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Posts tagged with: Taliban
Mar 13, 2010    |       100 comments

Find Heaven – A Musical response to the brainwashed Suicide bombers

Today a string of 2,3,4,5,6,7,8,9,10 bomb attacks in Pakistan has the entire nation emotionally hurt compounded the fact that we also suffered a loss of 40 innocent lives. The series of suicide bombings has forced many of us to vocally condemn this mindless act of terrorism but interestingly Daniyal Noorani has chosen to send his message across in a short 3-1/2 minute music video, where he tries to narrate a story of a confused boy, searching for answers, ends up interacting with some mindless Islamic fanatics who expertly manipulate his concerns into becoming a potential suicide bomber. It serves as a touching reminder on how the Talibans can take advantage of the impoverished manipulating them for their own secret agenda which has nothing to do with Islam and heaven

[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=a3U7KsJHdO0[/youtube]

Music, lyrics and direction is by Daniyal Noorani, character design and animation by Marria Khan, while the guitars by Shahjehan Khan and violins by Mialy Clark. He shares his reasons on why he wrote this song on Dawn Blog to say
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Dec 26, 2009    |       103 comments

Talibans want to Negotiate for Peace with Imran Khan as a mediator

Today The News published a report of an audio tape delivered to their offices in Peshawar of a Taliban leader suggesting that they would like to discuss the possibility of a peaceful resolution in the region and offered the name of Imran Khan as a potential mediator. Looking at the news item published in the newspaper its ironic to note that the editorial board choose to hide the importance of this ground breaking news item, camouflaging it under the title of “No Talks with Taliban now: Fazl” probably yet another dubious statement by Maulana Fazlur Rehman who chose for the umpteenth time to toeing the official pro-establishment line of going guns blazing, suggesting that peace was utterly out of the question.

I feel this offer by the Swat Talibans to come onto the negotiating table is a very important development and quite possibly a breakthrough in an out-of-control war on terror offensive. It is my opinion that such peace initiatives should have been in place throughout the offensive, fully empowering the Pakistan Army to aggressively demilitarize the warring militants but at the same time keep an open door policy for diplomacy and possibly a peaceful settlement of this conflict.

Some pessimists may rightly see this to be a deliberately attempt by the Talibans to forestall any ongoing military offensives, which may give them time to recuperate and retaliate later with renewed energy, it is a genuine concern, but on the flip side it could also mean to suggest that the Talibans have weakened enough to be now ready to come onto the negotiating table for any peace talks.
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Dec 15, 2009    |       6 comments

He who is Not a Sinner should Cast the First Stone

By: Amjad Malik, MA, LLM

I have been vehemently advocating the need to erect a system of accountability by invoking a new commission and an Act of Parliament to curb mal practice, plundering and looting whilst one is holding a public office. This new Commission can truly ensure compliance with the Clauses of Article 62 and 63 of the constitution too. We are witnessing many names in the list of beneficiaries of National Reconciliation Ordinance, and many names which are not in it, are either praying to be in it or cursing the said redemption order of the former military dictator who came to rid corruption on 12 October 99, and left giving this strange gift of ‘hypocrisy’ to the nation.

Mal practice, corruption and mal governance is a common phenomenon of the third world countries as wealth is confined to the elite and institutions are so weak that they do not get roots and are run on the dictat of personalities. Pakistan is amongst those few unfortunate countries where despite abundance of natural resources, talent, passion, capacity of self dependency in edible food products, the country is still rating higher in corruption, suffering from food, electricity, gas, sugar shortages. Who is to be blamed is a long short, and to me, all bear the collective responsibility to bring this country to a stage where each person of any possible public stature is not free from corruption charges, which I will call allegations.
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Dec 7, 2009    |       38 comments

We are Pakistan!

