Top Pak scientist warns of extremist threat to n-weapons

By Hasan Suroor

Pakistani nuclear scientist Pervez Hoodbhoy has spoken of growing fears in Pakistan that its nuclear arsenal could be “hijacked” by extremists as a result of “increasing radicalisation” of the Army.

He said such fears were initially expressed mostly in the west but were now widely shared within Pakistan after “repeated” extremist attacks on Army installations, including the ISI headquarters in Lahore. These could not have taken place without “some sort of inside information”.

“There’s a fair degree of concern that because of increasing radicalisation of Pakistani Army, the country’s nuclear weapons could be hijacked by extremists,” he said speaking to a group of Indian journalists at the launch of his book, Confronting the Bomb: Pakistani & Indian Scientists Speak Out, a collection of essays by Indian and Pakistani scientists who believe that the acquisition of nuclear weapons by the two countries was “undesirable” and had put the entire subcontinent in danger.

Mr. Hoodbhoy, who has often been a target of the Pakistani establishment, said Pakistan’s nuclear capability had given a new dimension to its campaign against India. Islamabad saw it as a “counter-force” to overcome India’s military superiority and was providing a “nuclear umbrella” to jihadis engaged in anti-India activities.

Pervez Hoodbhoy interview: The Mumbai massacres and Pakistan’s new nightmares

“If Pakistan did not have nuclear weapons, Kargil would not have happened. My contention is that it was the first instance that nuclear weapons actually caused a war, ‘’ he said.

Warning of continued jihadi threat to India, he said: “Today India is faced with a very difficult situation because jihadis are still operating in Pakistan with the sanction of the state and they are provided cover by the fact that Pakistan has nuclear weapons.”

Pakistani cleric: catalyst for change or military stooge?

By Matthew Green and Mubasher Bukhari

LAHORE, Pakistan (Reuters): A month ago, Muhammad Tahirul Qadri was living quietly in Canada, immersed in the affairs of his Islamic charity and seemingly far removed from the pre-election power games shaping the fate of politicians in his native Pakistan.

In the past three weeks, he has returned home to lead a call for electoral reforms that has earned him instant celebrity, sent a stab of anxiety through the ruling class and raised fears of trouble at a planned rally in Islamabad on Monday.

“Our agenda is just democratic electoral reforms,” Qadri told Reuters in the eastern city of Lahore, the headquarters of his Minhaj-ul-Quran religious foundation. “We don’t want the law-breakers to become our lawmakers.”

Inquilab zindabad!

By:Kunwar Khuldune Shahid

How is Bhagat Singh more Indian than Pakistani?

Revolutionaries never die; definitely not until what they strived for is achieved. They can also reincarnate when liberation is threatened by incarceration. The cause they fought for can wake up again, the struggle they gave birth to can be born again, the noise they generated can resonate again, the slogans they chanted can reverberate again – if recent events are anything to go by, Lahore should echo with “Inquilab zindabad!” again.

Bhagat Singh’s revolution could reawaken 81 years after the British hanged him in Lahore. The indirect skirmishes between the Tehreek Hurmat-e-Rasool (THK) led fundamentalists and the Dilkash Lahore Committee, over renaming Fawwara Chowk (or Shadman Chowk) back to its pre-partition name of ‘Bhagat Singh Chowk’, is a throwback to the clash between suppression and freedom that the man gave his life for. Apparently dying for the sake of the independence of this country and its people isn’t reason enough for the square – where he was hanged on 23 March, 1931, aged 23 – to be named after the freedom fighter himself. It is a pity that people and groups, who now have the luxury to openly express themselves – something that they didn’t have back then –, choose their expression to oppose tributes to those very personalities that made this freedom possible, owing to their religious identity.

Pakistani businessman accused of blasphemy for not protesting anti-Islam film

By Associated Press

ISLAMABAD — Pakistani officials say they have opened an investigation into a businessman who has been accused of blasphemy after refusing to join protests over an anti-Islam video and allegedly trying to convince others also not to take part.

Police officer Munir Abbasi says that hundreds of protesters in the city of Hyderabad who rallied against the film that mocks the Prophet Muhammad demanded businessman Haji Nasrullah Khan shut his shops in solidarity.

When Khan refused, one of his tenants said his decision supported the film.

City police chief Fareed Jan said Wednesday the protesters claim Khan insulted the Prophet.

Jan said there’s no evidence to suggest this happened and said police were pressured by the mob to open the case. ….

Read more » The Washington Post

http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/asia_pacific/pakistani-businessman-accused-of-blasphemy-for-not-protesting-anti-islam-film/2012/09/19/713c3c28-0258-11e2-9132-f2750cd65f97_story.html?wprss=rss_social-world-headlines&Post+generic=%3Ftid%3Dsm_twitter_washingtonpost

Pakistani Canadians on Rimsha Case, Blasphemy Law & Hate Litrature in Pakistani text books

Courtesy: Rawal Tv » Bilatakalluf with Tahir Gora & Munir Saami – 8th Sept 2012 » YouTube

“Praise be to God mujahideen (Taliban) in Bajaur agency have managed to kill the infidel soldiers of Pakistan,” says Taliban Commander

Taliban release video of severed heads

KHAR: Pakistani Taliban released a video showing what appeared to be the severed heads of a dozen soldiers on Friday as security officials said 15 troops were missing following fighting with militants.

The clashes on Tuesday came as part of a Pakistan army operation to repel Taliban militants who had crossed over from Kunar province in Afghanistan last Friday and occupied the village of Batwar in the Bajaur tribal district.

