The Liver Transplant Centre (LTC) that has been set up at the Pakistan Institute of Medical Sciences (Pims) at the cost of Rs14 billion is a big let down.

The huge amount from national exchequer spent on the centre does not reflect in facilities and quality of treatment being provided to patients.

The centre was established in June last year at the behest of Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani who wanted to provide a liver transplant facility in the capital so those patients needing this costly procedure would not need to go abroad. Initially an amount of Rs120 million were given to the hospital administration for constructing a separate building of the LTC.

Housed in an old operation theatre and the adjacent doctors’ cafeteria and change room the centre presents the look of a basic health unit (BHU) instead of the state-of-the-art facility it was supposed to be for the most advanced and sophisticated transplant surgery.

A senior doctor who wished not to be named said the LTC was built in violation of the guidelines set by the World Health Organization.

When it rains the roof of the centre leaks and rainwater gathers inside. The floor tiles having gaps between them have been used in the three-bed Intensive Care Unit (ICU) as well as the OT in the centre.

“Such tiles should be avoided because germs easily penetrate the gaps”, the doctor said.

It is difficult to maintain hygiene putting at risk the patient kept in the ICU. The length, width, space and the height of the centre’s roof and the OT’s design are also faulty, the doctor added.

Besides this, two OTs were supposed to be established at the centre but only one has so far been set up which too does not meet the international standard. No liver transplant has been done at the centre since August 2011.

A memorandum of understanding was also signed between Pims and Royal Free Hospital, London and a delegation from the UK hospital came to Islamabad to give liver transplantation-related training to the doctors and the paramedics.

They were also supposed to carry out first liver transplant at the centre but when they saw its condition they refused to do such operation.

According to another senior doctor who also wished not to be named, the top management wanted their people to be recruited at the LTC but their proposal was turned down.

All the inductions were made on merit contrary to the wishes and pressure of the administration. To punish the employees the administration has not paid to the employees for the last five months, forcing half of the doctors and other employees to quit their jobs.

The remaining staff is also being threatened by the administration when they demand their salary. The employees face uncertainty as their job contracts will expire in May 2012 and there is a fear among them that the administration would not renew their contracts to get rid of them and to bring in their own people, the doctor said.

He accused the top administration of the hospital and an MNA from an allied party of the government of being involved in corruption.

Despite many attempts to get views of Pims Executive Director Mehmood Jamal and Prof Nadeem Ahmed who is coordinator of LTC, they could not be approached.

Source: The Express Tribune

Conceptually, the BISP is a programme of cash transfers for the bottom 25 per cent of the population below the poverty line. It does not offer any makan, but the recipient gets a monthly income supplement of a thousand rupees, considered enough to two to three weeks of atta for a family of five and perhaps, some kapra. Despite rising fiscal deficits, budget allocations have been generous and have exceeded the capacity to spend. In the first year, 2008-09, Rs13.3 billion was spent against an allocation of Rs34 billion to reach out to 3.5 million families. Undeterred, the allocation in the following year was more than doubled to Rs70 billion to reach five million families — a sizeable number of voters. Actual spending was Rs32 billion. Again in 2010-11, expenditure against an allocation of Rs50 billion was Rs35 billion. The budget for 2011-12 has the same allocation as that of the previous year.

There has been more support than opposition. In the beginning, when parliamentarians were involved in beneficiary identification, some political opposition was witnessed. Engaging NADRA to verify the 4.3 million forms warded it off. Only 2.3 million families were found to be eligible. The electronic media ran stories of bogus forms. This was as misinformed as the description of the registered voters not verified by NADRA as bogus. Not being in NADRA’s record does not necessarily mean that the person does not exist. The authority still does not have full coverage; more so in the case of the BISP, as the target here are women heads of the family — only 73 per cent have CNICs.

Economists oppose subsidies, but only those kinds that are not targeted, such as cheaper wheat or fuel which distort prices. A subsidy on wheat, available to the rich and the poor alike, is roughly the same as the total allocation for BISP, a programme of targeted cash transfers. There is some debate whether these transfers should be unconditional or conditional, as the former tend to promote dependency rather than exit from poverty. At present, the main BISP initiative makes unconditional grants but conditional transfers like the self-employment scheme called ‘wasila-e-haq’ are also beginning to take shape. These attributes have bought in donor support. The World Bank funded a door to door survey of the entire population, in order to identify eligible women on the basis of a poverty scorecard, as has been drawn in the Asian Development Bank, USAID and Britain’s Department for International Development.

Except for petty corruption of postmen delivering cash, one has not heard of a major corruption scandal. There are, however, features that protect the PPP votebank. There is a rural bias in the poverty scorecard. The ultimate aim though, is to cover all districts. The immediate coverage is of rural Sindh and southern Punjab. No provincial break-up is available for the number of beneficiaries and the money disbursed. A World Bank working paper shows that increased decision-making power for women affects family expenditure patterns. Should such shifts not affect voting patterns?

Published in The Express Tribune, February 3rd, 2012.

Some of the two hundred or so passengers aboard the maiden trip said they were impressed by the facilities but would reserve judgment until their arrival in Karachi Photo: Arif Ali/AFP/Getty Images

By Rob Crilly, on the Business Express, between Lahore and Karachi

The luxury service – complete with flatscreen TVs, wifi and lavatories that would put some British trains to shame – was launched today in an effort to turn around the dire fortunes of Pakistan’s railways, and restore it to its former colonial glory.
More than that, the story of the railway’s decline mirrors that of the country itself, and the Business Express, with its mix of public and private enterprise, is being championed as a new model that could revive Pakistan’s moribund state sector.

