ISLAMABAD, Pakistan — A month of military exercises began in Pakistan this weekend, the country’s biggest drills in 20 years, in what analysts said was a show of military muscle meant mainly to impress a domestic audience.
Pakistan conducts military exercises every year, an event that serves both as conventional warfare training for troops and as a display of force for India, Pakistan’s longtime rival. India, for its part, conducts similar exercises across the border.
But this year’s round is Pakistan’s largest since 1989, a military spokesman said, the year that the Soviet Union withdrew its troops from Afghanistan, and analysts say the timing is related to the military’s confidence and sense of accomplishment.
The recent capture of the Afghan Taliban’s second in command seemed to signal a turning point in Pakistan, an indication that its intelligence agency had gone from helping to cracking down on the militant Islamist group.
But U.S. officials now believe that even as Pakistan’s security forces worked with their American counterparts to detain Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar and other insurgents, the country’s Inter-Services Intelligence directorate, or ISI, quietly freed at least two senior Afghan Taliban figures it had captured on its own.
U.S. military and intelligence officials said the releases, detected by American spy agencies but not publicly disclosed, are evidence that parts of Pakistan’s security establishment continue to support the Afghan Taliban. This assistance underscores how complicated the CIA-ISI relationship remains at a time when the United States and Pakistan are battling insurgencies that straddle the Afghanistan border and are increasingly anxious about how the war in that country will end.
KABUL: Militants launched a pre-dawn attack on an Indian road construction camp in eastern Afghanistan on Saturday, burning vehicles and equipment and sending the crew fleeing, authorities said.
No deaths or injuries were reported in the attack in Khost province’s Domanda district, the Interior Ministry said in a statement. Suspected Taliban, who are active in the mountainous eastern region bordering Pakistan, descended on the camp around 2 a.m.
Such raids seek to discourage foreign involvement in Afghanistan and destabilize the central government, which is struggling to bring development to the impoverished countryside and extend its mandate outside the capital, Kabul.
ISLAMABAD: Kayani’s worldview is Pakistan centric; he is respected as his military has won victories against enemies where the superpower could not succeed; like all good military leaders, he has good political sense; having recognised the failure of pre-emptive kill-capture doctrine, the US and West are listening with more attention to his advice; the strategic and operational framework outlined by him for ongoing conflict is in-sync with the national interests and good news for Pakistan.
Having gone through the article ‘General in the hood’, one gets more convinced that a lot needs to be thought right first, before endeavouring to put right, between the two countries. The article reinforces the perception; ‘What is good for Pakistan gets portrayed as bad for India’. The urge to write became more compelling due to a deliberate effort of quoting issues, which actually form the basis of threat to Pakistan. Interestingly enough, Pakistan’s predicament is that if it is not successful against the extremists, it gets portrayed as epicentre of terrorism and threat to world, especially India, and if it succeeds, our neighbour still feels threatened and portrays these as back to Brass Tacks. The blame game continues, despite knowing far too well, the extent to which Pakistan has gone against the miscreants with tangible results.
KABUL — Senior Afghan officials are now criticizing as counterproductive the arrest in Pakistan this year of Mullah Abdul Ghani Baradar, the No. 2 Taliban official. Its main effect, the Afghan officials say, has been to derail Afghan-led efforts to secure peace talks with the Taliban, making that peace ever more remote.
The episode offers a window into the mutual suspicions that still divide Afghanistan and Pakistan, mostly because of Pakistan’s long history of support for the Taliban, as well as differences between Afghanistan, Pakistan and the United States about how best to seek reconciliation between insurgents and the Afghan government.
Senior Afghan officials in the military and presidential palace accuse Pakistan of orchestrating the arrest of Baradar and others to take down Taliban leaders most amenable to negotiations. Some of them say that Afghans had been in secret contact with Baradar before his arrest and that he was prepared to join the 1,400 people descending on Kabul next month for a peace conference. Despite Afghan requests, Pakistan has refused to hand over Baradar and other Taliban leaders.
Pakistani officials flatly deny that they intended to derail Taliban talks. Such an allegation, one Pakistani intelligence official said, is a “slur on us.”
Islamabad – Pakistan’s security establishment, unmoved by the threat from homegrown Islamic insurgents, is to launch a training exercise this week focused on the scenario of a possible showdown with traditional rival India.
The country’s powerful military is to launch exercise Azm-e-Nau (New Resolve) III to test the capacities of its men against a hypothetical Indian attack, and validate its security strategy.
The war game is the culmination of the new strategies discussed over a period of one and half years at various academic and operational levels, and will be the largest military exercise since 1989.
Director General Military Training (DGMT) Major General Muzzamil Hussain said the forthcoming exercise in the garrison city of Rawalpindi will “focus on India.”
