Secret Nato report accuses Pakistan of helping Taliban

LONDON: Pakistan’s security services are secretly aiding Afghanistan’s Taliban, who assume their victory is inevitable once Western troops leave, a secret Nato document says, according to reports on Wednesday.

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

The “State of the Taliban” document claims that Islamabad, via Pakistan’s ISI intelligence agency, is “intimately involved” with the insurgency. The BBC said the report was based on material from 27,000 interrogations of more than 4,000 captured Taliban and al-Qaeda operatives.

“Pakistan’s manipulation of the Taliban senior leadership continues unabatedly,” the report was quoted as saying. Taliban captives revealed how Islamabad was using a web of intermediaries and spies to provide strategic advice to the Taliban on fighting Western coalition troops.

“The government of Pakistan remains intimately involved with the Taliban,” the report said. “ISI is thoroughly aware of Taliban activities and the whereabouts of senior Taliban personnel. Senior Taliban leaders meet regularly with ISI personnel, who advise on strategy and relay any pertinent concerns of the government of Pakistan.

“ISI officers tout the need for continued jihad and expulsion of foreign invaders from Afghanistan.” However, there was little evidence from the detainees that Islamabad was providing funding or weaponry.

Kabul, which accuses Islamabad of supporting the 10-year Taliban insurgency in Afghanistan, put relations on ice after the September murder of its peace envoy Burhanuddin Rabbani, which one Afghan minister blamed on Pakistani spies.

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.” The US Department of Defense said it could not comment on the report but set out its fears about Pakistan and its influence in Afghanistan.

“We have not seen the report, and therefore cannot offer comment on it specifically,” Pentagon spokesman George Little told AFP.

“We have long been concerned about ties between elements of the ISI and some extremist networks.”

US Defence Secretary Leon Panetta “has also been clear that he believes that the safe havens in Pakistan remain a serious problem and need to be addressed by Pakistani authorities.”

The report said there had been unprecedented interest in joining the Taliban cause in 2011 — even from members of the Afghan government.

“Afghan civilians frequently prefer Taliban governance over the Afghan government, usually as a result of government corruption,” it was reported as saying.

It said the Taliban were deliberately going soft in some areas to encourage Nato troops to leave faster, while doing local deals with the Afghan forces who take over.

Some in the Afghan security forces collaborated with the Taliban, selling arms and sharing intelligence, the report said.

The Times, in an editorial, said Pakistan was “actively hindering reconciliation” between the Taliban and Kabul with a “systematic effort” to destabilise President Hamid Karzai’s government.

“The ISI emerges from this document looking considerably more villainous, even, than the Taliban itself,” it said.

Pakistan hit out angrily at the report, calling it “frivolous” and “not worth commenting on”.

“This is frivolous, to put it mildly. We are committed to non-interference in Afghanistan and expect all other states to strictly adhere to this principle,” foreign ministry spokesman Abdul Basit told AFP.

A senior security official condemned the leak, as reported by the BBC, which also broadcast a documentary “Secret Pakistan” last year accusing parts of Pakistan’s intelligence service of complicity with Taliban militants. “The report is not available, leaks not worth commenting,” he told this agency.

Reuters adds: The US military said in a secret report that the Taliban, backed by Pakistan, are set to retake control of Afghanistan after Nato-led forces withdraw, raising the prospect of a major failure of Western policy after a costly war.

Lieutenant Colonel Jimmie Cummings, a spokesman for the Nato-led International Security Assistance Force, confirmed the existence of the document, reported on Wednesday by Britain’s Times newspaper and the BBC. But he said it was not a strategic study.

“The classified document in question is a compilation of Taliban detainee opinions,” he said. “It’s not an analysis, nor is it meant to be considered an analysis.”

Nevertheless, it could be interpreted as a damning assessment of the war, dragging into its 11th year and aimed at blocking a Taliban return to power. It could also be seen as an admission of defeat and could reinforce the view of Taliban hardliners that they should not negotiate with the United States and President Hamid Karzai’s unpopular government while in a position of strength.

The US military said in the document that Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence (ISI) security agency was assisting the Taliban in directing attacks against foreign forces. Reasserting control over the country would be more difficult a second time for the Taliban, however, with Afghan police and soldiers expected to number around 350,000 beyond 2014 and some foreign troops likely to remain, including elite forces.

The Times said the “highly classified” report was put together by the US military at Bagram air base, north of Kabul, for top Nato officers last month.

The document may leave some US policymakers wondering whether the war was worth the cost in human lives and funding. As of late January, 1,889 US soldiers had been killed in a conflict that was launched after the Sept 11, 2001 attacks and has drained almost half a trillion dollars from US coffers.

Soldier, six militants killed in FR Kohat

KOHAT: A soldier was killed in a landmine blast while six militants and a volunteer of the pro-government Amn Lashkar were killed in fresh clashes in the Jawakai area in the Frontier Region Kohat on Sunday, official sources said.

Sources said security forces along with the volunteers of the Amn Lashkar launched an operation in the mountains of Jawakai and Taodo Oba. A group of militants, the sources said, opened fire on the forces and the lashkar, killing a volunteer, Wahidur Rehman. The forces also returned fire and killed six militants, sources added. The forces continued the operation and marched toward the hideouts of the militants when a soldier identified as Irfanullah stepped on a mine which went off, killing him on the spot, sources said. They added that security forces have established security posts in Jandy Sar, Guloono Tangay and Babu Killay to check the incursion of militants. A huge cache of arms was also seized during the operation, sources added.

Democracy Under Threat

Mohammed Bilal Khan on 23, Jan 2012 | 4 Comments | in Category: Insight

The familiar refrain of a democracy under threat is once again making the rounds in Pakistan.

The source of these worries is the image of the ruling government having to defend itself in the face of pressure from the military and the judiciary.

Last month, Prime Minster Gilani cryptically referred to the military establishment as a “state within a state” that must bow down to the government. More recently, Gilani reminded the judiciary of his public mandate to rule and the supremacy of the parliament above all else when he addressed the National Assembly during the passing of a pro-democracy resolution.

The culmination of the face-off between these state institutions occurred when Gilani appeared in the Supreme Court to defend himself against charges of contempt for not initiating cases against President Zardari. If Gilani is found guilty, it may potentially force early elections. To the casual observer, this situation seems ripe for democratic instability.

However, the Prime Minister’s Supreme Court appearance is actually a good thing for Pakistani democracy in the long-run.

Democracy has been described as government of the people, by the people, for the people. In its present form, Pakistani democracy is certainly of the people, and by the people. That is why Gilani can repeatedly refer to his public mandate to rule and continually trumpets the supremacy of a parliament that is full of his coalition allies. The elections that brought the PPP and its allies to power were not as free and fair as we would have liked. But they were elections, nonetheless. In that sense, the present government is a legitimate expression of popular will.

By only focusing on his party’s popular support, however, and forgetting his responsibilities as Government CEO, Gilani conveniently forgets how democracy cannot simply be by the people and of the people but must also be for the people.

It is that sense of accountability for the people that Gilani’s Supreme Court appearance should be taken to represent.

It is likely that not much will come out of all of this due to the presidential immunity granted to Zardari via Pakistan’s Constitution, and the Vienna Convention. What is more significant is the symbolism behind the Supreme Court attempting to hold the government accountable for not acting upon the judiciary’s recommendations.

A frequent complaint against such open questioning of the government is the need for stability. This argument says that Pakistani democracy is inherently fragile and undue stress must not be placed upon it. Such an argument is particularly powerful in a country that has experienced sustained periods of military rule and where the military is perceived to hold sway over the civilian government even during times of democratic rule.

The argument, however, does not hold because it underestimates the strength of Pakistan’s democratic structures, which have endured even during military rule.

Consider the Musharraf era. From the outset, Musharraf was forced to govern through parliamentary allies. He sought to legitimize his rule by seeking a show of support from the parliament. He tried to lengthen his rule by granting amnesty to popularly elected politicians. When he was forced out, it was due to a populist movement.

Democracy in Pakistan has progressed too far for it to be brought down so easily. What is needed now is for democracy to move beyond a simple expression of popular will and towards a system where the ruling government – no matter what party it happens to be from – is held accountable, whether it is the Supreme Court that does the accounting or the voters at the next election.

It’s Personal!

Lubna Jerar Naqvi on 31, Jan 2012 | 17 Comments | in Category: Debate Desk

The Maya Khan issue was waiting to erupt sooner or later, and I am glad it did. At least now people, and hopefully the media authorities, will realise that the attitude of “in the media everything goes” is wrong. Limits, rules and regulations should be enforced, and content should be screened. Interestingly, it took Maya Khan’s gang raiding a public park to make people understand that certain important limits are being ignored. But this is not the first or the last time limits have been crossed. This happens all the time in the electronic media, mainly because many people in this field have learned that sensationalism sells, even that bordering on yellow journalism.