“At least 15 of our soldiers are still missing,” a senior security official told AFP.

Another security official said “more or less” that many soldiers were missing but declined to give the exact total.

Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) spokesman Sirajud Din sent AFP a video showing a militant commander posing with 12 heads arranged on the ground which he claimed were from soldiers they had killed.

“Praise be to God that the mujahideen in Bajaur agency have managed to kill the infidel soldiers of Pakistan,” he says.

“Many of them were killed by bullets, 12 of them as you see have been beheaded, you see 12 heads here, and more heads are on the way.” The commander, his face unmasked and wearing traditional tribal dress, is flanked in the footage by around a dozen armed men including one wielding a huge axe.

The video showed belongings from the dead men laid out on a sheet, including Pakistani identity cards, camouflage pattern helmets, Pakistani currency, mobile phones and bank cards.

Military sources have so far not said whether they are the missing soldiers or confirmed that those shown in the video are Pakistani troops. …..

Read more » The News

http://www.thenews.com.pk/article-65746-Taliban-release-video-of-severed-heads

Pakistani Taliban threatens attacks on military

By: AFP

ISLAMABAD: The Pakistani Taliban on Monday warned the country’s military it had set up a “suicide bombers squad” to hit troops if an offensive is launched in a restive tribal area bordering Afghanistan.

In an email message sent to media, Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan, an umbrella militant group, said it had received “an exclusive intelligence report” about the offensive in North Waziristan from its “sources” in army headquarters.

TTP spokesman Ehsanullah Ehsan outlined details about the regiments and units and the possible commander for the campaign, said to be launched on August 26 for one month.

“TTP has also prepared itself for resistance, we have set up a suicide bombers squad to welcome (the) army. We will defeat our enemy, whom is defending secular, unIslamic system of Pakistan by punching them back hard InshaAllah (God willing),” Ehsan said.

Corruption charges hit Pakistani `Sesame Street’

by: CNN, Priyanka Boghani

(CNN) – No more “sunny days sweeping the clouds away” in Pakistan as its version of ‘”Sesame Street” gets its funding cut due to fraud charges, according to Reuters.

The United States has withdrawn funding for the Pakistani version of the American children’s television series known for its educational content and colorful puppets.  The U.S. Agency for International Aid received reports of corruption charges on the production company, Rafi Peer Theatre Workshop, through an anti-fraud hotline, according to U.S. State Department spokesman Mark Toner. Exact details of the graft weren’t provided.

The show, which began airing six months ago, features Elmo with a cast of local characters. The funding cut comes just six weeks after the U.S. Ambassador Cameron Munter visited the set of “Sim Sim Hamara,” the Pakistani name for the series, “to reaffirm the U.S. Government’s commitment to children’s education in Pakistan,” according to a USAID press release.

The U.S. had originally allocated $20 million to produce the show and $6.7 million of this has already been spent, according to press agency reports.

According to reports from Pakistan Today, the money was used to pay off Rafi Peer’s debts. The funding was also used to award lucrative salaries to family members, many of whom worked in the company.

US synagogue welcomes Muslims seeking a place to pray

Muslims around the world are gathering for Friday prayers, and in one neighbourhood in the US state of Virginia, the worshippers will enter a building that could hardly be further from a traditional mosque.

At a time when religious differences are sparking conflict in the Middle East and beyond – it is cooperation between two faiths which is allowing this unique programme flourish.

The BBC’s Katty Kay reports on how the Jewish community opened its doors because the area’s mosques could not accommodate all of the growing Muslim population.

Courtesy: BBC

http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-19289226

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» →» Israeli, Pakistani news agencies launch joint media venture

Pakistani Hindus seek asylum in India – NewsX

NewsX@9 is a NewsX special show which debates the main news event of the day. A group of some 250 Pakistani Hindus were today allowed to cross over to India for a pilgrimage after being detained at the Wagah land border crossing due to a controversy over reports that they planned to migrate to the neighbouring country. The Hindus protested at the Wagah border crossing after they were detained for almost seven hours.

Immigration authorities finally allowed the Hindus to cross the frontier at about 2.30 pm. The kidnapping of a teenage Hindu girl, Manisha Kumari, from Jacobabad city of Sindh province on August 7 had sparked widespread concern in the minority community amidst reports of an exodus of some 250 Hindus from the region. Confusion surrounded the travel plans of the Hindus from Sindh and Balochistan. Some TV news channels reported they had decided to migrate to India because of forced conversions, extortion and kidnapping. So we debate today – Why are minorities unsafe in Pakistan? We debate the question on the show and try to evolve consensus among our panelists over the issue. Watch this NewsX special NewsX@9.

Courtesy: NewsX » YouTube

British-Pakistani father who killed his daughter, loved discos, sexy clothes and white girls when he was single!

He loved discos, sexy clothes and white girls, says first wife of Shafilea Ahmed’s killer father

By Helen Weathers

Yesterday Farzana and Iftikhar Ahmed were jailed for 25 years for the murder of their 17-year-old daughter, who they considered too Western.

Now Mr Ahmed’s first wife, a Danish women who he met in the 1980s, has revealed that the killer was formerly a fun-loving and gregarious young man with a love of Western life and white women.

As a young man, Iftikhar Ahmed — or ‘Bazza’ as he liked to be known back then — could not have embraced Western life more enthusiastically.

