The PML-N is well known for having soft corner towards nurseries of terrorists in Punjab and the chief minister of Punjab has allocated funds of Rs 86 million to the banned militant organization of Jamaat-ud-Dawa (JuD), formerly known as Lashkar-e-Taiba(LeT).

Imbibed with General Zia’s thinking, PML-N is not capable or willing to understand the true nature and challenge of extremism. It is a fact that in the Punjab, urban conservative bourgeoisie and petty-bourgeoisie community are the main supporters and voters of PML N and sympathizer of right-wing extremist organizations. This poses a serious threat to the prosperous and bright future of the country.

The way Difa-e-Pakistan Council (DPC) has organised three large rallies in Punjab alone and was facilitated by Punjab govt to hold its jalsa pretty much shows its support to banned groups. In these gatherings, rules issued by the district administration were openly violated.

The PMLN government in Punjab is not only protecting banned terrorist organizations, but is also gearing up for electoral alliances with Ahl-e-Sunnat wal Jamaat (ASWJ)/Sipah-e-Sahaba (a Deobandi terrorist organization), which was officially banned in 2001, though still active in spreading terror under the patronage of the Punjab government. There are reports that the Sharif brothers have promised senatorship to Maulana Ludhianvi of SSP-ASWJ.

Maulana Muhammad Ahmed Ludhianvi led a grand rally in Jhang with the help of PML-N’s Punjab government, in by-election Punjab Law Minister Rana Sanaullah, campaigned for by-election in Jhang district together with Maulana Muhammad Ahmad Ludhianvi. And PML-N forged an alliance with a terrorist Mullah Abdul Aziz of Lal Masjid in Rawalpindi election, and terrorists of Lal Masjid played a main role for Shakil Awan’s victory.

PML(N) is the supporter of Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (SSP-ASWJ), a banned terrorist organization:

The future election strategy of PML-N in Punjab and its alliance with banned terrorist group is a worrisome development. However, this is not the first time that PML-N has established alliances with terrorist organisations.

The report published on February 25th, 2012; by The Express Tribune, provides some concrete evidence to the scepticism.

MULTAN: Ahl-e-Sunnat wal Jamaat (ASWJ) announced their support for Pakistan Muslim League (PML-N) in the by-elections being held in Punjab. Ashfaq Ahmed, Provincial Secretary General of ASWJ, said PML-N deserved their support in the by-elections as opposition candidates were allegedly being supported by the government. He added that the decision had been taken by our president Maulana Muhammad Ahmed Ludhiawani.

“Our workers have already been supporting the political campaign of PML-N and this is just an official announcement to encourage the victory of PML-N in Punjab,” Ahmed said.

Difa-e-Pakistan Council is a new Islami Jamhoori Ittehad (IJI) style ISI sponsored alliance of over 40 religious extremist and banned organizations against the liberal and moderate Pakistan Peoples Party. Here is a brief introduction of it’s main leadership and unholy nexus with PML-N and Punjab govt:

Lieutenant-General Hamid Gul the Former Chief I.S.I. formed the IJI a conglomerate of nine mainly rightist parties headed by Mian Nawaz Sharif.

The two main political parties of the ISI funded IJI; the Jamat-e-Islami (JI) and Pakistan Muslim League- N (PML-N).

Mian Nawaz Sharif’s old but still ideological darlings: Sheikh Rashid Ahmed and Ijaz-ul-Haq.

A terrorist-based strategic weapon of the PML-N Malik Ishaq, the chief of the banned Lashkar-e-Jhangvi (LeJ), received monthly stipend from Punjab govt

Malik Ishaq being received in his hometown - Thanks to PML-N & Punjab Government.

Moulana Nawaz Sharif standing in centre with Jihadi friends.

The PML-N was always uncomfortable with the rightwing media label of ‘friendly opposition’. The label was bestowed because the columnists-turned-anchors knew that the PML-N flourished on emotions of revenge and sadism based on past jurisprudence of intercourse of the two parties.

Nawaz Sharif was unwillingly sticking to what he thought would a new moderate image of an elderly statesman while the hawks – PML-N has rare doves – pulled him towards the hate-vote syndrome telling him he will lose an entire chunk of Punjab of the big-city market committees who cordially despised the Pakistan People’s Party (PPP). ‘Friendly opposition’ rankled relentlessly although anywhere else in the world it would be a good ‘democratic’ image to cultivate.

Anyone with residual sanity will tell the Punjabi politician to lay off his stereotype drivel, but Punjabis don’t really care for advice. The PML-N came out like the alpha lion it is in the country; the PPP was the fox that survived through ambivalence (vis-�-vis the Army), surreptitious defiance (vis-�-vis the Supreme Court), and Benazir’s reconciliation (vis-�-vis PMLN).

The PML-N loosed Punjab Law Minister Rana Sanaullah on PPP as a shot across the bow, warning of how Mian Sahib himself will launch the big salvo later on. Rana Sahib, expert at crossing limits, called his federal counterpart wajibul qatl (fit to be killed) and jumped in head first. Sindhi assembly rang with repartees arousing passions sleeping under the bromide of ‘reconciliation’.

At the centre, it was fire-breathing Chaudhry Nisar Ali Khan who attacked anything that moved in the PPP ramparts till it cloyed even the paan-sellers of Lahore. The PML-N was turning back to the days when the unsavoury job was done by now surprisingly disenchanted-by-PML-N and still hostile-towards-PPP, Sheikh Rashid Ahmad.

The fox in the presidential house came out too firing from both holsters on the occasion of the Benazir anniversary, making it look like the ‘Sindh card’ all over again. President Zardari began by calling Nawaz Sharif maulana with multiple innuendos contained in it: that he was the illicit political offspring of General Zia, that he was a covert abettor of the jihadi elements in Punjab that are killing Pakistan Army as henchmen of al Qaeda, and that he was aligning with Jamaat Islami in the Azad Kashmir polls.

There was also the clinching reference to the Pakistan Army whose prestige was bouncing back in the media after a low point reached in the wake of Abbottabad, Mehran Base and Saleem Shahzad. He knew the complex nature of a Punjabi army scared of a politician literally symbolising the power of Punjab. Army’s weakness, ironically, was its middle class dominated officers’ class mostly in thrall to the magic of Nawaz Sharif.

The Sindhi fox had tricked the non-intellectual Punjabi lion. Zardari said PPP will not be anti-army at the instigation of PML-N, a role-reversing remark that made many PML-N loyalists squirm in the presence of Nawaz Sharif. Here was a rank Sindhi disliked by the generals because of his Wikileaks double-dealing trying to cosy up to a predominantly Punjabi army. The PML-N camp saw the Zardari bouncer as an almost successful attempt to widen the gap between the army and the Sharifs.

