Sunni Terrorist Fragments of Unstable Pakistan- November 7, 2016

[SSridhar]

I am posting from a now-defunct blog, Eye on Pakistan. The below blog was posted on April 30, 2010, almost seven years back and the last sentence still fits like a T to the latest developments regarding Hafiz Saeed.

26/11 was a defining moment, even for an India that has borne stoically and patiently for long, wave after wave of terror attacks from Pakistan. There have been other such 'defining moments' as well like the Dec.13, 2001 attack on the Indian Parliament. But, this was the first time an urban warfare was unleashed on the financial nerve centre of India. The megapolis of Mumbai, ever subject to serious terrorist attacks from Pakistan for close to two decades now, was to experience one of the worst massacres by terrorists from that country. As many foreign nationals were butchered on religious grounds, the world took notice of LeT (Lashkar-e-Tayba) and its leader Prof. Hafeez (or Hafiz) Saeed. Pakistan was quick to call them innovatively as ‘non-state actors’. The word ‘non-state actors’ was meant to convey two messages; one, the State was not connected with these terrorists and two, Pakistan was not responsible for their actions. Neither was true as we shall see. However, the UN was forced, based on incontrovertible proof, to declare Prof. Hafeez Saeed as a terrorist linked with Al Qaeda and the Taliban.

For the first time, Pakistan was compelled to act under the glare of the world, against terrorism directed towards India. Since that time, Pakistan has taken refuge under the term 'non-state actors' to deny its own complicity in terror. If we look at the saga of Prof. Hafeez Saeed, we can dismantle the fraudulent theory of ‘non-state actors’ quite easily. In the case of LeT and Prof. Hafeez Saeed, it is a mind-boggling web of fraud that Pakistan, as a nation state, has played not only against India but also the entire world.

Immediately after the UN ban, Prof. Hafeez Saeed was house-arrested, for a period of one month, along with Col (r) Nazir Ahmed on 11th Dec. 2008. The December, 2008 UN ban also included JuD (Jama’at-ud Dawah) and recognized it simply as nothing but another name by which LeT was known. The LeT had already been placed under the UNSC list in circa 2005. On January, 10, 2009, the government announced that the house arrest of Prof. Hafeez Saeed was extended by another sixty days. Later, the Review Board of the LHC (Lahore High Court) extended the house arrest on March 9, 2009 by another two months. Prof. Hafeez Saeed appealed against this and a full Bench of the LHC was constituted to hear the case. In the meanwhile, a review board of the Lahore High Court on May 5, 2009 extended for a further period of 60 days the detention of Prof. Hafeez Saeed and even ordered his family to be paid a subsistence allowance of Rs. 25000 !

The Government contended, before the full Bench of the LHC, that Prof. Hafeez Saeed was 'kept in confinement in pursuance of the United Nations resolution 1822 of 2008', a contention that was rejected by the LHC (Lahore High Court) later on because there was no such requirement in the UNSC notification. Instead of independently investigating the UN charges and indicting Prof. Hafeez Saeed, the Pakistani government blamed the UN for his arrest. The Punjab government had presented ‘in-camera’ to the judges the 'classified information', but apparently the court was not convinced. Prof. Hafeez Saeed was released by the LHC on 2nd June 2009 on a habeas corpus petition. The court held that there was no material to detain him under 'preventive measure' and the UN resolution did not specifically require an arrest. One of the judges pointedly asked the state prosecutor as to why Pakistan should be so concerned by a UN Resolution when India had not cared to implement several UN Resolutions on Kashmir, a totally irrelevant reference which betrays the Pakistani mindset. Anyway, this was one more instance when the Pakistani State was unable to detain, leave alone prosecute and punish, Prof. Hafeez Saeed. Even before the official judgement could be released and the police-picket outside his house could be withdrawn, he met the press and hailed the judgement as the ‘first success’.

Prof. Hafeez Saeed was not new to this drama of arrest and release for lack of evidence. On August 10, 2006, he was house-arrested for raising funds for 'war victims' (an euphemism for 'jihad') in Palestine and Lebanon as well as for putting Pakistan's relations with its 'neighbours' in danger. In fact, it was due to Indian pressure on Pakistan after the seven simultaneous bomb blasts on the Mumbai commuter trains on July 11, 2006 which killed 207 people and injured over 700 others. The judge of the Lahore High Court struck down these charges and pointedly said that Pakistani judiciary cannot be influenced by 'neighbouring countries'. He was re-arrested within a few hours of his release on August 28, 2006 under 'Maintenance of Public Order' but he was again released on October,18 2006. This time the judge asked the Government with which of the neighboring countries, India or China or Iran or Afghanistan, was the relationship jeopardized. The intention of the judge was obvious because, among the names of the countries mentioned, only India was the ‘mortal enemy’ and how could standing up to such an enemy ‘jeopardize relations’ ? The court released him on the technical ground that when he was detained, the Punjab Police “failed to show Mr. Saeed his detention order or inform him of the grounds.” It is inconceivable that the Punjab police, one of the top most police units in Pakistan which handles dozens of terrorism-related cases at any point of time, failed in such a basic matter of law especially when arresting a top terrorist like Prof. Hafeez Saeed. Either it was a deliberate oversight to allow Prof. Hafeez Saeed an escape route or the police was hand-in-glove with the LeT.

As expected, India reacted very negatively to the June 2, 2009 release of Prof. Hafeez Saeed. India accused the Western nations of being soft on Pakistan for India-related terrorism as the Pakistani Army was beginning to take some action against the Pakistani Taliban in FATA. Predictably, Pakistan reacted by saying that it was “best not to comment on a court decision”. In an editorial on this issue, the Daily Times questioned the sincerity with which the Pakistani State pursued the Hafeez Saeed case by saying "It is moot whether the state even intended to go through with the process without endangering the government . ." The editorial in DAWN was more explicit as it said, "It may have been a full bench of the Lahore High Court that ordered Saeed’s release, but the fact is the court was left with little option given the prosecution’s reliance on weak grounds. . . " implying that a weak case was deliberately presented by the State.

Pakistan was under pressure, as was India, to somehow re-start the stalled peace dialogue. The US Home Secretary, Ms. Hillary Clinton, embarking on a trip to India on the eve of the Sharm-el-Sheikh meeting stated that she expected some ‘movement’ from Pakistan on the Mumbai issue. A face saving development was desperately needed by both the countries. So, the federal and the Punjab governments went to the SC (Supreme Court) in appeal against the release of Prof. Hafeez Saeed and Col (r) Nazir Ahmed. The Punjab Government, through its PAG (Punjab Advocate General), contended that it had substantial evidence against them, “but it could not be made part of the case record because it was confidential.” However, the newly restored CJ (Chief Justice) Iftikhar Chaudhry wanted the State to present a more compelling reason than merely the UNSC resolution, thus betraying what was in store. It was no coincidence that simultaneously a judge was also appointed to the Anti Terrorism Court at the Adiala prison, Rawalpindi, after a gap of more than a month, to conduct the trial against the seven arrested suspects and thirteen other ‘proclaimed offenders’. Thus, Pakistan presented an appearance of simultaneous proceedings against Prof. Hafeez Saeed and the other LeT terrorists.

However, a day before the two Prime Ministers were to meet and after the two Foreign Secretaries had already met, and exactly a day after its own PAG assured the SC of confidential information, the Punjab Government withdrew from the proceedings in the court citing ‘lack of evidence’. Later, the Punjab Law Minister, Rana Sanaullah of PML-N, dropped a bombshell when he said that ‘confidential information’ was never shared by the federal government with the Punjab Government and so they could not proceed against Prof. Hafeez Saeed. The SC also noted a technical flaw as Prof. Hafeez Saeed was arrested under Section 3 of the Maintenance of Public Order Ordinance 1961 which was not mentioned in the detention order. Later, the AGP (Attorney General of Pakistan), representing the federal government, which had not dropped out of the case, contended that since the Punjab AG held all the files and since he had resigned from his position, they were unable to continue the case. The SC then adjourned the case indefinitely. Anyway, the Pakistani Prime Minister Gilani and his Indian counterpart Manmohan Singh met at Sharm-el-Sheikh, Egypt, as part of the NAM Summit Conference on the next day. And, Pakistan achieved what it wanted, make India talk and concede grounds.

Later, two FIRs (First Information Reports) were filed on September 16, 2009 by the police under 'Anti terrorism Act 1997' for Prof. Hafeez Saeed’s reported incitement to jihad against the infidels US, Israel and India in two speeches he gave on August 27 and 28, 2009 at Faisalabad. Obviously, these hastily filed cases were once again in view of the upcoming UNSC General Assembly meeting where Pakistan wanted the foreign secretaries of both countries to meet. Significantly, this was the first time that ‘Anti terrorism Law’ was invoked against Prof. Hafeez Saeed as earlier arrests were under the simpler ‘Maintenance of Public Order Act’. The cases were registered under Section 11 F (4) of the Anti-Terrorism Act, which clearly states that it applies to organisations that are proscribed under the Act. However, the Lahore High Court quashed them on October 12, 2009 as the court observed "Anti-terror law does not apply to Saeed and in the name of terrorism we cannot brutalize Law". The Punjab Assistant Advocate General admitted that JuD was not declared as a terrorist organization either by the Federal or by the provincial Punjab Government and that its activities were merely 'restricted' based on the UNSC Resolution of December 2008 as JuD was only on the 'watch list' and not on the 'ban list' of the Government. In his judgement, therefore, the LHC Judge allowed JuD to organize congregations, carry on membership and collect funds without any let or hindrance.