Before we take another strategic U-turn on Afghanistan, Pakistan’s Policymakers must read this:
Pakistan is conceptualized as a theater of war in American operational plans as the term Af-Pak suggests so strategic dialog under the presence of such perception is nothing more than an illusion
One option for Pakistan is to work on isolating the extra-regional powers [countries not bordering Afghanistan] and then pitch the extra-regional powers against one another by manipulating the rifts between major EU countries (which are already wary of prolonged Afghan mission) and the U.S.
This strategic dialog is an important component of an overall military strategy led by Gen. Petraeus in which enhancing U.S image and closing the trust deficit both in COIN operations at tactical level in Afghanistan and at strategic level in Pakistan.
The idea of offering Pakistan the carrot of a prolonged negotiations for a civilian nuclear deal was floated as far back as April 2009 with the aim of aligning US and Pakistani interests
Majid Mahmood
An Assessment
Summary
Recent days have seen a deceptive shift in U.S policy towards Pakistan. In a stated aim to ‘redefine’ its relationship with Pakistan a process of strategic dialog has been orchestrated by the United States creating much buzz in Pakistan over the issue. This brief essay will examine the real purpose of this strategic dialog, American plans for the region, strategic implications for Pakistan’s continued alliance with the US, and the formulation of alternative policy options for Pakistan.
Variety of sex scandals, financial scams, land frauds in Indian army welcome General Singh
Land scams like Sukna issue await Singh n Issue of Uniformed female sex workers in India army’s Kashmir establishment set to test Singh’s nerves
Inability of Indian Army’s Armour and Artillery to fight in the night tops issues facing new Indian Army Chief
Plans to mess with China via Afghanistan appears to be on top of Singh’s war doctrine
General Singh finding it hard to re-unite Indian army that he did divide during cold war with General Kapoor
Global acknowledgment of Pak army’s capabilities to tackle challenges demoralizes new Indian Army Chief
Over the past few months, the Indian army was divided in two: half supporting former army chief Gen. Kapoor, and the other half supporting Gen. Singh, in charge of the eastern command who succeeded this month in dislodging the army chief. Now Gen. Singh’s first task is to reunite a divided army. But that’s not all. This in-depth look also shows Gen. Singh comes with other interesting plans.
Christina Palmer and Ajay Mehta
NEW DELHI—Gen V K Singh, the senior most infantry officer of the Indian army took over as the country’s 26th Army Chief after winning the notorious ‘War of the Generals’ with General Deepak Kapoor on Thursday with a variety of spicy scandals, juicy scams, serious disciplinary, administrative as well as technical issues waiting to test his nerves, reveal the findings of a The Daily Mail investigation.
Fifty-nine-year-old Singh, who took over from arch rival Gen Deepak Kapoor, who retired from service, has become the 26th chief and will stay at the helm of the 1.13 million personnel-strong ‘night blind’ Army of India for a period exceeding two years.
RAIPUR: A day after 76 troopers were massacred in the worst ever Maoist attack, hundreds of para-military men and state police personnel assigned to track down the killers are scared to enter the jungles of Chhattisgarh Wednesday fearing a repeat of the ‘bloody Tuesday’ incident.
The shell-shocked police incumbent here have ordered nearly 40,000 policemen deployed in the restive Bastar region to retaliate.
But officials posted in the interiors of the region say: “The Tuesday attack has rattled the entire police force engaged in the anti-Maoist operation and they are now reluctant to enter the landmine protected jungle terrain”.
“It’s easy for everyone to dictate to us from New Delhi and Raipur sitting in air-conditioned chambers, but here the situation is completely hostile because Maoists rule the roost in jungles. The forces in Bastar now need urgent motivation,” a police officer based in Dantewada said on phone.
Seventy-three security personnel were killed on Tuesday when over 700 Maoist guerrillas in Chhattisgarh’s Bastar region ambushed a 120-member contingent of the Central Reserve Police Force (CRPF) by first bombing and then opening fire.
In what is one of the biggest Maoist attacks in the country, the guerrillas triggered multiple blasts and then fired indiscriminately at the CRPF team in the Chintalnar forested hamlet of Dantewada district, about 450 km south from here, in violence-hit Bastar.
More than two dozen personnel were injured.
According to Dantewarda Superintendent of Police Amaresh Mishra, the dead included 72 troopers from the 62nd battalion of the CRPF and one state police officer.
“A massive contingent of heavily armed Maoists ambushed a CRPF team in a hilly stretch. They first triggered blasts from all directions and followed by indiscriminate firing,” Vishwa Ranjan, director general of police, told IANS.
