Will Pakistan be ruled by Islamic extremists?, Radical Islamism and Jihad, NewAgeIslam.com

Radical Islamism and Jihad

Will Pakistan be ruled by Islamic extremists?

Mainstream Islam could still survive in Pakistan

By Amit Baruah

What, He Worry?

According to the Pakistan Institute of Peace Studies (PIPS), 241 Pakistanis were killed and 704 wounded in 165 militant strikes across the country in November alone. The PIPS website (http://san-pips.com/index.php) has collated figures for fatalities and casualties for months and years before. As we know all too well, however, mounting death tolls alone don’t tell the full story. Most stories of individual loss, grief, destitution, anger and helplessness that follow these terror strikes remain untold.

Ironically enough, Karachi, the abode of mohajirs — migrants from undivided India — is the most peaceful city in Pakistan today. Peshawar, Lahore and Rawalpindi are in flames and seem to be the favourite targets of the Taliban. Multan and Dera Ghazi Khan, outside the tribal battle zone, have also been attacked.

From 1997 to 2000, when I lived in Islamabad, one routinely saw Finance Minister Sartaj Aziz waiting patiently in his car for the traffic light to turn green. His chauffeur was his only companion; there were no security men in sight. You could also see Foreign Minister Gohar Ayub Khan strolling along the street for a late-night coffee with his family to the Nadia coffee shop inside the Marriott Hotel. Again, there were no gun-toting men with him. Pakistan was still peaceful.

Today, Islamabad is a fortress. Earlier this year, I was in Lahore when the Sri Lankan cricketers were attacked close to the Gaddafi Stadium. Were it not for the presence of mind of their Pakistani driver and the poor marksmanship of the attackers, Sri Lanka would have been searching for new members of their cricket squad.

http://newageislam.com/will-pakistan-be-ruled-by-islamic-extremists?/radical-islamism-and-jihad/d/2269

For Pakistan army, it’s still good Afghan Taliban vs. bad Pakistani Taliban, War on Terror, NewAgeIslam.com

War on Terror

For Pakistan army, it’s still good Afghan Taliban vs. bad Pakistani Taliban

Bending our minds

BY Ahmed Rashid

Visits from three senior US officials in three weeks indicate troubles in the US-Pakistan relationship. Washington has failed to deliver on the regional strategy it promised this spring, and friction with Pakistan seems to be contributing to the long delay in announcement of a new US strategy in Afghanistan. Pakistan is critical to any Afghan strategy the Obama administration undertakes. Pakistanis hope that President Obama will push his state guest this week, Indian Prime Minister Manmohan Singh, to be more flexible toward Islamabad. But Pakistanis, too, must compromise if there is to be hope for Afghanistan and South Asia.

In their recent visits, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, national security adviser James Jones and CIA chief Leon Panetta promised to push the Indians on regional issues. But the Pakistani army does not trust American promises and has leaned on the civilian government in Islamabad to scale back its largely pro-US positions.

Any surge of US troops into Afghanistan would depend on the Pakistani army’s help to protect the truck convoys that would supply the extra Western troops in landlocked Afghanistan. Washington would need even greater clandestine cooperation from the Pakistani military in targeting terrorist hideouts along the border.

http://newageislam.com/for-pakistan-army,-it%E2%80%99s-still-good-afghan-taliban-vs.-bad-pakistani-taliban/war-on-terror/d/2158

Northern Areas of Kashmir: Pakistan takes another step to annex Gilgit and Baltistan, Islam and Politics, NewAgeIslam.com

Islam and Politics

Northern Areas of Kashmir: Pakistan takes another step to annex Gilgit and Baltistan

By Dr Shabir Choudhry

August 29, 2009

Pakistan has made enormous economic and political gains from these areas since 1947. With help of China they have started many mega projects in the area which benefit both countries – China and Pakistan, and not the people of the area. Pakistan has finalised construction of Diamer Basha Dam, which is the biggest and most expensive project ever taken up by Pakistan. So Pakistani investment and gains in the area are in billions of dollars; and there is no ways they will let go this gold mine.