Fun-loving and gregarious, he cut quite a dash at parties and discos in his tight jeans and sunglasses.

Born into a strict Muslim Pakistani family, but raised in Britain, he shunned tradition by dating white girls and rejected an arranged marriage for a love match with a woman outside his culture.

Read more: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2183453/Shafilea-Ahmed-father-He-loved-discos-sexy-clothes-white-girls-says-wife-Iftikhar-Ahmed.html#ixzz22bn7bFFT

Via – Twitter » TF’s tweet

Pakistani Liberals Are No Leap of Faith

This beleaguered minority in the country still deserves international support.

BY SADANAND DHUME

This isn’t the best time to be a Pakistani liberal. Opinion polling shows most Pakistanis thinking of America as an enemy, democracy as an unwelcome concept and the imposition of Shariah law as a no-brainer. Meanwhile, recent news out of the country involves the judiciary taking down an elected prime minister and politicians like Imran Khan riding high by invoking anti-imperialist and Islamist ideas, even as an Urdu-language media remains saturated with hyper-nationalism.

Against this backdrop, the world can’t be blamed for regarding the Pakistani liberal as an exotic hothouse flower with no roots in the country’s unforgiving soil. As the United States enters a shaky new period of detente with Pakistan following the reopening last week of supply routes to Afghanistan, it’s fair to ask if these liberals deserve notice at all. Doesn’t it make more sense for the West to instead engage more intensely with the powerful army and assertive hardliners such as Mr. Khan?

The answer is no. It’s always tempting for the West to do business with whoever’s powerful, but this is a recipe for the kind of trouble America right now faces with its troublesome “ally.” Pakistan’s liberals are not only less weak and less of a fringe phenomenon than they’re made out to be, they’re also the only ones who hold out the promise of a better future for their country.

One recurring complaint against liberalism is that though Pakistan regained its democracy four years ago, President Asif Ali Zardari’s civilian government still can’t wrest decision-making away from the military. But no civilian government could realistically be expected to immediately assert its authority over an army that has directly ruled the country for 34 of its 65 years, and continues to command the lion’s share of national resources. As the experiences of Indonesia and Turkey show, only when democracy grows roots do politicians acquire the finesse and self-confidence to take on generals accustomed to command. This takes patience.

Toronto Sun – Pakistani Consulate General official in Toronto recalled over sex assault allegation

Pakistani consular official recalled over sex assault allegation

By Maryam Shah, Toronto Sun

TORONTO – An official with the Consulate General of Pakistan in Toronto has been recalled following an inquiry into a sexual assault allegation.

The married father of two allegedly assaulted a female passport applicant inside the North York consulate in February.

Toronto Police were not called to investigate the matter. Consular officials conducted their own investigation which wrapped up late last month.

After collecting statements from both sides, the investigative committee declared the man was “totally unfit” for government service.

The committee “held the accused guilty of trying to use his position to coax the victim into a locked room with malicious intentions of molesting/physically assaulting her,” said a consular report obtained by the Toronto Sun.

The June 23 report shows that the allegation was reported on Feb. 12 by a “respected community member.” The consular official allegedly took the victim “into an isolated locked room.”

The victim is identified as a Pakistani-Canadian woman from Thorncliffe. The report states that the employee was in charge of MRP (machine-readable passport) processing.

The only people aware of the allegation were the accused, the victim, and committee members.

“Inquiry officers were told to type notes themselves to keep the inquiry confined within the four walls of the office,” reads the report, signed by acting consul general Imran Ali.

The document also states that the woman “did not go to Toronto law enforcement authorities on our assurances that we would hold an impartial inquiry and the culprit would be brought to justice.”

Sources confirmed no attempt was made to stop the woman from going to Toronto Police when the allegation first came to light.

The report also states that the RCMP was informed about the inquiry “to pre-empt embarrassment” if the victim later contacted the authorities. It later acknowledged the possible “negative consequences” if the victim contacted Canadian law enforcement or media.

Pakistani general ‘Tiger Niazi’ was obsessed to change the “Nasl of buzdil Bengalis”

‘Genetic engineering’ in East Pakistan

By Khaled Ahmed

Pakistan’s name has been blackened by just one man: General AAK ‘Tiger’ Niazi. According to a new book by Oxford University Press, he is supposed to have pronounced the words that even Genghis Khan would have hesitated to use: that he would let loose his soldiers on the women of East Pakistan till the lineage/ethnicity of the Bengali race was changed.

The account has come from a true son of Pakistan, late Major-General (retd) Khadim Hussain Raja in his recently published book A Stranger in My Own Country: East Pakistan, 1969-1971 (OUP, 2012). The book is posthumously published probably because it was a hot potato in the times it was actually written. He was General Officer Commanding 14 Division in East Pakistan.

The Pakistani Matrix

By: Sabir Nazar

By the grace of God, mission accomplished. From now onwards the 3rd of July would be celebrated along with 6th September, when the enemy’s tooth were made sour (dant khatay kar deye). The word ‘SORRY’ has restored our honourable and respectable position among the committee of nations. It’s a great moral victory of our principle stand on the Torkham Pass and the nation’s victory over the sole super power of the planet.

The sovereignty and integrity of our borders has been accepted and recognised by the superpower and soon will be recognised by our brothers of Fata also, who have been misguided by foreign agents. Here are the details of our victory over the infidel Christian forces that are fighting an unjust war against our student brothers. Like the Ivans before them these Joes are going to face the same fate. InshAllah!

