Afghanistan drifts towards a closure, on floating wafts of time, on which travel events outside the control of the most powerful; directionless. Sadly, after half the world has fished in its troubled waters, abandonment is on the cards. US President Barack Obama remains unclear which way he is going, both as the guide to American policy and as a president. He has lost his way in the Washington maze, and in the absence of the commander-in-chief, everyone else is suddenly sprung into action — Pentagon, the FBI, the CIA, the State Department, Brennan et al. No, it isn’t the routine Washington functioning where separate voices provide differing nuances, but a superpower in serious disarray. It is important to say this since the super-power drives the agenda, especially so in Afghanistan. All others are bit players swishing on the fringes, at best muddying the already murky. Continue reading >>> http://goo.gl/s98wp
THE 10th anniversary of 9/11 was a sombre occasion for reflection on the meaningless suffering and violence caused by Al Qaeda and its franchises as well as the subsequent military reaction by states across the globe.
This decade will be remembered for its long periods of unnecessary war, violence, torture and death. If all the tears caused by such abundant sorrow could be collected in one place, they would constitute a tragic river of regret, broken hopes and hearts.
Having worked for more than 18 months in Swat with trauma patients who were victims of personal tragedies during the Taliban rule and the military response thereafter, one has witnessed the heartrending effect on ordinary people.
The worst sufferers have been women and children, and there are many households in Swat today with widows as head of the family. They have not only to cope with the strain of living but also of having to raise families without breadwinners. One cannot allow this catastrophe to pass without reflection; one must answer why this has happened.
I am reminded of the lines by poet Joan Anglund who wrote, “Like a great dark bird, winging home, tragedy drops into the waiting nest, woven by our weaknesses”. One notes the many opportunities that arose. If these had been grasped at the right moment tragedies could have been prevented.
It is true that neither the US nor Pakistan were wise enough to deal with what Osama bin Laden had in mind. It was a systematic failure across the board in not knowing how to counter him. In the case of Pakistan we were complacent about not having rooted out the radicals after their dispersal from Tora Bora.
The 9/11 Commission Report said that it was clear to the US intelligence community that “Although Bin Laden was determined to strike in the US … [n]umerous precautions were taken overseas. Domestic agents were not effectively mobilised”. Even more telling was the commission’s finding that “None of measures adopted by the US government from 1998-2001 disturbed or even delayed the progress of the Al Qaeda plot … Across the government there were failures of imagination, policy,
capabilities and management”.
In the case of Pakistan, had Gen Musharraf been vigilant and honest, many lives across the world including in Pakistan could have been saved and we would have also avoided the embarrassment of the discovery of Bin Laden in Abbottabad. A preventive policy would have stopped or reduced the subsequent eruption of extremism within Pakistani society that is today devouring it.
Anthony Cordesman is not wrong in saying that, “Pakistan is passing through one of the most dangerous periods of instability in its history … [It] is approaching a perfect storm of threats, including rising extremism, a failing economy, chronic underdevelopment and an intensifying war, resulting in unprecedented political, economic and social turmoil”.
In order to gain American sympathies, the Pakistan government issued a sponsored advertisement in the Wall Street Journal on 9/11 claiming that Pakistan was the worst sufferer during the last decade in terms of losses and the number of persons, both civilian and military, killed in the war. However, to ask in the advertisement ‘Which country can do more for your peace?’ and then continue blatantly, ‘Can any other country do so? Only Pakistan’ is in bad taste. Nations make policies and sacrifices for their own strategic interests. This is no way to go about getting mileage by selling the shrouds of one’s citizens.
On another level, this statement clearly indicates Islamabad’s view that Pakistan is fighting America’s war, something that the majority of Pakistanis have been saying ever since Gen Musharraf tied Pakistan’s fate to the US.
Despite having more than 150,000 soldiers defending the country’s sovereignty against non-state threats in Fata and Malakand, we witness daily the shenanigans of mad men and psychopaths on the national media about other less important matters; it appears we have become deranged as a people.
In the absence of any sincere effort to curb the destruction of Karachi, as Pakistan’s principal city, we hear meaningless homilies by everyone. Everyday our level of governance drops many notches. It is as if we want the tragedy (of Karachi) to drop into the waiting nest as described by Anglund.
With the December 2014 deadline for the withdrawal of the US from Afghanistan drawing near, we should be working hard to ensure that we are not caught again in the cross-hairs of another civil war that would do permanent harm to Pakistan. This is a moment for political parties and institutions to gather and craft a unified Pakistani policy that provides a workable regional solution based on peace.
If our national leadership fails to find time to lead the fight against extremism then we will have only ourselves to blame if we are ensnared again in the Afghan quagmire.
The Pakistan government has proudly proclaimed the figures of sacrifices made for the US since Sept 11, 2001. There are 21,672 Pakistani civilians dead or injured. The army lost 2,795 soldiers while 8,671 were wounded. There were 3,486 bomb blasts and 283 suicide attacks. More than 3.5 million persons became internally displaced. The losses to assets are worth more than $68bn. However, it is doubtful whether such statements will shift US policy favourably towards Pakistan.