Waiters in waistcoats and bow ties served afternoon tea as passengers boarded for the 800-mile, 18-hour journey.

Even Pakistan’s Prime Minister, Yousuf Raza Gilani, facing contempt of court charges, turned out to see the train off. He managed a smile as he welcomed The Daily Telegraph to a berth.

“No I’m not travelling, I’m just here to see you off,” he said with a quick handshake before moving off and avoiding any mention of his legal troubles.

Built in the middle of the Nineteenth Century by engineers who risked rabid wolves, crocodiles and malaria, the railway from Lahore was once a cornerstone of Britain’s vast Indian empire, ferrying troops to the interior and carrying textiles and tea to the vast port of Karachi.

Pakistan inherited a rail network stretching more than 5000 miles at independence in 1947.
But years of corruption and mismanagement has seen the state-owned business taken to the brink of collapse.

Executives say its fleet of 146 locomotives is 500 short of what it needs.

The resulting delays and cancellations have seen a once popular railway marginalised; used by only those that cannot afford travelling by air or road.

This year, the business is expected to lose more than £200m.
Arif Azim, chairman of Pakistan Railways, said he wanted to turn back the clock to a time when the railways were both reliable and elegant.

“Our aim right now is to offer a service in the best traditions of the line – whether it was in the British time or after independence,” he said.

Construction on the line began in 1858 when Sir Henry Edward Frere, the commissioner of Sind, realised Karachi would form an ideal port.
The first stretch opened in 1861, running 100 miles inland before connecting with steamers on the Indus.

John Brunton, the chief engineer, described in his memoir the challenges of buying off hostile princes and the day a rabid wolf ran through his camp outside Karachi.

“In India a record is kept of all fatalities arising from attacks of wild beasts, snakes etc – and on this occasion the return gave 12 men bitten, of whom 10 died, and a large number of cattle,” he wrote.
“The brute was hunted down and killed by the natives, the day after our interview with him.”
Pakistan has different troubles today.

A bomb blast closed the railway last year not far from the spot where those rabid wolves once roamed and the Business Express carries armed guards.

It may not be quite the Orient Express, but the daily sleeper with running water, a dinner service, and pillows for the bunks are a vast improvement on the squalid, broken-down carriages that usually make the stop-start journey.

The service is provided by a private company in a deal that gives it 14% of the £35 single ticket price.

Javed Salim Qureshi, chairman of Four Brothers, the private partner: “Pakistan has had a disaster on the railways. This is a new departure.

“I just hope it gets there on time.”

A trial run a week earlier fell eight hours behind schedule even before leaving Lahore after a carriage derailed.

Some of the two hundred or so passengers aboard the maiden trip said they were impressed by the facilities but would reserve judgment until their arrival in Karachi.

Khurram Ali, a financial analyst, said he was surprised by the first-world standards.

“It’s cheaper than flying and this new service seems really good,” he said, as the lush farmland of Punjab flashed past the window at 70mph.

“But then again we all know how bad the delays have been so ask me again what I think tomorrow morning.”

Source: The Telegraph

The bottom line is that miscreants want to deprive the Ahmadis of their right to pray and congregate. The miscreants gave an open warning to demolish the ‘Ewan-e-Tawheed’ on January 29, 2012, also they will not allow this Friday prayers at ‘Ewan-e-Tawheed’.

Resurgence: In order to save our country from the military's follies, Pakistan nation must stand up to the military and its bigoted proxies, even if it means putting our lives at risk..

The [Ahmadiyya] community is under attack and there are known security threats to community members from these miscreants. Yet innocent and peaceful Ahmadis are not even allowed to defend or protect themselves,” read a press release from the Ahmadiyya community.

January 29 is also the date of birth of Pakistan’s only Nobel Laureate, Dr Abdus Salam, who was also an Ahmadi. It was tragic to see that on his birthday, a huge rally was organised to terrorise the Ahmadiyya community. We, in Pakistan, really do not know how to honour our heroes and we are not known for protecting our minorities either.

In 1974, Ahmadis were declared non-Muslims in Pakistan through the Second Amendment under the Bhutto regime. When General Zia came to power, he brought about even more draconian anti-Ahmadi laws. For decades now, their persecution at the hands of bigots has largely been ignored because of these laws. Defending the rights of the Ahmadiyya community is considered an anathema in our society.

On 28 May 2010, two Ahmadi mosques were attacked by terrorists in Lahore and 86 Ahmadis were martyred. Apart from a few politicians, nobody was willing to condemn the attacks in unequivocal terms. (Late) Punjab Governor Salmaan Taseer was the only politician who condoled with the Ahmadiyya community. Such is the state of affairs in Pakistan. Even after the 2010 attacks, many Ahmadis have been threatened and killed because of their faith. The seeds of religious extremism sown over the years now run deep in our polity. It is horrifying to see the way the peaceful Ahmadiyya community is targeted every single day.

Amir Liaquat, a televangelist, spouted so much venom against the Ahmadiyya community in one of his programmes a few years ago that it led to the killings of Ahmadis; yet he was not held accountable. Anti-Ahmadi banners can be seen in many cities at the busiest of squares and yet no government official has ever dared to take them off despite the fact that hate speech is a criminal offence. It, of course, goes without saying that the state has no business to declare anyone a Muslim or a non-Muslim. Over the years, many Ahmadi families have been forced to flee the country.