Pakistani Jihadi group Lashkar-e-Tayyiba (LeT) that atacked Mumbai, is more dangerous than Al Qaeda says Bruce Riedel

. Mumbai Terror Attack Group Lashkar e Tayyiba Now More Dangerous Than Al Qaeda

With the 9/11 terrorist group on the ropes, the organization that masterminded the 2008 Mumbai attacks has become the world’s most dangerous, says Bruce Riedel.

By Bruce Riedel

The arrest of Sayeed Zabiuddin Ansari, alias Abu Jindal, at New Delhi airport late last month is a major breakthrough in the investigation of the deadliest terror attack in the world since 9/11. Abu Jindal was one of the masterminds of the November 2008 attack on the city of Mumbai in which 166 people were killed, including six Americans. He is already confessing to his role and implicating Pakistan’s Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) directorate directly in controlling the attack as it went down.

The November 2008 attack by ten Lashkar e Tayyiba (LeT) terrorists on multiple targets in Mumbai, India was the most significant and innovative terrorist attack since 9/11. It marked the maturation of LeT from a Punjabi-based Pakistani terror group targeting India exclusively to a member of the global Islamic jihad targeting the enemies of al Qaeda: the Crusader West, Zionist Israel, and Hindu India. LeT used cell phones and GPS technology to terrorize an entire city and grab global attention for three days. LeT’s masterminds ran the operation in real time from a headquarters in Pakistan, even issuing death sentences to innocents.

Abu Jindal, an Indian citizen traveling with a Pakistani passport, was in the control room in Karachi in 2008 talking on the phone to the ten terrorists. He gave them advice on where to look for more victims in the Taj Hotel, for example, and instructed them when to murder their hostages. His voice was recorded by the Indian authorities listening in on the phone calls and has since been replayed in chilling detail by the Indian police for all to hear.

According to press reports from India, Jindal was arrested on June 21 after being deported from Saudi Arabia to India. The arrest operation was a joint counter-terrorism effort by India, Saudi Arabia, and the U.S. Abu Jindal was in the Kingdom recruiting and training new LeT volunteers from the enormous Pakistani diaspora in the Gulf countries. He was allegedly in the final stages of a “massive” new terror plot. Abu Jindal has also been linked to other attacks in India including the bombing of the Mumbai metro and train system in 2006 that killed over 180.

Abu Jindal has told the Indians that two members of the ISI were also in the control room, both allegedly majors in the Pakistani army. This confirms the longstanding accusation that the 2008 plot was orchestrated and conducted with the assistance of the ISI. An American, David Headley, who worked for LeT and did the reconnaissance for the attack has said the same thing. So has the only survivor of the attack force, Amir Kasab, who has been convicted of mass murder in India.

But because Abu Jindal was actually in the control room in Karachi his accusation is even more powerful. If the press reports about Abu Jindal’s accusations are confirmed then the ISI was involved directly in the decision to murder Americans. So far the Indian government has publicly confirmed only that his testimony points to state sponsorship of the attack without providing details of his confessions.

Pakistani Taliban release video of beheaded Pakistani soldiers

By Bill Roggio

Warning: The content of this video is extremely graphic. The video shows the aftermath of the beheadings of 17 Pakistani soldiers.

The Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan has released video showing the remains of 17 Pakistani soldiers who were beheaded after being captured and executed during fighting in the northwestern district of Dir just three days ago.

The graphic video, which was obtained by The Long War Journal, was sent to journalists by Ihsanullah Ihsan, a spokesman for the Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan.

The videotape includes a statement by Hakeemullah Mehsud, the leader of the Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan. Hakeemullah promises that the Taliban will continue to fight the Pakistani military until the government enforces sharia, or Islamic law, and stops supporting the US in the region.

In the video, the Taliban show the heads of 17 Pakistani soldiers displayed on a white sheet; the Taliban claim that 18 soldiers were killed during the fighting. The Taliban fighters are standing around the gruesome display, holding weapons as the camera pans back and forth to show the soldiers’ remains. The Taliban then show the military identification cards of the slain soldiers.

The 17 soldiers were killed after more than 100 Taliban fighters crossed the border from Kunar province in Afghanistan and attacked the Pakistani troops. Sirajuddin Ahmad, a spokesman for the Malakand Taliban, which operates under the command of Mullah Fazlullah, initially claimed credit for the attack and said 17 soldiers were killed.

“Our fight will continue until the establishment of sharia law in Pakistan …. We will fight whoever tries to stand in our way,” Ahmad told Reuters the day after the battle.

Videotape the latest of a Taliban execution of Pakistani security forces

The Pakistani Taliban routinely videotape executions of their captives. The most recent high-profile execution, which was recorded in a videotape that was later distributed, took place in June 2011, when the Taliban captured 16 Pakistani policemen in Dir, lined them up, and executed them via firing squad.

The policemen had been captured after the Taliban crossed the border from Kunar province in Afghanistan and attacked police outposts and villages in the Shaltalu area on June 1, 2011. The raid sparked a pitched battle that lasted for several days. Dozens of Pakistani policemen were taken hostage during the ensuing fighting. Although Pakistani officials claimed that 27 policemen and 45 Taliban fighters were killed during the raid, independent news reports put the number of policemen killed at more than 40. [See LWJ report, Video of brutal Taliban execution of Pakistani policemen emerges.]