It was expected that before committing to these mega projects, Pakistan would like to take legal control of these areas. In order to provide a legal cover to this land grabbing they have announced (29 August 2009) a new package. While addressing a press conference in Islamabad, Prime Minister of Pakistan Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani said, ‘Nortehrn Areas’ now will be called Gilgit and Baltistan, which will have 15-member Administrative Council which will choose the Chief Minister. There will be six Ministers along with three Technocrat seats and two women seats.

The Cabinet of Gilgit-Baltistan, according to the news, will approve their budget, but it is not clear who will make the budget. In the past it is always Islamabad who has run the show with help of some local puppets; and it is believed that it will be the case of old wine in new bottles and not much will change. They simply want to change names of different office bearers and give them some additional rights.

Previously Islamabad appointed Chairman, and now his post has been upgraded with a title of Governor, which will be appointed by Islamabad. Similarly the Northern Areas Legislative Council will be upgraded to the status of Assembly; and existing NALAs Advisors will become Ministers. The post of the Chief Executive will be upgraded to the post of Chief Minister.

http://newageislam.com/northern-areas-of-kashmir--pakistan-takes-another-step-to-annex-gilgit-and-baltistan/islam-and-politics/d/1699

'Honour' killing in Pakistan: Buried truth?, Islam and Human Rights, NewAgeIslam.com

Islam and Human Rights

'Honour' killing in Pakistan: Buried truth?

An editorial in The News, Islamabad

Wednesday, September 03, 2008

This is a distinct diversion from accounts from NGOs that have investigated the happening. People in Usta Muhammad, the principal town of Jaffarabad, had reported a vehicle with government number plates had been used to whisk away the three teenage girls – and possibly another woman accompanying them – from a hotel. They speak of a 'tribal influential' being involved. It is thought the young women, all of them educated, who had chosen to exercise their lawful right to make their own choice in marriage, had come to the town to enter into court marriages with the men of their choosing. Many details, lost amidst various cover-ups, remain hazy. Police now say two and not five women were killed. Local people, in the village of Babakot where the event took place, are clearly too terrorized to talk. The arrested brother of two of the women killed has reportedly taken responsibility. This seems like a replication of the pattern seen in numerous 'honour' killings, where a brother accepts blame, and is then 'forgiven' by the father of the victim, thus ensuring that under the country's Qisas and Diyat law his son escapes scot-free and no one is punished.

http://newageislam.com/-honour--killing-in-pakistan--buried-truth?/islam-and-human-rights/d/692

Pakistan: DEAD END ON WAR ON TERROR, War on Terror, NewAgeIslam.com

War on Terror

Pakistan: DEAD END ON WAR ON TERROR

By Najam Sethi

THE war against extremism and terrorism in the NWFP and FATA is taking a significant turn. Three new developments are noteworthy. First, the Pakistan Army has finally taken the battle to Bajaur in South Waziristan where insurgents, militants and terrorists of all shades are said to be holed out. Over 500 Taliban and Al- Qaeda terrorists are reported to have been killed in recent days while others are said to have fled from the area. A ceasefire announced by the terrorists has been rejected by the military authorities who are encouraging thousands of refugees who fled the fighting earlier to return to their homes now.

Second, Rehman Malik, the advisor to the Interior Ministry, who is the chief anti- terrorism coordinator between the Army and the civilian governments in Islamabad and Peshawar, has articulated a new way of looking at the issue. He says that that the old policy distinction made by the Musharraf regime between the Afghan Taliban, the Pakistan Taliban, and the foreign Al- Qaeda fighters, is largely misplaced. His argument is that there is an unholy nexus between all three elements and both strategic and tactical policy against them should reflect an understanding of this network.

http://newageislam.com/pakistan--dead-end-on-war-on-terror/war-on-terror/d/706

Strike at ‘den of Western decadence’, Islam,Terrorism and Jihad, NewAgeIslam.com

Islam,Terrorism and Jihad

Strike at ‘den of Western decadence’