Nawaz Sharif’s attempt at being subtle backfired on him. He thought by standing firm on the Commissions he was telling the army to distance itself from PPP, but that did not happen. The inner circle glowered and Mian Sahib was forced to bite his nails once again. So Chief Minister Shahbaz Sharif with his familiar hyperbole was to declare that army was the crown of his head (sar ka taj) and its ‘jarnails’ were his brothers.

Mian Sahib’s loneliness is of his own creation. He pushed back all the white flags thrust at him, first by the Q League of Chaudhry Shujaat, then MQM willing to ditch PPP, and then the Pir of Pagaro trying to fell a Sindhi by a Sindhi ruse. There was also the eternal foe, Musharraf’s APML, saying awful things like Nawaz selling Kashmir down the river to Vajpayee, and a stubbornly menacing Imran Khan busily nibbling at his vote-bank.

The ordinary citizen in big city Punjab is becoming abusive while interacting with TV anchors. He directs abuse at the PPP and Zardari and the TV anchors simpers while weakly asking him to cool off, secretly realising that his gimmick of ‘friendly opposition’ had done the trick at the cost of de-civilising the dialogue in Punjab. No one thought about what the other provinces may feel because the other provinces are too small compared to Punjab.

The results of the Azad Jammu & Kashmir (AJK) election in the last week of June have hurt Nawaz Sharif but it is hardly possible that he will realise what he has done by opening the floodgates of abuse. No revival-through-name-calling took place. But the irony is he will prime his guns even more to let his various designated enemies be treated to more salvos.

He shouldn’t have gone to AJK for campaigning as it broke the rules of code of conduct. He should have rejected the Election Commissioner’s policy off-setting the Muslim Conference leader Sardar Atique’s unauthorised riding of an official helicopter by allowing him and Prime Minister Gilani to enter AJK and make speeches of manifestly hollow promises.

What did he get out of it? The results proved once again AJK is hardly a good index of democracy in Pakistan. The PPP won enough seats to form the next government; the PML-N ended up as runner-up, just like Islamabad, promising aggressive if not violent in-house contest in the coming months. Nothing is permanent in AJK, especially governments. He can look forward to a toppling provided he mends with you-know-who.

In January 2008, the ruling Muslim Conference in AJK was split replacing Prime Minister Sardar Atique with Sardar Muhammad Yaqub after a no-confidence vote based on allegations of corruption and nepotism. As expected, Sardar Atique was left accusing the federal government of interfering in the politics of Azad Kashmir, warning it of instability in the region. Then after some time Sardar Yaqub too was toppled too, this with very little cosmetics. Kashmiris are not supposed to have a nationalism of their own.

In 2011, the campaigns were visceral and all the targets were below the belt. The polls were disturbed outside AJK where Kashmiris can have double votes, one for Pakistan and one for AJK. In Punjab, PPP and PML-N grappled each other like drunken wrestlers, kicked and slapped each other and fired off pistols in the air for the TV channels to cover. After the defeat, Sardar Atique ended up saying it was no poll but a ‘wrestling champions’ match (dangal) between the two big parties. Imran Khan, who stayed out of AJK polls, kept on saying it was ‘noora kushti’.

India ‘separated’ its own side of Kashmir through a clause in its Constitution, then proceeded to destroy its autonomous status through amendments. In Pakistan, the AJK Constitution contains an article that shifts the power away from the AJK Legislative Assembly to the Kashmir Affairs Ministry where a Kashmir Council presided over by the Prime Minister of Pakistan actually rules AJK, appointing all the crucial officials, including the Election Commissioner. Because of its ‘strategic importance’ AJK is in the grip of the ‘agencies’ that call the shots.

Politics of castigation is a favourite rightwing gimmick, but it never wins new converts; it simply solidifies the existing divisions. Is that a good thing for the PML-N? Apparently, yes, but without the democratic process of the vote-swing. The more the castigation the more difficult the governance, when you get your turn at it.

Source: The Friday Times

Zar Ajam (ABC News)

A 17-year-old died this week in Afghanistan, hanging from the end of a rope. A prison official fastened it around the boy’s neck in Kabul’s largest jail, tightened the knot, and then, in front of a crowd, removed the platform that held up the boy’s feet.

He was hanged by the Afghan government because he was a killer. In February, Zar Ajam put on a suicide vest and a police officer’s uniform. He picked up an AK-47, walked into the Kabul Bank in Jalalabad and started shooting. Forty people were dead by the time he took off his suicide vest and walked out, trying unsuccessfully to blend into the crowd of victims.

Zar Ajam might sound cold-blooded; he might sound evil.

But consider that Ajam, a Pakistani from North Waziristan, left school when he was seven years old. He didn’t know how to read or write. He worked as a day laborer and had little to no economic future. That made him easy prey for his Taliban teachers.

He believed them when they said the people banking in Jalalabad were foreigners because he’d never seen a foreigner before. He believed them when he visited the bank during a dry run and his teachers told him foreigners were so scared of the Taliban, they wore local clothes and spoke Pashto, the local language. He believed them because he knew no better.

Two months ago, in an interview with ABC News from prison, Zar Ajam said he would never do what he did again — because he knew better, now.

But he also said he accepted his punishment. He accepted responsibility. He never got a chance to apologize to the families of those he killed.

“When police arrested they put me in a room. The window was open and I heard the prayer call and I saw a person in a police uniform praying – and it was then I realized the people I killed were Muslim,” Ajam said in the long, somber interview, during which one of his guards hovered a few feet away. “It was like I woke up and I realized that I have killed innocent people.”

It is far too simple to suggest that Ajam became a terrorist because he was poor and uneducated. Millions of boys grow up in the impoverished, rugged tribal areas along the Afghan-Pakistan border and never choose to join the Taliban. Some studies suggest that poorer Pakistanis are actually less likely to support extremism.

But Zar Ajam’s story reveals just how easily boys from that area can become militants. It reveals just how many boys are willing to become suicide bombers, how they are passed from one militant commander to another, and how easily they can be sent to Afghanistan.

Perhaps more than anything, his story is a warning that, despite military advances in Afghanistan and advances in pinpoint targeting in Pakistan, defeating the Taliban may require reducing their pool of recruits by improving the lives of those living on the border.

‘You Should Pass Your Time Doing Jihad’

Zar Ajam grew up in the Shawal district of North Waziristan, Pakistan, just across the border from the Birmal district in Paktika, Afghanistan. It is one of the poorest, most remote corners of the planet, with few jobs, no cell phone coverage, and not a single university for hundreds of miles.