MARJA, Afghanistan — Since their offensive here in February, the Marines have flooded Marja with hundreds of thousands of dollars a week. The tactic aims to win over wary residents by paying them compensation for property damage or putting to work men who would otherwise look to the Taliban for support.
The approach helped turn the tide of insurgency in Iraq. But in Marja, where the Taliban seem to know everything — and most of the time it is impossible to even tell who they are — they have already found ways to thwart the strategy in many places, including killing or beating some who take the Marines’ money, or pocketing it themselves.
Just a few weeks since the start of the operation here, the Taliban have “reseized control and the momentum in a lot of ways” in northern Marja, Maj. James Coffman, civil affairs leader for the Third Battalion, Sixth Marines, said in an interview in late March. “We have to change tactics to get the locals back on our side.”
KABUL: Afghan President Hamid Karzai threatened over the weekend to quit the political process and join the Taliban if he continued to come under outside pressure to reform, according to several members of parliament.
They said on Monday that Karzai made the unusual statement at a closed-door meeting on Saturday with selected lawmakers — just days after kicking up a diplomatic controversy with remarks alleging foreigners were behind fraud in last year’s disputed elections.
Lawmakers dismissed the latest comment as hyperbole, but it will add to the impression the president — who relies on tens of thousands of US and NATO forces to fight the insurgency and prop up his government — is growing increasingly erratic and unable to exert authority without attacking his foreign backers.
“He said that ‘if I come under foreign pressure, I might join the Taliban’,” said Farooq Marenai, who represents the eastern province of Nangarhar.
WASHINGTON: US President Barack Obama said he is confident that Pakistan has secured its nuclear weapons.
Obama, however, reiterated that he was concerned about global nuclear security, not just in Pakistan.
In an interview with the New York Times, President Obama said his new approach to nuclear non-proliferation is different from that of the Bush administration.
Obama is scheduled to announce the new US policy for non-proliferation later Tuesday.
When asked what he had done specifically to ensure Pakistan’s nuclear weapons’ safety, Obama said he was not going to divulge details about Pakistan’s nuclear programme.
Obama explained that his biggest concerns were about securing loose nuclear material, which the terrorists were more likely to obtain
A nuclear summit is scheduled to be held in the US capital on April 12 and 13, aimed at achieving a global consensus on limiting proliferation and preventing terrorists from acquiring nuclear technology.
ISLAMABAD: Two former officials of the premier intelligence agency, Inter Services Intelligence (ISI), and a free lance journalist have gone missing in suspicious circumstances from Kohat.
Family sources of the missing ISI officials Col (retired) Imam and Sq Leader (retired) Khalid Khawaja revealed that these officers were assisting the free lance journalist Asad Qureshi who was making a documentary on Taliban and Al-Qaeda.
They were on way back to their homes after having a meeting with the Taliban leadership in tribal areas when they were allegedly picked up by unknown people. It is yet not clear who kidnapped them.
However, it is pertinent to mention that both the former ISI officers were having close relations with Taliban and Al-Qaeda leadership.—DawnNews
Militants targeted the US Consulate in Peshawar today with multiple bombs and gun attacks as renewed violence in north-western Pakistan left more than 40 people dead.
Gunmen wearing paramilitary uniforms opened fire outside the consulate from two vehicles before the explosions that shook the high-security district, which also houses key government offices.
Gunmen wearing paramilitary uniforms opened fire outside the consulate from two vehicles before the explosions that shook the high-security district, which also houses key government offices.
WASHINGTON: The Pentagon is actively lobbying for more pressure on New Delhi to ease tensions between India and Pakistan, the Wall Street Journal has reported. It has also revealed that US President Barack Obama had issued a secret directive to intensify diplomacy towards that aim and to win Islamabad’s cooperation in Afghanistan.
Asserting that without détente between the two rivals, US efforts to win Pakistani cooperation in Afghanistan would suffer, the directive in December concluded that India must make resolving its tensions with Pakistan a priority for progress to be made on US goals in the region, the daily said citing “people familiar with its contents”.
A debate continues within the administration over how hard to push India, which has long resisted outside intervention in the conflict with its neighbour. The Pentagon, in particular, has sought more pressure on New Delhi, the influential daily said citing US and Indian officials.
Pirzada Hasaan Hashmi | Edited by PKKH editorial team
Pakistan’s civil nuclear program had started in 1956 when Pakistan Atomic Energy Commission was established. It was well before Pakistan jumped into the race to make Nuclear weapons.
It was Munir Ahmed Khan who told the Foreign Minister of Pakistan of that time, Mr. Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto, during his visit to Vienna in 1965 about the emergence of Indian nuclear program.
