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تحریکِ طالبان پاکستان کے سابق سربراہ عصمت اللہ شاہین ہلاک

http://www.bbc.co.uk/urdu/pakistan/2014/02/140224_north_waziristan_firring_taliban_tk.shtml

پاکستان - BBC Urdu - شمالی وزیرستان: گاڑی پر فائرنگ طالبان کمانڈر ہلاک پاکستان کے قبائلی علاقے شمالی وزیرستان میں ایک گاڑی پر فائرنگ کے نتیجے میں اہم طالبان کمانڈر عصمت اللہ شاہین کی تین ساتھیوں سمیت ہلاکت کی اطلاع ہے۔

Asmatullah Shaheen reported killed in North Waziristan firing

PESHAWAR: A month after unconfirmed reports of his death, key member of the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan's shura, Asmatullah Shaheen Bhittani, was reportedly killed on Monday along with three others when unidentified gunmen opened fire on a vehicle in Ghulam Khan Tehsil of the North Waziristan tribal area.

According to sources, the incident of firing took place near Darga Mandi area of Ghulam Khan tehsil.

Furthermore, the sources claimed that the three others killed in the incident were from Asmatullah's group.

The TTP has so far not confirmed Asmatullah's killing.

He served as the acting TTP chief after Hakeemullah Mehsud’s death and also headed the Taliban supreme shura. In late January, unconfirmed reports said he was killed during air strikes on militant sanctuaries in North Waziristan.

Asmatullah hails from the Khichi sub-tribe of Bhittani in South Waziristan and was known for his ruthless predisposition towards those taken prisoners by the TTP.

The battle hardened commander was one of the top deputies of Baitullah Mehsud and previously fought with the force of Haji Turkestan (a pro-government leader) multiple times. Considered a potential successor to Baitullah, Asmatullah wasn’t allowed to ascend the leadership mantle, as he hailed from a different tribe.

Asmatullah was considered as the lead figure of an attack on the Frontier Corps – Mullazai Fort in Tank, South Waziristan. In Dec 2011, his militants with highly sophisticated weaponry overran the military bastion, killed an officer and kidnapped 23 other soldiers. Although seven soldiers managed to escape from the militants’ custody, the rest of the abductees were brutally tortured and murdered. The horrifically mutilated bodies – with 40 bullet holes each and signs of torture – were recovered from North Waziristan subsequently.

North Waziristan is one of seven regions in Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Area (Fata) governed by tribal laws. An extremist insurgency led by the TTP plagues the region, while the area is known to be infested with militants, including those from Al Qaeda and other armed extremist organisations.

Due to recent onslaught of Pakistani armed forces on the militant-infested areas near the Pak-Afghan border, the locals have started moving towards settled areas in the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.

http://www.dawn.com/news/1089144/asmatullah-shaheen-reported-killed-in-north-waziristan-firing

Ironies that escape us by Ayaz Amir


Musharraf’s trials and tribulations are of little concern to most of us. Indeed his name now evokes a sense of boredom…what, him again? He had a great time of it when in power. Down and out on his luck, and if he made the mistake of coming back to Pakistan, it’s his outlook, not ours.

But the murder charge against him, stemming from the Lal Masjid affair, is a different matter. It concerns him but, more than that, it sheds light on the contours of our national confusion when it comes to militancy and extremism in the name of Islam.

Those events should have been etched on our memory but trust us to do a good job of forgetting them. What seemed pretty obvious at the time has been covered by layers of fantasy and myth-making, making martyrs of desperadoes and turning the army into an object of loathing, at least insofar as this event is concerned.

Lal Masjid is in the centre of Islamabad, St Paul’s or Notre Dame on a smaller scale. What had it become by the summer of 2007? It was a place of worship all right but also a militant stronghold, a centre of jihad, led by Maulana Abdul Aziz, the chief cleric, and his younger brother, Abdul Rashid Ghazi.

As in so many things Pakistani they were first close to the intelligence establishment, playing a role in picking up recruits for the ISI’s various jihads. Under the impact of the American attack on Afghanistan their understanding of jihad changed. From being close to the ISI they drifted away from it. By 2007 they were following their own agenda, defying state authority and spurning pleas for calm and moderation.

