Pakistans Tribal Areas

What kind of negotiations is government doing with taliban in the frontiers….
Ask these militants to write down their demands as to what type of Shariat do they want there.

And ask these Hardliners to attach the reference of any Hadhees and Quran …with all their demands….

So that we also know ..and they also should know whether the demands they are making such as no education for girls etc are according to the Islam or not….let them find out any hadees ..i am sure when they will try to bring support or prove for their demands ..they hey will not be able to find out anything for their demands.The government should make public these negotiations and do some intense publications such as pamphlets and news papers and distribute in these troubled areas …mentioning Hadhees and Quranic references against their unjust demands …….so that an ordinary tribes man and ordinary Illiterate man can understand Islam….. These kinds of brochures and pamphlets needed to be distributed through mosques and dropped down by airplanes …in thousands of numbers..so that they reach every corner of the frontiers……..And it should be published in the Local news papers of frontiers and tribal areas..not the big cities …So that the illiterate ordinary boy or girls can no longer come in the tricks these people play with their minds to make them suicide bombers……But this kind of a thing has to be on a very intense and on a very large scale…

Secondly what steps is government taking to unwashed the brains of these militants when they are caught or when they surrender……. ..These militants should be passed through an intense course or procedure …where they are taught true islam about suicide bombings and many other things, like music, girls education, and concept of Jihad etc etc …… They should not be released before they are passed through such exams….. These kinds of experiment has been done in Saudi Arabia ..and later those militants accepted that they were wrong…..Such a procedure is much more needed in Pakistan than Saudi Arabia…..

Dr. Afia Siddiqui missing since 2003

An MIT-educated Pakistani woman once identified as a possible Al-Qaeda associate has been brought to New York to face charges she tried to kill US agents and military officers during an interrogation in Afghanistan, federal prosecutors said. Aafia Siddiqui, who was shot and wounded last month during the confrontation, was expected to be arraigned in federal court in Manhattan on charges of attempted murder and assault, US Attorney Michael Garcia said in a statement. A lawyer for her family said the allegations are false. A Pakistani government statement said the country’s ambassador to Washington had sought consular access to Siddiqui. US prosecutors and Afghan police gave different accounts of her arrest and the shooting incident.
Federal prosecutors said in a statement that Siddiqui, 36, was arrested outside the governor’s office in Afghanistan’s Ghazni province on July 17 after police searched her handbag and found documents on making explosives, excerpts from the book “Anarchist’s Arsenal” and descriptions of New York City landmarks. While detained in a meeting room, Siddiqui grabbed an M-4 assault rifle from a US Army warrant officer who had placed the weapon on the floor not knowing she was being held there, the statement said. Two FBI agents were also in the room. Siddiqui fired at least twice at the captain but the shots missed as a military interpreter lunged at her. The warrant officer then shot her with his pistol, the statement said. “Despite being shot, Siddiqui struggled with the officers when they tried to subdue her; she struck and kicked them while shouting in English that she wanted to kill Americans,” it said, adding she then lost consciousness and was given medical treatment. The Afghan police in Ghazni told a different story. They said officers searched Siddiqui after reports of her suspicious behavior and found maps of Ghazni, including one of the governor’s house, and arrested her along with a teenage boy.
US troops demanded the woman be handed over to them but the police refused, a senior Ghazni police officer said. US soldiers then disarmed the Afghan police, at which point Siddiqui approached the Americans complaining of mistreatment by the police, the officer said. The US troops, the officer said, “thinking that she had explosives and would attack them as a suicide bomber, shot her and took her.” The boy remained in police custody.
Siddiqui and her three children disappeared from her parents’ home in the port city of Karachi in 2003 and Pakistani human rights groups said they believed she had been held at Bagram, the main US base in Afghanistan, all these years. Her family yesterday sought her repatriation, terming the US accusations an attempt to “cover up” her five-year illegal detention, rape and torture at Bagram. The family said Siddiqui and her children were in fact arrested by Pakistani intelligence agents in Karachi in March 2003, after she was the subject of an FBI alert for alleged links with Al-Qaeda. At an emotional press conference in Karachi, her sister Fauzia Siddiqui said: “After five years of detention, Aafia was suddenly ‘discovered’ in Afghanistan? I am not that much of a believer in coincidence.” The Human Rights Commission of Pakistan also termed the US claims as lies. “To say that she had been taken into custody only on July 17, 2008 is a blatant lie,” it said. “The insinuation that she had been hiding with her children since 2003 is a travesty of truth.” “Dr. Aafia’s case is a reminder of the grave injustice done to God knows how many Pakistanis in US detention facilities in Bagram in Afghanistan, Guantanamo Bay and elsewhere, who have been listed as missing,” the commission said in a statement. US intelligence agencies have said that Siddiqui has links to at least two of the 14 men suspected of being high-level members of Al-Qaeda who were moved to Guantanamo in September 2006.
A US government statement said Siddiqui helped Majid Khan, a former Baltimore resident and terrorism suspect held in Guantanamo, get documents to re-enter the United States. The statement said Ali Abd Al-Aziz Ali, known as Ammar Al-Baluchi ordered Siddiqui to help Khan in his paperwork.