Ajam studied until the third grade, although he seems to have never reached a third-grade level of comprehension. He never learned to write or read.

When he left school, he went to work in a quarry as a day laborer alongside two of his uncles. Everyone else in the family, he said, was working, and he was never encouraged to stay in school.

By the time he was a teenager, an Afghan friend of his cousin named Sharif was a repeat visitor to the family home.

“He was a Talib,” Ajam recalled. “He was encouraging me to go to Jihad, and he was telling me about the Westerners in Afghanistan and how it is our duty to do Jihad.”

Sharif then made his pitch: “Come with us,” he told Ajam. “You don’t have to work. You should pass your time doing Jihad.”

Ajam’s story of how he came under the sway of the Taliban and trained for jihad cannot be independently confirmed. According to his version of events, his decision eventually led him to a local militant training camp, then to Peshawar, then across the border to the bank in Jalalabad. But he did not seem to take it very seriously at the time. He said he wasn’t all that interested in school or work, and he was easily convinced by his older friend. His was not an ideological decision.

Ajam says he was first taken to the bazaar in Miram Shah, the capital of North Waziristan and a virtual alphabet soup of terrorist groups. Pakistan has refused to launch a military campaign into the area; Pakistan’s critics say that is because some militant leaders in the city have been linked to Pakistan’s intelligence service. But U.S. officials believe that another reason Pakistan is unwilling to attack militants in North Waziristan is that the country could not withstand the blowback if the militants who live there — and restrict their attacks to Afghanistan — suddenly turned on Pakistan.

Ajam and his new handlers were therefore left alone to introduce him into the Taliban. He was first kept in two different holding centers, and then driven out toward the border.

“There were no rooms in that camp — only a few tents,” Ajam recalled. “There were 25 other people, some of them my age, some were older, some younger. They were all suicide attackers.”

For 27 days, Ajam learned first how to fire a pistol, then an AK-47, then a rocket-propelled grenade.

‘If You Kill Westerners, God Will Shower You with Blessings’

And then, Ajam received the pitch that convinced him he had made the right choice:

“The teacher told us, ‘If you kill Westerners, God will shower you with blessings. And if you die, you will go to paradise.’ So I decided this is the way to get God’s blessing.”

It was then that Ajam started hearing the drones.

North Waziristan residents have long complained about the CIA’s unmanned killers hovering in the sky almost every day, sounding like insects. Residents say they often sleep outside, out of fear that a small chip will be thrown inside their homes that will allow the drones to fire with pinpoint accuracy.

Ajam quickly felt the impact of the drones. His teacher — whom he spoke of with respect — was killed while driving between two different Taliban camps.

“These planes were circling day and night, sometimes four times, sometimes one time,” he says. “During the clouds they wouldn’t come. During the clear sky, they were coming.”

‘The University of Jihad’

Zar Ajam completed his training and finally received his marching orders: he would become a suicide bomber and attack foreigners in Afghanistan.

Before he crossed the border, Ajam was given $50 and a cell phone with a number for a teacher in Peshawar. He ended up in one of the most famous religious schools in South Asia — the Darul Uloom Haqqania, or Center of Righteous Knowledge, some of whose graduates read like a who’s who of Taliban leaders, including Mullah Omar.

It has been called “the University of Jihad,” and its leader, Maulana Samiul Haq, is a firebrand who has been linked with the Taliban leadership council and led anti-U.S. demonstrations after the war in Afghanistan began.

But Pakistan says it has cracked down on radical madrassas, and while today, many do teach hate, they are far from bomb factories. Ajam’s experience seems to support Pakistan’s claim. He says that was he not radicalized — at least not any more than he already was — in the Haqqania madrassa, and that he could not openly speak of his plans for jihad.

He spent a month there and was specifically told not to share with anyone that he had chosen to become a suicide bomber. He was taught the Koran, he says, and kept his head down.

“We were studying the basic Islamic books, just so no one could see us as suspicious,” he said.

The Jalalabad Attack

After his month at the madrassa, Ajam traveled over the Afghan border to Jalalabad and saw Kabul Bank for the first time. “I was told it was a palace where Westerners were coming and collecting money,” he said.

But he noticed something unusual: the “Westerners” were wearing local clothes called shalwar khameez and speaking Pashto, the same language Ajam spoke.

He asked his teachers, surely these people couldn’t be foreigners?

“They wear these clothes and speak the language,” his handler told him, “because they’re frightened from Taliban.”

Ajam agreed, and went to sleep early the night before the attack.

He was woken up at 3:00 a.m. and given something to eat. Afghan officials say after all the brainwashing, all the preparations, and all the radicalization, Taliban commanders still don’t take anything for granted with their young recruits. The commanders give young suicide bombers a chemical that will make them more compliant the day of the attack, Afghan officials believe.

Ajam says looking back, he thinks he was drugged. “I was accepting whatever he was telling me,” he said.

He was handed a police uniform with shoes too small for his feet, so one of his handlers ripped open the tips. Underneath the uniform was an explosive suicide vest. He was handed an AK-47 and a phone that he was supposed to use to set off a motorcycle bomb outside the bank.

He never pushed the button on his suicide jacket. He never pushed the button to trigger the motorcycle bomb. But he did kill his fellow Pashtuns — more than 40 of them, before walking out of the bank.

Asked whether he understood why Afghanistan wanted to put him to death, Ajam said he did understand it. “They will kill me because I killed Muslims, I killed the people of Afghanistan.”

Did he accept his punishment, then?

He was hanged two months later.

Source: ABC News

BY CHRISTOPHER ANZALONE

One month after acknowledging that al-Qaeda Central’s (AQC) founder and leader Osama bin Laden had been killed by the U.S. military, the Tehrik-i Taliban Pakistan (TTP) this week issued a written statement eulogizing him and threatening revenge attacks on the U.S. and Pakistani governments (they also expressed their support this morning for al-Qaeda’s new leader Ayman al-Zawahiri). The TTP, an umbrella movement for dozens of militant outfits operating in Pakistan’s Federally Administered Tribal Areas (FATA) and Khyber-Puktunkhwa province has already carried out a number of deadly attacks throughout the country since mid-May, including the brazen May 23 attack on the Pakistani Navy’s Mehran base in Karachi. With estimated numbers of its fighters in the thousands, the TTP and other Pakistani militant groups based in the Punjab are arguably among the best-placed of AQC’s allies to launch “revenge attacks” in bin Laden’s name. The statement’s distribution online via the Global Islamic Media Front (GIMF), a long-established transnational jihadi media and translation network, is significant, suggesting that the TTP continues to embrace elements of both transnational militancy and domestic insurgency.