Pictures of armed men standing guard outside the mosque, some wearing gas masks, were splashed on TV screens around the world. Islamabad’s newly-empowered media, the empowerment a gift from Musharraf which he had ample reason to regret later, was at its most hysterical, calling for action against the clerics and criticising the government for lacking the spine to restore the ‘writ of the state’, a cliché much used and abused in Pakistan.

Musharraf was in a double bind. The lawyers’ movement had brought lawyers out on the roads, denouncing him and calling for the restoration of the deposed Chief Justice, Iftikhar Chaudhry; and there was the Lal Masjid standoff, both events played out at inordinate length on live television, the media never more free than under Musharraf’s quasi-military regime.

Lawyers loved the oxygen of publicity, the leading lights of their movement becoming instant household names. Abdul Rashid Ghazi, a Kalashnikov slung over his shoulders, was also very media savvy. It was a great time to cut a striking figure on television… “…Bliss was it in that dawn to be alive…” And the whipping horse was Musharraf.

As the tension mounted a Rangers man was shot outside the mosque, the bullet fired from Lal Masjid. Musharraf came under more pressure to do something. Various busybodies tried talking to the Ghazi brothers but on a high, probably because of all the attention they were getting, they set down impossible demands.

Unless the state was to abdicate its authority, that too in the capital, some kind of an operation had become inevitable. How the operation was carried out, whether the amount of force used was adequate or excessive, whether casualties could be minimised or not, are matters of detail. The main thing is that unless the Pakistan Army was to become a branch of the Salvation Army it had to do something. This, after all, was not north or south Waziristan…and the whole world was watching, Pakistan’s attitude to radical militancy under intense international scrutiny.

So the inevitable – or call it tragedy, depending upon one’s viewpoint – came to pass. When it was over and much before the acrid smell of the phosphorescent shells used in the operation had cleared, the Lal Masjid saga became a rallying cry for the armies of jihad, and in the election campaign that soon followed the emotions sparked by this event played no small part in contributing to the rout of pro-Musharraf elements.

But not to lose perspective, Musharraf may have been at the helm of affairs but what was at stake in the Lal Masjid affair was not his person but the authority of the state. Hence whoever ordered the operation – X, Y or Z – ultimately it was the state acting, suppressing a challenge to its authority.

On what grounds of logic then can a murder charge be instituted against Musharraf, whatever his role in the carrying out of the operation? To charge him, in this instance, is to charge the state of Pakistan.

No doubt the case against him was registered on the directions of the Islamabad High Court, and we know that since the restoration of the Chaudhry-led judges, some of the judiciary’s decisions have aroused controversy. But there is no need to enter into that debate here. After the case was registered, the Islamabad High Court’s work was done. It was now up to the Islamabad Police, falling under the control of the Ministry of Interior, to proceed further in the matter.

At stake was the country’s image. Were we serious or merely playing games on the extremist issue? To signal seriousness, the case against Musharraf after preliminary investigation should have been dismissed, for by no stretch of the imagination can the deaths in the Lal Masjid affair, tragic as they were, fall under the rubric of murder. If that was murder then every action undertaken by the state resulting in individual or collective death becomes murder.

Lingering on with this investigation, and not bringing it quickly to a close, convinces no one. It merely signals our dithering and equivocation on the larger threat that we face.

This is absurd enough. But what takes the prize is Musharraf’s stance before the investigation team. He has said that the operation was not his responsibility and that the orders were issued by the then government. This is not only unworthy of him as a person. It is unworthy of any Pakistani chief of the army staff. As president and army chief, he was the chief officer of the state. No action such as that against the Lal Masjid could have happened without his knowledge and approval. So what is he talking about?

If he had any regard for the uniform he once wore, he would have said, yes, an operation had become necessary and acting in defence of the republic he had given the orders. And if he had to do everything over again he would still give the same orders. Just goes to show the kind of leaders we have produced.