On the one hand, we see the Ahmadiyya community being targeted while on the other there is a Shia genocide going on in Pakistan. Banned terrorist outfits like the Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ) and Sipah-e-Sahaba Pakistan (SSP) operate freely inside the country with impunity. Shia intellectuals are being killed systematically all over the country.

The people of the peaceful Hazara Shia community in Balochistan are being killed in throngs while our law enforcement agencies have turned a blind eye to the activities of these groups. The reason is simple: these groups are the proxies of the Pakistan Army. They were created and nurtured by the army for its own vested interests and this is why they are never indicted for their crimes. This is the same military that is carrying out a military operation in Balochistan — thousands of Baloch are missing and hundreds of them have been found dead. The policies adopted by the Pakistan Army cost us half of our country back in 1971. Once again, due to its policies, we are on the brink of another disaster.

The international community treats us like a pariah state due to state-sponsored terrorism. The biggest victims of this terrorism are Pakistanis themselves. It is high time that we put an end to the military’s highhandedness. The military must go back to the barracks and never interfere in politics. In order to save our country from the military’s follies, the Pakistani nation must stand up to the military and its bigoted proxies even if it means putting our lives at risk.

The writer is Op-Ed editor, Daily Times, Pakistan. Reach her at mehmal.s@gmail.com

Source: Mid Day

Pashtuns are believed to be the largest segmentary lineage society in the world today. They have been living in their defined homeland areas since ages, in a social order loosely defined by the code of Pashtunwali.

They believe in the myth that they are children of one common ancestor, Qaise, who converted to Islam once he met the Prophet Muhammad (PBUH). However, there is historical evidence that Pashtuns did not convert in mass and as late as 12th century there were non-Muslim Pashtuns residing in tribal areas.

Being a leaderless society, the tribal system does not usually develop institutionalized political power. They feel that all Pashtuns are born equal and individuals can change the existing social and economic inequality. Tribals lead a semi independent life as per their code of conduct, managing their social issues and disputes through a council of elders known as Jirga. Invaders passed through the lands of some of these tribes for thousand of years, but did not bring any significant change in their social system.

In the post-Soviet times, civil order, economy and security were restored faster in the areas where the tribal system was dominant or intact

These tribes, on both sides of the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, were almost independent. The Sikhs administered these areas by maintaining strong forces at district level; but the tribes openly asserted their independence. The relations of the British with the tribes depended on the situation in Afghanistan. They did not make any serious effort to penetrate the area except for some punitive expeditions and defending the passes which led to Afghanistan. The Durand Line divided tribes on both sides, but the British provided them with easement rights for their back and forth movement. They used the tribal areas as the second buffer between them and Russia, the first being Afghanistan.

After the creation of Pakistan, a special status was granted to these areas. They were declared Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA). Tribals were used as non-state actors in both the Kashmir wars of 1947-48 and 1965.

Until the 1970s, about 70% of the tribal areas were administratively inaccessible. No Pakistani official was allowed to enter. In 1973, Zulfikar Ali Bhutto formulated a policy of opening up of the tribal areas through development. An industrial unit was established in each agency. Two new agencies, Bajaur and Orakzai, were formed. Electricity was provided to some of the areas and road infrastructure was developed. Some of the areas that were opened up had tactical importance during the Russian invasion of Afghanistan. Most of the remaining inaccessible areas like Tirah and Shawal were partially opened in the aftermath of 9/11.

In the Pashtun social system, the inhabitants of a village are normally divided into three segments, the Pashtuns, Mian or Mullah (religious functionaries) and Kasabgars (professionals, like barbers and carpenters). The influential class has always been the Pashtuns. The Kasabgars have seldom challenged the authority of Pashtuns; they have concentrated on earning their livelihood and providing education to their children. A number of them excelled in fields like medicine, engineering, education, armed forces and even in politics. But once they make a name for themselves, they want to be known as Pashtun, by aligning with the tribe in whose area they were born and brought up.

The roles of the Khan or Malik and the government officials posted in the area are well defined. They derive legitimacy from state laws. The Mullah is made to perform only some religious rituals. And he is not content with this limited role. He wants his role to be defined and expanded to make him part of the decision-making process in the Pashtun society. Religious people have led almost all the Pashtun uprisings against invaders in history. Followers of Ahmed Shah Barelvi (1863) rose against Sikhs and the British, Pir Roshan (16th century) against Akbar, Sartor Faqir (1897) against the British, Powinda Mullah (1893-1913) also against the British. Faqir of Ipi (1935-1947) was also a key resistance fighter. The leadership of these movements remained with the Mullah only for the duration of the Jihad. When the battles were over, the Khans and Maliks became leaders again.

In the Pashtun society, Rawaj (custom) has generally been more dominant than religion. Music, dance, non-observance of pardha within a tribe, women shaking hands with men, were commonly seen in Pashtuns. They would perform all rituals religiously, but would never force these on others, except for fasting, which is considered an act of Pashtun honor.

The Afghan Jihad did not bring any significant change in the life of the average Pashtun. The Pashtun society started changing once preachers started going to these areas. They were peaceful, polite, and non-coercive, and they were able to persuade older Pashtuns to lay down some restrictions on the younger ones. Music, which was a regular feature of hujras and weddings, was banned in some areas.

But the event that really changed the Pashtun way of life was the rise of the Taliban in Afghanistan.