On the other hand, these losses, though substantial, pale in comparison to our failure of governance as seen in Karachi. If the pressure on Pakistan’s dwindling capacity increases then our institutions may soon become dysfunctional and that to my mind will be the ultimate price we may pay for the 9/11 decade.
In 1998, Osama bin Laden and Ayman Zawahiri declared war on the US, outlining a philosophy of the clash of civilizations which legitimised attacks on the West - both soldiers and civilians. In the US, a group of politicians, who were to become known as the Neocons, believed they too had a moral duty to change the world. Both groups found their opportunity in the attacks of 9/11 and the invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq. But both were to see their dreams perish with the increasing human cost of these wars and the reality that ideologies without popular support cannot change the world.
A review of the 10 years since the September 11, 2001, attacks for a country that has weathered more crises than most. by Asad Hashim. The last 10 years have been something less than kind to Pakistan.
Since it was famously told that it either stood with the United States in its "War on Terror" or faced being bombed "back to the Stone Age" in 2001, it has lost 35,000 citizens to "terror"-related attacks and violence, with 3,500 of those being security forces and military personnel who were either targeted by militant groups or were killed during military operations. To put that second number in context, it is 30 per cent higher than NATO military casualties in the war in Afghanistan in the same period.
It has endured countless attacks against both civilian targets (including mosques) and state personnel and infrastructure, peace deals with militant groups in its largely ungoverned tribal areas (invariably followed by the breakdown of said deals), the storming of a radical seminary in the capital by the army (the Lal Masjid episode of 2008), the emergence of a Pakistani-target centric militant network (the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan), al-Qaeda's designation of it as its primary enemy worldwide, the imposition of Sharia law in Swat, and a subsequent military operation in the valley (as well as similar operations in South Waziristan (multiple times), Orakzai, Bajaur, Mohmand, Khyber, Kurram and Swat itself on an earlier occasion; elsewhere, the government used armed tribal "lashkars" to fight extremist groups). It has seen the killing of arguably the country's most nationally popular leader in a suicide-bombing-and-shooting attack at a political rally, more bombings against civilians, the assassinations of a provincial governor and a federal minister for opposing a controversial blasphemy law, the killing of a major Baloch separatist leader in a state military operation, an expanded US drone strike campaign since 2009 (killing an estimated at least 2,309 people, of whom at least 392 were civilians, and the killing of the world's most wanted man, Osama bin Laden, on the doorstep of the country's military academy in a covert strike by US special forces.
Economically, its Gross Domestic Product has grown by 22.5 per cent (in real terms) to $174.8m, with an accompanying rise in consumer inflation from 3.7 per cent to 13.7 per cent for the country's now 174 million citizens. It has had two major International Monetary Fund bailouts, seen annual economic growth of around seven per cent give way to economic stagnation due to an over-dependence on credit and foreign direct investment in the growth bubble, and a massive influx of US military and civilian aid, culminating in the Kerry Lugar Bill, under which Pakistan is to receive $7.5bn over five years in civilian-only aid.
Politically, the country has seen two parliamentary elections on either side of seven years of military rule, an unprecedented liberation of media freedoms, a popular mass movement for the reinstatement of its Supreme Court Chief Justice and the overthrow of said military ruler, the killing of the largest national party's leader and the subsequent ascendance of her widely unpopular husband to the country's presidency, a continuing movement for secession in the country's largest province (by area) and bitter political conflict, sometimes resulting in bouts of violence claiming hundreds of lives, as most recently seen in Karachi.
And all of this is before one gets to the natural disasters: two major earthquakes, a tropical cyclone and major flooding which, put together, killed more than 75,000 people (96 per cent of those in the 2005 Kashmir earthquake) and affected more than 20 million (the vast majority after the devastating floods in 2010).
The country lurches, then, from crisis to catastrophe and back again, stopping briefly at moments of opportunity.
Crises of duplicity
The armchair debate in Pakistan is often focused on how the country's support for the US-led "War on Terror" has led Pakistan into this delicate balance – realistically, however, when then-US Secretary of State Colin Powell told then-Pakistani President and General Pervez Musharraf that Pakistan was either an ally or a target, there was no real choice involved.
"I don't think Pakistan had a choice. In that climate, I don't think Pakistan could declare neutrality, and I don't think that anybody would have considered neutrality as credible for Pakistan," Dr Rasul Baksh Raees, a professor of political science at the Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS) and columnist, told Al Jazeera. "I don't think that Pakistan could really get through the crisis [if it had said no] ... Today, although it is wounded, it is still alive."
Dr Hasan Askari Rizvi, a political and defence analyst, agrees, pointing out that at the time, only Pakistan's Islamist political parties (the most prominent of whom, the Jamaat-e-Islami and Jamiat Ulema-e-Islam, have historically fared poorly in national elections) publicly opposed Pakistani co-operation with the United States.