To put the leadership question in a wider frame, we now have a prime minister talking endlessly of only one issue: drone strikes, as if that is all there is to our extremism problem. To hear him, and geopolitical strategists like Imran Khan, wax indignant on the subject is to get the impression that the moment drone strikes end, peace will settle on our embattled borderlands. We are no strangers to insults, but to have our intelligence thus insulted…

We could do with some truth for a change. We could be told, for example, that look, drone attacks are bad but with what face do we make a big issue out of them when our sovereignty, where drone strikes occur, is a figment of the imagination? Only when we retake our sovereignty there can we expect the Americans to take us seriously. But l’audace, boldness, or even some measure of it…from where do we get it?

Tailpiece: The political class, it seems, will never learn. The delimitation of local council seats in Punjab is turning into quite a farce. I can speak for Chakwal where villages have been tossed here and there in an absurd manner to suit the passing whims of the ruling party. Union councils which have been around for the last 50 years are being broken up arbitrarily. City wards are being redrawn with the same abandon…and this is their idea of a fair election.

http://www.thenews.com.pk/Todays-News-9-209446-Ironies-that-escape-us

Ironies that escape us - Ayaz Amir Musharrafs trials and tribulations are of little concern to most of us. Indeed his name now evokes a sense of boredom…what, him again? He had a great time of it when in power. Down and out on his luc ...

The U-curve by Babar Sattar


MALCOLM Gladwell in his latest book David and Goliath writes about the relevance of the inverted U-curve to violence. Using the example of North Ireland and other data from criminologists he argues that, “there comes a point where the best-intentioned application of power and authority begins to backfire”.

In other words the application of force up to a certain point bears positive results after which it plateaus and then comes the downward spiral where use of force actually makes things worse.

The inverted U-curve argument seems logical. In the context of violence and terror, it rests on the concepts of rational actors and deterrence on the one hand and limits of power and state legitimacy on the other. The upward spiral in the inverted ‘U’ is explained by the fact that humans are rational beings and their cost-gain analysis influences their behaviour. Thus if a criminal feels that there is high probability of getting caught and reasonable certainty of punishment, crime would be deterred.

The downward spiral of the inverted U-curve is explained by the inherent limits of what power and authority can accomplish and how their excessive use can undermine the legitimacy of the state. If the state itself is perceived as illegitimate by a sizable part of the populace, use of force by it can become counterproductive and provoke more violence by creating more recruits who see those challenging the state as fighting a just war against an unjust state.

If we analyse our Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) conundrum as realists (not as moral pacifists or denialists) and agree that excessive use of force is counterproductive, we need to consider the following: one, when can we deem the use of force to have become excessive; two, what are the demands or grievances of terrorists that inform their concept of state legitimacy; and three, how does adhering to the demands of terrorists affect the rest of the law-abiding citizens of Pakistan.

Consider the examples of East Pakistan or Northern Ireland that Imran Khan uses to support his pro-talks stance (Gladwell also uses Northern Ireland to explain the limits of power). These were movements driven by a sense that the state was unjust in its distribution of rights, resources and power in relation to a community that had a shared identity. Such lack of justice undermined the legitimacy of the state in the eyes of the community and excessive use of force by the unjust state entrenched the resentment and provoked more violence and hate.

Notwithstanding horrible acts of terrorism against state officials or innocent citizens, within the realist paradigm the state can talk to an aggrieved community and its terrorists whose demands are rights-based. If a community feels that the state is stealing its rights and resources, there can be a conversation about redistribution. Balochistan falls within this category. And that is where the inverse U-curve is relevant. The aggrieved Baloch are focused on their rights and the resources made available to them by the state.

Their focus on the lives of Pakistanis elsewhere, if at all, is as a comparative reference point. The aggrieved Baloch don’t wish to control the lives of other Pakistanis. They want something for themselves. You can talk to them because there is something you can give them to address their grievance. Conversely, if you use force excessively and indiscriminately, it could convince the non-separatist Baloch that the state is illegitimate and incapable of change, and the separatists are right in using terror as a means to sn**ch their rights.