By: Agha Haider Raza

funeral_pindi victimsYet again Pakistani’s find themselves, lined up, shoulder to shoulder offering prayers for the departed. The brazen attack during Friday namaaz has clearly shown the audacity and ability of the militants present within Pakistan. On the one side, the suicidal mission that was led out is a direct signal to the Pakistan Army (the attack was taken out in the officers residential colony in Parade Lane, Rawalpindi Saddar) for retreating its forces in the tribal region, while also visibly proving that these militants are not Muslims. The issue for me however is, why have our top brass only been visible at the namaaz-e-jinaza when one of their own has lost their life? Poor Peshawar has been witnessing non-stop death and bombs. It surely has been a while since I saw or read the Prime Minister being in this troubled city of Peshawar, rubbing shoulders with us and praying for those who have lost their lives due to actions taken by the state.
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Nov 21, 2009    |       7 comments

What Becomes of Us

IDP Swat ChildLook at this picture, this is a child labeled as IDP (internally displaced person) living currently in a make shift camp without proper basic living conditions e.g. food, water, sanitation. He doesn’t have fear in his eyes, even though it could well be that his family died during air raids by his own country’s air force or shelling by army tanks of his nation’s army or if spared by all that then by a drone attack of our biggest ally or may be they survived but this kid still must have seen a lot of carnage and so would have all the other kids of his age around him. We are fighting this war for a some time now and it seems to be in the pipeline for a few more so we are talking about a whole generation being raised in such conditions with atrocities being committed all around them. To me it seems like we are running a Taliban production center ourselves or at least the final product is quite ready to be installed with radicalism or Islamic fundamentalist ideas. But even putting that aside for a moment this does raise some questions, the answers to which all of us don’t know but have every right to demand from god knows who. May be even god wouldn’t know since he sure would be keeping his distance from all this utter stupidity going on in our land; after all that’s also politically correct.

Coming back to the questions that are very basic;

  • What is the prize we are after? What are we fighting for, and whatever the desired end is does it justify the means?
  • Who are we fighting against? Are we waging a war on our own people to make our country a safer place, that is perplexing and an oxymoron in itself. Who is the enemy, is it an army of people and how many people do we have to kill before we conquer whatever we want to conquer or is it an ideology that we want to tear down through a military solution.
  • Who is our leader in this war? The one person who will stand up and say this is where we are and this is where we want to be as a nation and that is why this is a war of necessity, a struggle for survival and people of this nation could follow suit of the leader.

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Nov 2, 2009    |       30 comments

Open Letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton

Feryal GoharYour Excellency,

Allow me to apologize to you for not being able to be present during your address to civil society at the hallowed campus of Government College University in my beloved city of Lahore. Much as I would have wanted to benefit from the wisdom of your analysis and foresight, I could not make the journey quickly enough from the remote town of Chilas where I was in consultation with the proponents of a major dam which shall displace 32,000 people and submerge 32,000 ancient rock carvings if and when built. Allow me to further explain that since flights were cancelled from the nearest airport in Gilgit, a tedious five hour journey on the Karakoram Highway, I was compelled to take the road journey over the Babusar Pass situated at an altitude of 14,000 feet above sea level, travelling a total of eighteen hours to Islamabad.

Your Excellency, it was during this eighteen hour journey through some of the most desolate yet spectacular landscape of my country that I imagined speaking to you, being unable to join the privileged few who were invited to hear you speak both in Lahore and in Islamabad. As the vehicle carrying us made its way carefully over open culverts fashioned by the able engineers of the China Construction Company, as it slid over six inches of freshly falling snow, as it dipped into crevices swirling with glacial melt, and as it glided smoothly over the bits of tarmac which have survived the devastation of the 2005 earthquake which killed 70,000 people in these remote parts, I spoke to you, imagining that you were truly interested in what I, an ordinary citizen of this, my beloved, blighted country had to say.
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Oct 29, 2009    |       15 comments

Waziristan Strategy or Pakistan Strategy?

By Azhar Aslam

nwfp-waziristanWaziristan today has come to symbolize the paradigm in which Pakistan finds itself. An epicentre of ‘terrorism’, a symbol of ‘Talibanization’ and now a field for what has been euphemistically called ‘mother of all battles’. Pakistan and Waziristan were not always like this. How we have come to this pass is crucial to analyse, but even more urgent is to assess that are we prepared enough to win this battle?

Is this just a battle or a war? Is the battle confined to South Waziristan? What are the implications beyond Waziristan? What lies beyond the battle? What will happen after South Waziristan has been secured? What are our plans after the area has been secured and captured? How are we going to treat captured combatants? What will be things be like in two, five, ten and twenty years from now?