"Mainstream political parties were not opposed to the decision," he told Al Jazeera. "It is only at a later stage that this confusion about what Pakistan should do increased [amongst the political leadership]".
"What 9/11 did was that it made the military, through General Musharraf, come out of alignment with the mullahs [clerics] and the militants" [GALLO/GETTY]
As the years progressed, however, and the war in Afghanistan continued well beyond initial expectations, the Pakistani position, as articulated by Musharraf, of co-operating at the wrong end of a gun began to change, as did citizens' perceptions.
"The roots of the violence [in Pakistan] can be traced back to the pre-9/11 period. What happened after 9/11 was that the different militant Islamic groups gradually turned against the Pakistani state and they increased their mutual coordination, all aimed at the Pakistani state," Rizvi says.
The Pakistani state, and society at large, meanwhile "could not really make up their mind about how they should deal with all kinds of militant Islamic groups, including the Taliban", he continues. Raees argues that the result has been a country that is "socially and psychologically fractured", where citizens feel a sense of "anxiety and insecurity" at the lack of clear answers regarding their lives.
"What was lost in [the US support for Musharraf] was democracy and democratisation. Because Musharraf always said that Pakistan was fighting America's war … it gave the Pakistanis the very real belief that they were a rental army, and you see that anger. It really enabled Pakistanis to conclude that the war that they were fighting against the Taliban was not their war," argues Carol Christine Fair, an assistant professor at Georgetown University's School of Foreign Service and an expert on the region.
The ambivalence comes in no small part from the fact that the Pakistani state has historically fostered groups such as Jaish-e-Muhammad and Lashkar-e-Taiba to further its foreign policy objectives in the region (mainly with regards to the dispute over Kashmir with India). While its compact with the United States may have exacerbated the rate of the problem, however, there was always going to be a moment for Pakistan when the suicide bombers came home to roost.
"What 9/11 did was that it made the military, through General Musharraf, come out of alignment with the mullahs [clerics] and the militants," explains Fair. "And [in response to that], some of the militants, like Jaish-e-Muhammad, said 'Screw you'."
Missed opportunities
"[The post-9/11 scene] was an opportunity for Pakistan to really change its foreign policy away from supporting militancy. […] Initially, the world community would have supported Pakistan if it saw this as a way of abandoning its proxy wars and groups," she argues. "Pakistan kind of squandered that opportunity to reverse its decades old dangerous foreign policy and of course this Pakistani Taliban phenomenon: well, there would be no Pakistani Taliban if there were no militants that Pakistan had supported over a number of years. And Pakistanis have paid a heavy price for this [in lives]. […]
"I don't think 9/11 was pivotal about the identity questions [that Pakistanis face] … those questions were already there. The fact is that well before 9/11 you had groups slaughtering members of the Ahmadiyya and Shia communities."
Today, while the Pakistani government has repeatedly said that it "owns" the war against extremists on its soil, it continues to differentiate between targets, based on its understanding of the strategic calculus at play.
"The Pakistani position is really riddled with hypocrisy and duplicity," says Fair, when speaking of tacit Pakistani support for groups such as Lashkar-e-Taiba (or its more peaceable front, the Islamic charity Jamaat-ud-Dawa) or the Haqqani network, which is fighting NATO forces in Afghanistan out of bases in North Waziristan, but refrains from attacking Pakistani targets. She quickly adds, however, that the same could be said of the US position, given how it has treated a country which was "pulling their weight more than other ally" in the early years of the war.
"If you analyse this issue, you run deep into a cultural, intellectual and social crisis and the crisis borders on duplicity and a total lack of integrity: you don't want to say it is your war, although it is. And you don't want to say that you are an American ally, but you are"
Dr Rasul Baksh Raees
"The problem was that as Pakistan became more important in the 'War on Terror', it became increasingly difficult to make Pakistan abide by promises that were made [regarding support for proxy groups]," she says.
"If you socially analyse this issue, you run deep into a cultural, intellectual and social crisis and the crisis borders on duplicity and a total lack of integrity: you don't want to say it is your war, although it is. And you don't want to say that you are an American ally, but you are," rails Raees.
Pakistan refuses to confront the Haqqani network and other Afghan Taliban leaders based on strategic calculations regarding their likelihood to figure in any post-war Afghanistan as a counterweight to the perception of a Northern Alliance-based government that is dominated by Indian influence, most analysts agree.
That still leaves its support for groups such as Jaish-e-Muhammad and Lashkar-e-Taiba, historically used by the state against India. Rizvi argues that such groups have by now "established strong roots in Pakistani society because of the tolerance shown by the Pakistani security forces. By now, a strict action against LeT or Jamaat ud Dawa or Jaish-e-Muhammad would mean fighting a war in the cities, which the Pakistan army would avoid. In other words, the military has lost the option of controlling them because of its own policies in the past".
He points to the Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan and the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (both anti-Shia groups) as examples of groups that the state has no explicit use for externally, but which can nevertheless not be controlled domestically.