Who was behind Shahanshah’s murder?

The murder of Khalid Shahanshah, incharge of PPP co-Chairman Asif Zardari’s security, was the second targeted killing of a Pakistan People’s Party (PPP) chief security officer. Three years ago, Munawar Suharwardi, chief of security to the late Benazir Bhutto, was also killed in a targeted hit in Karachi in a similar manner. Benazir had termed the murder a message from the military rulers to her. Benazir, as we know now, was ultimately assassinated.Like the murder of Suharwardi three years ago, the assassination of Shahanshah has also been termed by PPP aides as a ‘message’ – this time to Zardari, who became the chief of the PPP after the assassination of his spouse Benazir. One parallel between the two assassinations is that Khalid Shahanshah was killed driving out of his residence, as was Munawar Suharwardi. Another potentially contentious point about Shahanshah’s murder is that he was a key witness to Benazir’s assassination in 2007. The then government had even taken him into custody as a part of the investigation into the incident. He was later released.Shahanshah survived death twice before – first on October 18, 2007, when twin bomb blasts rocked Benazir Bhutto’s welcome rally in Karachi, and later on December 27, 2007, when Benazir was killed in Rawalpindi. The killing of his chief security officer has shocked the PPP co-chairman. He has expressed grief and sorrow over the death of his loyal security officer and directed the provincial government to take steps to arrest the killers. Zardari will not attend the funeral of his chief security officer due to security reasons. Shahanshah was busy in arrangements for the birthday celebrations of Zardari on July 26. After his death, the party has cancelled all celebrations for the day.Sindh Chief Minister Syed Qaim Ali Shah, and almost all the cabinet ministers and advisers, have also expressed concern and offered condolences to Shahanshah’s family. Sindh Home Minister Dr Zulfiqar Mirza rushed to the hospital immediately after the murder and described the killing as a barbarous act and a conspiracy against the democratic system.He said that those involved in the bomb blasts in Karachi were also behind this murder, and that the government would take every possible step to arrest the killers. Shahanshah was an activist of the People’s Student Federation (PSF) and later played an active role as a party worker till his death. He had also contested an election for a seat in the National Assembly on a PPP ticket from the Muttahida Qaumi Movement’s (MQM) stronghold, Azizabad, in 2002. Being an active worker and a close aide to the late Munawar Suharwardi, he served the party with zest and enthusiasm. Later, he left the country and lived in exile in the United States. When Benazir Bhutto decided to return to the country, Khalid was included as a security team member of the PPP Chairperson. He was subsequently selected for the job of chief security officer to Asif Zardari and was posted at Bilawal House.According to PPP Karachi chief Faisal Abidi, the Namaz-e-Janaza of Shahanshah will be offered at a ground near Bilawal House in the afternoon. He appealed to the provincial party members and local leaders as well as workers to attend the funeral. He will laid to rest at the Azizabad graveyard.