The Talib was a familiar character in each Pashtun village, known as Chinay in Pashto. Docile, well mannered, quite, friendly, not interfering, not preaching, just concerned with his own task, collecting food for the imam of the mosque. In November 1994, once the Taliban captured Kandahar, nobody, including the intelligence agencies, was sure who they were, and who was supporting them. They suspected it was the US.

In the next few years, what the Taliban practiced was in contrast with Pashtun culture. Under the influence of Al Qaeda, they tried to implement Wahabi and Salafi culture. Inspired by them, the talibs of Pakistan also raised forces in Orakzai and North Waziristan. In the aftermath of 9/11 and NATO operations in Afghanistan, members of Al Qaeda, Pakistani Jihadis, secterian outfits, Uighur fighters from China, and groups from Central Asia took refuge in FATA and other parts of Pakistan. Jihadi organizations and some tribals supported them.

The state could not decide on the course of action to be taken against them. They had never seen such a situation in the past. The tribals suspected that state was supporting these elements, therefore they submitted to the Taliban, who used brute force against prominent tribal elders.

Taliban meet none of these criteria in Afghanistan or Pakistan, and therefore cannot be considered a Pashtun nationalist movement. They take ideological and political inspiration from Arabs and other non-Pashtuns. They have consciously, as a matter of policy, targeted different cultural traits of Pashtuns, like tribal councils and folk music; they are not concerned about the language and promote mostly Arabic and/or interestingly, Urdu; Economic resources or their control is not their concern; neither is any political or administrative manifestation of Pashtun identity their goal.

They have killed a large number of traditional Pashtun elders in FATA and banned the Jirga as means of dispute settlement in areas under their influence. They have been eliminating the Pashtun way of life.

Taliban have, as a matter of policy, targeted cultural traits of Pashtuns, like tribal councils and folk music; they are not concerned about Pashto and promote Arabic and/or Urdu
The term ‘Taliban’ referred to students of madrassas. The current use of the term started when Mullah Umar led some of those students to rise against the atrocities of the Mujahideen groups who had fought against the Soviet Union. In the beginning, even Americans considered them a force to counter pan-Islamists as well as the neighbouring Shia Iran. But very soon, international terrorists, mainly Al Qaeda, established connections with the Taliban.

Today, the only connection that they have with Pashtuns is that the term Taliban is a Pashto plural for the Arabic term Talib (student), and that they are using Pashtun territory. The only thing that unites these diverse groups is that they follow a particular brand of Islam. Quite a large number of them come from Punjab.

The Pakistani state considered the intervention of Soviet Union an opportunity to achieve long-cherished policy aims based on its threat perceptions from India. It had always considered Afghanistan’s closeness with India as against its security and also feared Afghan claims about the Durand Line. In this situation it had always seen the Pashtun nationalist with suspicion. The unitary post-colonial state of Pakistan had always considered all the pluralist democratic identity movements as a threat. Due to the Afghan connection, Pashtun identity politics and autonomy aspirations, even within Pakistan, were considered more so.

Pakistan’s use of religious extremists as a tool of policy began in early 1970s when most of the Mujahideen leaders who rose to fame in 1980s were backed to oppose President Daud’s government in Afghanistan. This policy was furthered later by promoting the Mujahideen amongst the resistance movement at the expense of Pashtun nationalists (Afghan Millat, one such Pashtun Nationalist Party from Afghanistan, was denied freedom of action in 1980s) amongst the anti-Soviet resistance. The Pakistani state aimed at a social and political engineering of Pashtuns. It was believed that a secular Pashtun cannot be trusted. There was similar mistrust of the secular freedom fighters in Kashmir too.

The Taliban were supported before 9/11 with the similar aims – as an alternative to those liberal Afghan Pashtuns who were getting increasingly fed up of the warring Mujahideen groups. Even after 9/11, Pakistan does not talk about Pashtun tribal elders or Pashtun nationalists of secular leanings when it expresses concern about Pashtun representation in Afghanistan.

In FATA, the current Taliban concentration includes a sizeable number of non Pashtuns and Al Qaeda. The extremist challenge in Punjab is taken to be a completely separate problem, and the very strong presence and role of Punjabis in FATA is often denied.

The approach also suits pan-Islamists because it makes it easier for them to use Pashtun territory on both sides of the Durand Line as a sanctuary and provides them with a constant source of of foot soldiers. They are aided by the lack of modern state governance in those area. But none of the insurgents talks about this lack of governance, or the rights of Pashtun in any part of Pakistan or Afghanistan.

On the contrary, Talibanisation is de-Pashunisation of the Pashtun, and may lead to the de-Pakistanisation of the Pashtun.

Source: TFT

The author is an engineering graduate who works in the telecommunication industry. He tweets @intrepidparadox and blogs at absarulhasan.wordpress.com

Back when I used to live near my school building, Dr Mohsin’s family lived in the lane next to mine. Like regular Pakistani youths who bond over a common love for cricket, his sons and I played the sport we loved in our neighbourhood. They were good cricketers, and the younger son was jovially termed “mirchi” because of his short height and amazing leg break bowling.

Although I didn’t interact much with Dr Mohsin, two incidents are still as fresh in my memory as if they happened yesterday

One day, when we were en route to school, we saw him pushing his car on the road by himself. As kids, we loved to go to school on foot, so when we saw him struggling with the car, we stopped and pushed it with all our might. In the third attempt, the car started and despite the fact that he was in a hurry, he dropped us home.