Rizvi says that going forward, Pakistan will likely continue to tolerate certain militant groups so that they can maintain influence with them, even if the Afghan Taliban would not necessarily be "directly amenable to Pakistani influence. They may listen to them, but they are not likely to act on their advice, because from their perspective Pakistan has betrayed them [by co-operating with the United States post-2001]".
Nevertheless, Pakistan does possess leverage over several Afghan groups, and over the Afghan economy in particular through its control of land trade routes into the country from the Arabian Sea, and Rizvi feels that Pakistan will operate those levers in order to ensure that it does not face unfriendly neighbours on both its eastern and western borders.
"I think that Pakistan has this mythical idea that when [the US withdraws], life will return to status quo. It's not going to happen. The whole region is going to be engulfed in further militancy and violence. Only part of it can be attributed to the US," says Fair, adding that the US has "put in a lot of structures that will make civil war [in Afghanistan] more likely", such as a police based on "local militias". She adds that Pakistan may have a particularly difficult time with the Afghan Taliban after the withdrawal, given that most of its commanders are now young men who grew up in refugee camps in Pakistan.
"These are kids who have become mid-level commanders who hate Pakistan and hate the ISI [Pakistan’s main intelligence agency]."
'Wounded, but still alive'
On the political front, meanwhile, wrangling continues between the democratic government and an activist judiciary, empowered by the mass movement to bring its chief justice back to the Supreme Court.
Nevertheless, the PPP-led coalition government, faced with crises on both the economic and security fronts, continues to totter, but not topple. Perhaps the only reason this government may well see out its term until 2013 (making it the only democratically elected and led government in Pakistan to do so in the country's 64 year history) is that no one else really wants to take the reins faced with such dire circumstances.
Ultimately, Pakistan's problems remain more deep-rooted than simply those of circumstance – or, in this case, a particular circumstance, which killed more than 3,000 people in cities on the other side of the globe. With space of political discourse ever narrowing, the challenges Pakistan faces are both existential and pragmatic: it needs to answer questions of identity whilst simultaneously paying its bills, feeding 174 million citizens and, in a both real and metaphorical sense, holding itself together.
A foreign policy that appears to be based on running with the hare and hunting with the hounds, however, indicates that when it comes to the international community, and particularly its immediate neighbours, it will likely continue to muddle through on the knife edge of stability.
“My centre is giving way, my right is in retreat; situation excellent. I shall attack.”
– Marshal Foch (First World War)
Under attack from all sides, this should be the motto of the Pakistan Army in these trying and, I daresay, bracing times. For what can be more bracing than the winds howling, the storm-clouds bursting, the earth shaking beneath your feet, but your heart steady and your resolve unshaken?
The army’s past is less than glorious. It has done things for which it has been justly criticised: interventions a hapless nation could have done without, saviours and messiahs – a depressing gallery of four – whose collective output has contributed more than anything else to bring us to our present pass.
But, in a remarkable turnaround, the army has started doing the right things: refraining from political interventionism, thereby supporting democracy; standing up to the United States and refusing to subordinate national interests to American interests. Far from getting credit for this welcome change of course, it is being targeted by agenda-driven cynics from within and American scheming without.
Not that the Americans are our enemies. We should avoid going down this road. But they have their own agenda, and their own pressing concerns vis-à-vis their quagmire in Afghanistan, which may not be in full harmony with our interests.
The Americans want the Pakistan army to expand its Pakhtun wars, to go into North Waziristan in a big way and set ablaze the entire length of the Afghan-Pakistan border. Only then will their insistence that we “do more” be appeased. This at a time when they are exploring avenues to talk to the Taliban.
In other words, as they themselves explore the peace option they want us to go all-out for the war option. Wanting to ease the pain of their exit from Afghanistan, they are entitled to look out for themselves. But doesn’t the same logic apply to us? The Americans may be past bothering about what happens to us when they begin their long retreat from Kabul and Kandahar, but we have to look out for ourselves.
And because the Pakistan Army, after the blind acquiescence of the Musharraf years, has finally started to think for itself instead of jumping to American dictation, the Americans are deeply upset because they are not used to this, certainly not from us.
They are right to insist that Pakistan should not play double games: running with the Taliban and hunting with the Americans. These double games have hurt Pakistan more than anyone else. But they are wrong to insist that in operational matters – the how, why and when of Fata operations – General Headquarters, Rawalpindi, should take its cue from Central Command, Florida.
So not liking this new streak of independence, the Americans are striking back in whatever way they can: editorial broadsides in the New York Times (often a sounding board if not outright mouthpiece for the American establishment) calling for a change of command in the ISI; and, in the latest from Washington, the suspension of 800 million dollars of military assistance.
This last doesn’t make sense at all. Far from making the GHQ bend it will only stiffen its resolve and strengthen those who say that Pakistan should say good riddance to the American alliance. But then great powers, imperial powers, are not unknown for doing things that don’t make sense. That they may be able to get away with it is an altogether different story.
If ours was not a house divided – if external pressure was the only thing the army command had to worry about, it would be no great matter. But apart from American pressure, the army is also under snide and cynical attack from within because, and this is the astonishing part, of its support for democracy.
