U.S. Blacklists Militant Haqqani Network

By DECLAN WALSH and ERIC SCHMITT

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Pakistani officials reacted cautiously on Friday to news that the United States had designated the Taliban-affiliated Haqqani network as a terrorist group, allaying fears that the move could drive a fresh wedge between the two uneasy allies.

The designation order, signed by Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton in Brunei before heading to Russia for a conference, ended two years of debate inside the Obama administration about the merits of formally ostracizing a powerful element of the Afghan insurgency that American officials say has uncomfortably close ties to Pakistan.

Within hours of the designation, American officials in Washington were seeking to play down worries that it could stymie peace talks with the Taliban or lead to the designation of Pakistan as a state sponsor of terrorism.

In the Pakistani capital of Islamabad, the designation received a studiously muted reception.

Terror Networks Relocate to Pakistan

Tenth Anniversary of US Invasion of Afghanistan

Terror Networks Relocate to Pakistan

by Nafisa Hoodbhoy

As the US marks the tenth anniversary of its invasion of Afghanistan, pro Taliban terror networks – driven out of Kabul in October 2001 – have reinvented themselves inside Pakistan.

They are enabled by an inept foreign policy and absence of governance that allows the most brutal ideologues to consolidate themselves within failing states. ….

Read more » Aboard The Democracy Train

Bangladesh captures leader of banned Islamic group, Harkatul Jihad al-Islami (HuJI)

Bangladesh nabs leader of banned Islamic group

Yahiya returned to Bangladesh in 1992 after the Mujahidin war in Afghanistan. In December of 2005, he was arrested for alleged involvement in a series of bombings. Later he jumped bail and was absconding.

The leader of a banned jihadist group was arrested by Bangladesh’s elite anti-terror unit while he was traveling on a passenger bus Thursday.

The Rapid Action Battalion captured Hafez Maulana Yahiya and two of his bodyguards on the Dhaka-Sylhet highway northeast of the capital Dhaka. Yahiya has been identified as acting chief of the banned militant outfit Harkatul Jihad al-Islami (HuJI), confirmed M Sohail, director of the legal and media wing of the battalion.

The United States lists HuJI as an international terror organization, as have the international police (Interpol). The jihadist network is active in the South Asia nations of Bangladesh, India and Pakistan. The terror network moved its headquarters from Pakistan to Bangladesh after allied countries invaded Afghanistan in 2001.

In a daring bid to assassinate opposition leader Sheikh Hasina in 2004, HuJI militants attacked her rally in the capital with hand grenades and sniper rifles. The attack was allegedly masterminded by Yahiya. Hasina is presently the prime minister of Bangladesh.

The RAB said Yahiya, 60, had served as the acting chief of HuJI since its former chief, Maulana Sheikh Farid, was detained on July 26. HuJI’s sole mentor Maulana Fazlur Rahman is the most wanted person and his whereabouts are unknown, said retired General Moniruzzaman, chief of a global security think-tank.

Read more: http://www.allheadlinenews.com/articles/90057620?Bangladesh+nabs+leader+of+banned+Islamic+group#ixzz1VxQPC9h8

 

Gangs using children as sex workers, says NGO

By Saleem Shahid

Hundreds of thousands of children are victims of physical and mental torture in schools, religious seminaries and homes: SPARC

QUETTA: Organised criminal gangs are using thousands of children as sex workers across the country, a workshop on children’s rights organised by the Society for Protection of Rights of the Child (SPARC) was informed on Friday.

Muhammad Hanif Panezai, the chief of SPARC’s Balochistan chapter, said a survey had revealed that thousands of children were being used as sex workers at bus and truck stands and railway stations.

“Internet cafes and videogames’ shops are also being used for the purpose,” he said, adding that men belonging to several criminal networks remain present at these places to trap children and later use them as sex workers,” Mr Panezai said.

The Programme Manager of SPARC’s Khyber Pakhtunkhwa chapter, Mr Imran Khan Takkar, said a survey had revealed that 80 per cent of 1.5 million street children in Pakistan were victims of sexual abuse.

He said that organised criminal networks were using children to make pornographic material and later blackmailing them to commit heinous crimes, including suicide bombings. ….

Read more: DAWN

Solution is internal: Stop blaming others

– Solution is internal: Stop blaming the US

Excerpt:

Pakistan, it seems, is divided between those who glorify and those who demonise America. Some will construct elaborate theories to prove how America is hell bent upon destroying Pakistan while others would be willing to ignore the most strategic blunders of American administrations.

Truth, I believe, lies somewhere in the middle.

I don’t know how Brigadier (retired) Shaukat Qadir can state with mathematical certitude that “the US establishment (Pentagon/CIA) is compelled to destabilise Pakistan,” but reading similar analyses from Islamabad, I get a feeling that some within Pakistan’s ruling elite want to shift their servile alignment from the USA to China.

Qadir asks:

“Why does the US want to destabilise Pakistan?”

In order to continue enrichment of the top brass through military and its businesses, some try to construct realities that are at best, outlandish. This question leads us to nothing more than conspiracy theories.

A better question would have been:

“How Pakistan became such a dysfunctional state so easy to destabilise?”

If Pakistan had not violently crushed Baloch nationalists for four decades, would there still be an opportunity for foreign hands to take advantage of this Achilles heel? Had Pakistan not used terrorist networks as a cost effective extension of its armed forces for so many years, would it be in this predicament? …

…

Military rule

Some within Pakistan’s ruling elite think that China will feed their anti-India edifice. From their anti-Soviet cold war position to offering themselves as pawns in the regional rivalry, Pakistan’s rulers have shown complete disregard for the country and its people. North Korea’s dictators have accomplished something similar under China’s patronage. Both North Korea and Pakistan’s declines have occurred because military has been the countries’ top business priority.

I believe stability and strength comes from within and Pakistan must look inward for a solution and reflect how it became such a mocked and maligned nation. Pakistan can become a fiscally viable state by reducing defense expenditure. But, Pakistan’s spoon-fed elite cannot adopt this clear path towards salvation. Parasitic dependence on international predators to enrich the military and its business is such an addiction that 180 million Pakistanis could be starved for the fix.

Read more : The Express Tribune blog

Twitter blocked in Egypt amid street protests

By David Kravets

(Wired) — Twitter confirmed Tuesday evening that its microblogging site has been shuttered by Egyptian authorities. This came hours after widespread reports that access had been cut off, as Egyptians took to the streets in what many hope and some fear would be a sequel to the revolution in Tunisia last week.

The day’s speculation that the Mubarak administration might have pulled the plug on Twitter underscored the power of the site and other social networks as tools to both coordinate and disperse news of a citizen uprising. Twitter, Facebook and YouTube were widely used in Tunisia’s recent uprising and in Iran last year. …

Read more : CNN