The same line of reasoning breaks down when it comes to the TTP. The latter is not saying that if drone attacks are stopped, they will decommission su***de bombers and go back to being patriotic tribesmen. They are not saying that if Pakistan disallowed use of supply routes to the US for purposes of war in Afghanistan they will give up their war against Pakistan. They are not saying that if Fata is mainstreamed and tribesmen are afforded full citizenship rights, they will lay down their arms.

The TTP’s agenda is not rights-based. It is revisionist. It doesn’t want to be like the more empowered bits of Pakistan. It wants all of Pakistan to be like it. When it seeks enforcement of the Sharia, it isn’t talking about tweaking a few constitutional provisions or adding some new ones. What it means is that Pakistanis are sinful Muslims who ought to adopt the TTP’s belief system.

When it justifies attacks on churches, it doesn’t do so to settle scores with the Christian West oppressing Muslims. It favours attacking churches because it doesn’t believe there should be any Christians anywhere who are not subjugated by Muslims.

The TTP is not revisionist in a limited sense, ie fighting to end the hegemony of superpowers in a bid to preserve the sovereignty of Muslim states. It is not angry at the US because it wishes the US to mind its own business, but because it wants to be the US — a Muslim US — that conquers the world and dominates infidels across the globe, starting with Pakistan’s ‘infidel Muslims’.

It is this ambition that creates a unity of purpose with Al-Qaeda. Ideologically, the TTP is the latest successor of the fidayeen — with a violent history almost as old as our religion itself — focused on converting ‘apostate’ Pakistanis into ‘true’ Muslims, as a necessary first step to export their exclusionary ideology and totalitarianism across the world. The logic of the inverse U-curve breaks down in relation to the TTP because it doesn’t want more rights; it wants to appropriate the state.

It is debatable whether Nawaz Sharif and Imran Khan understand the logic of the upward spiral of the U-curve wherein use of force is productive. But the TTP seems to understand it well. It has used coercion and terror effectively to generate a conformist consensus within the state and the society wherein submitting to the TTP seems to be the best way to establish peace. Reminds you of the dialogue from Sholay: only one man can save you from Gabbar’s anger, only one man, Gabbar himself.

http://dawn.com/news/1050776/the-u-curve

The U-curve - DAWN.COM MALCOLM Gladwell in his latest book David and Goliath writes about the relevance of the inverted U-curve to ...

A narrative to be discarded by Abbas Nasir


THE hatred heaped on the iconic, defiant teenage survivor of Taliban oppression, Malala Yousafzai, is symptomatic of a much wider malaise.

Whatever the more immediate reason(s) for demonising her, the underlying sentiment has to be disdain for a woman who doesn’t conform to our view of the ‘fairer sex’ as a hooded, faceless mother, sister, daughter and wife whose role is to cook, bear children and clean the home. That’s it.

Such a woman must play second fiddle to the man in her life and be content with the crumbs of ‘respect, comfort and security’ (never equality) thrown her way. She must be a silent sufferer of violence of varying descriptions if her nightmare is to be compared with the majority of her sisters in our culture and society that we see as ideal and better than all others.

Why else would we throw acid in the face of a woman whose exercise of her right to expression makes her defiant beyond redemption and worthy of punishment? Why else would we wish to retain a law that holds that when a r**e survivor reports the crime, she lays herself open to an adultery charge?

There are many, many examples of this happening. This is the law we behold. This is how we look at half our population.

It isn’t surprising then that the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP) issued statement after statement justifying why they targeted Malala Yousafzai and expressed no remorse. Even political groups and politicians who can be described as democratic have been ambivalent about the heroic deed of the TTP’s Swat nemesis. Leaders of the Jamaat-i-Islami (JI), who are forever forthcoming in their advice to r**e victims to forget any attempt at seeking justice by trying to register a criminal complaint unless they have ‘four witnesses’ to their ordeal, when pressed on Malala describe her as ‘our daughter’. But then a series of ifs and buts follows which dilutes the original view.

Jamshed Dasti, the ‘commoner’ who held his own against the top guns of the feudal heartland of southern Punjab to win a National Assembly seat, and till the last parliament was associated with the (relatively woman-friendly) PPP, has also earned much infamy as a misogynist.