The second factor is a sudden upsurge in activity in the violence-wracked tribal agencies along the frontier with Afghanistan, involving highly controversial raids into Pakistani territory. Not only have there been major Pakistani army offensives in recent weeks - as well as formal and informal truces with various extremist elements - but the new escalation that has come along with recent incursions into Pakistani territory by American soldiers based in Afghanistan hunting al-Qaeda figures will have made a major strike into Pakistan more attractive for the militants. Men like Baitullah Mahsud, the most prominent leader of the Pakistan Taliban, believes the ‘infidel’ government in Islamabad needs to be punished for its support for the West - whatever the rhetoric from the capital. The fiercely proud and independent identity of the Pashtun tribes of the border regions fuses with a very contemporary international ‘jihadi identity’. Globalised Islamic radicalism thus radicalises and legitimises a local cause.

http://newageislam.com/strike-at-%E2%80%98den-of-western-decadence%E2%80%99/islam,terrorism-and-jihad/d/804

Will the US finally attack Pakistan?, Islam and the West, NewAgeISlam.com

Islam and the West

Will the US finally attack Pakistan?

By Moeed Pirrzada

18 July 2008

Karzai government has also suspended various bilateral meetings with Pakistan due in Dubai, Islamabad and Kabul within the next few weeks. Amidst this fury — shared in Kabul and New Delhi — no one is prepared to remember that even in the most third-rated of the Hollywood thrillers, the most obvious suspect is usually not the murderer; while in Bollywood, mostly the usual suspect is a part of the set-up of the real villains. But this is not a piece about overrated ISI, its equally dumb enemies and those who believe in its widely-exaggerated, almost magical powers, to operate without being caught — despite under continuous surveillance by the old friends and tutors in the CIA. Well, let me admit: this is a rather dull and dreary piece to analyse the real context of the US manoeuvring in Afghanistan. It is the election year in Washington, you know! And as expected both sides are drawing blood on the question of "National Security". Barack Obama had always asserted that Iraq was the 'wrong war' that diminished American security, damaged its standing in the world and ruined its economy and his punchline has always been that it affected America's performance in the 'good war' that is: Afghanistan.

http://newageislam.com/will-the-us-finally-attack-pakistan?/islam-and-the-west/d/253

India-Pakistan: Proceeding with détente, Current affairs , NewAgeIslam.com

Current affairs

India-Pakistan: Proceeding with détente

An editorial in Dawn

While progress has been consistent since the two sides agreed on a ‘composite dialogue’ in February 2004, much more remains to be done. The visa regimes remain to be liberalised, and consulates at Karachi and Mumbai have still not been set up. This is a source of hardship for visa seekers on both sides. India also needs to address the human rights issue in the Valley and lift the ban on Pakistani TV channels in occupied Kashmir — a point raised recently by the Paris-based NGO Reporters Without Borders. What India should not fail to grasp is the opportunity offered by the assumption of power by a democratic government in Islamabad. An improvement in the human rights condition in the Valley will enable the people of Kashmir to get the benefit of the ongoing normalisation process and help find a solution acceptable to all three sides.

http://newageislam.com/india-pakistan--proceeding-with-d%C3%A9tente/current-affairs/d/74

Karachi Burning, Islam and Sectarianism, NewAgeIslam.com

Islam and Sectarianism

26 Aug 2011, NewAgeIslam.Com

Karachi Burning

By Najam Sethi Aug. 26, 2011 OVER 400 people have been killed in gang and party political warfare in Karachi in the last two months. No permanent end to the senseless violence is in sight because of several factors. The three- way struggle for turf and power in Karachi among the PPP, MQM and ANP overlaps with violent gang wars among the criminal drug, extortion, arms and land- grab mafias that have come to dominate the underworld of Karachi and established quid pro quo links with each of the three parties. The problem is that the PPP government is helpless to establish law and order because it cannot afford to launch any serious and sustained “clean- up” operation that targets and antagonises its provincial coalition partners whose support is needed to prop up its government in Islamabad. http://www.newageislam.com/islam-and-sectarianism/karachi-burning/d/5328