It is clear that there are no short term measures that can address a problem as complex and deeply embedded as this. The military win will be down to appropriate strategy, superior operational and tactical skills, appropriately trained troops, coordinated intelligence and finally high morale and right motivation. But this battle is about more than just winning in Waziristan. A lot more.
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Oct 24, 2009    |       8 comments

David Rohde’s Insights Into What Motivates the Taliban: Held by the Taliban

David Rohde writes about the seven months he was held hostage by a group of extremist Taliban in Afghanistan and Pakistan and conveys this observation about what motivates them:

My captors harbored many delusions about Westerners. But I also saw how some of the consequences of Washington’s antiterrorism policies had galvanized the Taliban. Commanders fixated on the deaths of Afghan, Iraqi and Palestinian civilians in military airstrikes, as well as the American detention of Muslim prisoners who had been held for years without being charged. Apparently, when we drop bombs on Muslim countries — or when Israel attacks Palestinians — that fuels anti-American hatred and militarism among Muslims. The same outcomes occur when we imprison Muslims without charges in places like Guantanamo and Bagram.

One of the most astounding feats in propaganda is how we’ve managed to take people who live in a country which we invade, bomb and occupy — and who fight against us because we’re doing that — and call them “Terrorists,” thereby “justifying” continuing to bomb and occupy their country further (“We have to stay in order to fight the Terrorists: meaning the people who are fighting us because we stay”).

Oct 18, 2009    |       9 comments

Desperation or Challenge – Pakistan Must Act

By Azhar Aslam

When someone declares an open war, how must a nation react? How should they defend themselves? Have we forgotten the lessons from war with India? Why should we feel different now when we are being attacked from inside rather than from outside.

By attacking various institutions of Pakistani state (in attacks of more symbolic value than otherwise), Taliban has thrown an open challenge to our nation. But is it really so? Don’t mistake it because it seems more a sign of desperation on their behalf because they clearly are surrounded and trapped.

The recent attacks are more like a reaction of an animal that has been trapped and feels encaged and knows its time has come. These attacks are designed to create more psychological trauma and undermine the resolve of the people and state of Pakistan, than actually inflict any real measurable material damage.
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Oct 5, 2009    |       120 comments

Peoples Resistance: Protest against Army Brutality

Location: Karachi Press Club
Date: Tuesday 7th October, 2009
Time: 5:00 PM

Peoples' ResistanceThe People’s Resistance strongly condemns the Army brutality captured on video recently as illegal and despicable behaviour on the basis of violation of the understanding of our human rights and our laws.

In no sense can this strong condemnation be understood as support of the Taliban. Lets not fail to remind ourselves what else the fight was about besides army action. The fight was against violent intolerance and deluded religious bigotry. It was also long overdue. We are glad it happened. This behaviour, and that not shown in the video, is intolerable and will undoubtedly help in making a Taliban comeback.
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Oct 3, 2009    |       142 comments

Video on Human Rights Abuses by Pakistan Army leads to Censorship

Pakistan Army Human Rights AbusesFor the past few days a specific gut wrenching video has been making its way around the Pakistani web-sphere which shows a Pakistani Army Major conducting an interrogation of two people suspected of harboring Talibans. During the Question and Answer session the Major steps back and orders his crew to ruthlessly beat the person punching, kicking and whipping the suspects, who scream in pain and writhe on the ground. The 10-minute video is at best deliberately being shot (but is seemingly concealed away from the spectators) to record the entire interrogation, that goes to suggest that such treatment is a norm within the Army and should not be treated as a one off random affair. [BBC Link]

Sadly this inhumane treatment dealt out by this officer of the Pakistan Army makes me also want to fight back against these ruthless uniformed personnel. Such actions I consider as blatant human rights violation and the Army must be held accountable for such treatment, and not treat this as a one-off incident

Dawn.com reports that the Army spokesman Maj. Gen. Athar Abbas said ‘the army was investigating the alleged abuse’, but declined further comment Friday. Pakistan’s poorly trained and underfunded security forces have long been accused of human rights abuses.