True ratings are extremely important. But to give the viewer some credit, viewers now know what they want to see. They have formed their own opinions of news they want to watch and therefore, only follow those channels they have acquired a taste for. No amount of cheap shenanigans on other channels will get their attention.

It must be said that Maya Khan’s “park” show was also based on the popular demand of women writing in, as Maya said at the end of the show. If so, such shows should be shown on the entertainment channels catering to the viewers’ demand, and not on serious news channels.

Private TV channels are relatively new in Pakistan, which is why they are still evolving. That is why this industry has had to absorb a large number of untrained people who are thrust into the field without being given guidelines, and therefore they learn as they go along.

We must understand that not everyone who is working in “the media” is a journalist, and Maya Khan and a number of other anchorpersons are not journalists in the true sense of the word. They are not aware that their job is not only about ratings, but that those in the media are important role models for society, especially a society like ours which largely lacks role models. They are unaware of the responsibility they carry on their shoulders, which goes beyond that of imparting information to the viewer.

For many in this field, the “press card,” which is a badge of honour for this honourable profession, is a weapon that not only protects them but also opens many doors for them, making their lives easier in numerous ways.

Many media persons appear to lack the concept of privacy and boundaries; they have no idea that there are limits to a story being covered, no matter how important that story is. One is shocked at times to see reporters thrusting their mikes into the faces of grieving families, and sometimes victims of some crime, even of rape. Unfortunately, “prying” is an integral component of our society, which is why many of the victims and their families seldom restrict the media from covering their private moments of grief and are seen replying to the questions posed to them. In large part this is because they think that the media will help project their plight to the authority and they will get help, and often they do succeed.

Recently, a couple of female anchorpersons were seen screaming and shouting at rapists and murderers, which didn’t go very well with their professional personae. Showing emotions when exposed to extraordinary stories is only human, but hogging the limelight – which is what this kind of behaviour amounts to – instead of focusing on the story is unprofessional and reveals lack of training and exposure.

It is time media persons, especially anchors, are trained on how to do a story well, and, please, without theatrics.

Sunni Tehrik announces conversion into political party

KARACHI: Sunni Tehreek Chief Sarwat Ejaz Qadri Sunday announced that the party would now become a “political party” and commence its political activities from March 23 with a rally at the Minar-e-Pakistan, Lahore.

He said this while addressing the Pakistan Bachao Jan Nisaran-e-Mustafa (PBUH) conference organised by the Sunni Tehrik to mark the martyrdom of two of the outfit’s leaders targeted on the 12th of Rabiul Awwal 2006 at Nishtar Park.

The ST chief, who has been complaining about the trampling of the Tehreek’s rights by the government by not allowing the party to put up its posters in the city, vowed to besiege the Governor House if the murderers of party workers killed on Sunday were not arrested by Monday (today). He said suo moto action should not only be taken on memos but also on acts of terrorism.

Earlier two activists of the Sunni Tehreek (ST), on their way to Nishtar Park to attend the Pakistan Bachao Jan Nisaran-e-Mustafa (PBUH) conference, were gunned down Sunday afternoon. Police said Saleem Qadri and Sohail Qadri were on their way to attend the rally when two men on a motorcycle opened fire on them and fled. On receiving information about the incident, a police van rushed to the spot and shifted the injured to hospital where they were pronounced dead. Police cordoned off the crime scene where they found empty shells of a 9mm pistol.

Activists and leaders of the ST staged a protest at the Civil Hospital where the bodies of the deceased were taken and demanded the immediate arrest of the killers. Sohail Qadri was a resident of BP Factory Gali in Garden while Saleem Qadri lived in Baldia Town area. The funeral prayers of the deceased took place in Baldia Town.

PM hints at early elections

ISLAMABAD: If political parties so desire, the government can take the decision to hold premature elections, Prime Minister Syed Yusuf Raza Gilani said on Sunday while talking to media persons on his return from Davos after attending the World Economic Forum Conference.

The prime minister said that in order to ensure fair, free and transparent elections, a chief election commissioner would be appointed through consensus, adding that the 20th Amendment in the Constitution would be introduced in parliament after taking all the political parties into confidence.

“The government will tackle the national issues in consultation with opposition parties, even if they are not inclined to hold talks with us,” the PM said. “In politics bridges are made and no hurdles are created. We want free and transparent elections. The members of the Election Commission were appointed through consensus, and now the chief election commissioner will also be appointed through mutual consultations.”