The written statement is signed by Omar Khalid Khorasani, the TTP leader in the FATA’s Mohmand agency. Its June 8 release follows a June 6 Reuters report based on video-taped responses by Khorasani to questions posed to him by the news agency, in which the TTP leader says that recent attacks in Pakistan are just the beginning of a wider campaign of planned revenge attacks. In his statement, Khorasani dismisses claims that Bin Laden’s killing will adversely impact the “ideology of jihad,” attacks the Pakistani government and Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) agency, and states that the TTP remains allied to AQC and the Afghan Taliban.

“The idea that the Jihadi groups have weakened after the departure of Sheikh Usama [bin Laden] is totally, baseless,” he writes. “The ideology which Sheikh Usama bin Laden preached and the inspiration he gave to fight the global forces of infidelity not only continues to linger in our souls, but has grown much stronger.” Khorasani continues, “The ideology of Jihad was not something introduced by Sheikh Usama, but rather something taught to us [the Muslims] over fourteen hundred years. This ideology was not shaken by the departure of [the] leader of humanity, Muhammad, from this life, and it will never weaken by the martyrdom of any other leader.” Muslims generally and the TTP specifically have, according to Khorasani, embraced the transnational idea of jihad espoused by bin Laden: “Before the Jihad of Sheikh Usama, the Muslims sufficed with localized Jihadi movements, but now, his ideology of fighting a global Jihad against the forces of infidelity has penetrated into our very souls.”

Khorasani also claims that Pakistan’s Pashtun tribes have united behind the TTP in support of AQC and other foreign fighters. His claims, however, are belied by the fact that the TTP, despite its widespread networks in the tribal regions, continues to face substantial opposition from strong elements within the tribes. This has proven to be a concern to senior TTP leaders, who have called on tribal leaders to support them. The most recent such appeal was an Urdu letter dated April 19 that was distributed on jihadi Internet forums and presumably also on the ground. In it, TTP deputy leader Wali ur-Rehman Mehsud warns Mehsud tribal leaders against allying themselves with the “Crusaders and apostates” against the “mujahideen.” Doing so, he writes, will result in their punishment in Hell and disappointment in this life, since, as he claims, it has repeatedly been established that the Pakistani government will not fulfill its promises to the tribes.

However, the statement’s online distribution via the GIMF is as, or even more, noteworthy than the statement itself, because it suggests that the TTP is attempting to further embed itself within the transnational jihadi milieu while continuing to wage what is largely a domestic insurgency and campaign of terrorism within Pakistan.

The eulogy was distributed on transnational jihadi Internet forums by the Al-Qadisiyyah Media Foundation, which was launched in January as a branch of the GIMF. The GIMF is best known for producing translations of media material such as videos, audio messages, and written statements and essays released by AQC, its regional affiliates, and regional allies such as the TTP. In the past, the GIMF has focused primarily on translating Arabic, Urdu, and Pashtu materials into English and other European languages.

The founding of Al-Qadisiyyah marked the beginning of a new GIMF focus. In addition to its previous emphasis on translating transnational jihadi materials into European languages, the GIMF began to produce and distribute, via al-Qadisiyyah, primary source translations and original media materials in languages from South Asia, such as Urdu, Hindi, Bangla, Pashtu, and Persian. In its statement announcing the new media outlet’s launch, the GIMF noted that “the media [has become] one of the most important weapons in modern warfare” and, because of this, the GIMF hopes to broadly spread the message of transnational jihad to what could be termed “untapped markets” for jihadi propaganda. Al-Qadisiyyah materials are distributed on transnational jihadi Internet forums through the Sada al-Jihad (Echo of Jihad) Center of the GIMF, as are media materials produced by Somalia’s Islamist-insurgent movement Harakat al-Shabab al-Mujahideen (Movement of the Warrior-Youth).

The new outlet takes its name from the Battle of Qadisiyyah, a famous battle that took place in November 636 that resulted in a Muslim victory over a much larger army of the Sassanian Empire, opening the door to the Arab-Muslim conquest of what is now Iraq and Iran. In the statement announcing the founding of Al-Qadisiyyah, the GIMF also invoked Muhammad ibn al-Qasim, a 17-year-old Muslim general who led the Umayyad dynasty’s conquest of Sindh and Punjab. The young commander was arrested and killed as a result of Umayyad Caliphate court intrigues over succession and has since become a regional saint to many Muslims. Al-Qasim is invoked in an Urdu jihadi nasheed (rhythmic recitation or song) that was used most prominently in the TTP video showing Hakimullah Mehsud and the Jordanian medical doctor and jihadi essayist-turned suicide bomber Humam al-Balawi, who killed seven CIA officials and a Jordanian intelligence officer in a December 2009 attack inside a U.S. military base in Khost, Afghanistan.

Al-Qadisiyyah has also started distributing media materials on transnational jihadi Internet discussion forums, including Arabic and English forums like Ansar al-Mujahideen, the Urdu-English forum Jamia Hafsa, and the Urdu Bab-ul-Islam forum, issued by the TTP’s in-house media organ, Umar Studio. Since the beginning of the year, Al-Qadisiyyah has released several statements in Arabic, English, and Urdu and videos in Urdu and Pashtu from the TTP. Previously, TTP media materials were either released directly through Umar Studio or distributed by various Urdu and Pashtu-language media outlets and distributors such as al-Moqatel.

The move to GIMF distribution of TTP media materials is not surprising, considering the Pakistani movement’s long-established ties with AQC and other foreign militant movements, such as the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan (IMU). GIMF distribution, however, needs to be contextualized and not misinterpreted. The TTP, like Somalia’s Harakat al-Shabab, retains local networks throughout Pakistan in which its statements and media is distributed, including contacts with the Pakistani press corps. These local networks are the backbone of the TTP’s media campaign, whereas media released via Al-Qadisiyyah is likely aimed to a large degree at an external audience, namely denizens of the Arabic jihadi Internet forums, as well as forum-goers from non-Arabic-speaking countries.

The TTP still has numerous other avenues through which to distribute its media materials. Like Harakat al-Shabab and the IMU, the TTP maintains an independent media outlet and production capability, though AQC’s Al-Sahab Media Foundation has released a number of high-profile videos with senior TTP leaders, confirming the close alliance between the two groups. However, both Harakat al-Shabab’s Al-Kata’ib (The Brigades) Media Foundation and the IMU’s Jundullah (God’s Soldiers) Studio release videos independently, and the former also maintains a network of local media outlets in Somalia including terrestrial radio and TV stations.