In February 2011, Hakeemullah Mehsud, the emir of Movement of the Taliban in Pakistan, released a videotape of the execution of a former Pakistani military intelligence official known as Colonel Imam. Although Imam, a senior officer in Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence directorate, was a favorite of the Afghan Taliban for his support of Mullah Omar, the Pakistani Taliban accused him spying against the terror group. [See LWJ report, Video: Pakistani Taliban execute Colonel Imam.]

Courtesy: http://www.longwarjournal.org/archives/2012/06/pakistani_taliban_re_3.php#ixzz1zDX1EqZS

Pot calls Kettle Black – Pakistan lodged a protest with NATO and Afghan forces, accusing them of failing to act against militant safe havens in Afghanistan after a cross-border attack killed 13 Pakistani troops

Pakistan military protests with NATO and Afghan forces over cross-border attack

By Jibran Ahmad

PESHAWAR, Pakistan (Reuters) – Pakistan lodged a protest with NATO and Afghan forces on Monday, accusing them of failing to act against militant safe havens in Afghanistan after a cross-border attack killed 13 Pakistani troops, a military official said.

The move is likely to intensify tensions between troubled allies Islamabad and Washington, currently involved in difficult talks to repair ties.

More than 100 militants based in Afghanistan’s Kunar province entered Pakistan and attacked a military patrol on Sunday, the military official said. Fourteen militants and six soldiers were killed in the skirmish.

Seven Pakistani soldiers were beheaded by militants after the clash and four were still missing, the official said.

Pakistan’s Foreign Ministry said the Afghan deputy head of mission in Islamabad was summoned and presented with a “strong protest”.

The Malakand faction of the Pakistan Taliban claimed responsibility, and threatened more attacks.

“Our fight will continue until the establishment of sharia law in Pakistan … We will fight whoever tries to stand in our way,” Sirajuddin Ahmad, the faction’s spokesman, told Reuters.

Ahmad claimed the group had killed 17 Pakistani soldiers.

The NATO-led International Security Assistance Force in Afghanistan said it was aware of the report, but had no information.

Fazlullah Wahidi, governor of Kumar province, said militants were based in Pakistan, not Afghanistan. “We don’t have any information about militants crossing the border from Afghanistan to attack troops in Pakistan,” he told Reuters.

The Malakand, or Swat, Taliban are led by Maulvi Fazlullah, who was the Pakistan Taliban leader in the Swat Valley, about 100 miles northwest of Islamabad, before a 2009 army offensive forced him to flee.

Also known as FM Mullah for his fiery radio broadcasts, he regrouped in Afghanistan and established strongholds, according to the Pakistan military.

Fazlullah re-emerged as a threat last year, when his fighters conducted cross-border raids that killed around 100 Pakistani security forces, angering Pakistan, which faces threats from multiple militant groups.

Comment – If Pakistani youth is the last hope, then we are doomed

By: Faraz

Ahmad Rashid is naïve in his expectations from the youth. Youth holds a mixture of strange contradictory thoughts. Fed with textbook propaganda, Hindu hatred provides basis for nationalism. Removing this hatred will create a severe identity crisis for the already confused youth. Their Paknationalism conflicts with their ummah hood, which they seldom realize. They are more concerned with deaths of Muslims in Palestine or Kashmir than inside the country. Youth are, to borrow Tarek Fateh’s book title, chasing a mirage of a perfect Islamic system that never existed. Youth has developed a strange paranoid mindset which sees conspiracies everywhere. One can get labeled a CIA agent or Zionist stooge on mere twitter/Facebook/blog comments. They seriously think that foreign agencies hire ordinary people to shake the moral/ideological foundations of Pakistan. They see politicians as corrupt and Generals as saviors. They see ethnicity and cultural diversity as threat to the state. Regarding terrorism, mostly live in state of denial. Anti-Americanism is on its peak. People hate the West; even Pakistanis living in West see no contradiction in hating the country where they live. Youth has little idea about economy and capitalism. And most of their views on foreign policy revolves around ghairat. Their idiot savior Imran khan has played a major role in de-intellectualizing the internal debate on foreign policy, economy, politics, civil military imbalance, terrorism. If youth is the last hope, then we are doomed.

Read more » Brown Pundits

http://www.brownpundits.com/?p=7179#comment-10758

Pakistani Supreme Court has gone overboard – says Justice Markandey Katju (Supreme Court of India)

It has no right to dismiss a Prime Minister or overrule the constitutional immunity given to the President

By: Markandey Katju

When I was I was a student of law at Allahabad University, I had read of the British Constitutional principle ‘The King can do no wrong’. At that time I did not understand the significance of this principle and what it really meant. It was much later, when I was in law practice in the Allahabad High Court, that I understood its real significance.

The British were experienced and able administrators. They realized from their own long, historical experience that while everybody should be legally liable for his wrongs and made to face court proceedings for the same, the person at the apex of the whole constitutional system must be given total immunity from criminal proceedings, otherwise the system could not function. Hence the King of England must be given total immunity from criminal proceedings. Even if he commits murder, dacoity, theft, or some other crime, the King cannot be dragged to court and made to face a trial.

One may ask why should the King be given this immunity when others are not? The answer is that in the practical world one does not deal with absolutes. The British were one of the most far sighted administrators the world has known. They realized that if the King is made to stand on the witness box or sent to jail, the system could not function. A stage is reached at the highest level of the system where total immunity to the person at the top has to be granted. This is the only practical view.

Following this principle in British constitutional law, almost every Constitution in the world has incorporated a provision giving total immunity to Presidents and Governors from criminal prosecution.