Another time, when I went out to the neighbourhood shop at the end of our lane to buy bread, I ran into Dr Mohsin. I remember that he was laughing uncontrollably. Then I heard him crack a joke about a comment made about Shias being “bed bugs” and Sunnis being “mosquitoes”:

“Aray Khurshid bhai, machhar ho ya khatmal, donon he khoon choostay hain!”

“Oh Khurshid bhai, bed bugs and mosquitoes are the same – they both suck blood!”

Dr Mohsin’s take on the matter reflected his cool-mindedness – he was not one to react aggressively at the mention of anything that is even remotely sectarian.

These memories may be vague, but from the little I knew of him, he was a composed and moderate man.

It’s been almost 13 years since I left that neighbourhood, but Dr Mohsin stayed there – and was shot right in front of his house while reading a newspaper.

Who can justify the killing of any human being?

It does not matter that I do not belong to the Shia sect; it does not matter that I may not agree with many of the ideologies that Dr Mohsin had; it does not matter that he is not my relative or even my neighbour anymore.

What matters is that he was a Pakistani, a Muslim – as Muslim as we all think we are.

Despite the sectarian debate that this might attract, I felt the need to write about Dr Mohsin because of the association that supersedes any difference of sect – it does not matter what sect he belonged to, what matters is that he was a human being.

I am dejected. I am helpless. I am ashamed that I cannot do anything to stop this.

Source: Express Tribune

Pakistan is finding it harder to convince outsiders it is not helping the Afghan Taliban and giving safe haven to its leaders.

In effect, the accusation is that Pakistan is betting on the insurgents being the strongest power in Afghanistan and most likely ally once Nato leaves – something Islamabad of course strenuously denies.

The leak of this report comes at a particularly sensitive time. Pakistan is already blocking the supply route to coalition forces in Afghanistan, following a Nato attack in which 24 Pakistani soldiers were killed.

With increasing pressure being heaped on Pakistan, public support here for formally ending co-operation with the West simply grows.

Aleem Maqbool
BBC News, Islamabad

The Taliban in Afghanistan are being directly assisted by Pakistani security services, according to a secret Nato report seen by the BBC.

The leaked report, derived from thousands of interrogations, claims the Taliban remain defiant and have wide support among the Afghan people.

A BBC correspondent says the report is painful reading for international forces and the Afghan government.

A Pakistani foreign ministry spokesman called the accusations “ridiculous”.

“We are committed to non-interference in Afghanistan and expect all other states to strictly adhere to this principle,” Abdul Basit told the BBC.

“A stable and peaceful Afghanistan is in our own interests. We cannot indulge in any activity which takes us away from achieving that objective,” he added.

The report alleges that Pakistan knows the locations of senior Taliban leaders.

“We have long been concerned about ties between elements of the ISI [Pakistan's intelligence service] and some extremist networks,” said US Pentagon spokesman Captain John Kirby, adding that the US Defence Department had not yet seen the report.

Pakistan Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar is currently in Kabul for talks with Afghan President Hamid Karzai.

‘Informational’

The BBC’s Quentin Sommerville in Kabul says the report – on the state of the Taliban – fully exposes for the first time the relationship between the ISI and the Taliban.

The report is based on material from 27,000 interrogations with more than 4,000 captured Taliban, al-Qaeda and other foreign fighters and civilians.

It notes: “Pakistan’s manipulation of the Taliban senior leadership continues unabatedly”.

It says that Pakistan is aware of the locations of senior Taliban leaders.

“Senior Taliban representatives, such as Nasiruddin Haqqani, maintain residences in the immediate vicinity of ISI headquarters in Islamabad,” it said.

It quotes a senior al-Qaeda detainee as saying: “Pakistan knows everything. They control everything. I can’t [expletive] on a tree in Kunar without them watching.”

“The Taliban are not Islam. The Taliban are Islamabad.”

Our correspondent says the report seems to suggest that the Taliban feel trapped by ISI control and fear they will never escape its influence.

However, it states: “As this document is derived directly from insurgents it should be considered informational and not necessarily analytical.”

Adm Mike Mullen, former chairman of the US Joint Chiefs of Staff, has explained Pakistan’s closeness to the Afghan Taliban by pointing to infiltration of its army by the religious right, but he also says it is part of a grand strategy to increase leverage in the region via “proxies”.

Despite Nato’s strategy to secure the country with Afghan forces, the secret document details widespread collaboration between the insurgents and Afghan police and military.

Lt Col Jimmie Cummings, a spokesman for Nato’s International Security Assistance Force (Isaf) in Afghanistan, said the document was “a classified internal document that is not meant to be released to the public”.

“It is a matter of policy that documents that are classified are not discussed under any circumstances,” he said.

The report also depicts the depth of continuing support among the Afghan population for the Taliban, our correspondent says.

It paints a picture of al-Qaeda’s influence diminishing but the Taliban’s influence increasing, he adds.

Taliban influence

In a damning conclusion, the document says that in the last year there has been unprecedented interest, even from members of the Afghan government, in joining the Taliban cause.

It adds: “Afghan civilians frequently prefer Taliban governance over the Afghan government, usually as a result of government corruption.”

The report has evidence that the Taliban are purposely hastening Nato’s withdrawal by deliberately reducing their attacks in some areas and then initiating a comprehensive hearts-and-minds campaign.

It says that in areas where Isaf has withdrawn, Taliban influence has increased, often with little or no resistance from government security forces. And in many cases, with the active help of the Afghan police and army.

When foreign soldiers leave, Afghan security forces are expected to take control.

The report says that surrender is far from their collective mindset.

“For the moment, they believe that continuing the fight and expanding Taliban governance are their only viable courses of action,” it adds.

According to the report, rifles, pistols and heavy weapons have been sold by Afghan security forces in bazaars in Pakistan.

The report adds that Taliban members “do not receive salaries or other financial incentives for their work”, but their operations are funded by the narcotics trade and they frequently take a cut from the trade.

Their main revenue, though, is from donations, and they travel around the country from door to door making no secret of their affliation, it says.

Source: BBC News

Interestingly both Pakistan and Taliban deny:

Pakistan has rejected accusations laid out in a leaked Nato report that it was secretly supporting Taliban insurgents in Afghanistan.

The Taliban also issued a denial that it is planning peace talks with the Afghan government in Saudi Arabia.

The statements came as the leaked Nato report charged that Pakistan’s security services were backing the Taliban militia, who consider victory inevitable once Western combat troops leave in 2014.

The leak was spectacularly bad timing for Pakistan’s Foreign Minister Hina Rabbani Khar, who was in Kabul for the first time since taking office last year in a bid to thaw frosty ties between the two neighbours.

“We have no hidden agenda in Afghanistan,” Khar told reporters after meeting President Hamid Karzai. “These claims have been made many, many times. Pakistan stands behind any initiative that the Afghan government takes for peace.”

The Taliban chose the same day to deny that they would soon hold talks with Karzai’s government in Saudi Arabia to end the decade-long war since they were toppled by a US-led invasion in 2001.

“There is no truth in these published reports saying that the delegation of the Islamic Emirate would meet with representatives of the Karzai government in Saudi Arabia in the near future,” the Taliban said on their website.

Afghan officials had suggested that talks in Saudi Arabia would be in addition to contacts in Qatar between the Taliban and the United States.

But it was never clear whether the Taliban, who have resisted talks with the Afghan government, or the Saudis, who have conditioned involvement on the Taliban renouncing al-Qaeda, would come on board.

Taliban negotiators have begun preliminary discussions with the United States in Qatar on plans for peace talks aimed at ending the war.

But they said in their statement on Wednesday that they had not yet “reached the negotiation phase with the US and its allies”.

“Before there are negotiations there should be a trust-building phase, which has not begun yet,” the statement said.

One of the Taliban’s demands is for the United States to free five of its leaders from detention in the US military prison in Guantanamo Bay.

The leaked Nato report – seen by The Times newspaper and the BBC – was compiled from information gleaned from insurgent detainees and was given to Nato commanders in Afghanistan last month.

The “State of the Taliban” document claims that Islamabad, via Pakistan’s ISI intelligence agency, is “intimately involved” with the insurgency and that the Taliban assume victory is inevitable once Western troops leave in 2014.

The Times quoted the report as saying the Taliban’s “strength, motivation, funding and tactical proficiency remains intact”, despite setbacks in 2011.

“Many Afghans are already bracing themselves for an eventual return of the Taliban,” it said.

“Once (Nato force) ISAF is no longer a factor, Taliban consider their victory inevitable.”

Nato’s International Security Assistance Force (ISAF), however, appeared to distance itself from the contents of the document.

The document “may provide some level of representative sampling of Taliban opinions and ideals but clearly should not be used as any interpretation of campaign progress”, spokesman Lieutenant Colonel Jimmie Cummings told AFP.

Pakistan’s foreign minister said: “We consider any threat to Afghanistan’s independence and sovereignty as a threat to Pakistan’s existence.

“Pakistan and Afghanistan need to look forward to a relationship based on trust.”

Afghan Foreign Minister Zalmai Rasoul told the same news conference: “There will be no peace in the region if there is no serious regional co-operation.

“Pakistan plays a key role in Afghan peace process. I hope Ms Rabani’s visit is the beginning of a good relationship between our two countries.”

Kabul government officials declined immediate comment on the report.

Source: AFP

(New York) – The Pakistani government should redouble efforts to find the killers of the journalist Saleem Shahzad, following the failure of the judicial inquiry commission to identify those responsible, Human Rights Watch said today. The commission concluded in its January 10, 2012 report to the government that the police failed to question Pakistan’s military intelligence officials in its criminal investigation.

Shahzad, a reporter for the Hong Kong-based Asia Times Online and for Adnkronos International, the Italian news agency, disappeared from central Islamabad on the evening of May 29, 2011. His body, bearing visible signs of torture, was discovered on May 31, near Mandi Bahauddin, 130 kilometers southeast of the capital. The circumstances of the abduction raised concerns that the military’s feared Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency was responsible. In June 2011, the Supreme Court, at the request of the government, instituted a commission of inquiry into the killing.

“The commission’s failure to get to the bottom of the Shahzad killing illustrates the ability of the ISI to remain beyond the reach of Pakistan’s criminal justice system,” said Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “The government still has the responsibility to identify those responsible for Shahzad’s death and hold them accountable, no matter where the evidence leads.”

The ISI has a long and well-documented history of abductions, torture, and extrajudicial killings of critics of the military and others. Those abducted are routinely beaten and threatened, their relatives told not to worry or complain as release was imminent, and then released with the threat of further abuse if the ordeal is made public. Pakistani and international human rights organizations, including Human Rights Watch, have extensively documented the ISI’s intimidation, torture, enforced disappearances, and killings, including of many journalists.