The fact that TTP and Harakat al-Shabab media materials and statements are distributed on the transnational jihadi Internet forums via the GIMF and not the Al-Fajr (The Dawn) Media Center is also significant. The latter distributes all statements and media releases from AQC, al-Qaeda in the Islamic Maghreb (AQIM), al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula (AQAP), and the Islamic State of Iraq (ISI). Of the two distribution and media networks, Al-Fajr is also believed to have the closer relationship with AQC and its regional affiliates. Thus, GIMF distribution, while noteworthy, demonstrates in part that the TTP and Harakat al-Shabab are not AQC “affiliates,” though this connection is often suggested or claimed in the media. Rather, the TTP and the Somali insurgents share some elements of AQC’s ideology, particularly with regard to a peculiar interpretation of militaristic jihad, but remain independent or complementary movements.

Differences in media distribution also highlight that there remain significant ideological and tactical differences between the TTP and the Afghan Taliban. Although both the TTP and Afghan Taliban network centered, at least symbolically, on Mullah Muhammad Omar maintain independent media capabilities, the latter has held onto a much more thoroughly independent media apparatus and has not formed a close relationship with or released media through As-Sahab. The Afghan Taliban’s media network includes several regularly-updated web sites and monthly Internet magazines, as well as in-house media production organs, chief among them Al-Emarah (The Emirate) Studio.

These differences provide limited evidence of the very real, and perhaps growing, ideological and operational divisions between the Afghan Taliban and the TTP, though cooperation on some level does continue. The Afghan Taliban remains essentially a parochial Islamist-insurgent movement, whereas the TTP is a hybrid movement combining both local insurgency with elements of transnational militancy. The former is also opposed in theory to attacking the Pakistani state writ-large, whereas the TTP has no such qualms (though recent attacks against Pakistani security forces in the country’s northwest may have involved Afghan Taliban fighters). Recognizing these differences is vital to formulating an intelligent and viable set of policies in both Pakistan and Afghanistan, particularly with regard to the two Taliban movements. Of the two, the TTP has most clearly operationally shown a desire to participate, in a significant form, in AQC’s transnational war and the Pakistani movement’s shift to distributing media material via the GIMF is yet another sign of its self-embedding within the transnational jihadi milieu, while still holding on to its local identity.

Christopher Anzalone is a doctoral student in the Institute of Islamic Studies at McGill University where he studies modern Muslim socio-political movements, Shi’ite Islam, and Islamist visual culture. He blogs at Views from the Occident and Al-Wasat.

Source: Foreign Policy

However, rolling the folios of the precedent enables one to grasp some facts about its underpinning, and after getting even the slightest idea about it, one cannot resist to bow his head in “admiration” of the “services”, the dictators rendered for this “noble” cause of providing the breeding grounds to the extremists, who on one hand pose a threat to the stability of Pakistan and of the world at large, but also have added a black stain on the name of the religion. It is, at times, improbable to comprehend the role of international community in this context, who, despite fighting a global war against terrorism have at times, supported the dictatorship in Pakistan. Let’s rummage in our near past to probe more into the veracity.

Four times in history, Washington has supported military dictatorship in Pakistan. Three times the US acted out of perceived self-interest to constrain communism. Islamabad enjoyed the support of Washington because General Musharraf’s military regime was viewed as a vital asset in fighting extremism and contributing to regional and global security. Some argue that extremism can better be confronted by a military backed regime. As such, a controlled dictatorship is seen as a stable and reliable ally, as opposed to a truly elected government that has the support of the people. However, it is a strategic miscalculation that has had a negative impact in the battle against violent fanaticism, posing grave dangers both to Pakistan and the larger world community. It certainly makes Pakistan uncomfortable that whether it is John Reid the Shoe bomber, or Tanweer the tube bomber, or Khalid Sheikh the CEO of Al Qaeda, or the German plot – unfortunately the steps lead back to our country. But none of these high-profile terrorist acts took place when Shaheed Mohtarmah Benazir Bhutto was the Prime Minister of Pakistan. The attacks on the World Trade Towers, the Cole ship at Yemen, the embassies in Africa, the blasts in Bombay and in the Indian Pearl took place when she was in opposition.

Since 9/11 the Musharraf regime professed support for confronting militancy. But actions on the ground have not matched the rhetoric. Indeed, the only Government that had ever signed an actual peace treaty with the Taliban and al Qaeda militants, against the natives of its own state, was the Musharraf’s regime in Islamabad. Large sections of Pakistan’s tribal areas had been ceded to non Pakistanis in the Taliban and Al-Qaeda militias. In fact, after defeat and demoralization following the fall of the Kabul, these violent elements re-organized themselves under the shadow of the military regime. They conduct suicide attacks within Pakistan killing innocent people. Military dictatorship fueled extremism. A democratically elected government enjoying the support of the people could bring peace to the people of Pakistan and eliminate extremism – eliminate terrorism by taking extremism off the radar screen of the region.

Benazir Bhutto was the civilian female leader of a democratic Pakistan that invested political capital in the tribal areas that a military regime has failed to control. As Prime Minister, she brought the rule of law and the fruits of development to the people in the Federally Administered Tribal Areas. Her government broke up the international drug cartel’s militias that reasserted themselves under the Musharraf rule and had been funding Al – Qaeda to have a macro-fiefdom. Her Administration brought the authority of the government and the rule of law to FATA in the 1990s. And she could have done it again. As Prime Minister she took the necessary steps to close down political madrasas whose curriculum taught hatred and para-military terrorist techniques. She did this before they became a threat to the world community. She considered them a threat to the stability, security and progress of the people of Pakistan. Since the dismissal of her government by military hardliners that had fought the Afghan Jihad of the eighties, there has been an explosion in these militant training schools, educating a successor generation of extremists, reinforcing irregular armies in Pakistan who have made my nation the Petri dish of the international extremist movement.

General Musharraf’s team, many of them linked to a military dictatorship of the eighties, which founded the Afghan Mujahideen to fight the Soviets in Afghanistan, presided over the rise of political Madrasas and private militias while neglecting social issues and governance. The people of Pakistan wanted a government that could build a school system giving their children a chance for a better life. Education was the centerpiece of Benazir Bhutto’s social agenda. Her government built 48,000 primary schools in its two stints in government. General Musharraf tried convincing the world that he was the only thing standing in the way of an extremist takeover of a nuclear armed Pakistan. In fact military rule is the cause of this anarchic situation in Pakistan. Extremism thrives under dictatorship. When Osama Bin Laden declared war on Musharraf, it made the West rally around Musharraf’s dictatorship. This in turn extended the environment that enabled Osama to thrive. Neither Musharraf nor Osama Bin Laden wanted democracy for their own reason. One considered democracy a threat to his dictatorship; the other considered democracy a threat to the environment of chaos and fear in which he thrived. Both knew that the people of Pakistan never supported dictatorship or extremism.

