The dialogue of the deaf last Thursday had one clear winner, Pakistan, and one comprehensive loser, India. Prime Minister Manmohan Singh capitulated again and will live to regret it
Last week India talked to ‘Pakistan’ amid much fanfare and media hype. I say Pakistan within quotes because that country cannot be described as a composite nation-state in the conventional sense. And, on issues relating to India, Pakistan is divided into many segments, at least five. First there is the Army, which controls Pakistan’s political, economic and military destiny whether formally in power or nominally in the barracks. Next is the ISI, the all-encompassing superpower in the Pakistani establishment, which functions as a state within the state. Read the rest of this entry ?
New Pakistani Envoy to Syria “Invades” School With Family!
The new Pakistani ambassador to Syria, appointed by President Zardari, has summarily sacked the entire staff and faculty of the Pakistan International School in Damascus and appointed almost all his immediate family members for a collective monthly salary of $38,000 (Rs3.2 million).
The sacked teachers and staff members of the school run by the embassy, who were removed for no reasons and without any prior notice, have been compelled to go into litigation against the Pakistan Embassy, The News has learnt.
The Pakistan International School in Damascus (PISOD) is run by the embassy of Pakistan but within five months after the arrival of new ambassador, Aminullah Raisani, in September 2009, the management and faculty of the school was changed altogether without giving any reason and the school was stuffed with the relatives of the ambassador.
By Anjum Niaz | The News
The yellow sticky ‘post-it’ became Benazir’s Achilles Heel. It’s alleged that she would use them whenever she didn’t want to leave a permanent record on the files. As prime minister, she often appointed people based not on merit. President Farooq Leghari knew what was going on. He was from her party. But when he had had enough of jobbery, he dug out all the yellow ‘stickies’ and prepared a dossier based on them to dismiss her government.
Prime Minister Gilani and President Zardari are today following the same unethical practice of a spoils system. The ambassador to Syria is the latest howler. He’s Zardari’s appointee. A mere graduate, we’re told. Ambassador Aminullah Raisani has carted his whole extended family to Damascus and provided them with jobs at the Pakistan International School. How smart is that! During his two-year term, the man will rake in close to a million dollars as salaries paid to his sister Saeeda (who has been made the principal); another sister Ms Abbas (Urdu teacher); daughters Amna and Quratulein (teachers-at-large) brother-in-law Ishaque (accountant); nephews Atiq and Ali (business teachers); granddaughter Nayla (math teacher); son-in-law of sister Abdullah and cousin Ahsan (teachers without portfolio); and cousin Rasheed (biology teacher).
Pulling off the attack in central Kabul — in one of the most secure neighborhoods in Afghanistan’s most secure city — was designed to send a message that the Taliban is not intimidated by the stepped-up military offensive
“They’re trying to up the pressure and send a message that you guys aren’t defeating us,”
“No matter what the coalition does, it can’t win, “It’s a very smart strategy.
Reporting from Kabul, Afghanistan, and New Delhi – A coordinated attack early Friday, which killed at least 16 people and targeted a hotel and guesthouse in central Kabul, underscored the shifting tactics of Taliban insurgents and their keen understanding of geopolitical implications.
Above, clockwise from left: John Burke’s Irish passport, which was returned to his father after his death; a photograph that appeared with the obituary of Muhammad Omar in Al Jihad magazine, following his death in April 1989; the site in Afghanistan that is believed to be John Burke’s grave; an excerpt from one of his letters to his father, describing his time on the front in Afghanistan. Photographs courtesy of the Burke family
For The Irish Times , this story began with a note in a book, about an Irishman who had died fighting in 1980s Afghanistan. Foreign Correspondent MARY FITZGERALD traced his origins to a terraced house in Clonmel, where a father still grieves for John Burke, Tipperary man and Ireland’s only known jihadi ‘martyr’
On a Sun-Bleached plain some 30km from the city of Jalalabad in eastern Afghanistan lies what is believed to be the final resting place of the only Irish person known to have died in the cause of jihad. As is the custom in that part of the world, his is a simple grave, its boundaries marked by a circle of stones. It is also anonymous; there is no headstone or plaque to tell what few travellers may pass by this remote spot that here lies Muhammad Omar, born John Gerard Burke in Clonmel, Co Tipperary, in October 1962; died April 1989.
There are several accounts of the circumstances surrounding his death.
ISLAMABAD: Washington wants Islamabad to put in place a restriction free and uniform visa regime for its diplomats and embassy staff posted here allowing them to carry out ‘full range of activities’.
“We look forward to creation of a visa mechanism that will enable US officials do their jobs without interference,” US Ambassador Anne Patterson said in a statement issued by the embassy’s Office of Public Affairs.
Delays in issuing and extension of visas of American diplomats and other embassy staff posted here remained a major irritant in relations between the two countries.
The government recently issued most of the requested visas in an effort to placate an angry Washington, which had linked it to the release of the deferred Coalition Support Fund reimbursements.
Although, the backlog is yet to be fully cleared and some of the visas are still being processed, Ambassador Patterson acknowledged progress was being made. “Prime Minister Gilani’s offer to work with the United States to establish a transparent process on visas that will enable us to undertake full range of activities … is a positive development.”
The Observer Reliance Foundation( ORF ) Institute for Strategic Studies website carries the transcript of the 30th Bhimsen Sachar Memorial Lecture delivered in New Delhi by its President General (retired) Ved Prakash Malik a former Chief of Staff of the Indian Army. This document is astonishing because Indian generals are not known for open criticism of the political leadership and senior bureaucracy. Perhaps General Malik is following a trend started by the retiring Chief of the Indian Army—Deepak Kumar—who advocated preparation for a two front war against China and Pakistan and spoke about ‘limited war under a nuclear overhang’—thoughts that were not endorsed by the political leadership and if anything, were seen as a foray into policy making domains by the military. General Malik takes the argument further by a display of military (retired military!) machismo against timid leaders (political) incapable of strategic thought!
THE INDIAN CLAIM TO JAMMU AND KASHMIR – A REAPPRAISAL:
The formal overt Indian intervention in the internal affairs of the State of Jammu and Kashmir began on about 9.00 a.m. on 27 October 1947, when Indian troops started landing at Srinagar airfield. India has officially dated the commencement of its claim that the State was part of Indian sovereign territory to a few hours earlier, at some point in the afternoon or evening of 26 October. From their arrival on 27 October 1947 to the present day, Indian troops have continued to occupy a large proportion of the State of Jammu and Kashmir despite the increasingly manifest opposition of a majority of the population to their presence. To critics of India’s position and actions in the State of Jammu and Kashmir the Government of New Delhi has consistently declared that the State of Jammu and Kashmir lies entirely within the sphere of internal Indian policy. Do the facts support the Indian contention in this respect?
The State of Jammu and Kashmir was a Princely State within the British Indian Empire. By the rules of the British transfer of power in Indian subcontinent in 1947 the Ruler of the State, Maharajah Sir Hari Singh, with the departure of the British and the lapsing of Paramountcy (as the relationship between State and British Crown was termed), could opt to join either India or Pakistan or, by doing nothing, become from 15 August 1947 the Ruler of an independent polity. The choice was the Ruler’s and his alone: there was no provision for popular consultation in the Indian Princely States during the final days of the British Raj. On 15th August 1947, by default, the State of Jammu and Kashmir became independent.
The Delhi politicians wanted the talks, but only as a PR exercise–not as a vehicle to make peace with a neighbor. The Zardari Administration was too eager for talks–and should have held out. Mentioning Kashmir during the talks achieves nothing. Unless and until Delhi decides that the cost of war in South Asia is an impediment to tis regional role–Bharat will continue to play Russian Roulette with the lives of more than 1.5 billion people of South Asia.
There is no point to talking to Delhi–Pakistan has tried talking to the bigots in Bharat for 60 years. It serves no purpose at ll.
Bharat has been unable to resolve border disputes with any of her neighbors. It has lost friendships with Nepal, Bhutan, Lanka, China, Myanmar, and Pakistan.
The Afghan Taliban’s top military commander, who was recently detained in Pakistan, is not to be extradited, the Lahore High Court has ruled.
Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar was arrested in early February. The court also banned extraditing four other Taliban chiefs reportedly seized recently.
But Pakistan has not confirmed the identities of any other militants held.
The order was in response to a petition filed by a rights activist to prevent the detainees from being sent abroad.
“The high court has ordered that none of the leaders should be handed over to the US or Afghanistan,” Tariq Asad, a lawyer handling the petition told the BBC.
“The court has also said that none, other than Pakistan intelligence or security officials should be given access to the Taliban leaders,” he said.
The court also ruled that the government should provide answers about the grounds on which the men were arrested.
Almighty Allah sent about 124,000 Prophets to this world for the guidance and salvation of mankind. The last and greatest of His Prophets was Prophet Muhammad (S.A.W.W). What was unique about Prophet Muhammad (S.A.W.W) was that he was sent for the whole of humanity rather than just for a certain nation in a confined region. The last and final scripture of Allah, The Qur’an was revealed upon him and it is a complete life manual from Allah to the whole of mankind until The Judgement Day. The primary purpose of the designation of Prophet Muhammad (S.A.W.W) as the last Messenger of Allah was the establishment of the rule of Allah and the implementation of His commandments on this Earth by delivering the completed version of His divine revelation.
In his life time, Prophet Muhammad (S.A.W.W) established a true Islamic State in Madina, with the system of governance totally compliant with the rules of Allah. After his demise, his loyal companions then expanded the Islamic State to include the whole of Middle East as “Khulafa” and then under the leadership of subsequent leaders the “Islamic Caliphate” stretched to span over three continents. At that time, the believers of Allah were a single nation, the entire land was a single entity under the rule of Allah.
Then the sinister game of the millenium was played to break down the Islamic Caliphate into pieces so as to weaken the Muslim Ummah, exploit and damage it in every possible way. At this point, the Muslim world is in its worst shape and suffering from all kinds of problems and miseries. But, after all this decline, Islam and Muslims are destined to rise again and the rule of Allah is going to be supreme rule. It is high time in history the Muslims of the world should come together and Muslim states must reunite to form “United States of Islam”, A single Muslim bloc where everything will be done according to Qur’an and Sunnah and the Supreme law will only be Allah’s law.
We welcome the launch of the new blog “United States of Islam” dedicated to unite muslims across the globe and prepare them for the destiny that awaits. This blog is primarily intended to be the proponent of Muslim Unity and the establishment of a single Islamic Bloc, where the system of governance will be in accordance with true teachings of Islam, Commandments of Allah and the Guidance of Rasool Allah (S.A.W.W) could be established Insha’Allah.
Introductory video for USI Blog and USI Films can be seen here:
On Tuesday Feb. 23, Iran announced the capture of Abdulmalek Rigi, the boss of the terror organization Jundullah, which works for NATO. The capture of Rigi represents a serious setback for the US-UK strategy of using false flag state-sponsored terrorism against Iran and Pakistan, and ultimately to sabotage China’s geopolitics of oil. The Iranians claim to have captured Rigi all by themselves, but the Pakistani ambassador to Teheran is quoted in The Dawn as claiming an important role for Pakistan. The Iranians say that Rigi was attempting to fly from Dubai to Kyrgystan, and that his plane was forced to land in Iran by Iranian interceptors. This exploit recalls Oliver North’s 1985 intercept of the accused Achille Lauro perpetrators, including Abu Abbas, forcing their Egyptian plane to land at Sigonella, Sicily. But other and perhaps more realistic versions suggest that Iran was tipped off by the Pakistanis, or even that Rigi was captured by Pakistan and delivered to the Iranians.
Taliban guerrillas attacked a hotel and a guesthouse in central Kabul in a dawn assault that killed at least 17 people including 9 Indians.
Three suicide bombers struck at the Park Residence Hotel and the Aria Guesthouse nearby, in the Shahr-i-Nau neighborhood, where many international aid organizations, companies and diplomatic missions are located.
The attack targeted “an Indian guesthouse,” Taliban spokesman Zabihullah Mujahid said in a phone interview. Read the rest of this entry ?
The American Dream: A Terror-Sponsoring Nefarious Terrorist State!
Shouldn’t the United States of America be declared a hostile terrorist state?
The captured ringleader of the Jundallah terrorist group, Abdolmalek Rigi, has confessed that the US administration had assured him of unlimited military aid and funding for waging an insurgency against the Islamic Republic of Iran.
The attempt to drive Islamists and young Asian activists out of the political mainstream is a dangerous folly.
If young British Muslims had any doubts that they are singled out for special treatment in the land of their birth, the punishments being meted out to those who took part in last year’s London demonstrations against Israel’s war on Gaza will have dispelled them. The protests near the Israeli embassy at the height of the onslaught were angry: bottles and stones were thrown, a Starbucks was trashed and the police employed unusually violent tactics, even by the standards of other recent confrontations, such as the G20 protests.
But a year later, it turns out that it’s the sentences that are truly exceptional. Of 119 people arrested, 78 have been charged, all but two of them young Muslims (most between the ages of 16 and 19), according to Manchester University’s Joanna Gilmore, even though such figures in no way reflect the mix of those who took part. In the past few weeks, 15 have been convicted, mostly of violent disorder, and jailed for between eight months and two-and-a-half years – having switched to guilty pleas to avoid heavier terms. Another nine are up to be sentenced tomorrow.
Many of us are still in a state of shock over the guilty verdict returned on Dr Aafia Siddiqui.
The response from the people of Pakistan was predictable and overwhelming and I salute their spontaneous actions.
From Peshawar to Islamabad, Karachi, Lahore and beyond they marched in their thousands demanding the return of Aafia.
Even some of the US media expressed discomfort over the verdict returned by the jurors … there was a general feeling that something was not right.
Everyone had something to say, everyone that is except the usually verbose US Ambassador Anne Patterson who has spent the last two years briefing against Dr Aafia and her supporters.
This is the same woman who claimed I was a fantasist when I gave a press conference with Tehreek e Insaf leader Imran Khan back in July 2008 revealing the plight of a female prisoner in Bagram called the Grey Lady.
She said I was talking nonsense and stated categorically that the prisoner I referred to as “650” did not exist.
By the end of the month she changed her story and said there had been a female prisoner but that she was most definitely not Dr Aafia Siddiqui.
By that time Aafia had been gunned down at virtually point blank range in an Afghan prison cell jammed full of more than a dozen US soldiers, FBI agents and Afghan police.
Her Excellency briefed the media that the prisoner had wrested an M4 gun from one soldier and fired off two rounds and had to be subdued. The fact these bullets failed to hit a single person in the cell and simply disappeared did not resonate with the diplomat.
In a letter dripping in untruths on August 16 2008 she decried the “erroneous and irresponsible media reports regarding the arrest of Ms Aafia Siddiqui”. She went on to say: “Unfortunately, there are some who have an interest in simply distorting the facts in an effort to manipulate and inflame public opinion. The truth is never served by sensationalism…”
BY SYLVIA VILLALOBOS (Philippines) | PKKH Exclusive
The “largest democracy in the world” does not have clean human rights records. Every year, thousands of people are imprisoned for political reasons, often without charges of trials. Torture and ill-treatment are common, and hundreds have died in custody. Hundreds more are victims of extra-judicial executions or forced “disappearances”. Armed groups commit grave human rights violations, including killings, tortures and rapes, with impunity.
Each day the survivors are denied their rights to knowledge, justice and reparation, their anguish are compounded, their nightmare prolonged, and their alienation deepened. Until India ends impunity for these genocidal killings,”, “it will continue to be a nation ruled by men, and not the law.”
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — Pakistan’s arrest of the top Taliban military commander may be a tactical victory for the United States, but it is also potentially a strategic coup for Pakistan, officials and analysts here and in Afghanistan said.
Pakistan has removed a key Taliban commander, enhanced cooperation with the United States and ensured a place for itself when parties explore a negotiated end to the Afghan war.
The arrest followed weeks of signals by Pakistan’s military chief, Gen. Ashfaq Parvez Kayani — to NATO officials, Western journalists and military analysts — that Pakistan wanted to be included in any attempts to mediate with the Taliban.
Even before the arrest of the Taliban commander, Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, a senior Pakistani intelligence official expressed irritation that Pakistan had been excluded from what he described as American and Afghan approaches to the Taliban.
ISLAMABAD – The presence of Jundullah’s top man Abdol Malek Rigi in Afghanistan, a day prior to his arrest, is seen as part of covert meetings between US and Indian diplomats with Taliban and some unidentified leaders.
This newspaper, earlier, first published a story on January 30 last and a subsequent story on February 7 that a series of covert meetings were taking place between US and Indian diplomats with Taliban leaders, however, the whereabouts and origins of these leaders could not be ascertained due to the lack of sufficient details and highly covert manner in which these meetings were arranged.
UN based sources in Afghanistan informed this scribe on Wednesday that they were frequently getting reports regarding the presence of top brass of some banned outfits including those jihadi outfits the chiefs of which had lucrative head-moneys and were involved in terrorist activities in this region. Although the exact details regarding the visits of Abdol Malek Rigi to Afghanistan at any specific venue are still required because of his “lack of facial familiarity and acquaintance” within the locals, yet his frequent covert visits remained under heated discussions in informed Afghan quarters lately.
ISLAMABAD: More than 100 Pakistani Baloch dissidents have been sent to India by the Indian consulate located in Kandahar (Afghanistan) for six-month training, The News learnt here on Friday.
“We have credible reports that the Indian consulate in Kandahar dispatched more than 100 Pakistani Baloch dissidents during the second week of December 2009 for six-month training in India,” an intelligence source told The News on condition of anonymity.
The source said the men sent for training in India were selected from areas bordering Pakistan as well as Baloch nationals residing in different camps in Kandahar maintained under arrangements of the Afghan and Indian intelligence operatives.
RAWALPINDI: The military leadership has announced victory formally against the militants in Swat and Waziristan and stressed on the civilian government to take control of these areas soon hence army will support it.
The announcement to this effect was made during briefing to the Senate Defense committee at GHQ here on Tuesday.
Chief of the Army Staff General Ashfaq Pervez Kiyani also attended the meeting, who also held meetings with all the committee members.
The senate defense committee headed by its chairman Lt. Gen (Retd) Javed Ashraf Qazi and its other members included deputy chairman senate Jan Mohammad Jamali, Raja Zafar-ul-Haq, Haji Adeel, Waqar Ahmad Khan, Prof. Khurshid, Sardar Ali Khan and Maulana Mohammad Shirani.
No sooner did Pakistan arrest leading Afghan Taliban figures, conspiracy theories surfaced in the US media in an attempt to malign Pakistan. Indians and their apologists in US were at the forefront of this campaign. Far from appreciating Pakistani stand, strong signs exist that CIA continues its double game against Pakistan. Despite statements to the contrary, Washington continues to bet on the puppet regime of President Asif Ali Zardari.
ISLAMABAD, Pakistan—The US duplicity in its dealings with Pakistan continues unabated and I have always maintained that the scale of their enterprise in destabilizing Pakistan can only be understood by finding linkages in seemingly unconnected events and publications.
Just when the Pakistan military has taken a strong position on its military operations in FATA and the pull towards dialogue with the tribals is becoming evident, the US subversive activities against Pakistan are becoming more overt, and old CIA connections are taking centre stage again including so-called “experts” on Pakistan! Let us look at some recent developments and see the linkages.
