the Taliban to behave like mafia.

The military insists it provides the lashkars with "moral support" and encouragement but denies reports that it has supplied them with weapons or money. But the emergence of the lashkars at a time when the military is also increasing its operations, suggests at the very least a degree of central planning.

* * *

Understandably the setting-up of the lashkars remains a perilous task. The Taliban has persistently targeted tribal elders believed to be working against them. Earlier this month in the Orakzai area, more than 30 such elders from the Alizai tribe were killed in a suicide bomb attack at a meeting in the village of Ghiljo. As in the meeting in Bajaur, hundreds of people had gathered to discuss the establishment of an anti-Taliban force.

Indeed, a second meeting called by the tribal elders in Salarzai was also targeted by a suicide bomber sent by the Taliban. "He was caught, stripped of his explosive vest and then shot dead," said Chattan, the MP.

The combination of lashkars and the increasingly heavy military operations in places such as Bajaur and Swat, appears to he having some results. Last week, Maulvi Omar, a spokesman for the coalition of around 40 Taliban groups operating in the tribal areas, announced that it was prepared for unconditional talks with the government if the military halted its current actions. It also offered to help oust "foreign fighters" from the tribal areas.

"We are willing to negotiate with the government without any conditions," he told the BBC's Urdu service. "We are also willing to lay down our arms, once the military ceases operations against us."

The Pakistani government the offer. Its decision indicated either that the army believes it has the upper hand over the militants or that there is ongoing pressure from Washington to continue its military strikes. Either way, it was the first time the authorities had turned down such an offer of talks.

* * *

Inside out the bombed-out interior there is a frenzy activity. Electricians, plasterers, metal workers and general labourers are furiously at work while all around them is the evidence of destruction. There is rubble, there is twisted metal, there are bombed out windows, but there is also a determination to have the Marriott Hotel ready for a grand reopening party on New Years Eve.

On the evening of September 20, a massive truck bomb was detonated at the gates of this Islamabad landmark, creating a huge crater and doing extensive damage to the building. At least 54 people were killed, including 17 security guards on duty at the gates and doors of the building. In the aftermath of the blast, a fire raged here for hours, sending up huge plumes of smoke and delivering the chillingly clear message that no-one was safe from militant violence.

While it is not entirely clear who was responsible for the blast - one Taliban spokesman denied responsibility and there are many in Pakistan who will gladly proffer the most Byzantine of conspiracy theories - most observers believe this was another militant strike on a highly visible target. The hotel was centre stage in the working and social lives of the city's political and diplomatic elite. And while Pakistanis made up the overwhelming majority of the blast's victims, it was also clearly interpreted as an attack on a Western target.

"There were 2,000 people inside the hotel at the time. A lot of lives were saved," says Maj Tahir Qureshi, the hotel's head of security, leading a way past the flurry of labourers and clouds of cement dust. "The only thing we could do was to stop them at the entry gates. Those security guards gave their lives to stop it."

There had been deadlier bomb attacks before the Marriott blast and there have been others subsequently, but it this attack that forced a wider audience to take notice of what was going on in Pakistan. A conflict that had largely been confined to the tribal areas or else bomb attacks on military and police targets, was now taking place against a Five Star backdrop. President Asif Ali Zardari, while in New York, described the event as Pakistan's 9/11.

In the aftermath, Zardari, whose wife, Benazir Bhutto, was assassinated last December, vowed to continue the effort against militants. "Make this pain your strength," he said. "This is a menace, a cancer in Pakistan that we will eliminate. We will not be scared of these cowards."

The attack has also forced a wider debate about how best to confront the militant threat emanating from the tribal areas. Whether militarily or else through negotiation - as the West is now attempting with the Taliban in Afghanistan - Pakistan's recently-elected civilian leaders and its military have been forced to find a solution.

With so many people killed by the violence - one recent report suggested that in the first eight months of this year suicide bombings in Pakistan had killed more people than such attacks in Iraq or Afghanistan - there has also been endless soul-searching about the nature of the enemy. Noticeably this has emerged from within Pakistani society - commentators, politicians as well as ordinary people. Religious leaders have also spoken out against what is happening. Two groups of clerics have issued fatwas or religious orders against what now totals for than 100 suicide bombings since July 2007. they have killed around 1,200 people.

Peshawar sits on the very edge of the tribal areas. In the mid-80s Osama bin Laden had moved his family here from Saudi Arabia and developed his reputation as a patron of humanitarian and Arab causes and a supporter of the jihad. Today, for all its modernity and amenities, there is still a hint of the city's position as a frontier town.