Thus, Section 248(2) of the Pakistani Constitution states:

“No criminal proceedings whatsoever shall be instituted or continued against the President or Governor in any Court during his term of office.”

The language of the above provision is clear, and it is a settled principle of interpretation that when the language of a provision is clear the court should not twist or amend its language in the garb of interpretation, but read it as it is.

I therefore fail to understand how proceedings on corruption charges (which are clearly of a criminal nature) can be instituted or continued against the Pakistani President.

Moreover, how can the court remove a Prime Minister? This is unheard of in a democracy. The Prime Minister holds office as long he has the confidence of Parliament, not the confidence of the Supreme Court.

I regret to say that the Pakistani Supreme Court, particularly its Chief Justice, has been showing utter lack of restraint. This is not expected of superior courts. In fact the court and its Chief Justice have been playing to the galleries for long. It has clearly gone overboard and flouted all canons of constitutional jurisprudence.

The Constitution establishes a delicate balance of power, and each of the three organs of the state — the legislature, the executive and the judiciary – must respect each other and not encroach into each other’s domain, otherwise the system cannot function. It seems to me that the Pakistani Supreme Court has lost its balance and gone berserk. If it does not now come to its senses I am afraid the day is not far off when the Constitution will collapse, and the blame will squarely lie with the court, and particularly its Chief Justice.

Treason charges on Husain Haqqani reflect Pakistan’s isolation.

My real ‘crime’: Standing up for U.S.-Pakistan relations

By Husain Haqqani

Husain Haqqani, a professor of international relations at Boston University and a senior fellow at the Hudson Institute, served as Pakistan’s ambassador to the United States from 2008 to 2011.

I am saddened but not surprised that a Pakistani judicial inquiry commission has accused me of being disloyal while serving as my country’s ambassador to the United States. The tide of anti-Americanism has been rising in Pakistan for almost a decade. An overwhelming majority of Pakistanis consider the United States an enemy, notwithstanding the nominal alliance that has existed between our countries for six decades. Americans, frustrated by what they see as Pakistani intransigence in fighting terrorism in Afghanistan, are becoming less willing to accept Pakistani demands even though Pakistan has suffered heavily at the hands of terrorists.

Los Angeles Times – Pakistani court acquits four accused of aiding Times Square bomber

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Four Pakistani men charged with terrorism-related offenses for allegedly helping failed Times Square bomber Faisal Shahzad were acquitted in a Rawalpindi court Saturday, their lawyer said.

The men, Faisal Abbasi, Muhammad Shahid Husain, Muhammad Shoaib Mughal and Humbal Akhtar, had been accused of arranging meetings between Shahzad and top Pakistani Taliban leaders, and sending him money to help prepare the attack. Their lawyer, Malik Imran Safdar, said an antiterrorism court in Rawalpindi found that prosecutors failed to prove their case and released the men.

Two other men initially arrested along with the four others were released previously.

Shahzad, a 30-year-old U.S. citizen, pleaded guilty to attempting to detonate a sport utility vehicle filled with propane tanks and fertilizer in Times Square on May 1, 2010. The botched bombing marked the first time the Pakistani Taliban had tried to engineer an attack outside its strongholds in the tribal regions of western Pakistan along the Afghan border.

The son of a retired vice air marshal in the Pakistani air force, Shahzad was a financial analyst living in a Connecticut suburb when he became radicalized and went to Pakistan’s tribal areas for terrorist training. At one of his court hearings in New York, he told a judge that he viewed himself as a “Muslim soldier.”

When the Pakistanis were arrested after the failed bombing, Islamabad police described them as relatively young, middle-class men who had been close friends with Shahzad for several years. At the time, police said they facilitated Shahzad’s training at Taliban boot camps in the tribal areas and arranged for him to meet with Pakistani Taliban leader Hakimullah Mahsud. They also were accused of sending Shahzad $13,000 when he began to run short of money in the U.S. while readying the bombing attack.

Islamabad police claimed that the men had close links to Mahsud and leaders of the Pakistani Taliban, a homegrown militant group with strong ties to the Afghan Taliban and Al Qaeda.

Courtesy: Los Angeles Times

http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/world_now/2012/06/pakistani-court-frees-four-men-charged-with-helping-times-square-bomber.html

Clash between Saudi and Pakistani Security Officials at Islamabad Airport

Islamabad – Saudi Military officer has badly clashed with Pakistani Airport security officer at Islamabad international airport tonight. Airport sources told that Saeed Alshehri bound for Riadh via Flight 732 was asked for security clearance by the Airport Security Force (ASF) but the Saudi Military officer reportedly used offensive language against Pakistani security official and abused him in Arabic language by calling him “MISKEEN”, means beggar, that created fuss. Eye-witnesses said that Saudi Military official also tried to assault on Pakistani staff physically and as a result a serious clash was reported between them.

Airport management claimed that Saeed Alshehris’ seat was not confirmed and he is not regular official of Saudi Embassy but he was on a visit for training course. …

Read more » Weekly Press Pakistan

http://weeklypresspakistan.com/2012/05/3221

Leading Pakistani anchor Talat Hussain Expose the so-called mainstream media, and appreciate the role of Sindhi media in fair and objective journalism

By: Khalique Panhwar

In this show leading Pakistani anchor Talat Hussain Expose the so- called mainstream media, and appreciate the role of Sindhi media in fair and objective journalism.