Support boils down not to extending bayonet protection to the government but simply to non-intervention, a demarcation of lines between the political and military spheres. This precisely is what makes some elements of the domestic scene deeply unhappy; for the past three years their most cherished wish has been for the ISI to destabilise the government and the army to step into the ring. They are not bothered about the consequences as long as the army forsakes its neutrality and swings a battleaxe to the central government’s head.
A section of the media, indeed a very determined section, retired civil servants, diplomats and generals – dignified by the appellation of civil society, which is a new coinage in these parts – have been in the forefront of this campaign. But the GHQ not obliging, army chief Gen Ashfaq Parvez Kayani is being attacked for not doing his national duty.
Which is pretty tough for any army chief: damned if he does, and now damned if he doesn’t. There’s no pleasing Pakistan’s cynical chattering classes.
From all the signs available, the Americans would dearly love to see the last of Kayani. But since this is easier said than done, they are gunning for the next best thing: a change of guard in the ISI, their real bete noire since the Raymond Davis affair. And they are being aided, even if inadvertently (unless it is not inadvertent at all), by domestic voices accusing Kayani and Pasha of shirking their responsibility by not playing the political games their predecessors played with such zest, and with what disastrous consequences we don’t have to be reminded.
The answer to this scheming, and there is a whole lot of it afoot in Islamabad – a city dedicated since its ill-judged inception to conspiracy and intrigue – is to keep calm and not panic. Not a lesson easily learnt because, if we remember, after the Bin Laden affair the GHQ’s response, either by itself or through its conduit the Foreign Office, was to sputter and fulminate – issuing communiqués that were barely literate, let alone being shining monuments to logic.
But there was a welcome change of tone in the statement after the last Corps Commanders’ Conference – the first after the suspension of US military aid. It was restrained and controlled, as such things should always be. Fulmination may suit pulpit-mongers, but not soldiers.
We were taught precis-writing, the shorter writing of a longer note, when I was in Kakul (1967-69). More than ever is this skill required in these storm-tossed days.
But to return to the main road, not only is the army under attack, Pakistan is under attack. Nor can we harbour the illusion that this hostility will cease any time soon...because the more the American adventure in Afghanistan goes sour, and doesn’t play out according to American wishes, the greater the temptation to strike out at scapegoats, none more readily available than Pakistan.
So we should keep calm, always remembering Odysseus’s words, “Patience, stout heart, thou hast endured far worse than this.” Drum-beating and wailing, two sub-continental proclivities, we should avoid and engage with the Americans civilly – leaving shrillness to the howling of the winds – and keep to our course. But also remembering that the days of double hunts and double games are over. On some middling Himalayan peak we should bury the remains of jihad and raise a monument over it, offering our final prayers as the bugles sound. Of all the follies perfected by GHQ, which what once-upon-a-time gave the appearance of being a veritable foundry of follies, this was about the worst.
As for domestic cynics who would like to push the GHQ into the fires of interventionism – and who wouldn’t be found anywhere when the need arises to pull the army’s chestnuts out of the fire – they are best left to their own devices. No need to agonise over their well-deserved misery.
The next 18 months, leading up to the next elections, are likely to be about the most crucial in Pakistan’s history, for they will determine whether we are at all capable of a peaceful and democratic transition of power. Imperfect and rickety as the applecart of our present democracy is, there is no alternative to the democratic process, however much we may hate some of its manifestations. The GHQ’s role is crucial. It has to help in keeping the ship of state from rocking too much.
The old Mukesh song has it wrong: “sub kuch seekha ham ne, na seekhi hoshiari”... we have learnt everything except cleverness. The Pakistani nation has learnt too much cleverness. Now it must learn a bit of patience.
Tailpiece: Another person who could learn the virtues of restraint is Zulfiqar Mirza. Of a walking time-bomb there is no more perfect example.
THE arrest of Brig Ali Khan and four majors last month bring Hizb ut-Tahrir (HT) into the spotlight. Though HT did not confirm or deny their links with itself, its spokesman in Pakistan said in a recent interview that the idea of resonates with officers of the armed forces.
HT is an ideological group that falls somewhere between political Islamists and militant Islamists, and may also be classified as a kind of a revolutionary Islamist set-up. HT emphatically asserts that the only way to progress, prosperity and development is the implementation of Islam as an ideology in Pakistan, in fact the whole world.
In Pakistan, it has an anti-constitutional and anti-democratic outlook and agenda, and its narrative on militant and violent movements and groups in the country remains vague. This vagueness is a major hurdle in assessing the real threat the group can pose. Most analysts tend to watch madressahs and popular mass movements for signs of radicalisation. The danger with HT is ever more serious and often overlooked because it is not always visible and does not conform to stereotypes.