The crenellated sandstone walls of a British-built fort now serve as the headquarters of the Frontier Corps. Meanwhile it along the historic trade route leading from Peshawar through the Khyber Pass and on to Kabul, that 85 per cent of the fuel used by Western forces in Afghanistan is transported. Last month the crossing point on this road into Afghanistan was temporarily closed by the Pakistani authorities because of what they said was poor security.

On a recent evening, the soft golden light of South Asia is slipping away as the faithful arrive to pray at the city's Sunehri mosque. In a large, airy upstairs classroom, the imam, Khan Mohammed Saeed, sits overseeing a group of young boys, hard at their study. The imam is no liberal; his view that Pakistan should be run according to Islamic law would alarm many both inside the country and abroad.

But asked about the militants located just miles from where he sat, he does not hesitate. "There are people in the tribal areas and the NWFP who have come to do bomb blasts and destroy our religion," he says. "Our religion does not give us permission to do these things?In none of our teachings or texts or what our learned scholars have taught, is there any permission to do these things."

WHO'S FIGHTING WHO

Military/government

Asif Ali Zardari, the Pakistan president, widely known as "Mr 10 Per Cent" over numerous corruption cases. He became leader of the main opposition party, the People's Party of Pakistan, after his wife, Benazir Bhutto, was assassinated last year, and became president following elections. Army chief of staff General Ashfaq Kayani says the army should remain out of politics but could yet change his mind.

Pakistani Taliban

The Taliban leaders in the wild and woolly tribal areas include former gym fanatic Baitullah Mehsud, wanted for the assassination of Benazir Bhutto. Maulana Fazlullah, the leader in the picturesque Swat valley (which was formerly a tourist destination) has his own clandestine FM radio station. Faqir Mohammed, in Bajaur, leads a religious group that forcibly imposed Sharia in the tribal areas during the 1990s.

Al-Qa'ida

Al-Qa'ida's leader Osama bin Laden, and his deputy, Ayman al-Zawahiri, may be hiding in the border regions of Pakistan while senior Taliban leaders may be living in the Pakistani city of Quetta.

Tribal leader

Anwar Kamal, a former minister, was the first to rally his tribesmen and form a lashkar, or tribal militia, to beat back the Taliban more than a year ago. Mr Kamal's success in clearing the town of Lakki Marwat, adjoining the tribal areas, has recently been replicated elsewhere.

Faultlines of history

1947 Muslim Pakistan is created out of the partition of India at the end of British rule. More than half a million Muslims, Sikhs and Hindus are killed in riots and massacres following the largest mass migration in history.

1980 After Soviet forces intervene in Afghanistan, the US gives Pakistan military support as they join forces with Saudi Arabia to fund the Islamic mujahedin.

1998 The country explodes five nuclear devices.

1999 General Pervez Musharraf leads a military coup. After 9/11 Pakistan becomes a key US ally in the "war on terror". But as turmoil mounts he is forced to quit.

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DECEMBER 28th 2008
The news is not good today.

Scenic Pakistani valley falls to Taliban militants

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan – Taliban militants are beheading and burning their way through Pakistan's picturesque Swat Valley, and residents say the insurgents now control most of the mountainous region far from the lawless tribal areas where jihadists thrive.

The deteriorating situation in the former tourist haven comes despite an army offensive that began in 2007 and an attempted peace deal. It is especially worrisome to Pakistani officials because the valley lies outside the areas where al-Qaida and Taliban militants have traditionally operated and where the military is staging a separate offensive.

"You can't imagine how bad it is," said Muzaffar ul-Mulk, a federal lawmaker whose home in Swat was attacked by bomb-toting assailants in mid-December, weeks after he left. "It's worse day by day."

The Taliban activity in northwest Pakistan also comes as the country shifts forces east to the Indian border because of tensions over last month's terrorist attacks in Mumbai, potentially giving insurgents more space to maneuver along the Afghan frontier.

Militants began preying on Swat's lush mountain ranges about two years ago, and it is now too dangerous for foreign and Pakistani journalists to visit. Interviews with residents, lawmakers and officials who have fled the region paint a dire picture.

A suicide blast killed 40 people Sunday at a polling station in Buner, an area bordering Swat that had been relatively peaceful. The attack underscored fears that even so-called "settled" regions presumptively under government control are increasingly unsafe.

The 3,500-square-mile Swat Valley lies less than 100 miles from the capital, Islamabad.

A senior government official said he feared there could be a spillover effect if the government lost control of Swat and allowed the insurgency to infect other areas. Like nearly everyone interviewed, the official requested anonymity for fear of reprisal by militants.

Officials estimate that up to a third of Swat's 1.5 million people have left the area. Salah-ud-Din, who oversees relief efforts in Swat for the International Committee of the Red Cross, estimated that 80 percent of the valley is now under Taliban control.