But, the perfidy was that just two months earlier, on August 5, 2009 to be precise, interior minister Rehman Malik had categorically announced in the Pakistani National Assembly that JuD “was ‘banned’ following its designation under Security Council Resolution 1267.” Rehman Malik also announced that similarly Al-Akhtar and Al-Rashid trusts were ‘banned’. Later, it came to light that no ban notification was issued and Pakistan had simply ‘removed JuD’s name from the list of registered charities’ and had informed the UN that all necessary action had been taken. Again, such perfidy is understandable when Rehman Malik himself says that Pakistan could not do much as JuD was only running schools and hospitals. Within days of the UNSC ban, Foreign Minister Shah Mahmood Qureshi said in Paris that the JuD-run madrasseh and regular schools would not be shut down as “there was no evidence to suggest that the outfit was promoting extremism or violence there.” Reacting to this, the US Secretary of State Condoleeza Rice said, “ . . . these are too intertwined with organizations that have terrorist ties and that have just been designated here. And so we will be pressing all member-states to adhere completely and to the letter of the designations that the United Nations has taken.” Pakistan simply ignored such criticisms.

The Pakistani State itself has gone to extraordinary lengths to protect LeT. The efforts to place LeT on the UNSC declared list of terrorist groups was vetoed thrice by the Peoples' Republic of China. This could not have come about without a request from Pakistan to intervene on its behalf. When the State admitted before the Learned Judge of the LHC that JuD was not declared by Pakistan as a terrorist organization, it exposed the deep perfidy the state has played against the United Nations. This admission went directly against the promise Pakistan made on December 10, 2008, just a day prior to the UN Resolution on JuD, when it said it “will ban Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD) the political arm of Lashkar-e-Taiba, which has been recruiting fidayeen killers like the captured terrorist Ajmal if the United Nations Security Council (UNSC) declared JuD a terrorist outfit.” Abdullah Hussain Haroon, Pakistan's permanent representative in the UN said further “After the designation of Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JUD) under resolution 1267, the government on receiving communication from the Security Council shall proscribe the JuD and take other consequential actions, as required, including the freezing of assets,”. He gave an undertaking to the same effect to the world body the same day. Prime Minister Gilani assured Deputy Secretary of State John Negroponte that Pakistan “would fulfill its international obligations” even as the Interior Minister revealed the wily Pakistani plan. He said that “Jamaat-ud-Dawa would be put under monitoring and its offices sealed if necessary”. That was exactly what happened. Pakistan never banned the organization and never proscribed it as the Additional Attorney general was forced to admit before the LHC.

Earlier too, Hafeez Saeed was handled ‘lightly’ by the State of Pakistan. On Dec. 13, 2001, a few weeks after the 9/11 incidents, the Indian Parliament was attacked in a fidayeen cum suicide attack jointly organized by LeT and JeM (Jaish-e-Mohammed). In response to that, India demanded the arrest of Prof. Hafeez Saeed and threatened to launch a war against Pakistan. Under US pressure and to avoid a war, Pakistan detained him on December 21, 2001 again under a simple house-arrest. Three months later, he was released on March 31, 2002. He was arrested again on May 15, and was placed under house arrest on October 31 of the same year, only to be released a short while later. The arrest was made as India launched Operation Parakram. This time sedition charges were slapped on him but the court once again found no evidence.

Gen. Pervez Musharraf, who preferred to call himself the CEO of Pakistan, proscribed the LeT on Jan 12, 2002 in a televised speech to the nation, but by a sleight of hand allowed an escape route for Prof. Hafeez Saeed by carefully omitting PoK (Pakistan Occupied Kashmir) and FATA (Federally Administered Tribal Agencies) from the list of territories where it was banned. In fact, a few days before this ban was to be announced, Prof. Hafeez Saeed had already declared that he was stepping down from the Emirship of the LeT and was moving the JuD to PoK. It later came to light that money had also been withdrawn from all LeT-owned bank accounts that were eventually 'frozen'. How did he know about the impending ban and more importantly how did he know that PoK was to be excluded ?

After the UNSC ban was announced in December 2008 and even as Prof. Hafeez Saeed was kept under house-arrest in his mansion in central Lahore area of Chaudburji, named Jamia Al Qudsia, named after the historic victory of the Ummayad Caliph against the Persians in circa 636, he was allowed to give a press conference. In this press conference, he lambasted the UNSC for taking a hasty decision against himself and his ‘charity’ organization of JuD without giving him a chance to present his side of the case. He likened the UNSC decision to an attack on Islam and Pakistan. The New York Times, in its issue dated Dec. 13, 2008 exposed how the house-arrest was a farce and Prof. Hafeez Saeed was almost free, meeting people and visiting the mosque.

JuD’s international jihadi ambitions have come to light on various occasions. The top Al Qaeda operative, Abu Zubaydah, was arrested from an LeT safehouse in Pakistan. JuD offered 'fateha' (prayers) for the terrorist, Abu Musa'b al Zarqawi, when he was killed in Iraq. UN documents, based on which the December 2008 ban of JuD was announced, provided other details about Prof. Hafeez Saeed directly overseeing the infiltration of LeT terrorists into Iraq and Saudi Arabia. He also arranged for sending an LeT operative to Europe for purposes of fund raising. Earlier the LeT had taken part in Bosnia in the 90s. LeT’s Zaki-ur-Rehman Lakhvi was the head of the Pakistani unit of ‘El Mujahid’, a unit that gained notoriety amongst the Serbs for its brutality. The US counter-terrorism experts have always expressed concern about LeT’s global footprint

On Jan 4, 2009, a few weeks after the UNSC ban of JuD, the Pakistani Information Minister, Ms. Sherry Rehman said it was the responsibility of the Punjab government to enforce the ban and thus washed the federal Government’s hands off it. It comes as no surprise either because the current Pakistani Ambassador to the US, Hussain Haqqani, in his article, ‘Ideologies of South Asian Jihadi Groups’ written in circa 2005, has the following to say, “The most significant jihadi group of Wahhabi persuasion is Lashkar-e-Taiba (The Army of the Pure) founded in 1989 by Hafiz Muhammad Saeed. Backed by Saudi money and protected by Pakistani intelligence services, Lashkar-e-Taiba became the military wing of Markaz al-Dawa wal-Irshad. . . .Pakistani authorities have been reluctant to move against either Lashkar, which continues to operate in Kashmir, or Jamaat-ul-Dawa, which operates freely in Pakistan. Lashkar-e-Taiba and Jamaat-ul-Dawa scaled down their military operations against India to help Pakistan honor its commitments to the U.S. and India. But Saeed remains free and continues to expand membership of his organization despite divisions in its leadership.”

The proof of the close proximity between the Pakistani Army and Prof. Hafeez Saeed was openly and brazenly flaunted when the Rawalpindi Corps Commander of the X Corps, the Corps that is responsible for Kashmir, invited the UNSC-designated terrorist Prof. Hafeez Saeed for an iftaar dinner on September 12, 2009. When the Interpol issued a RCN (Red Corner Notice) against Prof. Hafeez Saeed in August 2009, the reaction of the Interior Minister, Rehman Malik, was revealing. He said, “even if a red corner notice had been issued against him, the government was not obliged to immediately arrest him. The country makes its own investigations against the person, and only then decides”. Apparently, Pakistan has never been able to make independent investigations and pin Prof. Hafeez Saeed down.

Prof. Hafeez Saeed enjoys close confidence of the politicians as well. When there was a bereavement in his family in August 2009, top notch politicians like ex-President Rafiq Tarar, Chaudhry Shujaat Hussain (Chief of PML-Q), Mushahid Hussain (PML-Q Secretary)and Sheikh Rashid Ahmed condoled with him. They did this even after Prof. Hafeez Saeed had been declared a terrorist by UN Security Council and he was being implicated by India in the 26/11 Mumbai terror attack as the mastermind and the Interpol had issued a Red Corner Notice.

Ambassador Hussain Haqqani’s description of Prof. Hafeez Saeed as being close to the State was not surprising either because he had been appointed to the CII (Council of Islamic Ideology), a Constitutional body of Pakistan that ensures that the laws framed in the country conform to the Islamic Shariat, by none other than the then President of Pakistan, Gen. Zia-ul-Haq himself. This enabled Prof. Hafeez Saeed to get closer to the Pakistani Army as well. He was later appointed as a Professor of Islamic studies in the University of Engineering and Technology (Lahore). Willie Brigitte, the Frenchman who was trained by LeT and sent for terrorism to Australia, has elaborately described the LeT camp where he underwent training. He has stated that LeT was “filled with soldiers from the Pakistani Army. There was complete complicity between LeT and the Pakistani Army. Furthermore, the weapons were provided by the army. There were American M16s, French FAMS, Kalashnikovs and Makarovs. All the identification numbers had been removed. The links between the Lashkar-e-Taiba and the Pakistani Army are more than close. When the camp was resupplied, all the materiel was dropped off by Pakistani army helicopters.”.