HT`s political discourse is based on religio-ideological narratives that are already in abundance in Pakistan and are one of the root causes of the main security threats posed to Pakistan`s state and society. HT can, in fact, give impetus to the theo-political polarisation in Pakistani society where space for any discourse other than the Islamist narrative has almost already disappeared. This is a threat in general, irrespective of which Islamist organisation or group is contributing to it; and HT is also a part of this threat augmentation.
HT claims to be a non-violent movement, but has been linked to a number of terrorist plots in Pakistan, including an attempt to assassinate former president Gen Pervez Musharraf. A report by the Pak Institute for Peace Studies, quoting an HT member, claimed that the group did not deny the involvement of HT members in some “violent activities” — such as the plot to assassinate Musharraf and the case of an army captain who faces court martial in Kotli, in Pakistan-administered Kashmir on charges of planning a coup on HT`s behalf. khilafat khilafat
Some other factors also suggest that HT may pose potential threats to the security of the Pakistani state and society. Firstly, the frustrated youth associated with HT may get involved in terrorist activities; secondly, HT does not denounce such activities. Thirdly, HT does not discount the possibility of resort to violence via the military, in order to achieve the ultimate goal of establishing the state; it rather obliges it. Naveed Butt, HT spokesman in Pakistan, states that after the establishment of , part of the second phase will be to widen the borders of the state through offensive `jihad` or aggressive warfare. kufr khilafat. khilafat khilafat
At another level, the pursuit of a jihadist agenda cannot be ruled out in the case of HT. It believes that jihad and preaching will be used for “taking humanity out from the darkness of (infidelity) to the light of Islam” after the establishment of Perhaps HT has assumed a timeline for the establishment of their in Pakistan after which it plans to pursue a `jihad` to expand the boundaries of .
However, the question is, if things do not happen according to HT`s expectations, as the dominant discourse in Pakistan suggests, who can guarantee that the organisation, or its members at least, will not adopt the militant or jihadist discourse to achieve their primary objectives, especially when there are already some indications of their involvement in such activities. khilafat
Secondly, HT tries to influence the political leadership, mainly leaders of Islamist parties in Pakistan. It claims, as discussed earlier, that they do not have a clear agenda and that HT can provide them with a viable blueprint for the establishment of , or an `Islamic` revolution, that they are working towards.
Most Islamist organisations are traditionalists in their approach and work under the constitution of Pakistan. HT can lead the Islamists to a viewpoint that is characterised by opposition to the constitution. In other words, HT has the potential to compress the political and democratic space by guiding the Islamist parties and the citizens of Pakistan towards non-democratic and unconstitutional narratives of governance and state-functioning.
Thirdly, HT has been persistently targeting Pakistan Army officials for enlisting and the fact that it has the potential to augment the `Islamic revolution` niche occupied by some senior military officials cannot be ignored.
It is pertinent to mention that in two military coup plots unearthed in Pakistan HT was the prime suspect. A military court in Pakistan-administered Kashmir identified two military officers and two civilians in January 2010 as members of HT and charged them with planning to attack the Shamsi airbase in Balochistan. This facility is generally believed to be used as a base for US drones attacking targets in Pakistan`s tribal areas. The accused were also charged with transferring sensitive information to HT, which had also developed close links with Maj Gen Zaheer Abbasi, the main accused in the foiled military coup in 1995.
Fourthly, HT concentrates considerably on university students and those studying in professional institutions. The infiltration of these groups, especially with an anti-state and anti-constitutional agenda, runs the risk of putting more and more educated Pakistani youth on the path of radicalisation. According to Maajid Nawaz, a former member of HT, the radicalisation of this section of youth could have a poisonous effect on other segments of society, eventually making the core fabric of society prone to extremism because of its Islamist-guided polarisation.
HT certainly has the potential to polarise progress in Pakistan by injecting schismatic dogma into the very classes that Pakistan so desperately needs to progress.
"The Hizb ut-Tahrir threat" By Muhammad Amir Rana, is editor of the quarterly research journal Conflict and Peace Studies. mamirrana@yahoo.com
Jun 26, 2011 ... We trained inside Hizb-ut-Tahrir on how to give responses to journalists in a way that didn't make our cause look very sensationalist so ...
Jul 3, 2011 ... Though some analysts believe that the Hizb ut-Tahrir is not a terrorist outfit, its agenda is no less deadly. It is built around the ...
USA has killed over 2000 people in FATA, through droned attacks, [flown from Shamsi Air base], mostly civilians. Pak Taliban have killed over 30,000 innocent Muslims on pretext to avenge Drone attacks, they even attacked Naval Air Base at Karachi. Question arises that Why Taliban do not attack Shamsi Airbase in Pakistan? Its very simple, aim of Taliban is to kill Muslims and destabilise Pakistan, they are allegedly financed and aided by USA, India and other anti-Pak powers so; Why should they attack the base of their benefactors?
Quran:5:57 O ye who believe! take not for friends and protectors those who take your religion for a mockery or sport whether among those who received the Scripture before you or among those who reject faith; but fear ye Allah if ye have Faith (indeed).