While in the past he has lashed out against Mukhtaran Mai (whose valour following her gang r**e would shame the bravest among us), calling her names and questioning her ordeal which was the result of a jirga decision, he has now referred to Malala and her story as mere drama.

Dasti gets slammed because he is open with his views on independent women who raise their voice against accepted, no matter how obnoxious, norms. He appears a semi-literate man with a local following perhaps because he represents some sort of warped defiance to the feudals of the area who re**rd all development.

Hand on heart, tell me what percentage of half our population (ie men) privately/publicly thinks like Dasti, or have ideological beliefs that make them agree with the Jamaat’s worldview, or simply justify a secondary, subservient status for women in the name of tribal tradition or honour. Honour? Yes, honour.

Surely, you’d say, all these categories must constitute a minority. But do they? Look at the main political parties and count how women figure in them prominently.

In the run-up to the last election, the Pakistan Tehreek-i-Insaf (PTI) put together a coalition of conservative sections of the population in Khyber Pakhtunkhwa and the urban elite and middle class, including many educated, working women in Sindh and Punjab.

That the PTI, which almost cobbled together a ‘seat-adjustment’ with the JI before the polls and later formed an alliance with the religious party to form a government in Peshawar, would not have a woman minister in the provincial cabinet isn’t surprising.

Its flexibility and appeal for those among the educated urban middle class and elite in Sindh and Punjab to the religious elements, including Taliban apologists even if not outright sympathisers, in its power base of KP would probably dictate such a policy. Had it won Punjab perhaps it would have inducted many women in the cabinet. The PTI is far less ideological than many believe it to be. But what’s the PML-N’s excuse for giving abysmally token cabinet representation to women in the Punjab cabinet and at the centre?

When it was feeling the PTI heat in its heartland and feared Imran Khan’s appeal to young men and women particularly in urban Punjab, the intelligent and astute Maryam Nawaz was introduced into the campaign.

This appeared to be the PML-N’s best foot forward. Like her mother, she is clearly far more intelligent than the several male members of the family we have seen on public display.

They include the visionary leader, his administrative maestro brother and the brother’s frankly unintelligent-sounding son who is said to have been given a big role in the province as the chief minister’s administrative skills are made available to realise the prime minister’s vision in Islamabad.

Maryam Nawaz’s contribution to the PML-N’s win can be compared with her mother Kulsoom Nawaz’s cerebral and courageous leadership in keeping the party alive during the days after the 1999 coup when machinations by the military regime led to fast depleting ranks in the PML-N.

So, when the chips are down it is women and then business as usual. (No, I am not a great supporter of dynastic politics but also accept and acknowledge the people’s right to vote for anyone they want.)

Even before talks have begun with the TTP ‘stakeholders’, society has more or less conceded half their agenda by its attitude towards women. That is why iconic Malalas are a sty in the eye of obscurants and misogynists. They give hope, inspire millions like my Alia and Elena to stand up and demand their rights, and challenge a narrative that should have no place in the 21st century.

http://dawn.com/news/1050206/a-narrative-to-be-discarded

A narrative to be discarded - DAWN.COM THE hatred heaped on the iconic, defiant teenage survivor of Taliban oppression, Malala Yousafzai, is symptomatic of...

The foreign hand by Babar Sattar


FISHING in troubled waters is the unfortunate rule and not the exception in strategic thinking. Add to that the concept that an enemy of an enemy is a friend. And that in a nutshell explains our foreign hand problem.

Pakistan is in the eye of the storm. To not think that shadowy outfits of all hues from around the world are stirring trouble in our midst to pursue their own strategic interests would be naïve. Are CIA and RAW creating assets within our terror syndicate and funding them? Probably yes. Are they the only ones? Probably not.

Steve Coll’s Ghost Wars was a riveting read for it narrated how complex, entwined and self-conflicted the business of proxy wars is, wherein there are layers within layers of alliance of interests between adversaries and layers within layers of conflicts between allies.

To assert that because the US might secretly be funding terror groups in Pakistan, critics of the pro-talks policy are foreign agents interested in forestalling peace reflects the denial, paranoia and utter foolishness of our political class honing a flawed national security narrative.