In his very first trip to the US in February 2002, President Musharraf was asked, in a press meet, by the Pakistani journalist, Tahir Mirza of the DAWN, as to why he was not taking any action against the LeT and the JeM, at which an angry Gen. Musharraf shot back, “They are not doing anything in Pakistan. They are doing jihad outside.” In an interview to Newsweek magazine’s Lally Weymouth about a month after the Mumbai 26/11 attack, President Zardari admitted candidly the following when questioned about the links between the LeT and the ISI, “We are talking about an age-old situation. This is something [that happened] in the old days when dictators used to run the country. Maybe before 9/11, that may have been a position. [But] since then, things have changed to a great extent. The problem is that long before you came to office, Lashkar-e-Taiba was used in Kashmir by the Pakistani Army to fight India. That may have been the situation then, but things have changed.”

The kid-glove with which the Pakistani State has handled Prof. Hafeez Saeed is therefore very obvious from the foregoing. His repeated house-arrests, never to be taken to a jail, the farce with which such house-arrests were carried out, release every time within a few months, no serious intention of the Pakistani Government to pursue the case, the kind of questions raised by the Judges, the technical flaws and loopholes allowed by the State which appear to be clearly deliberate attempts to let him escape, the intervention through China to prevent the ban of LeT/JuD thrice, the decision not to ban JuD even after the UNSC resolution and even as Pakistan promised to do so, the obfuscation indulged in by the federal and provincial governments of Pakistan and its ministers, the proximity of Prof. Hafeez Saeed to the Pakistani Army etc. all point to a deep nexus between the State, the LeT and its front-end JuD as well as the Emir, Prof. Hafeez Saeed.

The latest perfidy comes from Thimpu where the Pakistani Prime Minister Gilani has the gall to tell Mr. Manmohan Singh that there are some ‘judicial difficulties’ in prosecuting Prof. Hafeez Saeed. The Pakistani mendacity, duplicity and perfidy about LeT and Prof. Hafeez Saeed thus continue.

[Falijee]

Pakistani cleric arrested to appease Trump administration, India, supporters say
By Pamela Constable

ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — The sudden house arrest of a high-profile Islamist cleric in Pakistan on Monday sparked peaceful protests Tuesday by his followers, who condemned it as a government effort to appease the Trump administration after it banned visitors and refugees from seven Muslim-majority countries over the weekend — and after a top presidential aide hinted that Pakistan could be added to the list.

Supporters of Hafiz Mohammad Saeed, the fiery leader of the Jamaat-ul-Dawa movement, said the move by Pakistani officials had also come at the behest of India, Pakistan’s Hindu-led rival and neighbor.

“There was pressure coming from the U.S. on Pakistani authorities to either arrest Hafiz Saeed or face the sanctions, and the government succumbed to that pressure,” Nadeem Awan, a spokesman for Saeed, said in an interview Tuesday. The U.S. government offered a $10 million bounty for Saeed’s arrest in 2012.

Many Pakistanis would have little disagreement with the chants and arguments Tuesday of Saeed’s supporters, who denounced India’s military oppression of Kashmiris and cast its growing friendship with the United States as a conspiratorial alliance against Muslim interests. “The new U.S. president has time and time again declared India a best friend of the United States and is following upon the desires of that friend,” Awan said. “But if our rulers want to please the United States, they can’t. Pakistan has done a lot for the U.S., but it always pressures Pakistan to do more.”

[SSridhar]

Indian security establishment sees hope of shift in Pakistan’s India policy - Bharti Jain, ToI

Though India's reaction to the detention of LeT chief Hafiz Saeed is a cautious "wait and watch", the security establishment sees the move as a positive development that can, if sustained, improve ties with Pakistan.

The detention and a likely decision to place Jamaat-ud-Dawa — the "charitable" cover for LeT — and Falah-e-Insaniat on a watch list are being seen as steps in the right direction.

"Even though Hafiz Saeed and others are linking the crackdown to pressure on account of Donald Trump becoming US President, there are doubts about the new US administration attaching top priority to such actions at this early juncture," said a top intelligence official. "The preventive arrest of five top JuD/Falah-e-Insaniat leaders and the impending ban on the two outfits are, in all likelihood, conscious moves initiated by (Pakistan PM Nawaz) Sharif himself. We need to watch the military leadership's reaction as well as track any backlash from Lashkar, which works in league with the ISI. In this case, retaliatory strikes, if any, may take place within Pakistan rather than in India," the official said.

Though Pakistan is keen to signal to the Trump administration that it will act against terror outfits and masterminds based on its soil, the latest crackdown comes on the back of small hints of a thaw in Islamabad's attitude after a change of guard at the Pakistan army headquarters and the ISI, with the exit of former army chief General Raheel Sharif. Though Pakistan has denied the surgical strikes India pulled off in POK last year, New Delhi's insistence on outcomes on terrorism has become plain to Islamabad.

The assessment, an intelligence officer pointed out, is that, helped by a more accommodative military leadership, Sharif can look to rescue the troubled ties with India. For instance, there has been no major terror attack by Pakistan-based outfits for over a month now. The recent release of Indian fishermen and the return of a soldier who crossed the LoC during the surgical strikes are encouraging signs, though security officials are watching events closely.

Interestingly, while action has been initiated against JuD, the other major source of terror in India, Jaish-e Mohammad, led by Masood Azhar, is still off the hook. "JuD/LeT has come under US scanner far more than Jaish. It is possible that Pakistan wants to take one step at a time. Only after the military leadership throws its weight behind the Sharif government will the latter move against Jaish," said an expert.

Of course, Saeed's detention falls way short of India's consistent demand that he be brought to justice for 26/11 and many recent terror attacks. "Still, any action against him and JuD is welcome," said a former intelligence official.

We cannot and should not jump the gun. It is annoying that 'security officials' in India are assessing like the above when it is far, far too early and when we know from hundreds of instances since 1947 that Pakistan is perfidious. It is worrying to me that rather than continuing the tough stance (which itself should have been tougher), we are looking at opportunities to look favourably upon Pakistan.

[shiv]

HA ! Securetards not security officials

[Aditya_V]

India will be appeassed only if Hafiz Sayed and United Jihadi council make a scheduled visit to LOC to challenge Indian bullets with thier heads.

[ricky_v]

http://www.realcleardefense.com/article ... 10726.html
posting in full

Those who would ignite the fire in our country, will burn themselves.” - Abdul Rahim Ghafoorzai

“He who will not apply new remedies must expect new evils.” - Sir Francis Bacon

The main reason why we are still in Afghanistan after fifteen-plus years lies in the title. The sanctuary in Pakistan is the single most significant strategic impediment to stability in both Afghanistan and Pakistan. Almost every U.S. DOD report on progress in Afghanistan since 2008 explicitly states that Pakistan’s sanctuary and support prevent the defeat of the Taliban. The reduction of this sanctuary and stopping the sources of support of the Taliban in Pakistan is a strategic imperative to ending the war in Afghanistan with modest success. Pakistan’s failure to alter its strategic calculus, its incubation, and regeneration of murderous Islamist zealots, continues to pose a grave strategic risk for the war in Afghanistan.

The first quote above reflects the consequences of Pakistan’s decades of delusion and dissembling in support of some of the most virulent strains of Islamist proxies. These groups have prosecuted utterly barbaric acts of violence in Afghanistan, Kashmir, India, and ultimately in Pakistan. This support, in the end, has been to the net detriment of Pakistan’s security and regional stability. It is the metaphorical equivalent of an arsonist ultimately compelled to act as a fireman for his very own house, which he lit on fire. this line of reasoning seems familiar, wonder where the author got it from...

The second quote is an admonition to the Coalition and the U.S. to desist in the illusion that Pakistan, one of the foremost ideological and physical incubators of Islamist terror, Inc., is an ally and a friend. It is neither. Pretending that Pakistan was an ally in the war against Islamist militants, one that would act in ways to help defeat Islamist networks in the tribal areas, made the West partly complicit and malfeasant in Pakistan’s machinations.

Years of tactical and operational gains in taking away the Taliban’s capacity have been fleeting because defeating an enemy means taking away its capacity and its will. Strategic momentum has been absent because the will of the Taliban and the Haqqanis rest in their regenerative potential and leadership, all protected in Pakistan’s sanctuary. Pakistan has created this contradiction to prevent the defeat of the Taliban, protract the war, and erode the Coalition’s will, to potentially make the capacity of the Coalition irrelevant because it could ultimately depart the fight without achieving its strategic aims.

This is a modest effort to explain why, after 15 years of training, fighting, sacrificing, and outmatching the Taliban, the Afghans and its Coalition partners face a strategic deadlock. The works of the practitioners and scholars Fair, Khalilzad, Hussein, Rashid, Riedel, and the Schaffers inform this essay. The first part examines Pakistan’s history with Islamist proxies. The subsequent parts explore other variables that help explain what has developed in Afghanistan. The last part offers some clear-eyed and hard options to end or curb Pakistan’s pathological strategic propensities, ones that have been harmful to both Afghanistan and to itself.

For the first two and a half decades of Pakistan’s existence, its senior leaders pursued security and strategy policies that were utterly disastrous for Pakistan’s security, policies that bankrupt its economy and diverted resources from development. It started three major wars with India and suffered utter defeats in all of them. The 1971 war was the singularly most traumatic war of them all because it reduced Pakistan to a rump of its former territory and it further ingrained a permanent neurosis about strategic depth and encirclement by India in Afghanistan.