On mass deaths due to spurious drugs in Lahore, the prime minister said the drug control authority was under the federal government and while the other three provinces had agreed to set up such an authority, the Punjab was opposing the idea. He expressed his deep concern over the mass deaths and sympathised with the heirs of the deceased.

The prime minister said the budget would be presented in May and President Asif Ali Zardari would be the first president in the country’s history to address parliament for the fifth time. He said that the time of Article 58-2(b) was over and the prime minister would now decide when to hold elections. He said that after the passage of the fifth budget, electoral activities would start and if political parties wanted, the government could take a decision in this regard keeping in mind the exigencies of the situation.

Talking about Pakistan’s foreign policy, the prime minister said relations with the US would be established purely with Pakistan’s interests in mind. “Wee cut off the Nato supply line, got the Shamsi Airbase vacated and even boycotted the Bonn Conference. The US has now fully realised that there is no dictator in Pakistan now who will yield to all demands on the basis of one phone call. The Americans know there is democracy in Pakistan and elected representatives are handling things, which is why the US is not exerting any pressure. They must be feeling disappointed but we have to honour the popular mandate and the decision of parliament,” the prime minister said.

About his participation in the WEF at Davos, PM Gilani said experts agreed that the economy of Pakistan was gaining strength day by day. He said that the world’s financial institutions did not paint a negative portrait of Pakistan, which was considered a country following the correct economic direction.

About differences with the armed forces, he said that his meeting with the COAS and DG ISI was to discuss Afghanistan. “There is no need to repeat what I said about the army before my departure to Davos. Action has been taken against the secretary defence and the situation is now crystal clear. Any decision about the extension to DG ISI will be taken at an appropriate time,” PM Gilani added.

PM Gilani said he wanted to move beyond a series of statements that had almost cost him his government. He refused to talk about his earlier statements about the responses of the army and intelligence chief in the Memogate case before the Supreme Court. “I do not want to revisit the matter. We acted against those responsible,” he said, referring to former defence secretary Naeem Khalid Lodhi, who the premier sacked after the Inter-Services Public Relations issued a strongly-worded rejoinder to Gilani’s statement in China. About the Parliamentary Committee on National Security (PCNS) and its recommendations on the resumption of Nato supplies, the prime minister said he had not received the recommendations yet. “The people will decide what Pakistan’s relations with the US should be,” he said, adding that the committee’s recommendations would be presented before parliament through the Speaker National Assembly.

The prime minister said he had passed orders for action against Khurram Rasool after receiving a report from the Intelligence Bureau and also directed that the Interior Ministry hold an inquiry against him. He said he had already taken action against Khurram Rasool and now the matter was sub judice and the court would pass its judgment.

The prime minister said Dr Asim Hussain’s premature disclosure of an increase in petroleum prices was unwarranted. The tariff is to be decided by Ogra and not the minister, PM Gilani said.

He said action against Dr Shakeel Afridi would be taken under the Pakistani law. He said that by-polls would be held according to the Election Commission’s schedule.

He said economic indicators suggested that the prices of essential commodities were falling and that there had been an increase in foreign remittances, exports and foreign exchange reserves. The prime minister said that through the WEF conference, he had been able to present a positive identity of Pakistan and wooed foreign investors to invest in the country.

Let’s talk dirty

Mohammad Malick on 27, Jan 2012 | 11 Comments | in Category: Debate Desk

The Islamic Republic of Pakistan is supposed to be a citadel of all that is holy and sacred. It’s a ‘family value’ culture, you know. Unlike the ‘selfish, immoral westerners,’ we live and die for our families and our children. Yet, a child is raped and molested every seven hours here. And this ugly statistic is just the tip of the iceberg and accounts for only reported cases. The actual figure runs many times over.

According to studies, over 60 percent of such cases involve family members and associates. Incest too is a reality but nobody dare talk about it. Married women are dying needless deaths in dingy, secret abortion facilities because nobody is telling them how to live. Young children are being exploited for asking the right questions from the wrong people. We are a nation breeding like rabbits and dying like vermin, but nobody wants to talk about sex. It’s time we did.

A recent seminar ended up giving a peek into the dark world of our confused and lost youth. And considering that 64 percent of the 180 million Pakistanis are under 29 years of age, it’s no laughing matter. We are looking at a future lost to confusing ignorance lest we muster the courage to take this bull of moral hypocrisy by the horns.