Turnaround for US and Iran

In two weeks, the period it has been granted, Iran might make known its intentions on its nuclear plans, and hence the future of its tenuous links with the US. The talks in Geneva did not result in Iran’s accepting the so-called “freeze for freeze” deal — a halt in its uranium enrichment in return for no strengthening of UN sanctions. There is no guarantee that at the end of the deadline, Iran will decide, as expressed by the US, between confrontation and cooperation. But after all the threats and counterthreats in recent weeks, the very fact that Iran and the US got together at one table for the first time concerning the nuclear issue represents a huge turnaround for both sides and provides distinct signs that a collision course is being averted.
By agreeing to send Undersecretary of State William Burns to Geneva to join talks between the EU and Iran, Washington has shown what has been acknowledged from the outset: Any realistic solution to the nuclear crisis must involve active US engagement. And President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s pronouncement that he was interested in direct talks with the US, and interested in the idea of a US diplomatic mission being opened in Tehran for the first time since the 1979 revolution, constitutes a remarkable U-turn. These are major shifts by both the Bush administration and Iran and look light years away from the recent rhetoric and threats.
There are, of course, those who still expect the US or Israel or both to launch a military strike on Iran, but the recent peace overtures are persuading more people into realizing that international, regional and local considerations weigh too heavily against such a military adventure. The US cannot embark on a major military operation while its forces are bogged down in Iraq, tensions everywhere else in the region are rife, and many of the US’ allies in the region are opposed to the military option. In addition, a military strike against Iran would wreak havoc on the already troublesome energy situation as Iran sits on a huge oil reserve of its own and overlooks the world’s most important transit route for oil. Also in favor of at least a cooling down in tensions between the US and Iran is the fact that other international powers, most notably Moscow, are disinclined toward a military strike, even if they are not necessarily opposed to an escalation of international sanctions against Tehran.
As tenacious and willing to go to the brink as Iranian leaders may appear, in the final analysis they are consummately pragmatic. Iran is a modern institutionalized state, and while it has the elements of a theocracy, it is ultimately rational and capable of placing the welfare of the whole above all other considerations. Before reaching the stage of no return, the “rational camp” in Tehran would put the breaks on, halting the brinksmanship tendencies evinced by Ahmadinejad. The repercussions for Iran, regionally and internationally, would be too great. Iran holds too many political and economic cards that Washington is interested in, and the people in Tehran know that Washington holds many of the keys that will unlock their ambitions.
What has been said and done have not been figments of the imagination. The recent Israeli military exercise, apparently a rehearsal for bombing Iran’s nuclear facilities; the Iranian test-firing of missiles in reply; Iran’s threat to block the Strait of Hormuz, the lifeline of the world’s oil supplies, if attacked were all real and had — and still have — the world watching and worrying. However, for at least the moment, diplomacy has taken over.

The FBI's plan to "profile" Muslims

July 10, 2008 The U.S. Justice Department is considering a change in the grounds on which the FBI can investigate citizens and legal residents of the United States. Till now, DOJ guidelines have required the FBI to have some evidence of wrongdoing before it opens an investigation. The impending new rules, which would be implemented later this summer, allow bureau agents to establish a terrorist profile or pattern of behavior and attributes and, on the basis of that profile, start investigating an individual or group. Agents would be permitted to ask "open-ended questions" concerning the activities of Muslim Americans and Arab-Americans. A person's travel and occupation, as well as race or ethnicity, could be grounds for opening a national security investigation.
The rumored changes have provoked protests from Muslim American and Arab-American groups. The Council on American Islamic Relations, among the more effective lobbies for Muslim Americans' civil liberties, immediately denounced the plan, as did James Zogby, the president of the Arab-American Institute. Said Zogby, "There are millions of Americans who, under the reported new parameters, could become subject to arbitrary and subjective ethnic and religious profiling." Zogby, who noted that the Bush administration's history with profiling is not reassuring, warned that all Americans would suffer from a weakening of civil liberties.

In fact, Zogby's statement only begins to touch on the many problems with these proposed rules. The new guidelines would lead to many bogus prosecutions, but they would also prove counterproductive in the effort to disrupt real terror plots. And then there's Attorney General Michael Mukasey's rationale for revising the rules in the first place. "It's necessary," he explained in a June news conference, "to put in place regulations that will allow the FBI to transform itself as it is transforming itself into an intelligence-gathering organization." When did Congress, or we as a nation, have a debate about whether we want to authorize the establishment of a domestic intelligence agency? Indeed, late last month Congress signaled its discomfort with the concept by denying the FBI's $11 million funding request for its data-mining center.

Establishing a profile that would aid in identifying suspects is not in and of itself illegal, though the practice generally makes civil libertarians nervous. When looking for drug couriers, Drug Enforcement Agency agents were permitted by the Supreme Court in United States v. Sokolow (1989) to use indicators such as the use of an alias, nervous or evasive behavior, cash payments for tickets, brief trips to major drug-trafficking cities, type of clothing, and the lack of checked luggage. This technique, however, specifically excluded the use of skin color or other racial features in building the profile.
In contrast, using race and ethnicity as the -- or even a -- primary factor in deciding whom to stop and search, despite being widespread among police forces, is illegal. Just this spring, the Maryland State Police settled out of court with the ACLU and an African-American man after having been sued for the practice of stopping black and Latino men and searching them for drugs. New Jersey police also got into trouble over stopping people on the grounds of race.