For the next three decades after 1971, as a consequence of its catastrophic defeat in the 71 War and the loss of East Pakistan, the Pakistani security elites shifted even more markedly and deliberately from direct conventional conflict with India, to fully employing militant proxies for strategic depth in Afghanistan and to fully pursuing the nuclear weapons option. It supported proxies to pursue objectives in Afghanistan, India, and Kashmir under the ostensible aegis that its strategic weapons would offer as a deterrent.

For the last fifteen-plus years, Pakistan has employed irregular warfare to promote its chimerical notion of strategic depth by supporting the Taliban and more lethal proxies in Afghanistan. The sanctuary in Pakistan is the most significant obstacle to strategic success. This war will not end, or it will end badly if Pakistan does not stop its perfidy. The U.S. has not yet crafted a strategy that employs its full weight to alter Pakistan’s strategic malice. Sticks and fear work. Carrots and cash do not. The U.S. paid $33 billion to Pakistan in the first fifteen years of war, to little avail.

To explain, but not to exonerate the treachery of the Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) and other senior Pakistani security elites, the partition in 1947 was indeed horrific, visceral, and traumatic. It saw 12 million people moving west and east, and as many as 1 million people killed. It was replete with rape, butchery, and atrocities. Pakistan’s principal real and perceived existential enemy was and has continued to be been India, a behemoth in size, population, and armed forces, one pointed right at the core of a relatively narrow Pakistan (After Pakistan’s 1971 defeat and partition, with the independence of Bangladesh, it was a sliver of its former territory).

Moreover, the U.S. relationship with Pakistan since at least the 1950s has accommodated Pakistan’s narrative and the myth that Pakistan was either a steadfast anticommunist bastion during the Cold War, or a genuine ally in the war against al Qaeda, the Taliban, and their ilk. In fact, U.S. and Pakistani interests really only aligned during the Soviet-Afghan War, and even then Pakistan’s behavior still revealed mendacity and manipulation with the U.S. and its generous funding of that war to defeat the Soviets through Mujahideen proxies.

The Durand Line and the British Forward policy were also a fait accompli when Pakistan became a state in 1947. What’s more, Afghanistan did not recognize Pakistan at its inception in 1947 because of the 28 million or so co-ethnic Pashtuns living on the other side of the line. Afghanistan has raised and played the Pashtunistan card more than once, and the notion of Pashtun irredentism utterly unhinges Pakistan’s leaders. Indeed, Pakistan’s fixation on its fantasy of strategic depth is linked to this concern about Pashtun irredentism, to preventing influence other than its own over Afghan policy, and to Pakistan’s relatively narrow geographic space vis-à-vis India and Afghanistan. the aim now should be to make the durand line takeover the mantle of the loc .

This helps explain, but it does not exculpate Pakistani generals for retaining a core belief and for continuing to rely on the Afghan Taliban as a useful proxy to counter a perceived existential threat from India and to secure its strategic depth west of the Indus and into Afghanistan. Pakistan’s strategic culture stems from the burden of its history, geography, demography, and perfidy. Pakistan’s security leaders have not begun to conceive of tolerating a less than malleable and friendly non-Pashtun regime in Afghanistan.

To be fair, missteps early on in the war on the part of the Coalition and its Afghan partners, for example - the absence of a strategy, the reliance on warlords, the use of indiscriminate air power, an initial unwillingness to help rebuild, and a toleration of venal Afghan leadership - all helped create grievances among the Afghans. These grievances catalyzed support to regenerate the Taliban in the Pashtun belt during the critical first five years of the effort.

However, through the surge and during the comprehensive counterinsurgency approach from 2009-2011, the Taliban and similarly zealous and murderous Islamists would have atrophied into irrelevance without the full support and sanctuary that Pakistani senior security leaders and the ISI bestowed upon them to pursue depth and to assert Pakistan control over the Afghan polity.

Conclusion

Pakistani strategic culture stems from pathological geopolitics infused with a Salafi-Deobandi-Jihadist ideology, suffused by paranoia and neurosis. The principal but not exclusive reason that Afghanistan has seen discernibly improved quality and quantity in its forces as well as fighting capacity, yet continues to face a strategic stalemate, is the Pakistani security elites’ malignant and mendacious strategic calculus.

The reality is that Pakistan needs the United States as much as the converse. The U.S. has and does provide economic and military assistance that will become more important as India continues to prosper. A viable strategy must first recognize that the U.S. does have leverage with Pakistan. U.S. fears that Pakistan will collapse, implode, and fracture are overstated.

Pakistan has been an epicenter and an incubator of Islamist insurgents and terrorists, Inc. The ISI has maintained links between Al Qaeda, its longtime Taliban allies, and a host of other extremists inside Pakistan. It is only possible for Pakistan to become a genuine strategic partner to the U.S. if it changes, and eschews its support of proxy terrorists and insurgents. The fact that America has paid Pakistan in tens of billions of dollars for Pakistan’s malice and perfidy since 9/11 is disconcerting and vile.

Pakistan has employed irregular warfare to achieve strategic depth by supporting its proxies in Afghanistan. The United States and its Coalition allies have not crafted a Pakistan strategy that uses their substantial resources to modify Pakistan’s strategic calculus. A genuine Pakistan strategy needs to bring the full weight of the U.S. and other regional actors to compel Pakistan to alter its strategic rationale and to stop its support to the Taliban and the Haqqani network.

One crucial lesson of the last three decades is that stability in Afghanistan and Pakistan are interlocked. Chaos on one side of the border breeds chaos on the other. The jihadists cannot be fought effectively with partial or short-term measures, or on one side of the border only.

Since this war began, the U.S. has essentially stipulated that Pakistan must curb all domestic expression of support for terrorism against the U.S. and its allies; demonstrate a sustained commitment to and make significant efforts towards combating terrorist groups; cease support, including by any elements within the Pakistan military or its intelligence agency, to extremist and terrorist groups; and dismantle terrorist bases of operations in other parts of the country.

The Coalition should cast off its illusions about Pakistan. It has been viewed as a most important ally in the war against Al Qaeda and the Taliban, but it is essentially the worst ally, an enemy because it has acted in ways inimical to Coalition troops, its Afghan allies, and the aims of the Afghan state.

After 15 years of duplicity and death, a menu heavy on sticks and light in carrots is required for Pakistan, to tap into the enduring Thucydidean triad of fear, honor, and interests. The following steps should merit consideration:
1) stop paying for malice;
2) stop major non-NATO ally status;
3) state intention to make the line of control in Kashmir permanent;
4) shut down ground lines of communications via Pakistan;
5) declare Pakistan the state-sponsor of terrorism that it is;
6) issue one last ultimatum to help end the sanctuary and not impede success;
7) invite Indian Armed Forces into Afghanistan for security operations in the Pashtun east and south;
and as a last resort reciprocate Pakistan’s malice and perfidy.

The Coalition and its Afghan partners need to be ruthless, clear, and compelling. This film has run before, and it had a bad ending. Uncontested sanctuary in Pakistan contributed to the Soviet Union’s defeat in Afghanistan.

[Peregrine]

Micheal Kugelman READS BHARAT RAKSHAK FORUM SUPERSTITIOUSLY

China, not America, likely behind Hafiz Saeed's house arrest - MICHAEL KUGELMAN

The biggest question about Hafiz Saeed’s house arrest isn’t why, but why now?

After all, we’ve been here before.

He was placed under house arrest in December 2008, just days after the Mumbai terror attacks that New Delhi and Washington believe he helped orchestrate. He was detained again in September 2009. In both cases, he was released in relatively short order.

In more recent years, he has essentially lived free in Lahore, holding rallies and hosting journalists, including those from the West.

So why did Pakistani authorities decide to once again place him under house arrest on Monday?

One Pakistani media report points to US pressure, contending that in the last days of the Obama administration, American officials warned Pakistan to rein in Saeed or risk sanctions.

Saeed himself, in a video released shortly after his detention, bizarrely claimed that Pakistan was obliged to act because of US President Donald Trump’s warm relationship with Indian Prime Minister Narendra Modi. A Saeed spokesman made a similar claim.

Washington, of course, has pushed Pakistan to crack down on Saeed for years, and unsuccessfully so. So it beggars belief to assume that US pressure would suddenly and magically prompt Pakistan to detain Saeed—and particularly at a time when the US-Pakistan relationship appears to be entering a period of drift. Washington is shifting its engagement with New Delhi into overdrive, while Islamabad is cementing its failsafe partnership with Beijing.

It’s also folly to assume the Trump administration was actively pushing Pakistan to move on Saeed. Trump has been in office for less than two weeks, and beyond his rapid-fire issuance of executive orders, his presidency appears frenzied and disorganised—not to mention hamstrung by numerous unfilled senior diplomatic and national security posts.

Bottom line? The Trump administration has too much on its plate to be focusing laser-like on Pakistan.

If any external pressure compelled Pakistan to place Saeed under house arrest, it’s more likely to have come from Beijing than Washington.

In a telling yet underreported development several weeks ago, China’s former consul general in Kolkata published a blog post calling on Beijing to rethink its default policy of blocking Indian attempts to have JM leader Masood Azhar sanctioned by the UN.