The five-member commission, which included two judges, two senior police officers, and one journalist, convened on June 21, 2011. Over six months it interviewed 41 witnesses, including Shahzad’s family members, journalists, senior ISI officials, and others. It also conducted an extensive examination of documents, including relevant emails, telephone records, and investigation reports, as well as reports by previous similar commissions.

Among those interviewed were Ali Dayan Hasan of Human Rights Watch and Hameed Haroon, president of the All Pakistan Newspaper Society (APNS) and publisher of the Dawn Group. Each had received emails from Shahzad in 2010 complaining of threats by ISI agents for his reporting on links between the ISI and al-Qaeda. On October 19, 2010, Shahzad sent an email to Human Rights Watch outlining his meeting with the ISI and asking for the email to be released “in case something happens to me or my family in future.” Shahzad sent the same email and information about other threats to Haroon, and to colleagues at Asia Times Online.

ISI officials maintained to the commission that Shahzad had cordial relations with them until shortly before his killing. Despite strong indications of ISI involvement, the commission concluded that the Pakistani state, militant groups including the Taliban and al-Qaeda, and unnamed ‘foreign actors’ could all have had a motive to kill Shahzad on the basis of his writings.

“The commission appeared fearful of confronting the ISI over Shahzad’s death,” said Adams. “Shahzad had made it clear to Human Rights Watch that should he be killed, the ISI should be considered the principal suspect. He had not indicated he was afraid of being killed by militant groups or anybody else.”

Human Rights Watch said that the investigation’s weakness was exemplified by the failure to interview another journalist, Umar Cheema, who was abducted, tortured, and then dumped 120 kilometers from his residence in Islamabad in September 2010. Cheema alleged that his abductors were from Pakistan’s intelligence agencies. It is inexplicable that the commission failed to seek Cheema’s testimony despite his very public allegations against the ISI and repeated offers to testify before the commission, Human Rights Watch said.

“At great personal risk, scores of journalists, human rights activists, and others presented themselves before the commission to offer accounts of ISI and military involvement in human rights abuses,” Adams said. “The commission repaid this courage by muddying the waters and suggesting that just about anyone could have killed Shahzad.”

The commission’s recommendation that all intelligence agencies should be made accountable through “parliamentary oversight” and judicial redress should be promptly implemented by the government through appropriate legislation, Human Rights Watch said. The commission also recommended that “the balance between secrecy and accountability in the conduct of intelligence gathering be appropriately re-adjusted” and a “statutory framework carefully outlining their respective mandates and role” be developed. It also urged that the intelligence agencies’ “interaction with the media be carefully institutionally streamlined and regularly documented.”

“ISI abuses will only stop if it is subject to the rule of law, civilian oversight, and public accountability,” Adams said. “It is the government’s duty to insist on such accountability and the military’s duty to submit to it. The ISI needs to stop acting as a state within a state.”

Human Rights Watch expressed grave concern that the commission found it appropriate to recommend that the “press be made more law-abiding and accountable through the strengthening of institutions mandated by law to deal with legitimate grievances against it.

“It is perverse to use an investigation into the killing of a journalist as a way of limiting press freedom,” said Adams.

Pakistan remains one of the most dangerous countries in the world for journalists. At least 10 journalists, including Shahzad, were killed in 2011. In January 2011, a Geo TV reporter, Wali Khan Babar, was fatally shot in Karachi shortly after covering gang violence in the city. In May, the president of the Tribal Union of Journalists, Nasrullah Khan Afridi, was killed when his car blew up in Peshawar; the provincial information minister described the act as a “targeted killing by the Taliban.”

In August, two men on a motorcycle shot to death an Online News Agency reporter, Munir Ahmed Shakir, after he covered a demonstration by Baloch nationalists in the Khuzdar district of Balochistan. In November, the body of Javed Naseer Rind, a sub-editor with the Urdu-language Daily Tawar, was found with torture marks and gunshot wounds in Khuzdar town. On January 17, 2012, Mukarram Khan Atif, a reporter for the Voice of America, was killed by the Taliban in the Charsadda district of Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province.

Brig. Gen. Zahid Mehmood of the ISI told the commission that the ISI/ISPR (Inter Services Public Relations) and other agencies “should stop patronising and protecting ‘favorite’ journalists.” Government payoffs to journalists not only distorts the news reaching the public, but the withdrawal of such patronage and “protection” can result in threats and violence, said journalists who spoke to the commission.

Human Rights Watch called on the government to pass legislation to prohibit the country’s security and intelligence agencies to end the practice of the ISI and other agencies planting agents in media organizations or providing secret payments to journalists to write or not write stories.

“Journalists are under attack from all directions in Pakistan, including by the military,” said Adams. “This murderous free-for-all will only end when the government can protect journalists from militants and its own intelligence agencies. Arresting the killers is the best way to do that.”

Source: Human Rights Watch

The following article by Farrukh Khan Pitafi appeared in the The Express Tribune, describes the so called judicial commission’s failure to get to the bottom of the Shahzad murder and to question Pakistan’s military intelligence officials and to identify the perpetrators.

Did no one kill Saleem Shahzad then?

James Jesus Angleton, former chief of the Central Intelligence Agency’s (CIA) counter-intelligence staff was credited with coining the term ‘wilderness of mirrors’, for the world of espionage. Paranoid as he often was, he also strongly believed that the Soviet spy agency, KGB was capable of influencing CIA’s perceptions without leaving behind a trace. Upon reading the report presented by the Saleem Shahzad Murder Inquiry Commission, one feels lost in the very wilderness. However, in our wilderness, traces of manipulation are visible.

Instead of an impartial inquiry, one might have expected the report presents the image of a witch-hunt and indulges in voodoo magic to preserve the soul of Pakistan’s premier intelligence agency. The Commission was primarily tasked to identify the perpetrators of the crime and shed light on circumstances leading to it. It ostensibly fails to deliver on both counts as it manages to raise more questions than answering the existing ones.

The singular most striking aspect that becomes evident from even a casual reading of the report is the Commission’s cynicism towards journalists and the Human Rights Watch (HRW), which was remarkably in contrast with its gullible attitude towards the intelligence community and its visible lackeys, pretending to be journalists. While it seemed that the inquiry was expecting the journalist community to present nothing short of a smoking gun, two of the three major intelligence agencies were let go upon producing written statements.

Even in the ISI’s case, only Rear Admiral Adnan Nazir was cross-examined at length, and that, too, to the effect that a case is built almost in his favour. And while Mr Ali Dayan of HRW was subjected to rather gratuitous questions about his organisation and work, redoubtable testimonies of self-proclaimed journalists like like Zafar Mehmood, Sheikh Qamarul Munir alias Qamar Yousafzai and Muhammad Raashed were accepted at face value without going into details of their professional competence. This apparently is because the testimony of these gentlemen supported the ISI’s narrative apart from casting aspersions on Shahzad’s person.

Shahzad’s book, Inside al Qaeda and Taliban (Pluto Press, 2011), has raised serious concerns on the failure of counter-intelligence. When he claimed that Ilyas Kashmiri had influenced some serving and retired officials in the armed forces, did it not become essential to probe whether such al Qaeda moles could have killed him to maintain their cover.

Another glaring omission in the structure and functioning of the Commission was the absence of a dedicated forensic expert and an investigator. In the absence of either, the Commission could expect to be stalled and that is precisely why it had to crack open Shahzad’s email account on its own. Quite astoundingly, it does not make much of the fact that the authorities did not provide much cooperation.

Also, it makes one wonder that the Commission quite clearly did not consider, even remotely, the possibility that the victim’s family might have contradicted Ali Dayan’s version under duress or because of it may have received actual threats. People who recovered the body or had something to do with the discovery were either not probed in detail, or else the account was not worthy of a mention in the report.

The fact remains that Pakistan has a long history of such crimes. Please remember the names of Daniel Pearl, Wali Babar, Moosa Khan Khel, Hayatullah Khan, Umar Cheema and Faraz Hashmi. No conspiracy theory about the seemingly ubiquitous ‘foreign hand’ can hide this fact.

In the end, the Commission does at least one generous thing — that of recommending the release of the three million rupees pledged to the family of the victim. But it should have gone a bit further and recommended that the family of the victim should be shifted abroad as this state and its justice system cannot ensure security for the life and property of journalists.

Shahrah-e-Pakistan was blocked for hours as a protest erupted amid the funeral for two men, leading to baton charge and tear gas shelling by the police on Monday. At least 25 men have lost their lives this month. PHOTO: RASHID AJMERI/EXPRESS

Some men among the mourners forming the funeral procession also gave vent to their anger with volleys of aerial firing, which sent the message to shopkeepers in Ancholi and its surrounding areas that they had better go home.

Police and Rangers had to work hard to avert a clash between the protesters, who were returning from the burial, and the Pakhtun residents at Sohrab Goth. As the protesters set fire to road-side stalls and set ablaze a bus, police baton-charged the crowd.

With Monday’s victims, the toll in sectarian and political violence for the first month of 2012 stood at 25. The Sindh police chief held a meeting in the evening which was also reportedly attended by representatives from both sects.

Zaidi was gunned down near his home in Samanabad police limits. He was an employee of the Karachi Electricity Supply Company and was also a member of the Anjuman Tanzim-e-Hussaini. His elder brother, Raza Abbas, is a nauha khawan, one who recites elegies at mourning sessions.

According to witnesses, Taseer was waiting for company transport near his residence when men shot and killed him. “Hardly five minutes after Zaidi’s car came on the road, he was shot dead,” said a shopkeeper, Usman, not his real name. “The killers did not leave the spot, till they were sure that he was dead,” he added. He was shot thrice in the face, chest and abdomen and died on the spot. His body was taken to Abbasi Shaheed Hospital.

The combined funeral of Zaidi and a 59-year-old Rizvi, who was gunned down on Saturday in Gulberg in the same manner, were offered at Imambargah Khairul Amal in Ancholi after Zohr prayers.

As their bodies were being taken to Wadi-e-Hussain graveyard, scores of protesters gathered on main Shahrah-e-Pakistan, blocking the traffic for hours. They also set tyres on fire. They attacked media personnel and damaged their cameras to prevent them from covering the violence, which spread after the participants of the funeral procession returned from the graveyard. They fired in the air and set a passenger bus on fire. “One Shia after another is being killed and we are not allowed even to protest,” lamented an angry young man. “If we decide to retaliate, nobody would be able to stop us,” he warned.

The scuffle between the police and protesters also took place when the law enforcers tried to disperse them. The law enforcers, however, charged at them with batons and fired tear gas at the mob and detained about one dozen men.

DSP Nasir Bukhari confirmed that Monday’s incident was an act of targeted killing. “But it is fallacious to assume that there is a sectarian motive behind the killing of every Shia and Sunni,” he said.

Published in The Express Tribune, January 31st, 2012.