The New Jersey Supreme Court ruled last year in State v. Calvin Lee that a defendant's plausible allegation that the arrest was initiated primarily because of race would be grounds for discovery: The defense attorney could then request relevant documents from the prosecution that might show discriminatory attitudes and actions on the part of the police. Because racial profiling is most often felt by juries to be inappropriate, its use could backfire on the FBI. Suspects charged on the basis of an investigation primarily triggered by their race could end up being acquitted as victims of government discrimination.
If the aim is to identify al-Qaida operatives or close sympathizers in the United States, racial profiling is counterproductive. Such tiny, cultlike terror organizations are multinational. Richard Reid, the shoe bomber, is a Briton whose father hailed from Jamaica, and no racial profile of him would have predicted his al-Qaida ties. Adam Gadahn, an al-Qaida spokesman, is from a mixed Jewish and Christian heritage and hails from suburban Orange County, Calif. When I broached the topic of FBI profiling to some Muslim American friends on Facebook, a scientist in San Francisco replied, "Profiling Muslims or Arabs will just make al-Qaida look outside Islam for its bombers. There are many other disgruntled groups aside from those that worship Allah."
It is a mystery why the Department of Justice has not learned the lesson that terrorists are best tracked down through good police work brought to bear on specific illegal acts, rather than by vast fishing expeditions. After Sept. 11, the DOJ called thousands of Muslim men in the United States for what it termed voluntary interviews. Not a single terrorist was identified in this manner, though a handful of the interviewees ended up being deported for minor visa offenses. Once it became clear that the interviews might eventuate in arbitrary actions against them, the willingness of American Muslims to cooperate declined rapidly, and so the whole operation badly backfired.

Alienating Pakistan

Alienating Pakistan13 June 2008
AMERICAN artillery and air strike inside Pakistani territory that killed 11 paramilitary soldiers and Islamabad’s expected response more or less mark the beginning of the dismantling of the war-on-terror’s most central business arrangement.
It had begun weakening for some time now and American predator incursions deep inside Pakistani airspace of late were ample indications for analysts familiar with the relationship that something was about to give way soon.
That the position crumbled with Pakistani army blood being spilled will anger local opinion at a time when the government is indulging in diplomatic experiments with elements in the tribal belt mainly to appease a public very angry over unstinted support extended to the Americans all these years. The pressure facing Islamabad now is well understandable.
For now, it seems difficult that the Pakistan-US equation that Musharraf and Bush held for more than half a decade will be returned to. Islamabad will now rightly fear a déjà vu of its previous hands-in-glove with the Americans, when the State Department and CIA ended cooperation as soon as the Soviets rolled their tanks out of Afghanistan, leaving Pakistan to struggle with refugees, drugs, Kalashnikovs, and continuous uncertainty on its borders. General Musharraf rightly sought assurances before shaking on the post 9/11 deal, reminding the Americans in straight terms that the premature withdrawal was more or less also responsible for the mutation of the Afghan mujahideen into what eventually became the Taleban.
Now, with an American election just around the corner, and the likelihood of a Democratic stint at the House that’ll be surely quick to distance itself from Bush’s war method, there is growing anxiety in Pakistani circles that they’re about to be hung out to dry again. Such concerns are not helped by what some are rightly calling the Bush U-turn, with Washington ignoring Pakistani concerns and blatantly violating the country’s airspace and territorial integrity.
The Pentagon’s response to the latest tragedy, that they coordinated the attacks with the Pakistani military, will not wash easily since they’ll reflect very poorly on the sole superpower’s military credentials. The Pakistani reaction is understandable, which is why America will have to go the extra mile if the situation is to be controlled. If the long years of the terror-war have not convinced America and Afghanistan that they will always need Pakistan, then it is little surprise that their fortunes are on a continuous downside.
Pakistan has paid dearly for participation in the war against terrorism, economically, socially and politically. To add to its military troubles is to force it to opt out of the arrangement it has held despite the difficulties. The ball is in America’s court now. How they handle the situation will reflect the level of their interest in South Asia’s worsening political landscape.


Link:
http://khaleejtimes.com/DisplayArticleNew.asp?xfile=data/editorial/2008/June/editorial_June28.xml&section=editorial&col=