Swat's militants are led by Maulana Fazlullah, a cleric who rose to prominence through radio broadcasts demanding the imposition of a harsh brand of Islamic law. His appeal tapped into widespread frustration with the area's inefficient judicial system.

Most of the insurgents are easy to spot with long hair, beards, rifles, camouflage vests and running shoes. They number at most 2,000, according to people who were interviewed.

In some places, just a handful of insurgents can control a village. They rule by fear: beheading government sympathizers, blowing up bridges and demanding women wear all-encompassing burqas.

They have also set up a parallel administration with courts, taxes, patrols and checkpoints, according to lawmakers and officials. And they are suspected of burning scores of girls' schools.

In mid-December, Taliban fighters killed a young member of a Sufi-influenced Muslim group who had tried to raise a militia against them. The militants later dug up Pir Samiullah's corpse and hung it for two days in a village square — partly to prove to his followers that he was not a superhuman saint, a security official said on condition of anonymity.

A lawmaker and the senior Swat government official said business and landowners had been told to give two-thirds of their income to the militants. Some local media reported last week that the militants have pronounced a ban on female education effective in mid-January.

Several people interviewed said the regional government made a mistake in May when it struck a peace deal with the militants. The agreement fell apart within two months but let the insurgents regroup.

The Swat insurgency also includes Afghan and other fighters from outside the valley, security officials said.

Any movement of Pakistani troops from the Swat Valley and tribal areas to the Indian border will concern the United States and other Western countries, which want Pakistan to focus on the al-Qaida threat near Afghanistan.

On Friday, Pakistani intelligence officials said thousands of troops were being shifted toward the border with India, which blames Pakistani militants for terrorist attacks in Mumbai last month that killed 164 people. But there has been no sign yet of a major buildup near India.

"The terrorists' aim in Mumbai was precisely this — to get the Pakistani army to withdraw from the western border and mount operations on the east," said Ahmed Rashid, a journalist and author who has written extensively about militancy in the region.

"The terrorists are not going to be sitting still. They are not going to be adhering to any sort of cease-fire while the army takes on the Indian threat. They are going to occupy the vacuum the army will create."

Residents and officials from the Swat Valley were critical of the army offensive there, saying troops appeared to be confined to their posts and often killed civilians when firing artillery at suspected militant targets.

The military has deployed some 100,000 troops through the northwest.

A government official familiar with security issues estimated that some 10,000 paramilitary and army troops had killed 300 to 400 militants in Swat since 2007, while about 130 troops were killed. Authorities have not released details of civilian casualties, and it was unclear if they were even being tallied.

The official, who insisted on anonymity because of the issue's sensitivity, disputed assertions that militants had overrun the valley, but said a spotty supply line was hampering operations. He said the army had to man some Swat police stations because the police force there had been decimated by desertions and militant killings.

A Swat militant boasted that "we are doing our activities wherever we want, and the army is confined to their living places."

"They cannot move independently like us," said the man, who was reached over the phone and gave his name as Muzaffarul Haq. He claimed the Swat militants had no al-Qaida or foreign connections, but that they supported all groups that shared the goal of imposing Islamic law.

"With the grace of Allah, there is no dearth of funds, weapons or rations," he said. "Our women are providing cooked food for those who are struggling in Allah's path. Our children are getting prepared for jihad."

___

Associated Press writers Zarar Khan in Islamabad and Riaz Khan in Peshawar contributed to this report.

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DECEMBER 31 2008
Some better news

Pakistani helicopters attack militants in Khyber

JAMRUD, Pakistan (Reuters) – Pakistani army helicopters attacked militants along the Khyber Pass on Wednesday while tanks rumbled in to secure the vital supply link for Western forces in land-locked Afghanistan.

Authorities suspended the shipment of supplies up to the Afghan border on Tuesday, to clear the way for the military to launch an offensive aimed at ending surging militant attacks on the route.

"Two helicopter gunships pounded militant hideouts while troops moved with tanks to secure the area," said Jehangir Khan Afridi, an administration official in the Khyber region.

The Khyber Pass runs between the northwestern city of Peshawar and the border town of Torkham and is a vital supply line for more than 65,000 Western troops battling the Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan.

The U.S. military sends 75 percent of supplies for the Afghan war through or over Pakistan, including 40 percent of the fuel for its troops, the U.S. Defense Department says.

A second overland route is through the town of Chaman to the southwest leading to the Afghan city of Kandahar, and is likely to become more important as the United States begins moving up to 30,000 new troops into Afghanistan next year.

Militants in Khyber have been trying to choke off supplies for months and have destroyed hundreds of trucks and killed several drivers.