Quran;3:28. Let not the believers make unbelievers their protectors rather than the believers; anyone who does so will have nothing to hope for from Allah - except if you do so as a precaution to guard yourselves against their tyranny. Anyhow, Allah warns you to fear Him: because with Allah is your final refuge. However normal friendly relations with peaceful Non Muslims are not forbidden : “Allah only forbids you to make friendship with those who fought you on account of your faith and drove you out of your homes and backed up others in your expulsion. Those who will take them for friends are indeed the wrongdoers”. (Qur’an;60:9).
THE announcement of Defence Minister Chaudhary Ahmad Mukhtar that the United States has been asked to vacate the Shamsi airbase in Balochistan has widely been hailed by people of Pakistan, who consider it belated but still timely move as part of the efforts to restore national honour and dignity. According to him, Americans have started moving equipment and materials from the base, which had been leased to the UAE but was being used by the United States for logistic support for its forces in Afghanistan and carrying out highly provocative drone attacks in tribal areas of Pakistan. The decision is in line with unanimous resolution of the parliament that requires of the government to review its policy if the United States persists with its drone attacks. In contemptuous disregard to the demand contained in the resolution, which symbolised voice of the nation, Americans are not only continuing their drone attacks but also we have seen accentuation in the process. As Pakistan cannot, for obvious reasons, confront drones and shoot them down, the least it can do is to ask the United States to vacate the base that was being used as a nerve centre for drone attacks. In the first place, it is devoid of higher moral values and principles to have allowed a country use of our soil to facilitate attacks on the neighbouring country.
But the case of Shamsi is all the more striking as it was used to plan and execute drone attacks against Pakistan’s own people. What a tragedy that we have all along been lodging protests to the United States over drone attacks but behind-the-curtain allowed use of our own base for the purpose. Shamsi had become subject of a heated national debate and disgust with people considering it as a stigma for the country and therefore, the move of the Government to get it vacated is a welcome development. This is a futuristic decision aimed at safeguarding national interests and restoring national honour, which began with the arrest of killer Raymond Davis. But the entire process must be based on principles and should not convey the impression of a tit-for-tat approach i.e. in reaction to reduction and stoppage of aid by the United States as per its past practice of leaving Pakistan in the lurch.
The disused Bhandari airstrip 200 miles south of Quetta in Balochistan was gifted to Sheikh Zahid Al-Nahyan the ruler of Abu Dhabi by the government of Pakistan in the 1990’s. The airstrip called Shamsi was developed by Emirates Sheiks into a jet capable airfield , and was used for falcon hunting of rare Bustards in Balochistan. It was leased out to US Central Intelligence Agency in 2001 by UAE with President Musharraf’s approval, and was developed by the United States Air Force as a military air base in great secrecy for bombing of Afghanistan. CIA occupation of the base clearly had his approval. General Pervez Musharraf as President should have comprehended the long time strategic implications of handing over Shamsi air base to Washington! Development of Shamsi for clandestine operations was kept a highly guarded secret, and Chief Minister Magsi and even Corps Commander were not allowed to visit it, when it was being developed for Drone operations and construction of the required infrastructure for this purpose was taking place. There is no evidence on record that the UAE government handed over Shamsi to the CIA for Drone operations. It was General Musharraf who handed over Shamsi and allowed US Air Force operations against Taliban and Al-Qaeda militants from some other PAF bases including the Shahbaz Air Base. The PPP led government continued Musharraf’s policies till recently, and allowed CIA to launch Predator drones from Shamsi Air Base for the destruction of terrorist hideouts in FATA. Islamabad’s denials that the government was unaware of CIA drone operations from Shamsi till very recently, may be justified by being kept in the dark, by ally America, which has refused to share anti-terrorist intelligence with Pakistan.
The United States spent billions of dollars on the development of Shamsi air base. The USAF developed Bandari airstrip into a jet capable airfield with long runways for handling bombers and heavy transport aircraft. Shamsi has taxiways, tarmacs and refueling facilities for sustained bomber, fighter and drone operations. By 2006 Predator drones began to be launched against Taliban hideouts and selected targets in the tribal belt. Shamsi has remained a busy base for anti-terrorist operations in FATA. Few weeks back Washington Post reported that three months ago the US had stopped air and drone strikes from Shamsi base. This was soon after the Raymond Davis dispute exploded into a full-fledged fiasco. The Post reported that US-CIA personnel and the Predator drones remain at Shamsi Air Base till further decision. Recently Google Earth showed three predator drones parked on the Shamsi tarmac, next to a hangar.
During the last six years Predator drones launched from Shamsi Air Base killed hundreds of militants and in collateral damage greater number of civilian men women and children have been killed and injured. It is shocking that Pakistani soil is being used for launching American missiles for bombing Pakistani villages and homes in FATA and killing Pakistani citizens along with foreign militants. The drones cannot distinguish Pakistani citizens from Al-Qaeda terrorists. Thus drone attacks kill peaceful citizens along with the terrorists. According to some defence specialists the collateral damage in Pakistan is minimal as compared to Afghanistan. The Tehrik-Taliban- Pakistan and its godfather Al-Qaeda are engaged in suicide attacks across Pakistan including FATA and in Afghanistan. They bomb mosques, hotels, bazars, police stations, schools, military, Rangers, FC, CID and Navy installations. They kidnap and murder people and have killed 36000 Pakistani’s including 5000 military personnel. They are enemy number one of the Pakistani nation. Across the border in Afghanistan the terrorists target NATO, and Afghan National Army installations, hotels and shopping centers. It is unfortunate that thousands of Pakistani nationals have become terrorists and are sheltering foreign and local criminals in the tribal Agencies and elsewhere, with the motive to spread mayhem, death and destruction in their own country. Washington considers Predator attacks on their Hujras and villages justified with drone missiles to end the terrorist menace. Pakistani protests to pressure America to stop drone attacks to wipe out terrorism have a humanistic face, but are difficult to justify, considering terrorist massacres and destruction, and adverse effect on national morale. Hillary Rodham Clinton the US Secretary of State, Robert Gates the Defense Secretary and Director CIA Leon Panetta, who is the new US Defense Secretary have categorically rejected Pakistani pleas to stop drone attacks, asserting that the Pakistani establishment in the past had approved such attacks, which were being launched from Shamsi Air Base. The nation needs to be told the truth.
The nation must be told the truth about the gifting, leasing out or renting of the Shamsi Air Base to the UAE, the CIA and the United States Air Force. The terms and conditions must be known to remove the impression that the United States has forcibly usurped the Shamsi Base, and has plans for perpetual occupation of the strategically important Air Base.
A PAF officer who declined to be identified said, “ We have told them to vacate the Base. We are unable to provide security to their people”. In a tough response on June 30, US authorities responded, “ United States is rejecting demands from Pakistani officials that American personnel abandon the Shamsi Military Base used by the CIA to stage drone strikes against suspected militants. US Personnel have not left the remote military installation , and there is no plan for them to do so. The Base is neither vacated, nor being vacated. This blunt rejection of the Pakistani demand was confirmed by another senior US official. Having spent billions on the Base infrastructure, and being fully resolved to eradicate terrorist safe heavens in FATA, US drone operations from the Shamsi Air Base are likely to continue unabated. This will add fuel to the fire of the acrimonious Pak-US relationship over the intensified drone bombings and violation of Pakistani sovereignty by the Obama Administration.
Undeterred by blunt US response Defense Minister Ahmed Mukhtar claimed that, “ Shamsi Air Base is being shuttered, and drone operations from it had stopped.” This claim was rejected by the US disclaimer from Washington. But Ahmed Mukhtar told Reuters, “ When the US forces will not operate from there, no drone attacks will be carried.” This expectation was rudely rejected by US officials. But a crafty CIA official remarked that no American military personnel had ever been stationed at Shamsi Air Base. The drone program from in Pakistan (from the Shamsi Air Base) is run by the CIA.” CIA Director Leon Panetta, who has been promoted as US Defense Secretary, during his last visit to Islamabad was urged by President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Yusuf Raza Gilani to bring an end to the drone attacks and devastation in FATA. Panetta bluntly rejected to halt drone attacks, and refused to assure the top Pakistani leaders that drone attacks could be halted.
In an incisive article Brig Farooq Hameed Khan comments about the strategic advantages that the United States drives from the occupation of Shamsi Air Base. “This airfield provides a launch pad 200 miles south of Quetta, where the US believes hides the Afghan Taliban Shura led by Mullah Omar. CIA believes that Mullah Omar is hiding in Quetta, much like Osama bin Laden lived undetected in Abbottabad. Shamsi Base is one hundred miles east of the Iranian border, and is ideally located for spying on Iran. It enables the United States to conduct spying and covert intelligence missions into and around Iran. Washington considers Tehran as its foremost foe, and will use Shamsi Base to gather vital intelligence information about Iran. And importantly it is not too far from Chagai-Pakistan’s nuclear test site. Being close to the Balochistan coast it enables the US to spy over Gwadar, and keep an eye on Pak-China collaboration for the development of this important sea port, and an important trading center in the future. Shamsi will enable CIA to gather data about Pakistan’s coastal areas, with several vital Pakistan Navy installations there. In the adjoining Arabian Sea the massive presence of US Navy’s aircraft carriers, missile firing cruisers, destroyers, submarines and landing craft provide evidence of massive sea power, menacing deployed posing a very serious threat to Pakistan’s security and sovereignty.
As a first step, Pakistan could urge the US by diplomatic means, to share the Shamsi Air Base with Pakistan Air Force, for joint operations against terrorists. ISI may offer to cooperate with the CIA for sharing intelligence information about Taliban and Al-Qaeda fugitives. This is a difficult exercise, but we cannot and should not allow permanent occupation of a strategic Air Base by a foreign power. Shamsi Air Base is being used for launching drone attacks by the CIA. While Pakistan's sovereignty has been trampled underfoot, The collateral damage has killed hundreds of innocent civilians. This must stop.
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