It was a room full of promising teenagers and young men and women who in any other civilised polity would have been talking excitedly about their future but here they did not even know how to deal with the emotional and physical changes caused by puberty. I sat in utter shock and disbelief as I saw teary-eyed youngsters narrate their harrowing ordeals; their unnatural sufferings caused by merely asking the most natural of questions. Who could have imagined that even the urban and urbane Pakistani youngster had not learnt to differentiate between the ‘good touch’ and the ‘bad touch.’

Are we languishing in the dark ages?

Scared of the clergy and their mindless flocks, sexual education in Pakistan has already been rechristened as Reproductive Health Education but even then it is not being imparted where it is most needed: to our youth. Even today, this education is not even touching the ‘taboo’ subject of sexuality but merely focusing on the physical aspects of change. Why are we scared to teach our children what they must know?

Our brand of Muslims notwithstanding, Islam itself does not forbid us to teach our children about their bodies and choices. On the contrary, Islam stresses informed and educated choices. I recall the extremely conservative and hardline cleric Mufti Muneeb saying on one of my television programmes that there was nothing wrong in imparting sexual education to our young as long as female students were taught by female teachers and males by men. But in reality, neither is being allowed to do anything on the ground.

A telling example of our moral duplicity became evident in this very gathering as I overheard the remarks of a female parliamentarian from Balochistan who on her way out told a female colleague that she was “shocked by the obscene subjects being discussed.”

Obscene? What happened inside was not obscene my dear lady. What’s obscene is when a young child ends up being sexually molested by a kin or a stranger helping him ‘learn the ropes.’ What is abhorring is not children trying to understand the psychological and physical changes being caused by puberty but a child reaching out to a quack to help quell his ‘sudden unnatural urges’ and end up taking medicines that could have killed him. And these are not hypothetical scenarios but actual tragedies shared by some extremely brave youngsters.

We are not averse to marrying off girls even as young as 10 but consider it blasphemous to educate them about the involved intricacies. At 276 deaths per 100,000 live births, the mother mortality rate in Pakistan ranks amongst the highest in the world. These mothers need not die. An average 900,000 abortions are being carried out annually in Pakistan and most are taking place in illegal unhygienic facilities. Around 13 percent women reportedly die in such abortions. And no, these are not your ‘immoral loose character’ women trying to get rid of their sins.

According to authentic studies, over 99 percent of these hapless women are typically in their thirties, married, mothers of four to five children who simply cannot afford adding another member to the already financially burdened household. Abortion in Pakistan is being used as a contraceptive primarily because the overwhelming majority does not even know how to prevent them in the first instance. Ah, the vagaries of ignorance and criminal social pressures.

Our youth has been subjected to a forced crisis of ignorance harbouring immense psychological and physical consequences. Memogate, NICL, presidential immunity, PM’s volte faces, financial scandals of one ilk or another are what appear to be the priority of the media and the government. Nobody is hearing the silent screams of our young. Does anyone care about the hundreds of thousands of young girls and boys trying to deal with an otherwise simple thing like puberty? Does anyone even fathom the social ramifications of a swarming mass of confused, used, and abused youngsters who would be our next generation of adults? These children do not have access to any credible source of education in such sensitive matters.

Quacks are creating a real mess in the rural areas, while in the urban centres an increasing number of youngsters are turning to the digital abyss of the web to seek answers. Here too, porn sites offer an exaggerated sense of sexuality, which in turn sires a whole new set of complexes and complications.

It’s also incumbent upon the media to play a critical role but unfortunately it has chosen the convenient route of avoiding controversy. Instead of changing the skewered moral standards, it is going with the flow.

In what can only be rationalised as being symptomatic of the overall ignorance and insensitivity, a TV anchor recently led a flock of giggling and jostling women on live TV chasing and hounding young couples in a public park. One lady could be heard sermonising admonishments at a panic-stricken girl while hijab-clad women could be seen high-fiving after chasing away a young couple. Was this self-ordained moral brigade even aware of the fatal consequences of showing young couples on television?

Instead of helping our youth understand and cope with their natural needs we have taken it upon ourselves to impose a sense of guilt and sin on them. Could there be anything more repulsive than such irresponsible journalism, such immoral morality?

A strong argument for sexual education can be built simply on the grounds of the economic crisis caused by the stupendously exploding population, which is waylaying all development and policy initiatives. But that would again be tantamount to eschewing the real issue. Children will be curious and they should be. Questions warrant answers and they must be provided. But learning from equally ignorant peers or prying exploiters is not the way to go.

Enough damage has already been done though we are loath to admit it. After all it is the Islamic Republic of Pakistan where nobody drinks, gambling is rare, children are protected and of course incest is an unheard phenomenon.