Click through this link to verify if the Pkpolitics.com URL is blocked from Pakistan, if it is please submit a report on Herdictweb which helps aggregate information on why such website

The video follows after the jump
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Sep 30, 2009    |       17 comments

A Grave Error: Letter to the Editor in Response to ones own Obituary

On 27th September Dr. Farhat Taj in the article titled “The Taliban and Salarzais” reported that Malik Munsaib Khan had died in an attack to say

“The same day they informed me on telephone that Malik Munasib Khan, the spokesman of the Salarzai lashkar, had been killed. They held the ISI responsible for his killing”

Interestingly Malik Munsaib Khan happended to read his own obituary and responded to Dr. Farhat in a letter to the editor “I am Alive” published a day later to say

“…. I am very much alive and can be contacted on telephone no 0300-7044755. It is highly regrettable that the news of someone’s death is published without verification. The writer must apologise for the trauma caused to my family and well-wishers. – Malik Munasib Khan” — OOPS

Credit: Five Rupees

Aug 13, 2009    |       10 comments

Pakistanis feel US is a bigger threat than Talibans: Al-Jazeera & Gallup Pakistan Poll

pakistan survey Al-JAn exclusive Al Jazeera survey of public opinion in Pakistan has revealed widespread disenchantment with the United States for interfering with what most people consider internal Pakistani affairs. This survey was done interviewing more than 2,500 men and women across the rural and urban areas in all four provinces of Pakistan on July 26 and 27. The margin of error is + 2-3 per cent at 95 per cent confidence level. Al-Jazeera wraps up the results in a detailed analysis but a quick look at the survey is as follows

  • On the Military Operation; 41% were in Favor, 24% in Opposition, 22% remained neutral and 13% were undecided
  • On US-Led Drone Attacks: 9% were in Favor, 67% were in Opposition and 24% chose to remain neutral
  • On Dialog vs Offensive: 41% felt the need for Military Action, 43% wanted a Dialogue while 16% did not have an opinion
  • On President Zardari: 11% felt he was Good, while a majority of 42% considered him Bad, 34% responded as Neither Good or Bad leaving the remaining 13% as undecided
  • On Pakistan Peoples Party: 20% felt it was Good, 38% responded that PPP was Bad, 30% said it was Neither good or Bad while the remaining 12% did not know.
  • On their choice of the Best Leader for Pakistan: President Zardari came at measly 9%, Prime Minister Gilani at 13%, Nawaz Sharif at 38%, 8% favored a Military Government, while 11% felt a joint PPP and PML-N govt was good, only 6% felt Religious Parties were beneficial for Pakistan, 6% of the respondents chose other leaders leaving the last 8% of undecided
  • On the threat from the Taliban vs the USA and India: 11% felt that Pakistani Taliban were a threat, India factored at 18%, while the US topped the threat radar at 59%, leaving the remaining 12% as undecided

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Jul 26, 2009    |       8 comments

Return to Jalala – IDP Situation Update

Madey_Baba_SchoolAfter returning from a relief distribution to Mardan in May 2009, I regularly followed up with events concerning the IDPs in N.W.F.P. Regardless of the numerous analyses (and conspiracy theories) emerging in the public discourse about the war and its affects, the priority for me remained in providing assistance to displaced families.

I tried to replicate the great work done by Lahore’s Concerned Citizens of Pakistan (CCP), who have adopted 9 IDP schools in Mardan and Swabi and are looking after the needs of 300 families by collecting donations from Lahore and giving food, medicines and other items through local NGOs of the area. Their families will be assisted after their return to Swat as well.

Besides the obvious difficulty of managing such a program alone, the great distance between Karachi and Mardan, my inability to follow up due to a hectic work schedule with Indus Resource Centre (IRC) and the lack of interest shown by people in Karachi discouraged me to the degree of becoming indifferent to the crisis.

By mid June, the IDPs had taken a backseat in the media networks, whereas the plight of displaced families became a routine matter for people, easily ignored and shrugged aside like another hunger strike by haris in Hyderabad or a drone attack in Waziristan. Friends who were trying to collect donations faced what’s called in the NGO world: ‘donor fatigue’. Everyone had given something from their pocket or bought food items, clothes or beddings and deposited them at one of the stalls in their city. Multinational corporations, wealthy businessman and salaried middle classes at home and abroad had given their share to the ‘Prime Minister’s Special Fund for Relief of Victims of Terrorism’ or to an NGO operating in the affected area. Average Pakistanis thought that maybe our role in this crisis had finished or as I heard from many people, ‘The military operation is succeeding and the crisis shall end soon.’
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