After that Mr Zulfiqar Ali Bhutto arranged a meeting of Munir Ahmed Khan with President Ayub Khan in which, Munir Ahmed Khan gave an estimate of the cost to launch such a program in Pakistan to be around 150 million. President Ayub Khan refused the whole idea! President Ayub’s decision put Pakistan almost 7 years behind the Indian nuclear program at that time.
WASHINGTON, March 29 (UPI) — It was Pakistan’s week in Washington with much talk of a new, deeper geopolitical understanding between the United States and a “major non-NATO ally.” The star was Pakistan’s army chief, Gen. Ashfaq Kayani, and the country’s de facto politico-military power.
The Pakistani army has taken over from ineffectual, corrupt civilian governments four times since independence. This time, the civilians haven’t been ousted but outed as incompetent and irrelevant. President Asif Zardari, widower of Benazir Bhutto, is slowly ceding his frequently ignored powers and turning them over to Wazir-e-Azam (Grand Minister, or Prime Minister in Western governments) Yousuf Raza Gilani and his civilian government. But they can’t seem to keep major cities in around-the-clock electric power, let alone basic foodstuffs. Water shortages also plague Pakistan’s 175 million people.
Anyone foolish enough to write on war or peace in the Indus needs to first banish a set of immediate suspicions. I am neither Indian nor Pakistani. I am a South African who has worked on water issues in the subcontinent for 35 years and who has lived in Bangladesh (in the 1970s) and Delhi (in the 2000s). In 2006 I published, with fine Indian colleagues, an Oxford University Press book titled India’s Water Economy: Facing a Turbulent Future and, with fine Pakistani colleagues, one titled Pakistan’s Water Economy: Running Dry.
I was the Senior Water Advisor for the World Bank who dealt with the appointment of the Neutral Expert on the Baglihar case. My last assignment at the World Bank (relevant, as described later) was as Country Director for Brazil. I am now a mere university professor, and speak in the name of no one but myself.
I have deep affection for the people of both India and Pakistan, and am dismayed by what I see as a looming train wreck on the Indus, with disastrous consequences for both countries. I will outline why there is no objective conflict of interests between the countries over the waters of the Indus Basin, make some observations of the need for a change in public discourse, and suggest how the drivers of the train can put on the brakes before it is too late.
Is there an inherent conflict between India and Pakistan?
President says governments trying to weaken him and that foreign troops risk becoming occupation force
The Obama administration said today it was “troubled” by accusations from the Afghan president that the west was trying to weaken him and that foreign troops risked becoming an occupation force.
White House spokesman Robert Gibbs said there was concern over a speech yesterday in which Hamid Karzai sought to turn charges that he stole Afghanistan’s presidential election on their head by blaming what he termed “vast fraud” in last August’s poll on an attempt by the UN and international organisations to deny him victory or discredit his win.
UNITED NATIONS, April 2 (UPI) — Afghan and U.S. leaders should be grilled by a U.N. panel examining the assassination of Pakistani leader Benazir Bhutto, her husband said.
Bhutto, a former prime minister of Pakistan, was killed Dec. 27, 2007, following a campaign rally for her Pakistan People’s Party. She had returned to Pakistan from exile to run in January 2008 parliamentary elections.
SISTANI: The tribal elders gathered in the desert outside Marjah, the frontline of the US-led battle in southern Afghanistan to provide services and security after years of Taliban control.
Around 20 sat in a circle, waiting for Lieutenant Colonel Brian Christmas, US Marine commander in northern Marjah who has – so far – kept American troops out of the small village of Sistani to the northwest.
Nearly two months after US Marines led what was billed the biggest offensive against the Taliban in more than eight years of war, troops still come under daily fire from insurgents and bombs are still exploding.
Four recent bomb attacks wounded at least nine US or Afghan service personnel and clashes between Marines and insurgents are frequent.
Why would US like any progress towards solving people’s problem in Pakistan? They have always wanted a subjugated, weak and dependent Pakistan and they would never want Pakistan to take practical measures to solve its age-old problems.
WASHINGTON: The United States urged Pakistan on Thursday to reconsider its deal with Iran for building a multi-billion-dollar pipeline intended to bring the much-needed natural gas to the energy starved country.
“We do not think it is the right time for doing this kind of transaction with Iran,” US Assistant Secretary of State Robert Blake told a briefing in Washington.
Mr Blake, who looks after South and Central Asian affairs at the State Department, returned this week from a trip to India, Pakistan, Afghanistan and Belgium where he discussed the current situation in South Asia with his European colleagues as well. The US official told reporters at a briefing in Washington that the issue of the Iran-Pakistan gas pipeline was raised in his meetings in Pakistan, particularly in public discussions.