This all makes good sense when we think about the high stakes of CPEC. For Beijing (as for Islamabad), rapid and sustained progress on this project is a core strategic imperative.

Hafiz Saeed doesn’t pose a direct threat to China, but so long as he walks free he poses a direct threat to India-Pakistan relations.

The last thing China wants as it pushes forward with CPEC is an India-Pakistan relationship on tenterhooks — not to mention on a war footing, as was the case for several weeks last year.

China has long leaned on Pakistan to tackle terror more robustly — and it’s arguably gotten results. Some have speculated that Beijing’s prodding played a role in Pakistan’s decision to launch the Zarb-i-Azb operation.

The anti-state militants targeted in that offensive had not only terrorised Pakistan; they’d also posed a threat to Chinese investments and workers in Pakistan. Chinese pressure may also have helped prompt Pakistan’s Red Mosque offensive.

In short, we should never underestimate China’s leverage in Pakistan, including its ability to get Pakistan to do things it often resists.

And yet the question still remains: Why now? If we assume China influenced Pakistan’s decision to detain Saeed, why didn’t Pakistan act weeks or months ago?

Enter President Trump’s executive order on immigration.

It’s doubtful Trump actively pressured Pakistan to rein in Hafiz Saeed, but it’s likely Pakistan’s detention of Saeed was done with Trump in mind.

We can read the house arrest, at least in part, as an effort by Pakistan to showcase its counterterrorism bonafides to the new US administration, and to dissuade Trump from adding Pakistan to the list of countries that can’t send their citizens to the United States for 90 days. Trump’s chief of staff has suggested Pakistan could be added to the list.

Of course, all this speculating could ultimately be immaterial and Saeed may be released relatively soon.

Unless, that is, China has the ability to get Pakistan to go beyond token gestures when it comes to addressing anti-India militancy, and unless Pakistan chooses to do some big-time signaling to Washington by keeping Saeed in detention for an extended period.

Alas, given Pakistan’s core strategic interests and the value the authorities seem to accord to Saeed as a key asset, I wouldn’t count on either scenario materialising anytime soon.

Cheers

[Falijee]

India’s objection to a Pakistani secretary general may hurt Saarc

ISLAMABAD: The South Asian Association for Regional Cooperation (Saarc), beleaguered by internal rifts, is headed for more difficult days ahead as India is attempting to block on ‘procedural grounds’ the appointment of a Pakistani diplomat as the next secretary general of the regional body.The Saarc secretariat can, therefore, potentially remain a headless body for a long time if the stalemate prolongs and the dispute is not resolved soon. The Pakistani turn, which is held by rotation, starts from March 1, 2017 and continues till Feb 28, 2020. It would be naive to believe that a Paki head of SAARC would be an objective person in this important role !

This is the first time in Saarc’s troubled history that it is moving towards a standoff over the secretary general’s appointment. Why does Pakistan need SAARC anyway, if Paki press reports are to be believed which say that 100+ countries have expressed interest in joining the "game-changer" CPEC

Amjad Hussain Sial, a career diplomat, had been nominated by Pakistan as the 13th secretary general of Saarc to replace the outgoing top official of Kathmandu-based Saarc secretariat Arjun Bahadur Thapa, whose tenure expires on Feb 28. Mr Sial’s nomination was made at the Saarc Council of Ministers in Pokhara (Nepal) in March 2016 and was endorsed by all member states.New Delhi, however, through a diplomatic note last month asked the secretariat to adhere to the “due working procedures” in the appointment of Mr Thapa’s successor. Pakistan should get the message that it should not take matters for granted as if things are "normal" .

n this regard it pointed towards Article V of the MoU on the establishment of the Saarc secretariat, which details the procedure for the appointment of the secretary general and under which the appointment has to be approved by the Saarc Council of Ministers comprising foreign ministers of the member states.The Indian position is that the nomination had to be ratified by the Council of Ministers meeting in Islamabad, which could not happen due to postponement of the summit after India and several of its regional allies pulled out of the meeting.

Pakistani officials, meanwhile, accuse India of employing “delaying tactics”. They insist that concurrence had been received from all members, including India. A copy of an Indian diplomatic note dated May 30, 2016 conveying its concurrence to Mr Sial’s appointment as secretary general was also shared with Dawn. New Delhi, the officials say, is now unnecessarily raising issues ver the appointment.Receipt of concurrence to Mr Sial’s appointment from all eight member states was notified by the Saarc secretariat on Sept 8, 016.

The regional organisation has long been held hostage to the intense Pak-India rivalry although its charter explicitly disallows ringing regional disputes to the forum.Indian leadership does not unequivocally say it, but a sub-regional transport agreement and statements by Prime Minister Narendra Modi indicate that India is working towards a regional bloc minus Pakistan. Furthermore, by isolating Pakistan, India is trying to gain maximum leverage and influence in the region. The sooner Pakistan exits voluntarily from SAARC, the better for everyone concerned !

Pakistan, besides its large territorial size, has been an active member of Saarc and is currently contributing 24 per cent of the secretariat’s budget. Someone should verify this "tall claim" and ensure that the "promised commitment" has actually been received in cash and has not been written off as bad debts on the books of SAARC !

Adviser to the PM on Foreign Affairs Sartaj Aziz in his meeting with outgoing Saarc Secretary General Thapa last week said India impeded the Saarc process and violated the spirit of the Saarc Charter.

Bad Mouthing India- by this old diplomatic war horse,- is not going to "help" Pakistan

[Falijee]

Dar "Defends" Debt

Debt fears overblown, says Dar

KARACHI: In a long and detailed rejoinder to his critics, Finance Minister Ishaq Dar says that the country’s debt profile is in fact improving, and “predictions of doomsday scenario for Pakistan” regarding public debt are overblown.

Pakistan will continue adding to its debt stock, he argues, because as a developing country it must run deficits in order to support growth. “Fiscal and current account deficits are inevitable for a developing country,” he points out So, according to him, a point of no-return has NOT been reached yet and he is concerned about the debt burden to future generations

The statement is unusually long and detailed and comes at a time when soundings about a softening of the country’s external account have been increasing. The minister claims “some inherently sceptical analysts” are misleading the public by presenting “selective information” which they analyse “on the basis of their preconceived notions.”His aim in releasing the statement, he says, is to reassure foreign stakeholders that “Pakistan is properly managing its debt and to convincingly dispel any notion that the country is at risk with regard to debt obligations in the foreseeable future.”

Many press reports have expressed alarm over increasing national debt and the fact that public property ( highways, airports, utilities etc ) is being mortgaged left and right to Chini and Arab investors to raise cash for meeting day to day government expenses !

[Falijee]

Pakistan presses India to provide concrete evidence against Hafiz Saeed

The Interior Ministry spokesperson said that the actions taken by the government have been carried out as per obligations under UN Security Council Resolution 1267

“The international community should take note and understand that Pakistan is a democratic society where judiciary takes free, independent and transparent decisions,” he said in a statement.He further said that Pakistan is still looking for justification and explanation from India as to how all the accused involved in 2007 Samjhota Express bombing, where 68 Pakistani nationals lost their lives, have gone scot-free.“The involvement of Indian Army officer Lieutenant Colonel Prasad Shrikant Purohit and Hindu extremist leaders like Swami Aseemanand of Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh in the Samjhota Express terrorist incident is a matter of record and has been widely reported in the international press without any positive response from India,” the spokesman recalled.

CONCLUSION:
- Paki Interior Ministry "batting" for Hafeez- us- Suar
- Ball back in India Court

[Falijee]

Pakistan tightens screws on bin Laden doctor’s family

PESHAWAR: Pakistanhas refused to grant identity cards to the family of Shakeel Afridi, the jailed doctor who helped the CIA hunt for Osama bin Laden, his lawyer said, effectively denying them passports and voting rights.Afridi has been languishing in prison for more than five years after his fake vaccination programme helped the CIA track and kill the Al Qaeda leader. Hersh in his book, "Who Killed Bin Laden" categorically denied this false narrative about Afridi responsible for "tracking" OBL; a former ISI officer walked into the US Embassy and "collected" the reward with information !

His lawyer QamarNadim told AFP on Wednesday that officials are refusing to renew Afridi’s wife’s ID card, which expired in December, because her husband’s card had lapsed in 2014. He has also been denied a new card.Officials are similarly refusing to grant new cards to his two children, said Nadim, who has been denied access to his client for more than two years.

Last year a US threat to cut aid toPakistansaw a tribunal slice 10 years off his sentence -- but since then US pressure for his release has tapered off.US President Donald Trump vowed during his election campaign in May last year that he would orderPakistanto free Afridi. “I’m sure they would let them (him) out. Because we give a lot of aid toPakistan,” Trump told Fox News at the time, adding thatPakistan “takes advantage like everybody else”.The comments sparked a blistering rebuttal fromPakistan, whose interior minister at the time branded Trump “ignorant” and stated the “government ofPakistan and not Donald Trump” would decide Afridi's fate. Let us see if the new Trump Sarkar makes good on it's promise to see that this person is set free !

[Falijee]

Hafiz Saeed put on ECL

Can Saudi or Qatar "offer" to take him !!!!

[Falijee]

PM sends beautiful horse gift to Qatar Emir via C-130

ISLAMABAD: The Prime Minister of Pakistan, Nawaz Sharif on Tuesday sent special gift of a beautiful horse to Emir of Qatar.The special gift of the horse was sent via special aircraft (C-130).The copy of the letter on the arrangements reveals, “The horse is a gift from the Prime Minister of Pakistan for the Emir of the State of Qatar.”

however, it was delayed due to some undisclosed reasons.

The letter says, “A special aircraft (C-130) carrying a horse will travel to Qatar on February 01, 2017 instead of 28th January, 2017.”

The letter issued with the signatures of Deputy Chief Protocol Aftab Hassan Khan also seeks the landing, parking and take off permission for Hamad International Airport.

The special aircraft will return to Pakistan on Thursday, February 02, 2017, according to the letter. It was delayed due to some undisclosed reasons.The letter says, “A special aircraft (C-130) carrying a horse will travel to Qatar on February 01, 2017 instead of 28th January, 2017.”The letter issued with the signatures of Deputy Chief Protocol Aftab Hassan Khan also seeks the landing, parking and take off permission for Hamad International Airport.The special aircraft will return to Pakistan on Thursday, February 02, 2017, according to the letter.

Ganja Sharif, "performing" his designated role as "Badshah of Raiwind". Like the good olden days, reciprocating the services rendered ( fake affidavits !)by the Emir of Qatar in connection with the Panama Scandal , by "gifting a beautiful horse" and transporting the same by State Expense .

PS: It is "rumoured" that Ganja Sharif has kept quite a few exotic animals in his private zoo at his Estate; are more animals and birds in the pipeline ?

[CRamS]

Guys, my take on all the Hafeez "arrest" BS:

1. TSP pasand ModiJi haters in India like former army colonel shookla (ackk thoo, hate to think he was in Indian army), thappad are linking all kinds of irrelevant issues: release of Indian soldier, invitation to some TSP attache for republic day parade, Hafeez pig circus etc to signal TSP has become a good boy, and "extremists" in India should eschew "chest thumping" and give poor TSP space to act.

2. IMO, Hafeez pig was arrested for some loan access reasons, recall SDRE Nisha Biswal's supposed warning to TSP in the closing days of Obama's tenure.

3. But by far, the biggest blow to TSP's H&D visa vi India is Trump side-kick Reince Priebus's warning that TSP RAPE will be treated like plague infested diseased rats like how Trump is treating those from list of banned countries. (Some TSP RAPE will have suffered nervous breakdown on this). But that still doesn't explain why TSP would "arrest" Hafeez pig. I mean why would TSPA tormenting us SDREs through Hafeez pig be of any interest to Trump? TSP would have chosen someone from the Haqqani network or from the "good Taliban" to impress Trump.

So my guesstimate on the reason for TSP's self-righteous circus is #2 above.

[anupmisra]

So which is it?

1. PM sends beautiful horse gift to Qatar Emir via C-130
2. PAF denies airlifting horse gifted by PM to Qatar emir

http://www.dawn.com/news/1312072/paf-de ... qatar-emir

[Peregrine]

Guys, my take on all the Hafeez "arrest" BS:

1. TSP pasand ModiJi haters in India like former army colonel shookla (ackk thoo, hate to think he was in Indian army), thappad are linking all kinds of irrelevant issues: release of Indian soldier, invitation to some TSP attache for republic day parade, Hafeez pig circus etc to signal TSP has become a good boy, and "extremists" in India should eschew "chest thumping" and give poor TSP space to act.

2. IMO, Hafeez pig was arrested for some loan access reasons, recall SDRE Nisha Biswal's supposed warning to TSP in the closing days of Obama's tenure.

3. But by far, the biggest blow to TSP's H&D visa vi India is Trump side-kick Reince Priebus's warning that TSP RAPE will be treated like plague infested diseased rats like how Trump is treating those from list of banned countries. (Some TSP RAPE will have suffered nervous breakdown on this). But that still doesn't explain why TSP would "arrest" Hafeez pig. I mean why would TSPA tormenting us SDREs through Hafeez pig be of any interest to Trump? TSP would have chosen someone from the Haqqani network or from the "good Taliban" to impress Trump.

So my guesstimate on the reason for TSP's self-righteous circus is #2 above.

CRamS Ji :

Could might be possible that Porcine Turd Hafeez is involved with the the Uyghur Terrorists and Yellow Split Beans Eyes Fliend has ORDERED their Lower than Nadir, Smaller than Ants, Bitterer than Aloe, Stronger Smelling than the smell of Mule Pee etc. etc. Fliend to "Rope in the Porcine Turd".

Remember : Cwapistan doesn't give a Rat's A*se for the You Ess of A!
Cheers

[Falijee]

Maybe, the "airlift" was cancelled at the last minute because of
PAF pressure ( "PAF denies .....)
Ganja's climbdown from his blatant abuse of govt assets and the obvious quid pro quo

Wait for more "disclosures" !

[krithivas]

The horse somehow escaped from the airbase loading dock and was later spotted somewhere over Saudi. Conclusive HD quality video is hereby submitted as proof.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=U1VNY1d53f8

Maybe, the "airlift" was cancelled at the last minute because of
PAF pressure ( "PAF denies .....)
Ganja's climbdown from his blatant abuse of govt assets and the obvious quid pro quo
Wait for more "disclosures" !

[Peregrine]

India’s objection to a Pakistani secretary general may hurt Saarc

Falijee Ji :

The Article states in the second last paragraph :

"Pakistan, besides its large territorial size, has been an active member of Saarc and is currently contributing 24 per cent of the secretariat’s budget."

Is it possible to verify the veracity of this Cwapistani Claim?
Cheers

[anupmisra]

Will bakistan also put salahuddin under house protec...er... arrest? He too needs exit control measures. After all, he did invite the tellibunnies and al-keeda to cashmere for jeehaaaard.

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/indiahome/in ... shmir.html

[SSridhar]

^ There is a whole bunch of them including Indian fugitives.

[Falijee]

Passing The Buck To Dus- Percenti

Interior ministry blames previous PPP govt for not acting against JuD

[Falijee]

Diplomatic Niceties Thrown Out Of The Window With Reference To Hafiz Detention

India should look towards itself before pointing fingers at others: FO

[asgkhan]

http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/new ... 932649.cms

KUWAIT CITY: Kuwait has suspended the issuance of visas for nationals of Syria, Iraq, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Iran.

After US President Donald Trump's executive order banning seven Muslim-majority countries last Friday, the Kuwaiti government has told would-be migrants from the five banned nations to not apply for visas, as it is worried about the possible migration of radical Islamic t ..

Read more at:
http://economictimes.indiatimes.com/art ... aign=cppst

[Peregrine]

X Posted on the IWT Thread

Indus Water Treaty's survival appears weak: UN report

ISLAMABAD: The 40-year-old Indus Water Treaty between India and Pakistan has been an outstanding example of conflict resolution but scarcity of water in the basin states since the early 1990s has brought the agreement under strain and its "survival appears weak", according to a UN report.

"The treaty fails to address two issues: the division of shortages in dry years between India and Pakistan, when flows are almost half as compared to wet years, and the cumulative impact of storage impact of storages on the flows of the River Chenab into Pakistan," said the UNDP report titled 'Development Advocate Pakistan'.

Wular Barrage and Kishenganga project on the Jhelum and Neelum rivers present a similar problem whereby water storage during the Rabi season is critical as flows are almost one-fifth of the Kharif season, according the report, which was released yesterday.

it said. "For over 40 years, the Indus Water Treaty has proved to be an outstanding example of conflict resolution. An increase in water stress in the basin states since the early 90s has brought the Treaty under strain. In fact, its survival appears weak, although there is no exit clause,"

The report said that Pakistan has gone as far as calling the treaty an inefficient forum for resolving water issues, elevating the water issue to a "core issue" and including it in the composite dialogue. But India has refused to include the issue in the composite dialogue because it is not ready to discard the treaty.

The treaty permitted India to create storages on the western rivers of 1.25, 1.60 and 0.75 million acre feet (MAF) for general, power and flood storages, respectively, amounting to a total permissible storage of 3.6 MAF.

"A clear ambiguity in the treaty occurs in its permission to be interpreted differently, thereby creating conflicts between Pakistan and India. The treaty also fails to clearly address India's share of shortages in relation to storage dams on the western rivers, an issue of major concern," according to the report.

As a consequence of climate change, shrinking glaciers and changing precipitation patterns render the need to address issues of water scarcity and resources, it said.

"During floods, for example, majority of the water runs into the rivers of Indus-Pakistan which leaves the province of Sindh flooded. Such negative setbacks on the economy will eventually have dire consequences if not addressed," the report warned.

It said that with control of the River Chenab through the Salal dam, India has several plans under way for development of hydropower with enhanced water storage on the western river.

Pakistan continues to face reduced face reduced flows from the Chenab owing to the recent storage of water in the Baglihar dam.

According to the report, annual flows in the Chenab during wet years have continued to decline since 1958-59 with an increase in droughts since 1937-38.

"Same is the case with the River Jhelum being controlled by India. Since the river is a major source of irrigation and hydropower for Pakistan, it will pose dire impacts for the country if India chooses to close the gates of the barrage," the report said.

The report said that although the treaty limits Pakistan to prohibit construction of hydropower dams by India, it does however, grant the right to voice issues regarding the developing strategy concerning the storage of water during dry periods.

Awareness regarding trans-boundary water issues is a recent phenomenon and systematic studies are needed, the report said.

The report said that Pakistan's negligence in conducting a "sound analysis" of trans-boundary water issues and delays in presenting the cases of dispute with India to the Indus Water Commission or the World Bank have caused the issue to linger on.

Cheers

[Peregrine]

LO KUR LO BAAT!

Delay the census

Pakistan has unfortunately become a country where there is no shortage of controversies at any given time. One such controversy involves the sixth population census which is to be held from March 15 this year. This census is taking place after a gap of almost 19 years. Yet, there is considerable opposition to the census. Some of it is justifiable, especially in the case of Balochistan.

After dillydallying for a year, the federal government was left with no choice – following directives from the Supreme Court – but to announce a definite date for the start of the census. Now, the mega exercise of the census will be conducted in March and the government has already allocated Rs14.5 billion for it – out of which Rs7 billion has been set aside for security purposes. Although this exercise is important for the planning needs of the country, it can give rise to new problems in the country, especially in Balochistan.

The census is an important exercise in every country. But in the case of Pakistan, it becomes even more important. The census is used to calculate the total population of the country; the official figures collected through this exercise are then used to make scores of policy decisions. The population data from the census would be used to distribute the shares of the provinces in the National Finance Commission (NFC) and the quota for federal government jobs as well as determine representation in parliament. The importance attached to the census makes it a sensitive subject. There are, however, certain reasons due to which the census can’t be fully transparent in the country.

Though there is opposition to the census from different quarters, the main source of hostility comes from Balochistan. In this province, the Baloch and the Pakhtun are the two largest ethnic groups. The Baloch and the Pakhtuns have been at loggerheads with each other over the resources and political control of the province. There has always been a large Baloch population in the province. However, it is feared that this might change due to certain inevitable irregularities in the forthcoming census.

The fears of an unfair census in Balochistan are not baseless. Afghan refugees – who are mostly Pakhtun – have been merged into Balochistan’s population, and have illegally acquired citizenship in Pakistan. This can evidenced from the fact that on at least four different occasions Nadra officials in Balochistan have been convicted for issuing CNICs to Afghan refugees.

The facts and figures generated from the house listing census of 2011 also support the claim that there has been an artificial assimilation of Afghan refugees in the population of Balochistan. As compared to 1998, the population of Pakistan increased by 46.9 percent in 2011. However, in Balochistan, the recorded increase was a massive 139 percent.

Even more surprising is the case of Killa Abdullah District – which borders Afghanistan and therefore has the highest concentration of Afghan refugees in the province. The population of the district increased from 370,269 in 1998 to 2,138,997 in 2011. This 447 percent increase in population cannot be natural as no other districts in Balochistan showed such a huge population growth rate. There can be only one plausible explanation for such a massive increase in the population of Killa Abdullah: the influx of Afghan refugees.

Not only is there an influx of Afghan refugees in Balochistan, there are also Baloch people who have left their homes due to the ongoing insurgency in the province. Although there are no official figures available, it is believed that hundreds of thousands of people from Dera Bugti, Kohlu, Awaran and Turbat have been internally displaced to various parts of Sindh and Punjab. This further reduces the population of the Baloch when compared to Pakhtuns in the backdrop of the census controversy.

All this has led to a catch-22 situation in the case of Balochistan. The census is important and can potentially increase the share of the province in the NFC and federal government job quota. But it can turn the Baloch into a minority in their own province and deprive them of political control. The best way to reach a conclusion on this issue is to carry out a cost-benefit analysis.

The benefits of the census have already been explained. The costs in the case of Balochistan would be catastrophic. If the Baloch become a minority due to this census, their sense of deprivation would increase by massive proportions. All the gains made in bringing people to the mainstream would disappear into thin air. This could also strengthen the Baloch insurgents who have lost considerable support over the last few years. In short, the costs of carrying out a census in Balochistan clearly outweigh the benefits.

In this context, it would be in the best interest of all to delay the census in Balochistan for three to four years. For now, the projected figures can be used based on the average population growth rate in the whole country. After three or four years, the census can be conducted in Balochistan when the Afghan refugees have been repatriated and the Baloch IDPs have returned home. Though a difficult decision to take, it seems to be an inevitable one.
Cheers

[LokeshC]

We are going to have one of the biggest crises since the brishit famines and britshit partition on our western borders in 20 - 30 years when we would just about start becoming a middle income (and a gigantic) economy.

[Peregrine]

4 Pakistani boats found abandoned near Sir Creek area

AHMEDABAD: In just two days, BSF patrols have discovered and seized four abandoned Pakistani boats in Koteshwar and nearby area of Sir Creek.

The mystery of the missing crew has set alarm bells ringing across the border security network, as the memory of the Kuber trawler, which was hijacked by Lashkar-e-Toiba terrorists in 2008 to slip in the 26/11 attackers to Mumbai, is still haunting the minds of personnel.

BSF officials said that on Wednesday, a small Pakistani single-engine fishing boat was discovered from the marshy Koteshwar area of Sir Creek, while on Thursday three more boats, drifting together, were seized about 3 km off Sir Creek within Indian territorial waters. Catches of fish and cooking utensils were found from the boats.

Border security personnel have begun to comb the 22-km long Sir Creek channels to solve the mystery. The channels corkscrew through the Indo-Pak borders.

"The Pakistanis may have seen us coming and fled. They may have traversed the knee-deep waters on foot and fled towards Pakistan while abandoning their boats," a BSF official said. "We have beefed up patrolling in the area and are conducting a combing operation to track more abandoned Pakistani boats," he said.

"Recovery of about 40 kg of crabs, utensils and other fishing equipment from the Pakistani boats suggests that they were fishing boats," said a senior BSF official.

"But the issue is that if a fishing boat can cross into Indian territorial waters in the swampy water channel ranging from Sindh province in Pakistan to Rann of Kutch in Gujarat, then terrorists can also take chances," he added.
Cheers

[Atmavik]

X posting

Stumbled on this ISPR propaganda video. it has a gora pak passand girl blaming the media. this seems to be the latest MO where goras are roped in to do Damage Control

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5bYuy6L7GrE

[SSridhar]

Amid Beijing's 'Silk Road' splurge, Chinese firms eye Pakistan - ToI

Chinese companies are in talks to snap up more businesses and land in Pakistan after sealing two major deals in recent months, a sign of deepening ties after Beijing vowed to plough $57 billion into a new trade route across the South Asian nation.

A dozen executives from some of Pakistan's biggest firms told Reuters that Chinese companies were looking mainly at the cement, steel, energy and textile sectors, the backbone of Pakistan's $270 billion economy.

Analysts say the interest shows Chinese firms are using Beijing's "One Belt, One Road"+ project - a global trade network of which Pakistan is a key part - to help expand abroad at a time when growth has slowed at home.

A Chinese-led consortium recently took a strategic stake in the Pakistan Stock Exchange, and Shanghai Electric Power acquired one of Pakistan's biggest energy producers, K-Electric, for $1.8 billion.

"The Chinese have got deep pockets and they are looking for major investment in Pakistan," said Muhammad Ali Tabba, chief executive of two companies in the Yunus Brothers Group cement-to-chemicals conglomerate.

Tabba said Yunus Brothers, partnering with a Chinese company, lost out in the battle for K-Electric, but the group is eyeing up other joint ventures as part of a $2 billion expansion plan over the coming years.

Mohammad Zubair, Pakistan's privatisation minister until a few days ago, told Reuters China's steel giant Baosteel Group is in talks over a 30-year lease for state-run Pakistan Steel Mills. Baosteel did not respond to a request for comment.

The negotiations come as Pakistani business sentiment turns, with companies betting that Beijing's splurge on road, rail and energy infrastructure under the China-Pakistan Economic Corridor+ (CPEC) will boost the economy.

The Chinese charge is in contrast to Western investors, who have largely avoided Pakistan in recent years despite fewer militant attacks and economic growth near 5 percent.

It is welcomed by many in Pakistan: foreign direct investment was $1.9 billion in 2015-2016, far below the 2007-2008 peak of $5.4 billion.

At the stock exchange signing ceremony, Sun Weidong, China's ambassador to Pakistan, said the deal "embodies the ongoing financial integration" between Chinese and Pakistani markets.

"This will facilitate more financial support for our enterprises," Sun said.

Reservations

CPEC will connect China's Western region with Pakistan's Arabian Sea port of Gwadar+ through a network of rail, road and pipeline projects.

That will be funded by loans from China, and much of the business will go to Chinese enterprises.

The scale of Chinese corporate interest beyond that is difficult to gauge, but in Karachi, Pakistan's financial centre, sharply-dressed Chinese appear to outnumber Westerners in hotels, restaurants and the city's airport.

Rising skyscrapers testify to a construction boom in the city, businesses are printing Chinese-language brochures and salaries demanded by Pakistanis who speak Chinese have shot up.

Miftah Ismail, chairman of Pakistan's Board of Investment, said Chinese companies were interested in investing in the telecoms and auto sectors, with FAW Group and Foton Motor Group planning to enter Pakistan.

FAW said the Pakistan "project is going through internal approvals", but did not offer more details. Foton declined to comment.

But not everyone is excited by China's growing role in the Pakistan economy, including trade unions, who said Chinese companies' alleged mistreatment of local workers in Africa in the past had alarmed them.

"We have concern and reservations that the Chinese might use the same methods in Pakistan," said Nasir Mansoor, deputy general secretary of National Trade Union Federation, Pakistan, the national trade union body.

The Chinese government and Chinese companies have dismissed such accusations in the past.

And doing business may not be easy for newcomers. Security remains a concern despite a drop in Islamist militant violence, and in the World Bank's ease of doing business index, Pakistan ranks 144 out of 190 countries.

Next phase

The Chinese interest comes as Islamabad and Beijing discuss the next phase of CPEC: how to build Pakistan's industry with the help of Chinese state-owned industrial giants.

Pakistani officials are drafting plans for special economic zones which would offer tax breaks and other benefits to Chinese businesses.

But even before zones are established, Chinese investors are scoping out land deals. {This is going to be a scam}

"A lot of companies ... don't care about CPEC. They just want 500 acres of land to set up shop," said Naheed Memon, head of the Sindh province's Board of Investment.

Faisal Aftab, manager of private investment firm Oxon Partners, said Oxon was in talks with two state-run Chinese companies and a wealthy Chinese businessman to purchase and develop land for high-end residential and commercial properties.

"They are seeking land in prime markets such as Lahore, Karachi, and Islamabad," Aftab said.

Yunus Brothers' Tabba urged Western investors to overcome their "phobia" of Pakistan.

"If they came here, they would see the momentum, the buzz of growth."

[Peregrine]

Amid Beijing's 'Silk Road' splurge, Chinese firms eye Pakistan - ToI

SSridhar Ji :

This is called "Cwapjiangization (a new word for the Oxford Dictionary with the Root Word "Cwapjiang") of Cwapistan!

All Hail the Chinese - even the USA could not change Cwapistan despite giving lodsa Billions of Dollars to it - for finally subduing Cwapistan.

Cheers

[anupmisra]

South Asians convicted.

British court convicts six men in Rotherham child sex abuse case

Six men were were jailed by a British court on Thursday for sexually abusing two minors who they drugged with alcohol and cannabis

The crimes took place between 1999 and 2001 in Rotherham

the victim said: "There's evil and truly evil people in the world. I feel my child was the product of pure evil. I was drawn into a world of fear, rape and horrific abuse, I lost my childhood at the hands of those men.

Two of the defendants shouted "Allahu Akbar"

http://www.dawn.com/news/1312481/britis ... abuse-case

[A_Gupta]

http://in.mobile.reuters.com/article/sp ... NKBN15I1NO

Hyundai Motor Company plans to set up a car assembly plant in Pakistan in a joint venture with local textile firm Nishat Mills, an official from Nishat said on Friday.

Hyundai's return to Pakistan will boost the government's efforts to shake up the Japanese-dominated car market and loosen the grip of Toyota, Honda and Suzuki, who assemble cars in Pakistan with local partners.

Hyundai and South Korea's Kia Motor used to assemble cars in Pakistan until 2004 but withdrew after their local partner Dewan Farooque Motors Limited went bust.

It was not clear how much capital Hyundai, South Korea's largest automaker, would itself invest in the Pakistani venture.

Representatives for Hyundai could not immediately be reached for comment.

[Peregrine]

China to send top official to Pakistan for counter-terrorism talks

BEIJING: Playing down reports that it was behind the detention of JuD chief Hafeez Saeed , China on Friday said it is sending a top official to Pakistan for talks on counter terrorism+ amid mounting pressure on Islamabad+ from India, Afghanistan and the US to rein in militant groups.

Vice Foreign Minister Cheng Guoping will visit Pakistan for talks on counter terrorism, Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Lu Kang told a media briefing while replying to a question whether the talks would include a discussion on militant groups in Pakistan and concerns of Afghanistan and India.

While Lu did not provide any details, Cheng is expected to be in Islamabad from February 6 to 9.

Lu also gave a guarded reply to a question whether China was behind Pakistan's sudden move to detain JuD chief and the 2008 Mumbai attack mastermind Saeed.

While his house arrest was attributed to ward off pressure from US President Donald Trump+ , some Pakistani media reports said pressure from China prompted Islamabad to act against Saeed.

Lu said "for a long time Pakistan has made enormous efforts and sacrifices on counter terrorism".

"China supports the independent strategies made by Pakistan in counter terrorism and engage in international cooperation on counter terrorism," he said hinting that Saeed's detention was Pakistan's own decision.

"China supports international cooperation on counter terrorism. We consistently maintain that such cooperation should be based on mutual respect," he said.

China is set to host a major international summit in May this year on Chinese President Xi Jinping's ambitious One Belt One Road (OBOR) project, a multi billion dollar initiative to revive Silk Road. China wants maximum participation including from India and the US.

Lu said leaders of 20 countries expressed interests to attend the conference but gave no details.

More than 100 countries and international organisation gave their support for OBOR project and over 40 countries and international organisations signed agreements or letters of intent to join it, Lu said.

Officials say besides Trump, China was also keen on the participation of Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

But the Sino-Indian relations were bogged down by China blocking India's move to ban JeM leader Masood Azhar as a global terrorist by the UN like Saeed.

China also blocked India's bid for membership in the Nuclear Suppliers Group (NSG).

Over Azhar's issue, China also faced allegations from India of double standards in fighting terrorism.

Officials say it is to be seen how much of these issues would figure in China-Pakistan counter terror talks.

Also China is investing vast sums of money into the USD 46 billion China-Pakistan Economic Corridor (CPEC) which is part of the OBOR over which India has raised objections as it passed through Pakistan-occupied Kashmir (PoK).

China was also concerned about stepped up terror attack in its Muslim Uyghur majority Xinjiang province which is also the starting point for OBOR.

Chinese and Pakistani border guards have been holding joint patrols to curb infiltration.

Afghan government too has raised strong pitch against Pakistan's reluctance to crackdown on the Haqqani network which is creating havoc in Afghanistan, scuttling all moves to restore peace in the war torn country.
Cheers

[Peregrine]

Finance minister’s debt defence

In a long and detailed article, Finance Minister Ishaq Dar recently took the extraordinary step of engaging with his critics and presenting a painstakingly detailed picture of the sustainability of Pakistan’s external debt.

Cheers

[SSridhar]

China to send top official to Pakistan for counter-terrorism talks

BEIJING: Playing down reports that it was behind the detention of JuD chief Hafeez Saeed , China on Friday said it is sending a top official to Pakistan for talks on counter terrorism+ amid mounting pressure on Islamabad+ from India, Afghanistan and the US to rein in militant groups.

Vice Foreign Minister Cheng Guoping will visit Pakistan for talks on counter terrorism, Chinese foreign ministry spokesman Lu Kang told a media briefing while replying to a question whether the talks would include a discussion on militant groups in Pakistan and concerns of Afghanistan and India.

Over Azhar's issue, China also faced allegations from India of double standards in fighting terrorism.

Officials say it is to be seen how much of these issues would figure in China-Pakistan counter terror talks.

The impression gaining ground is that somehow China is putting pressure on Pakistan on these terror groups. I don't believe in this. China would not let Pakistan down in world fora. Masood Azhar issue wold come up in the UNSC sooner than later. China wants to be prepared for defending Pakistan again. China may not be able or even willing to continue to place 'hold' on this issue. It will have o resort to some other tactic. The two are working this out, perhaps linking India with Balochistan and making both pari-passu.

[habal]

SSridhar saar, China has reasons to be worried.

regarding NSG the buzz is that they are going to rescind the rule which requires unanimous approval to pass a motion in NSG. Western alliance has dropped hints that this law will be removed and only majority consensus will be required. This law will be passed overriding China's objections to change of NSG bylaws or unanimous approval for new member. China thinks that case of Hafeez Sayed, Azhar will be raised at NSG to blackmark Pakistan after this and China will not be able to do anything about it.

[zoverian]

SSridhar saar, China has reasons to be worried.

regarding NSG the buzz is that they are going to rescind the rule which requires unanimous approval to pass a motion in NSG. Western alliance has dropped hints that this law will be removed and only majority consensus will be required. This law will be passed overriding China's objections to change of NSG bylaws or unanimous approval for new member. China thinks that case of Hafeez Sayed, Azhar will be raised at NSG to blackmark Pakistan after this and China will not be able to do anything about it.

when you say that Buzz is that.....any facts/proof you have to support this....

[SSridhar]

Habal ji, NSG, MTCR, Wassenaar, AG, SAARC, ASEAN, SCO etc. all have this 'unanimous decision' clause. China's admission to these groups or its manipulations (like in ASEAN) causes troubles. So, if the introduction of 'democracy by majority rule' happens in NSG, then that is understandable. Hope the other organizations would also amend their clauses accordingly as the world is in for a very bumpy ride in the years ahead and the 'unanimity' approach should not add to that. But, I am unable to link the Hafiz/Azhar cases with NSG. AQ Khan & China's own proliferations to Pakistan are the embarrassing stuff that should directly concern NSG. As NSG has so far kept quiet about China's fraudulent grand-fathering scam scheme, there is no way this can be brought up unless some damaging revelations come up. The AQK case is what would hold up Pakistan's application for a long time, Insh'a Alla'h.

[habal]

they will invoke the pakistan-hafez saeed, masood azhar pak terror link to dismiss chinese objections & then replace approval by consensus with majority approval.