Many truckers have stopped working on the road and supplies had been disrupted but not cut off until authorities sealed the route temporarily on Tuesday.

A spokesman for NATO's Afghan force welcomed the effort to make the route safer and played down the impact on military operations saying the force had stocks.

Nevertheless, the attacks have exposed the vulnerability of the route and forced the alliance to look for alternatives, including through Central Asia into northern Afghanistan.

Pakistani authorities have not said how long the pass will be sealed, only saying they are determined to clear out the militants.

"NO FIRE FROM MILITANTS"

Intelligence officials said on Tuesday troops had faced pockets of militant resistance and Afridi said two important militant hideouts had been destroyed.

But officials and residents said on Wednesday most insurgents had apparently fled the Khyber region to neighboring areas.

"There has been no fire from the militants. They must have fled to remote areas or to Mohmand," said resident Irfan Afridi, referring to a neighboring region where security forces have also been fighting Pakistani Taliban insurgents.

Militants melted away in June when security forces launched a similar sweep in Khyber.

A pro-Taliban ethnic Pashtun tribal elder surrendered to authorities, promising his tribe would support security.

"We're loyal to Pakistan and the government. We will not fight security forces, offer resistance nor give shelter to militants or criminals," the tribal leader, Attaullah Khan, told Reuters.

The offensive has coincided with growing tension with old rival India after the late November militant attacks in the Indian city of Mumbai that India blamed on Pakistan-based militants.

The Pakistani military has moved some troops off its western border with Afghanistan in response to the tension.

(Writing by Augustine Anthony; Editing by Robert Birsel and Sugita Katyal)

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FEBRUARY 18th 2009

Peace is the aim, we all agree, but at what price? When is compromise appeasement, and whose business is it anyway?
Time to re-read this file fom the top?

Pakistanis rally for peace in militant stronghold

MINGORA, Pakistan – A hardline cleric led hundreds of supporters in a peace march in Pakistan's Swat Valley on Wednesday aimed at convincing Taliban militants to lay down their weapons under a pact with the government.

NATO and Britain raised concerns about the deal, which imposes Islamic law and suspends a military offensive in the one-time tourist haven that is now largely under militant control. NATO, which has 55,000 troops across the border in Afghanistan, warned the deal risked giving extremists a "safe haven."

But the U.S. reacted cautiously, with the State Department saying it was still trying to understand Pakistan's strategy.

The regional government in Pakistan's northwest struck the deal Monday with Sufi Muhammad, an aging pro-Taliban cleric who is father-in-law to Swat Taliban leader Maulana Fazlullah. Muhammad agreed to talk to Fazlullah in return for the pledge to introduce Islamic law in the valley, where militants have routed the police, beheaded political opponents and burned scores of schools for girls.

Muhammad and his supporters, carrying black and white flags representing the Taliban and peace, marched through Swat's main city of Mingora as jubilant residents chanted "God is great! We want peace!"

Fighting between security forces and militants has killed hundreds of people in Swat over the past year, while up to a third of the valley's 1.5 million people have fled. While many Swat residents are desperate for calm, critics warned the deal could embolden militants.

The truce "is certainly reason for concern," NATO spokesman James Appathurai said Tuesday in Brussels. "We should all be concerned by a situation in which extremists would have a safe haven."

A statement from the British High Commission in Islamabad noted, "Previous peace deals have not provided a comprehensive and long-term solution to Swat's problems."

"We need to be confident that they will end violence — not create space for further violence," it said.

Pakistani officials insist the deal is not a concession, but rather that it addresses the long-standing demands of residents in Swat and surrounding areas for a more efficient justice system.

The main changes involve already existing regulations that were never enforced, for instance, allowing religious scholars to advise judges, officials said. There are no publicized plans to ban girls from schooling, as hardline Taliban would want.

"We will not introduce the Taliban system here," Bashir Bilour, a senior provincial government leader, said Wednesday. "This is a system about justice. It is for producing swift justice."

Federal Information Minister Sherry Rehman has said President Asif Ali Zardari would not sign off on the agreement "until peace is restored in the region." The Swat Taliban, meanwhile, have said they will stop fighting once Islamic law is in place and are already observing a cease-fire.

When pressed by reporters at the State Department on Tuesday spokesman Gordon Duguid said the U.S. was seeking a "fuller explanation" from Pakistan.

"As I understand it, Islamic law is within the constitutional framework of Pakistan," he added. "So I don't know that that is particularly an issue for anyone outside of Pakistan to discuss."

Pakistan's longtime rival India, still angry over the November attacks in Mumbai that it blamed on Pakistani militants, reacted to the Swat deal Tuesday by describing the Taliban as terrorists.

"Taliban believes in nothing but destruction and violence," Indian External Affairs Minister Pranab Mukherjee told reporters Tuesday. "In my assessment, Taliban is a danger to humanity and civilization."

The muted U.S. response was a sign of an Obama administration wary about weakening an already fragile Pakistani government that Washington needs to help fight Islamic militants using Pakistan to stage attacks on U.S.-led forces in Afghanistan.

Muhammad was detained in 2002 after he sent thousands of volunteers to fight the U.S. in Afghanistan, but Pakistan freed him last year after he agreed to renounce violence. It is unclear how much influence he has over Fazlullah or exactly where and when they would meet.

"We will soon open dialogue with the Taliban. We will ask them to lay down their weapons. We are hopeful that they will not let us down," Muhammad told reporters Tuesday.

A similar deal in Swat last year collapsed in a few months and was blamed for giving insurgents time to regroup.

Some 2,000 militants are believed to operate in the valley and in defiance of some 10,000 paramilitary and army troops have already set up their own courts, meting out punishments in line with an exceptionally harsh brand of Islamic law.

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MARCH 3rd 2009
The security situation is Pakistan is catastrophic. A week or two back senior security men in the region that includes Lahore were sacked and replaced with new but inexperienced officers. What this has to do with what happened yesterday is not yet clear. What is clear is that fanatics similar to the group that attacked in Mumbai (or Bombay as most Indians call it) attacked the Sri Lankan Cricket team on their way to the stadium. The team were lucky as their driver trod on the gas and made it to the stadium. Their police escort was massacred. The bus with the referee and umpires fared badly with the driver killed, some badly wounded. No police backup arrived till the gunmen were long gone and none have been found, only a large arms cache they left behind. I have no need to add to the comments below.

MARCH 12th 2009
Major problems are now coming to together and threatening Pakistan with a real crisis in government. Some of the legal establishment is in opposition to the government, and the Taliban are terrorising a whole new area of the country into submission by wholesale murder of women who do not wear the clothing they demand and abandon their independence and education.

New generations of suicide bombers are being trained from childhood by intensive brainwashing that leaves them as zombies incapable of critical thought. Watch this programme http://www.channel4.com/programmes/dispatches.
Pakistani journalist Sharmeen Obaid-Chinoy reveals how the war on terror is creating a generation of child terrorists in her homeland

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MARCH 15th 2009
A compromise has been reached on the re-instatement of the Chief Justice sacked by Musharraf. That seems to have calmed down the public unrest recently drummed up on this issue. A good thing too. Pakistan has enough real problems without that on every front, economic, social, religious, military and just plain insurgency by those with no other way to vent their frustration or fanaticism.

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MARCH 30th 2009
A sad day indeed, with innocent casualties. But it has to come to this if violent, intransigent elements remain implacably opposed to the institution of a modern state, a democratic dialogue, the emancipation of women and an attempt at a peaceful and sustainable future.

12 die in bloody siege at Pakistan police academy

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20090331/ap_on_re_as/as_pakistan

Control was regained by the end of the afternoon with much celebration but sadness for the dead and injured.

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MAY 5th 2009
'A dog's breakfast' was how Jeremy Paxman described the situation today in Pakistan and the Pakistani High Commissioner in London agreed. That is not to say the Pakistani government had not done its best to govern properly. It was right, using the democratic process, to seek a compromise with the Taliban to bring peace to the troubled disctrict of Swat. But the policy has failed for a number of reasons, al Qaida being a main one. There is no choice left now for Pakistan other than for its military commanders to get their act together with the elected government and make it clear there is only one government and one rule of law. The Taleban must give way to the march of history and allow the country to join the world where the minimum human rights are part of a citizen's birthright. Some will call it civil wat no doubt, but there is no real democratic support for the fanatical fundamentalists - they base their political hold on terror, the promise of life on their terms, or death by murder without a hearing of the unarmed and defenceless who disagree with them.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/7959100.stm
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/south_asia/8033260.stm

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MAY 6th 2009
The moment of truth has arrived.

Pakistan military ordered to eliminate militants: PM

ISLAMABAD (AFP) – Pakistani Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani announced Thursday that the military had been ordered to eliminate militants and "terrorists," appealing to the nation to stand against extremists.

He addressed the nation after attack helicopters and war planes pounded suspected Taliban hideouts in the deadliest fighting in the northwest district of Swat since a peace agreement was reached in February.

"In order to restore honour and dignity of our homeland, and to protect people, the armed forces have been called to eliminate the militants and terrorists," the prime minister said.

Gilani said militant efforts to disrupt peace and security had reached such a stage that the government believed "decisive steps" had to be taken.

Thousands of civilians streamed out of the Taliban stronghold and former tourist resort on foot or crammed into cars in the face of the onslaught, as the Red Cross warned that the humanitarian crisis was escalating.

"I appeal to the international community that they should help Pakistan look after the internally displaced persons at this point of time and also cooperate with us to enhance the capability of our law-enforcing institutions," Gilani said.

"I urge the people to unite to ensure the sovereignty and integrity of the country," added Gilani, wearing traditional Pakistani dress in a departure from the Western suits he frequently favours.

"The government has decided that they will not bow before the extremists and terrorists, but would rather force them to lay down arms," he said.

"The time has come when the entire nation should side with the government and the armed forces against those who want to make the entire country hostage and darken our future at gunpoint," the prime minister added.

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OCTOBER 10th 2009
RAWALPINDI, Pakistan – Heavily armed militants were holding up to 15 soldiers hostage inside Pakistan's army headquarters Sunday, more than 16 hours after they stormed the complex in an audacious assault on the heart of the most powerful institution in this nuclear-armed country.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091010/ap_on_re_as/as_pakistan

OCTOBER 11th 2009
Pakistani commandos mounted a successful assault to rescue the hostages but 3 were killed along with 17 militants.
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20091011/ap_on_re_as/as_pakistan

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OCTOBER 15th 2009
40 killed as militants ambush Pakistani police
http://news.yahoo.com/s/afp/20091015/wl_asia_afp/pakistanunrest

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OCTOBER 18th 2009
Further attacks and suicide bombings were launched by militant insurgents throughout Pakistan over the last 2 days. These are considered as a pre-emptive strike to counter a major offensive being prepared by the Pakistan Army; however, they have served only to rally public support for a serious attempt to break the hold of the Taliban and al Qaida. The gloves are now off and the fighting will be tough and deadly for both sides. The major problem will be, as in Afghanistan, the difficulty of holding and securing, with a policed civil administration, the areas where the militants have been defeated. More than 20,000 civilians have fled the areas of fighting in South Waziristan, and 100,000 in all aeas in the last few days. It is a truly terrible period for the region and there is no way I can see of avoiding a long and bloody struggle.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/south_asia/8313317.stm

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NOVEMBER 29th 2009
Gordon Brown has told Pakistan to make more effort to capture bin Laden, and a US Senate committee has concluded US forces had bin Laden in their grasp years ago but let him escape.

My opinion: The US did not want to catch Bin Laden at that moment. They wanted him to be a queen bee attracting key collaborators and traceable communications to money, arma and explosives. Unfortunately he outwitted them. Now, it is much harder to get him as he has years of experience and people on his payroll with nothing to gain and all to lose. Brown may not appreciate the danger and pain in the task he wants Pakistan to pursue even more vigorously. They are going to need help. Or bin Laden may be dying anyway, or dead.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/uk_politics/8384994.stm

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DECEMBER 18th
The news from Pakistan is not good. Their supreme court has voided the amnesties that allowed the election to take place, so all the alleged corruption cases involving many members of the current government are now to be reopened. This is occurring at the same time it has become apparent that relations with US forces and aid workers and the Pakistani people are not good. It seems US operatives do not have the diplomatic touch, and Pakistani bureaucrats are doing more than bombers to frustrate both military and civil progress where Americans are involved, even in the transfer of dollars to Pakistan to pay for its anti-terror operation expenses. US diplomats are being harrassed.

The country is divided, and the gloves are off domestically. Elections only resolve matters when a population accepts the result and authority is only challengeable by legal means that cannot re-instate the status quo ante or whatever it is called, or new electoral process.

We shall see now what will happen. I was optimistic that with Obama in the White House, trust by a clear majority of the Pakistani people would be restored. Now it looks more complex. My optimism for the region is on hold.

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JULY 24th 2010
Back in the 'old routine'?

From The Independent

A general tightens his grip on power in Pakistan

World Focus: General Ashfaq Pervez Kayani

By Omar Waraich

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/a-general-tightens-his-grip-on-power-in-pakistan-2034068.html

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JULY 31st 2010
We have reached a moment where something is going to give. Pakistan is suffering. They are in the front line of a terrorist movement that cannot be said to be of their own making, even if they are vulnerable to the disease. David Cameron has accused the Pakistan security services of looking both ways, and he could well be right, but anyone who has the imagination to transplant their minds into Pakistani society at the various levels and historically generated situations that now constitute that country cannot fail to appreciate the complexity and intensity of the pressures that bear on individuals and organisations caught in this overheated environment.

Those who are looking both ways are in many cases just trying to stay alive. In the Pakistani Army, they have taken terrible casualties in the fight against al Qaida and the Taliban. In this fight, families can find themselves opposed. Religious and political ideas and traditions, loyalties and property ownership which for some are keys to their identity can tear at the heart of their motivation. Fear and desire and exhaustion can vie for supremacy in the mind of those caught up in the tide of humanity that seeks day after day, week after week, to obtain a foothold in a shifting world. In the security service, there are people who like others have families, wives and children. In a world where terorist organisations have formed and modern technology gives power to those with no morl constraint, many people find they are made offers they cannot refuse.

As I write, England and Pakistan are playing Test Cricket at Trent Bridge - a great match to watch, taking place in an excellent sporting atmosphere. The Pakistan players have at times been quite wrongly accused by Geoff Boycott of not playing at Test level, and of joking after dropping a catch, only completely dumbfound him not long afterwards with superb bowling and fielding. Their morale is high and the outcome of this match and series is far from predictable. But even as this excellent sporting contest ensues the political tensions are rising as Pakistan security officials cancel a visit to London in protest at Cameron's remarks, made in the heart of the Indian establishment, complaining that Pakistan was 'exporting terror'.

I have no doubt that there is a serious problem in Pakistan in realising a coherent, unified stance on how to approach the management of real problems that Taliban and al Qaida can fasten on and, through funding that comes by circuitous means from western users of oil, recruit and fund terrorism. To take hold of the situation while retaining all the trappings of democracy that are the luxury of western countries is next to impossible. I have no doubt that straight talking is needed when facing these problems. But criticising Pakistan publicly, in India, does not seem to me to be the right way to behave.  Pakistan is suffering terribly.

They have just lost an Airbus-full on an approach to Islamabad that went wrong. If that plane had been full of Americans we would be hearing about it every day for the next decade but it seems there were only 2 on board.

And now this: http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20100731/ap_on_re_as/as_pakistan_floods

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AUGUST 3rd 2010
The most serious remark so far from the President of Pakistan, now coming on a visit to London, is not that we are losing the war against the Taliban but (not reported in the report linked here) that the battle for hearts and minds in Pakistan has already been lost. This makes very little sense. many, even most Pakistanis may be disillusioned and furious with the US and its allies for fighting the war in a way that has brought too much terror and destruction to the region instead, so far, of eliminating or even reducing it, even if in Afghanistan there is progress at this time. But to say that the Taliban has won the hearts of Pakistanis or Afghans in anything near a majority is clearly a mile away from reality. That could never happen.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-10847801

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AUGUST 6th 2010
There has been much criticism of the President of Pakistan for coming to London, totally unjustified, typically from Yasmin Alibhai Brown who spouts rubbish daily as usual. The rest of the panel on BBC's Any Questions agreed with her. There is not the slightest good he could be doing back in Pakistan, while on the other hand his international tour is important. Some are complaining that he is not here on an official state visit. How stupid is that!?! A state visit is the last thing required. A visit for serious talks with Cameron, and with others he has seen on his way here, was exactly what was needed. Pakistan needs a lot of international support, its President should be making himself known, now is exactly the moment to be doing it.

Daily we have to listen to clueless remarks from BBC presenters who ask such questions as "Why do you think help has not reached so many people in the flooded area" (that gem from Martha Kearney a day or two ago). Can we send these people back to school to learn about mathematics, geometry, water, numbers, methods of transport, time and distance calculations? No need for calculus, keep it simple. Who does she suppose should have arrived where and how and with what? Those who are in the middle of this catastrophe should see that their problems are one of the reasons why others trying to reach them have similar ones as they get to the region, quite apart from anything else. The same nonsense was trotted out in New Orleans on day one when a lone commentator flown in with the resources of the BBC wondered why he was not surrounded by soldier and ambulances and nurses, when all the communications were down, the hospitals inaccessible and admittedly hopeless arrangements made in advance and Bush in charge.

I would like everyone to understand there is NO WAY aid can be got to more than a fraction of these people. If an area like that were to be similarly flooded in the middle of Europe it would be impossible to get aid to more than a fraction. Indeed we might find it even more difficult because so many sources of aid would be flooded. In the case of Pakistan the sources of aid may not be flooded but are remote, while those in need of aid are spread throughout an immense area and unreachable by normal means. All they can do is try not to drown and await for drops of food and drinking water to the extent that their needs can be known and matched, and then wait for the floods to drain.