Each of Pakistan’s four military dictatorships assaulted the major infrastructural building blocks of democracy – by attempting to marginalize political parties, dismantling NGO’s and undermining civil society, by constraining labor and student unions, and allowing the intelligence agencies and government members to physically assault and intimidate the free press. It is only dictatorships which have used the Islamic card to legitimize their rule at the expense of the neglected people of Pakistan. Dictatorships, lacking a popular base, need the religious card, played in one shape or another, to justify their stranglehold on power. They need a crisis to obtain international support, both political and financial.

The Musharraf dictatorship like its predecessors only established the prerequisites for the radicalization of Pakistani society. As our people continued to be deprived of basic political and human rights, and as the social needs of our working families go unmet, people lost faith in the ability of government to respond to their needs. When they lost faith, they became hopeless, they became desperate and they did tend to become vulnerable to the hysterical appeals of extremists. Under their watch religious extremists have expanded in Pakistan. Radical mosques and madrasas have been encouraged as an alternative to recognized political institutions. They are awash in money and weapons while the people of Pakistan bear the burden of unemployment, inflation, poverty and hunger. When Pakistanis gather to pray on Friday in the mosques they are often subjected to long lectures by radical clerics appointed by the government even as the government claims publicly to be against extremism. The voices of moderation are exiled or imprisoned. The voices of extremism are protected.

And because Shaheed Mohtarmah Benazir Bhutto was an exemplar of a liberal & progressive Pakistan, free from such vultures, hunting the humankind, she was brutally assassinated by the terrorists, assisted by the Government of the time. No one can refute the fact that martyrs live an eternal life, Benazir’s legacy survives and is a bright light, amidst all the sinister pavements, guiding her followers to fights for the rights of their nation and to depict the true image of the Islam. Indeed, one cannot close their ogles to the achievements of President Asif Ali Zardari in this regards and his commitment to combating the terrorism from the very soil of Pakistan:- “ A freely elected democratic government, with the support and mandate of the people, working with democracies all over the world, is determined to build a viable, economic prosperous Pakistan that is a model to the entire Islamic world on what can be accomplished in giving hope to our people and opportunity to our children. We can become everything that al-Qaeda and the Taliban most fear — a vision of a modern Islamic future. Our people, our government, our military, our intelligence agencies are very much united. Some abroad insist that this is not the case, but they are wrong. Pakistanis are united. Together, our nations have suffered and sacrificed. We have fought bravely and with passion and commitment. Ultimately we will prevail.

For, in the words of my martyred wife Benazir Bhutto, “truth, justice and the forces of history are on our side.””

One cannot indeed, rebuff the actuality:

- “Democracies replace resentment with hope, respect the rights of their citizens and their neighbors, and join the fight against terror.” – Shaheed Mohtarmah Benazir Bhutto

All aspects of this crime, including the possibility of links to the ISI, need to be independently investigated and prosecuted. The ISI and other military and intelligence-related agencies have long been beyond the reach of the regular criminal justice system. To ensure this investigation can follow the evidence wherever it leads, an extraordinary mechanism with the full support of all state institutions needs to be created.

(Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch)

(New York) – The Pakistani government should establish a credible, independent investigation into the torture and killing of the journalist Syed Saleem Shahzad, Human Rights Watch said today. The investigation should have subpoena and prosecutorial powers and look into other allegations of serious human rights abuse by the Pakistani military’s Inter Services Intelligence (ISI) agency.

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, on his way to the studios of Pakistan’s Dunya News. Shahzad, an expert on Islamist militancy, had just published a book, Inside Al-Qaeda and the Taliban: Beyond Bin Laden and 9/11. He had been invited to discuss the contents of his report about a May 22 attack in which 10 people died on PNS Mehran, a Pakistani naval-base in Karachi, by militants linked to al-Qaeda. Shahzad’s body, bearing visible signs of torture, was discovered two days later, on May 31, near Mandi Bahauddin, 80 miles southeast of the capital.

“All aspects of this crime, including the possibility of links to the ISI, need to be independently investigated and prosecuted,” said Brad Adams, Asia director at Human Rights Watch. “The ISI and other military and intelligence-related agencies have long been beyond the reach of the regular criminal justice system. To ensure this investigation can follow the evidence wherever it leads, an extraordinary mechanism with the full support of all state institutions needs to be created.”

Shahzad had previously complained of threats by ISI agents for his reporting on links between the ISI and al-Qaeda. In October 2010, Shahzad sent an e-mail to Human Rights Watch outlining a recent meeting he had with the ISI and asking for the e-mail to be released if he or his family were harmed. Shahzad asked Human Rights Watch to make details of the meeting public “in case something happens to me or my family in future.” (The email is attached as an appendix below).

On October 19, 2010, Shahzad sent an email informing Human Rights Watch that he had been threatened by the ISI at an October 17 meeting at the ISI headquarters in Islamabad with the Director-General of the Media Wing of the ISI, Rear Admiral Adnan Nazir, and another ISI official, Commodore Khalid Pervaiz. Shahzad wrote that the meeting ended with the following comment from Rear Admiral Nazir, which Shahzad construed as a death threat:

I must give you a favor. We have recently arrested a terrorist and recovered a lot of data, diaries and other material during the interrogation. The terrorist had a list with him. If I find your name in the list, I will certainly let you know.

Shahzad sent the same email and information about other threats to Hameed Haroon, publisher of the highly regarded English language daily Dawn and president of the All Pakistan Newspapers Society, and to colleagues at Asia Times Online. All those who spoke to Shahzad at the time including professional journalists and Human Rights Watch understood that a threat had been made to his life through the statement quoted above. In order to place the threat on record, Shahzad wrote an account of the meeting and emailed it to the recipients.

Commodore Pervaiz was recently appointed the new commander of the Mehran naval base in Karachi, the subject of Shahzad’s last story for Asia Times Online, in which he alleged that al Qaeda had attacked the base in Karachi on May 22, after talks with the military to release two naval officials accused of militant links broke down.

Later, Shahzad informed Human Rights Watch of two other instances where he felt threats were made to him by or on behalf of the ISI by people who identified themselves as belonging to the agency.