This video has given me a hope, his show tells the world that how all people of Sindh are against dividing Sindh. And this should give those people message, that they do not gain anything by dividing Sindh, all residents of Sindh indeed all people of Pakistan will loose if Sindh is divided. Pakistan will be divided if Sindh is divided.

Courtesy: DAWN News Tv » ZemTV »(News Night With Talat – 24th-May-2012)

Courtesy: DAWN News TV » News Night with Talat – 25th May 2012 - » Siasat.pk قومی میڈیا؛کس کی

Via – Sindhi e-lists/ e-groups, 24-25 May, 2012

‘Taliban are Pakistani military without uniform’ says Hyrbyar Marri

In the wake of the first anniversary of Osama Bin Laden’s killing by American elite troops, DW takes a closer look at Pakistan’s “other” war in a rare interview with a prominent Baloch leader.

Hyrbyar Marri is the fifth son of Nawab Khair Bakhsh Marri, a veteran national leader and the head of the largest Baloch clan. In the late 1990s Hyrbar Marri went into exile in Britain. In 2007, he was arrested under a warrant issued by former Pakistani President Pervez Musharraf and held in Belmarsh – a maximum security prison in southeast London. Prominent British human rights advocates such as Peter Thatchell campaigned for Marri and accused the British executive of collaborating with Musharraf’s regime. Marri was eventually acquitted in 2008 by a British jury and remains in Britain where he has recently been granted asylum.

DW: What’s the current situation in Pakistani-controlled Balochistan?

Taliban Beheads Pakistani Soldiers

Taliban Kill 14 Pakistani Troops, String up Heads

By ISHTIAQ MAHSUD, Associated Press

DERA ISMAIL KHAN – Taliban fighters killed 14 Pakistani soldiers in a key militant sanctuary along the Afghan border, beheaded all but one of them and hung two of the heads from wooden poles in the center of town, officials said Monday.

The killings in Miran Shah, the main town in the North Waziristan tribal area, highlight the dilemma facing the military in dealing with an area used by both the country’s fiercest enemy, the Pakistani Taliban, and Afghan and Pakistani militants believed to be close to the government who are battling U.S.-led forces in neighboring Afghanistan. …

Read more » ABC News

‘Pakistani’ driving truck bomb arrested in Afghanistan

By: AP

KABUL: Afghanistan’s intelligence agency on Thursday said it had prevented a large terrorist attack in the capital, arresting a Pakistani national driving a truck packed with explosives in Kabul.

The agency said in a statement that the man was arrested Thursday on a major road in the east of the city. It said the man was going to use the truck bomb in a suicide attack.

The agency did not say what the suspected target was. It said it would release more details as they became available.

The arrest comes a day after a suicide attack on the same road killed seven people. In that attack one militant detonated his car bomb outside a compound where foreigners live, while two other attackers fought their way inside before being killed.

Courtesy: DAWN.COM

Why don’t the Pakistani Judiciary/ Memo Commission believe Mansoor Ijaz on Hafiz Saeed

WASHINGTON, Nov 3: A senior US official responsible for counter- terrorism on Tuesday directly accused Pakistan of supporting training of militant groups in Afghanistan as well as providing “material support” to some of the Kashmiri militants. “There are numerous Kashmiri separatist groups and sectarian groups involved in terrorism which use Pakistan as a base…We have repeatedly asked Islamabad to end support of terrorist training in Afghanistan,” Michael Sheehan, State Department’s coordinator for counter-terrorism, told a Senate Foreign Relations sub-committee. The sub-committee hearing was called and presided over by Senator Sam Brownback and the list of experts who testified included a former CIA officer in Pakistan Milt Bearden, president of Stimson Centre Michael Krepon, John Hopkins University Central Asia Institute chairman Dr Fredrick Starr and a Pakistani- American businessman and columnist Mansoor Ijaz. …..

Read more » ChagataiKhan

http://chagataikhan.blogspot.ca/2012/02/hafiz-saeeds-memory-loss-on-osama.html

BBC News – Avalanche buries 100 Pakistani troops in Kashmir

A Pakistani general says more than 100 troops have been buried by an avalanche in the disputed Kashmir region.

Pakistan army spokesman Major General Athar Abbas told the BBC some bodies had been recovered but could not say how many had survived.

The avalanche hit a military camp near the Siachen glacier in the Karakoram branch of the Himalaya mountains. A rescue operation is underway.

India and Pakistan both claim the area and have deployed thousands of troops. ….

Read more » BBC

Political cases are wasting precious time of courts & embarrassing Pakistani state

Beyond the memo affair

By Raza Rumi

The memogate inquiry shows how political cases are wasting the precious time of the courts and creating one embarrassment after another for the Pakistani state. If media reports are to be believed, the military and the ISI have already backtracked on their earlier zeal to get this issue further explored. The architect of the memo controversy, General Ahmad Shuja Pasha, has retired and one hopes better sense will now prevail. At the same time, the principal character, Mansoor Ijaz, has been exposed as a vacillating, and an unreliable ‘witness’ during the proceedings. Yet, our Supreme Court wants to proceed with the case and the inquiry commission has been given additional time to investigate the unsigned memo. …

Read more » The Express Tribune

MQM tells US they are outgunned in Karachi

By Tariq Butt

ISLAMABAD: The Muttahidda Qaumi Movement (MQM) told the United States that the Mohajirs were outgunned by the Pashtuns in Karachi and talked of a conspiracy by the Pakistani establishment designed to keep Punjabis in power, claimed an April 2009 secret US embassy cable, released by Wikileaks.