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AUGUST 24th 2010
We have had to listen for days of commentators blaming the troubles for the flooded areas in Pakistan on a lack of money and generosity by the international community. For some reason they seem to think money is a help in these circumstances. Not really, beyond a certain amount so that those able to provide food, water and above all the means to fly,drive or boat it in. The number of aerial and other craft available cannot be expanded instantly just because funds are available. I doubt very much if a shortage of funds is the reason why aid has not reached all those who aere in need. One brave Pakistani who thought his home and property was totally lost was of the opinion that he and many others would be much better off if they had drowned than surviving without any means of self-support. However, iof he does survive he may find that a spirit of rebuilding may provide this if there is a way to engage the survivors and see that they are fed.

Meanwhile in South Africa a hospital cleaner is defiantly on strike because her wages are not enough to bring up a family of 10. I can't imagine how they could be.

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AUGUST 31st 2010
Some realism has finally crept into the reporting of these events and the real, instandtand growing difficulties faced by the victims and also by those bringing assistance. The most important thing to understand is that it is the behaviour of all on the spot that is the key to survival.

At least they will have things to bother about slightly more pressing than the test-match, though some good may come out of the exposure of the betting scam.

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SEPTEMBER 18th 2010

An exiled Pakistani politician has been murdered outside his home in north London, leaders of his party have said.

Imran Farooq, a senior member of the MQM party who has been in London since 1999, was attacked in Green Lane, Edgware, on Thursday evening.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-11338054

The MQM Party is seen by its supporters as the hope for stability, by its opponents as fascistic. How often is such a situation repeated throughout human history. In the case of Pakistan, stability has been achieved rarely and briefly without military intervention. The cross-currents formed by conflicts of history, ethnicity, religion, legalism, tribalism and attempts at representative democracy have been enough to keep the pot from boilimg over only when some mix of physical and religious fear has somehow combined with a workable modus vivendi to allow peaceful coexistence to emerge as the lesser evil. It might have been thought that the terrible flood disaster could have united the country more than divide it, but the violent and fanatic have sought only to turn it to their advantage and the military, while heroic in their efforts to combat both nature and extremists, are stretched beyond the limit. It is hard to know what Britain, the EU, NATO, the US or the UN can do separately or together to bring more aid or further the means for Pakistanis to come together in common cause. The essentials of life: food, clothing, shelter and security have been drastically reduced, along with the means to restore them. At a time when only fellowship and the sharing of resources can bring relief, the instincts of competition are not exactly helpful to the cause of national survival. Assassinating those with leadership qualities is not helpful when only if such leaders come together in coalition is there a possibility of progress.

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OCTOBER 4th 2010

Pakistan has stopped Nato convoys crossing the Khyber Pass in response to a Nato air strike last week in which three Pakistani soldiers were killed.

Nato said on Monday it regretted the deaths.

Unfortunately the Taliban have taken advantage of this. I am afraid we are about to go through an even more testing time in Pakistan and Afghanistan this month. Al Qaida and the Taliban are going to pile on the pressure there and globally.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-11463490

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OCTOBER 5th 2010
More air strikes: http://uk.news.yahoo.com/18/20101005/twl-us-drone-strike-kills-german-militan-2802f3e.html
That one seems to have got the intended targets.

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OCTOBER 30th 2010
There are two ways of looking at this problem:

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-11655269

Either in astonishment that so much aid has been delivered or in frustration that there are some for whom there has so far been little or none. I have not been able to do the math on this one and I doubt if anyone else has either, but how could it be possible to ensure that all who deserve and need assistance get it in a situation where the very infrastructure of communication and subsistence has been so widely destroyed? If money alone could solve such problems we could indeed print it without fear or damage. It can't, and that is why printing it can bring more poverty unless it represents available human and natural resources.

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JANUARY 4th 2011
A senseless and tragic killing of a brave man. Sadly it is a symptom of a very wide malaise, not an isolated exceptional incident.

The influential governor of Pakistan's Punjab province, Salman Taseer, has died after being shot by one of his bodyguards in the capital, Islamabad.

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-12111831

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JANUARY 18th 2011
Last updated at 20:58

Strong earthquake hits south-west Pakistan

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-12222081

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MAY 22nd 2011
A SERIOUS ATTACK ON HUGE NAVAL AVIATION BASE AT KARACHI
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-south-asia-13495969

We can expect this spring/summer to be the peak of Taliban/al Qaida attacks in Pakistan, Afghanistan and elsewhere.

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JANUARY 13th 2012

I have refrained from all comment in this file on Pakistan concerning the Bin Laden business. The man is dead now and it is time to move on. But Pakistan is in crisis and at this stage in the past there would be a military coup. Now, however, we are in a different pickle and the military will not want to be landed with the responsibility. If the current President is to resign or be removed it can only be by an alliance of the military with the legislature and with some attempt at an interim government leading to a new election. We can only watch and wait.

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