Shahzad’s wife, Anita Saleem, informed Human Rights Watch of her husband’s disappearance on May 30, according to her husband’s instructions. She told Human Rights Watch that she had received an anonymous phone call saying that Shahzad would be released the same evening. Credible sources also told Human Rights Watch that Shahzad was in intelligence agency custody and was expected to be released in the evening of May 30. However, despite repeated inquiries, Human Rights Watch received no official response from the government of Pakistan about Shahzad’s whereabouts or well-being. When Shahzad failed to reappear, Human Rights Watch notified the Pakistani and international media.

On June 1, the ISI issued an unprecedented statement through an anonymous spokesperson to the state-controlled Associated Press of Pakistan. The ISI official denied that any threat had been made to Shahzad, stating that, “The reported e-mail of Mr. Saleem Shahzad to Mr. Ali Hasan Dayan of HRW” was “being made the basis of baseless allegations leveled against ISI.”

The following day, Haroon, the Dawn publisher, rejected the ISI’s position and went on record to “verify that allegations levied by HRW at the Inter services Intelligence (ISI) are essentially in complete consonance with the contents of the slain journalist’s e-mail.” Haroon added that he wished to “state on the record” that the late journalist confided to him “that he had received death threats from various officers of the ISI on at least three occasions in the past five years. Whatever the substance of these allegations, they form an integral part of Mr. Shahzad’s last testimony. Mr Shahzad’s purpose in transmitting this information to three concerned colleagues in the media was not to defame the ISI but to avert a possible fulfillment of what he clearly perceived to be a death threat.”

The ISI has a long history of abducting critics and others, then engaging in threats and beatings, telling relatives or others that they should not worry or complain as their loved one would soon be released, and then releasing the person with the threat of further abuse if he or she made the abductions and mistreatment known. Pakistani and international human rights groups, including Human Rights Watch, have extensively documented the ISI’s intimidation, torture, disappearances, and killings of those who earn its ire, including journalists.

“Given the threats from the ISI alleged by Shahzad and a long pattern of similar cases involving the ISI, there is good reason to suspect the ISI’s involvement in his abduction and death,” Adams said. “If the ISI is committed to respect for human rights and the rule of law, it should welcome an independent investigation so that abusive elements can be rooted out and held legally accountable. It is time that the military and intelligence agencies understood that this kind of behavior is both abhorrent and unacceptable.”

The statement by the Pakistani interior minister, Rehman Malik, that the government would investigate possible ISI involvement in Shahzad’s abduction and killing was a positive step, Human Rights Watch said. The investigation should be conducted promptly and transparently, and the government should follow all possible leads, Human Rights Watch said. Pakistan’s government has not held any military or intelligence personnel accountable for serious and ongoing human rights abuses.

Human Rights Watch called upon the international community to insist on a successful investigation into Shahzad’s killing by taking this case up not only with the civilian government but also with the army and ISI, with which they have close and longstanding contacts.

“While their calls for justice are positive, it is time for Pakistan’s defense and intelligence partners such as the United States and United Kingdom to make clear to the army and ISI chiefs that it will not be business as usual until Shahzad’s killers are identified and brought to justice,” Adams said. “If the government does not set up such an investigation or the military and the ISI fail to cooperate, Pakistan’s partners should call for an independent international investigation to ensure that Shahzad’s death does not become yet another example of impunity in Pakistan.”

APPENDIX: OCTOBER 19, 2010 EMAIL FROM SALEEM SHAHZAD TO ALI DAYAN HASAN

From: Saleem Shahzad [mailto:saleem_shahzad2002@yahoo.com]
Sent: 19 October 2010 12:54
To: Ali Dayan Hasan
Subject: Fw: For the record

Dear Hasan,

I am forwarding this email to you for your record only if in case something happens to me or my family in future.

Saleem

— On Mon, 10/18/10, Saleem Shahzad <saleem_shahzad2002@yahoo.com> wrote:

From: Saleem Shahzad <saleem_shahzad2002@yahoo.com>
Subject: For the record
To: anazir@hotmail.com
Date: Monday, October 18, 2010, 1:11 PM

For future reference:

Meeting details as on October 17, 2010 at the ISI headquarters Islamabad between DG Media Wing ISI, Rear Admiral Adnan Nazir and Syed Saleem Shahzad, the Bureau Chief Pakistan for Asia Times Online (Hong Kong). Commodore Khalid Pervaiz, the Deputy Director General of Media Wing ISI was also present during the conversation.

Agenda of the meeting: discussion on Asia Times Online story published on October 15, 2010, titledPakistan frees Taliban commander (see http://atimes.com/atimes/South_Asia/LJ16Df02.html).

The meeting discussed the following issues.

1-Syed Saleem Shahzad told Rear Admiral Adnan that an intelligence channel leaked the story. However, he added that story was published only after a confirmation from the most credible Taliban source. Syed also explained that DG ISPR was sent a text message about the story, but he did not respond.

2- Rear Admiral Adnan Nazir had the view that story caused a lot of embracement for the country but observed that issuing a denial from the government side is no solution. He suggested Syed Saleem Shahzad should write a denial of the story.

3- Syed Shahzad refused to comply with demand and termed it impractical.

4-Rear Admiral Adnan was curious to know the source of the story as it is a shame that information would leak from the office of a high profile intelligence service.

5- Syed Shahzad called it an intelligence leak but did not specify the source.

6-The conversation was held in an extremely polite and friendly atmosphere and there was no mince word in the room at any stage. Rear Admiral Adnan Nazir also offered Syed Saleem Shahzad a favor in following words.

“I must give you a favor. We have recently arrested a terrorist and have recovered a lot of data, dairies and other material during the interrogation. The terrorist had a hit list with him. If I find your name in the list, I will certainly let you know,”

Source: Human Rights Watch

Originally published in ‘Daily Aajkal’.

This article was originally published in the “Daily Express“

Shehrbano Taseer, the daughter of Salman Taseer, the governor of Pakistan’s Punjab region who was assassinated by his bodyguard on 4 January for opposing blasphemy laws, blames Pakistan’s countless madrassas – or Religious schools – for using Islam as a ‘political tool’.

Taseer who was speaking at the Quilliam Foundation in London, the first UK-based Muslim think tank dedicated to challenging extremism, is calling on the international community to lobby her government to reform the madrassas and allow greater democracy in Pakistan.

She wants Pakistan to reform the madrassa syllabus so that children are taught viable skills for life and how to value religious freedom and rights.

Taseer, a journalist for Newsweek Pakistan, who describes herself as a civil society activist, has also warned that the death of bin Laden has stirred up extremist sentiment in the already troubled nation.

She said: ‘They are raising children to believe their only contribution to Islam is through jihad. They hail people like Osama bin Laden.’