The wire, headlined MQM principles and conspiracy, covers a meeting of US Embassy Charge d’Affairs Gerald Feierstein with MQM leaders Farooq Sattar and Abbas Haider Rizvi. It said Rizvi became animated at the mention of his hometown. He reminded the US diplomat that he represented one of the most ethnically diverse districts in Karachi and, therefore, one of the most volatile. …

Read more » The News

Mullah, Military and Media – ‘Punjabi Nationalism’ Dominates Pakistani National Discourse

‘Punjabi Nationalism’ Dominates National Discourse

Pakistan’s ‘jaundiced’ media is full of terms such as ‘Baloch, Pashtun, or Sindhi nationalism’ and ‘Mohajirs’. What is missing in defining Pakistan’s ethnic groups in the mainstream media is ‘Punjabi nationalism’.

The electronic media, newspapers and communication flood on the social media had printed on the masses’ minds that demands coming from Pakhtunkhwa, Sindh and Balochistan are speaking of the nationalists in those provinces. However, Punjab’s gains in development, education, health, and communication infrastructure are portrayed as national achievements of Pakistan.

In politics, a term like ‘Sindh card’ is widely used with PPP despite its presence in all four provinces, FATA and Gilgit-Baltistan. ANP is hardly defined in terms of its secular agenda or the only anti-Taliban forces in the volatile northwest Pakistan. Political forces from Balochistan—JWP, BNP and others are presented as soft names of the Baloch rebel groups in the national media. Political parties in Sindh are paraded in the media with the available negative tags attached to their names and causes.

All national traitors Pakistanis have known so far through media are either the Bengalis of the pre-71 Pakistan or the non-Pujabi nationalities of the post-71 era–Sindhis, Pashtuns, Balochis and Mohajirs. Starting from the latest case, Dr Shakil Afridi (the doctor whose small efforts had allegedly got rid the South Asian Islam off the terror godfather Osama bin Laden and Wahabism) is Pashtun. Former Prime Minister Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto (Sindh), former opposition leader late Khan Abdul Wali Khan (Pakhtunkhwa), late GM Syed (Sindh), late Ghaus Bakhsh Bizanjo (Balochistan), to name a few, all are defined as traitors in the mainstream media. Altaf Hussain of MQM can’t come back to Pakistan and leaders like Nawab Akbar Bugti don’t deserve life.

Contrary to this, the Indian-specific media and text books are defining Major Aziz Bhatti, Captain Muhammad Sarwar, Major Muhammad Tufail (a total of 11) as Pakistan’s national heroes. All of them died while defending Punjab in four wars against India from 1948-1999. However, the state and ‘yellow’ media of Pakistan have yet to produce a single hero in the 10- year war against Terrorism in a comparatively tough terrain and tricky battlefield known as the Wild Wild West of Pakistan.

Over 160 million Pakistanis, today, can’t recall a man or a woman that they know who might have been fallen against the Arab, Central Asian or Pakistani fanatics in the mountains in FATA while defending Pakistan against militancy. One apparent reason for this nation-wide apathy towards soldiers fighting Terrorism is that Pakistan not owning the ongoing war despite its claims of higher causalities at international fora.

The decades long control of the Punjabi mindset and ‘Maulvis-turned-journalists’ on media has locked Pakistani journalism in ‘Punjabi Box’. The journalists living in that particular box can hardly imagine the sensitivities of people and regions existing out of the Punjabi Box. They don’t see Pakistan Muslim League (N) or (Q) as Punjabi nationalists nor they define Sharif brothers as leaders of Punjabi nationalism when they allocate more development funds for Punjab or deny due shares of the other three provinces from the national pool of resources.

Whether it’s a political fight between PPP or Muslim League, differences on NFC award (national resources), provincial autonomy, militancy, royalty rights, blasphemy law, or women rights, Pakistani media shows Punjab’s voice as protagonist and those of other provinces as antagonist in its narration of events.

As if that is not enough, they cover up Punjab’s causes as Pakistan hard core national interests and label others as Pashtun, Baloch, Sindhi or Mohajir nationalists in a bid to deny them a space on the minds of media viewers, listeners and readers.

The irony is that the state institutes and Pakistani intellectuals call it a ‘media revolution era’ of Pakistan though a reader of the Jang newspapers in 1970s and viewer of Geo TV in March 2012 doesn’t see a difference in contents and description of facts (Punjab vis-à-vis others). The media revolution in Pakistan has, unfortunately, reinvigorated the Punjabi voice and its outreach, however, and has successfully avoided the ‘Punjabi nationalism’ label for itself while defending the interests of one major ethnic group at all levels in a multi-ethnic country.

Courtesy: Mullah Military Media

http://mullahmilitarymedia.blogspot.ca/2012/03/punjabi-nationalism-dominates-national.html

American strategy in Afpak

About the US soldier going postal in afghanistan…

By Omar Ali

I wrote this comment on the SWJ site and I just thought it would be interesting to see what people here think of the American “strategy” (or lack of one) in Afghanistan.
The killings today, while tragic and awful, are themselves indicative of nothing new beyond one soldier going nuts…could and does happen in most wars and more likely when a war has stretched on for a while and more likely with soldier and locals being different people (not necessarily different nationalities..pakistani soldiers in Bangladesh or even some Indian soldiers in Kashmir could feel equally surrounded by aliens). It will have a huge propaganda effect though. Anyway, my comment is more about the US strategy: what is it? what should it be? What would it be if you were president?