Since the OBL operation is there any doubt that the US has a well-entrenched intelligence network within Pakistan? Doesn’t the success of the US drones programme depend not just on superior technology but also human intelligence? Maybe the US relies on ISI’s intelligence when it comes to the Tehreek-i-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). But would it not seek to double-check such information apart from gathering intelligence on the Afghan Taliban and the ISI itself? It would be remarkable if the world’s sole superpower didn’t fund clandestine activities in a war it has a direct stake in and not the other way round.

The fishing-in-troubled-waters part is easy to understand. All countries with ambitious national security interests and the ability or desire to pursue them do so. Is Pakistan an exception? Do we have an interest in other countries — whether India, Bangladesh or Afghanistan — pursuing certain policies? We do. Do we fund groups within these countries to realise our goals? We probably do. Remember Ghulam Nabi Fai who was charged and convicted in the US for concealing funds received from the ISI for trying to influence the US position on Kashmir?

Acknowledging evil is not the same as endorsing it. The point is that states fund clandestine activities in other states. It is the efficacy of the national security policy of a state that determines whether or not the subversive acts of other states succeed.

In that regard there are three sets of problems with the foreign hand argument in our terror debate: its use is selective; it projects facilitation as cause; and it is a product of (and further entrenches) a sense of disempowerment rooted in denial of human agency within Pakistanis.

India and the US have an interest in funding clandestine acts within Pakistan, but so do Saudi Arabia, Iran and other Arab friends. That our Arab friends funded jihad factories in Pakistan is a historical fact. There is no evidence that such funding has dried up or that we have acquired control over funding channels. That Saudi Arabia was a key driver instigating US-led armed action in Syria is before us. Thus, to present the foreign hand as a subset of the Western imperialist design against Pakistan is intellectually dishonest.

Whether funding of su***de attacks is a manifestation of US designs to pre-empt government-TTP talks, Indian desire to sow confusion and discord, Saudis paying us back for our position on Syria or difference of opinion between pro and anti-talk factions within the TTP, we’ll never know with certainty.

What we must understand, however, is that the designs or plans of foreign states would never succeed if it were not for the presence of an armed and motivated militia that sees the state and fellow citizens as legitimate targets of terrorism.

What we have in the form of the TTP-led terror syndicate is a loaded weapon. Now whether the weapon is being guided exclusively by indigenous merchants of terror or occasionally also by our foreign enemies (or allies) is a moot point.

To the extent that the loaded weapon exists and is lying around, it will remain susceptible to abuse. And such use or abuse might not be the inadvertent outcome of poor simple Taliban being misled by the conniving US-Euro-Zino-Hindu-imperialist nexus. It could be by design: the enemy of the enemy is a friend.

So to stop those pillaging our state and society, is the best strategy to start with the world-at-large casting an evil eye on us, or with the means being used to carry out the evil designs? Should acquiring control over flow of money that funds terror be a part of our anti-terrorism policy? It must. Should tweaking our foreign policy to deter states funding terrorism within Pakistan be part of our national security policy? It must. But should we do so without disassembling the terror infrastructure being greased by the foreign funding we’re complaining about?

The most devastating aspect of the pro-talks argument that justifies terrorism as a foreign conspiracy or a reaction to acts of foreign states (drones or US war in Afghanistan) is that it conceives citizen as devoid of human and moral agency. Can an abettor be more guilty than the perpetrator himself? The foreign hand argument has hidden within it a dehumanising aspect: as enemy states are funding acts of terror, the militants themselves are not cognisant of the choices they make in killing fellow citizens and thus not liable for the consequences of such choices.

No human society or justice system is conceivable without the basic organising principle that able-minded adults ought to be responsible for the choices they make. The pro-talks argument is morally flawed for it places the responsibility for loss of innocent Pakistani lives not on those citizens willingly carrying our terrorist attacks will full comprehension of their consequences, but on foreign actors whose actions are projected to have angered these terrorists into believing that fellow citizens are legitimate proxy targets.

http://dawn.com/news/1048044/the-foreign-hand

The foreign hand - DAWN.COM FISHING in troubled waters is the unfortunate rule and not the exception in strategic thinking. Add to that the...