Taseer said a lack of education coupled with a culture that discouraged any questioning of elders had allowed these radical clerics to spread their ‘poison’.

‘They are becoming more hardline by using Islam as a political tool and this mindset is exported all over the world,’ she added.

Taseer claims her country has been a victim in the war on terrorism after its leaders received direction and funding for schools and mosques from Wahhabis, ultra-conservative dollar-rich Muslims from the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

She said this influx had brought with it a rise in the number of radical clerics who had a stronghold on their communities by running religious seminaries and influencing popular opinion.

Asked by Lapido Media about action taken by Pakistani civil society against so-called hate preachers, she said: ‘Absolutely nothing, as there is an atmosphere of fear. The silent majority feel backed up against the wall.’

She gave the example of Mumtaz Qadri, her father’s killer who was showered with rose petals by a group of two hundred lawyers as he entered the court building. She also mentioned students writing articles that hailed his deeds and criticised her father for speaking up for Asia Bibi, the Christian mother-of-five sentenced to death for alleged blasphemy.

‘Mumtaz Qadri represents a mindset that is prevalent in Pakistan. Murder is legitimised because it’s done in the name of God.

‘Repressive mindsets have been allowed to flourish. The state has abdicated its responsibility, and hatemongers have been given a platform.

‘My father’s death has highlighted how grave the situation is, but blasphemy cases are still on the rise.’

Taseer paid tribute to the ‘brave men and women’ who were speaking out in Pakistan as well as the silent majority who she said are looking for a more open society.

But she added that their voices would remain fragmented without the backing of central government.

In recent months Pakistan has come under increasing pressure to crack down on extremism in the wake of the assassination of Salman Taseer.

His murder came only a few months before the fatal shooting of Shahbaz Bhatti, Pakistan’s minorities minister and the only Christian member of the cabinet. He too had criticised his country’s blasphemy laws.

In May protests erupted in Pakistan after US Navy Seals assassinated Osama bin Laden, leader of Al Qaeda, who had apparently been hiding in a compound near Islamabad for 10 years.

Meanwhile the UK Department for International Development (DfID), responsible for the recent allocation of £445m aid to Pakistan, is calling on religious leaders in Britain for their help.

DfID has set up a working group of religious leaders in the UK who have experience of working in areas of conflict and fragile states so that aid can reach the most vulnerable people and, in turn, help these communities build a better future.

Andrew Mitchell, Secretary of State for International Development, announced this new approach at the Synod of the Church of England in recognition of the role of faith groups in civil society and their ability to reduce global poverty and challenge extremist attitudes and behaviours at home and abroad.

Source:

The world is asking how Osama bin Laden, once the FBI’s most-wanted man, was able to hide in a Pakistani garrison town without the country’s government knowing his whereabouts.

Bin Laden was living in a compound just a few hundred meters from the country’s leading military academy for years before U.S. Special Operations Forces killed him on May 2. But despite the massive evidence suggesting Pakistani complicity in his hiding, much of the country’s media — particularly the Urdu-language press — has been trying to spin the news.

The willingness of the Pakistani government to go after terrorists has long been debated. Recently Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the U.S. Joint Chiefs of Staff, said in an interview that Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence Directorate (ISI) has relations with Al-Qaeda’s Afghan ally, the Haqqani group, located in North Waziristan — an area in which Pakistan has repeatedly denied conducting military operations.

The mistrust was echoed by U.S. President Barack Obama’s counterterrorism adviser, John Brennan, at a recent press conference. He said that the United States didn’t share information about the operation with anyone, including Pakistan.

Instead of examining this question and the deep mistrust between supposedly strong allies in the war on terror, some Pakistani media outlets have been trying to defend the image of the army and intelligence services, suggesting that Pakistan knew about the operation and shared significant information with the United States. They have suggested that the Pakistan military should also be given credit for catching the big fish.

Despite global media running the headlines “Osama confirmed dead” and Al-Qaeda’s Yemen branch confirming that their leader is no more, some Pakistani media anchors did not initially accept the news, spending hours questioning the validity of the report. In a discussion on a well-known Pakistani talk show, security analyst Zaid Hamid — who has openly shown his support for jihadi organizations and is rabidly anti-American — said that bin Laden was killed long ago and that the recent news was just a publicity stunt for Obama’s 2012 election campaign.

Bin Laden ‘Shaheed’

The irony is that instead of asking the question, “what was bin Laden doing in a million-dollar house in the same neighborhood as the Pakistani Army and ISI,” TV anchors were quick to suggest that the man killed was not even the Al-Qaeda leader. As television channels around the world showed the happy faces of thousands of people from the United States to Kenya celebrating the news of the death of Al-Qaeda’s No. 1, Pakistani anchors seemed undecided about how to describe bin Laden. Should they go with “shaheed” (martyr) or should they, in an unusual move, simply follow the professional way and state the facts — bin Laden was killed?

Discussing the event on one of Pakistan’s prominent channels, anchor Hamid Mir called Osama bin Laden “shaheed.” Following Mir’s sympathetic approach toward bin Laden, Ansar Abbasi, a well-known journalist and columnist in Pakistan, defended bin Laden, saying that “we only believe Osama was a terrorist because America told us so.”

The fact that bin Laden was killed not in a cave in Afghanistan but in a huge compound in Abbottabad — just a couple of hours away from the capital, Islamabad — raised many eyebrows. Talking to journalists at the White House, Brennan said: “People have been referring to this as hiding in plain sight. We are looking at how he was able to hide out there for so long…. I think it’s inconceivable that bin Laden did not have a support system in the country [Pakistan] that allowed him to remain there for an extended period of time.”

However, some Pakistani media personalities gave the operation another spin and dubbed it an “action against Pakistani sovereignty.” Famous for their dramatization, a Pakistani TV channel labeled bin Laden’s killing: “Abbottabad Operation: The Funeral of Our Sovereignty.”

The action-against-Pakistani-sovereignty card is one that Pakistan has been playing for quite a long time. It gets more heated with every drone attack against Al-Qaeda and Taliban terrorists in Waziristan and elsewhere on the border with Afghanistan. To inflame the discussion, TV channels have brought on numerous religious politicians to show their sympathy for bin Laden and condemn the United States for taking him out.

It is unfortunate that the Pakistani media plays down the presence of Al-Qaeda’s foreign fighters in Pakistan, who have resided there since the Soviet Union invaded Afghanistan. Pakistani journalists rarely ask why it is that nearly every single one of the world’s most-wanted terrorists is harbored in Pakistan. Pakistanis will have a hard time finding answers to these questions watching their televisions.

Source: