 KARACHI, Pakistan — Authorities appealed for calm Tuesday after a bombing against a Shiite Muslim procession killed 43 in Pakistan's largest city of Karachi, setting off riots and igniting fears of sectarian unrest. Security was tight as thousands of people gathered in central Karachi for funerals of some of those killed in Monday's bombing of a Shiite procession marking the key holy day of Ashoura. The attack sparked riots as people rampaged through the city, setting fire to markets and stores. Firefighters were still battling the flames Tuesday, with authorities calling for reinforcements from the city of Hyderabad, 105 miles north of Karachi, Pakistan's main commercial hub. Karachi Mayor Mustafa Kamal said the city's largest wholesale market was on fire, and that hundreds of shops had been destroyed, with damages estimated to run into millions of dollars. Interior Minister Rehman Malik, who visited Karachi on Tuesday, said authorities were still trying to determine whether the attack had been carried out by a suicide bomber, as he had said Monday. "The investigation is still going on to determine whether it was a suicide attack or some improvised explosive device was used," said Malik, who appealed for calm and said he had ordered an investigation into who was behind the rioting. "If anyone is trying to cripple Karachi, then he is also trying to cripple Pakistan," the minister said. Senior health official Hashim Malik said the death toll increased to 43 on Tuesday. Many among the dozens wounded were critically hurt, and several died overnight and on Tuesday morning. Karachi has largely been spared the Taliban-linked violence that has struck much of the rest of the country, a fact that analysts believe is driven by the group's tendency to use the teeming metropolis as a place to rest and raise money. But the city has been the scene of frequent sectarian, ethnic and political violence. It was unclear who was behind Monday's bombing. Pakistani authorities say sectarian groups have teamed up with Taliban and al-Qaida militants waging war against the government in a joint effort to destabilize Pakistan. More than 500 people have been killed in attacks since mid-October when the army launched a major anti-Taliban offensive in the country's northwest. "A deliberate attempt seems to be afoot by the extremists to turn the fight against militants into a sectarian clash and make the people fight against one another," said President Asif Ali Zardari in a statement Monday. Monday's bombing struck at the start of a procession of Shiites marking Ashoura, the most important day of a monthlong mourning period for the seventh-century death of the Prophet Muhammad's grandson, Imam Hussein. Minority Shiites have suffered frequent attacks by Sunni extremist groups who regard them as heretical. "I fell down when the bomb went off with a big bang," said Naseem Raza, a 26-year-old who was marching in the procession. "I saw walls stained with blood and splashed with human flesh." Residents in apartments near the blast site tossed down body parts that had been cast into their homes from the explosion, while birds dove down to pick at the flesh amid damaged vehicles and motorbikes. More at FoxNews 
 Islamist elements in Pakistan’s military unhappy with President Asif Zardari are reported to be plotting to remove their country’s civilian government and replace it with a military dictatorship. Two days after General David Petraeus, chief of US Central Command, dismissed fears of an imminent military coup, Pakistan’s defense minister, Ahmed Mukhtar, was prevented Thursday evening by border officials from leaving the country to visit China.
According to one report, there are 248 such names on the border authorities’ list, including other high-ranking government members, of Pakistanis now denied exit rights. The ostensible reason for Mukhtar’s detainment was that he, and other ministers of the ruling Pakistan People’s Party (PPP), is facing corruption charges and a possible jail term. Last Wednesday, Pakistan’s Supreme Court struck down the amnesty, called the National Reconciliation Ordinance (NRO), which protected them and 8,000 other bureaucrats from prosecution, reviving old charges.
The Supreme Court ruled unconstitutional the 2007 NRO amnesty that paved the way for Zardari’s murdered wife and then PPP leader, Benazir Bhutto, to return to Pakistan. With the Supreme Court’s ruling, several ministers are now expected to resign, endangering the survival of the Zardari civilian government. Opposition parties are also calling for Zardari himself to step down, but he has presidential immunity from prosecution. The Supreme Court’s NRO ruling, though, is expected to leave Pakistan’s president open to legal proceedings regarding his eligibility as a candidate in last year’s election. Columnist and former Pakistani activist Tarek Fatah writes that “religious right–wing backers of the Taliban and al Qaeda” in Pakistan’s military-industrial complex are behind this destruction of the Zardari government by legal means. “Working from within the government, military intelligence was able to coax a junior minister to release a list of supposedly corrupt politicians and public officials in the country,” wrote Fatah. “Leading them was Mr. Zardari himself – notwithstanding the fact that before he was elected president, he had been imprisoned for more than a decade by the military without a single conviction.” Zardari came to office a year ago last August, taking over from disgraced military ruler Pervez Musharraf who resigned under threat of impeachment. Musharraf had come to power after staging the last military coup against a civilian president in 1999. Pakistan has been ruled by military leaders for about half of its 62 year history, so military takeovers are almost a part of the political fabric. Army rule usually lasts about a decade before a civilian government is re-established which lasts an almost equal length of time. The current military threat to civilian rule is somewhat unusual, as Zardari has been in office only a year and four months. A main reason for the military coups, though, is that the civilian politicians’ corruption and incompetence eventually become too ruinous for the country. More at FPM
 PAKISTAN'S Supreme Court has thrown the government into further turmoil by overruling an amnesty protecting President Asif Ali Zardari, ministers and 8000 bureaucrats from prosecution. The decision effectively revives thousands of criminal and corruption charges against public officials quashed under the controversial National Reconciliation Ordinance, including a money-laundering case pending against Mr Zardari in Swiss courts. While Mr Zardari enjoys presidential immunity from prosecution, the judgment leaves at least 30 politicians, including close ally and Interior Minister Rehman Malik, Defence Minister Ahmed Mukhtar and thousands of bureaucrats vulnerable to jail terms. However, the Supreme Court's late-night ruling is expected to pave the way for a legal challenge to Mr Zardari's eligibility to contest last year's presidential elections and his constitutional immunity. That view was backed by former chief justice Saeeduz Zaman Siddiqqi, who said the constitution did not protect a president from cases brought in foreign countries. Pressure on the unpopular President is now mounting, with opposition parties calling for him to step down within minutes of the verdict. Mr Zardari's chief spokesman, Farhatullah Babar, said yesterday: "There is no question of the President resigning". The party was prepared to "face any fallout" from the verdict, he added. A 17-member bench of the Supreme Court found the controversial NRO introduced by former president Pervez Musharraf in 2007 was unconstitutional. "(The) promulgation of the NRO seems to be against the national interest . . . thus it violates various provisions of the constitution," Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammad Chaudhry said. The petition to overrule the NRO has thrown up hugely damaging evidence against the President, including claims he amassed assets worth $US1.5 billion during his slain wife Benazir Bhutto's time as prime minister. Documents provided by the National Accountability Bureau to the Supreme Court alleged Mr Zardari was facing charges of amassing assets beyond his means, including six cases of kickbacks and misuse of power, when General Musharraf introduced the NRO in October 2007. A bureau official said about $US60m received in alleged illegal commissions had been deposited in Swiss bank accounts held by Mr Zardari and Bhutto. The court has ordered the government to ask the Swiss courts immediately to revive their action against Mr Zardari and reinstate the Pakistan government as a damaged party in the case. But the judgment was scathing of the bureau's officials, accusing them of a lack of impartiality and calling for their replacement. It ordered a special cell of the Supreme Court to monitor all resumed corruption and criminal cases. Mr Zardari earned himself the unflattering moniker "Mr 10 Per Cent" during his wife's time in power, because of his rumoured demands for kickbacks, and spent 11 years in jail while facing trial on corruption and murder charges. He was released on bail in 2004. The NRO amnesty, which covered 3478 cases ranging from murder, embezzlement and write-offs of bank loans worth millions of dollars, was part of a deal brokered by the US and Britain that allowed Bhutto to return from exile and seal a power-sharing deal with the military ruler. She was assassinated two months later, leaving Mr Zardari to lead her Pakistan People's Party to victory in national polls in February last year. Meanwhile, the government is also under pressure from the US to expand its campaign to target Afghan Taliban leaders believed to be harbouring within its territory. The New York Times reported yesterday that Pakistani military and intelligence services appeared to be retaliating with a harassment campaign against US diplomats, refusing to extend or approve visas for more than 100 officials. One diplomat said the harassment campaign had led to the forced suspension of several US aid programs. The Australian
 A KEY plank of the US strategy for Afghanistan and Pakistan was in danger of giving way last night after a refusal by Pakistan to take on a Taliban commander who is considered one of the gravest threats to Western forces. Pakistan has ignored US demands that it expand its military operation against Islamist militants to target strongholds of Sirajuddin Haqqani, the son of a legendary Mujaheddin commander. The standoff may mean an intensified campaign of American drone strikes in North Waziristan, US officials have warned. A senior Pakistani security official said any confrontation with Haqqani could create more problems for the overstretched Pakistani army, engaged in running battles with militants in neighbouring South Waziristan and other tribal regions. "We cannot fight on so many fronts," the official said. Any escalation by the US would be disastrous. "We have drawn a red line and would not accept any cross-border strikes by US forces." The proposal was first outlined last month in a letter from Mr Obama to President Asif Ali Zardari of Pakistan, hand-delivered by General Jim Jones, his National Security Adviser. US intelligence believed that Inter-Services Intelligence, Pakistan's military spy agency, has maintained links with Haqqani because of his ability to project Pakistani influence in Afghanistan. Reports yesterday said Mr Zardari resisted the direct appeal from Mr Obama for a rapid expansion of Pakistani military operations in tribal areas and has called on the US to speed up military assistance to Pakistani forces and to intervene more forcefully with India, its traditional adversary. In a written response to the letter from Mr Obama, Mr Zardari said his government was determined to take action against al-Qa'ida, the Taliban and allied insurgent groups attacking US forces in Afghanistan from the border area inside Pakistan. But, he said, Pakistan's efforts would be based on its own timeline and operational needs, The Washington Post reported. General David Petraeus, the senior US military officer in the region, reiterated the importance of targeting Haqqani in a meeting this week with General Ashfaq Kayani, head of the Pakistani military. But General Kayani told General Petraeus that the US should not expect "a major operation in North Waziristan". The Australian
 By ZAHID HUSSAIN ISLAMABAD -- Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari holds $1.5 billion in assets across the world, Pakistan's main anticorruption body alleged in a report delivered Tuesday to the country's Supreme Court. The court is considering the constitutionality of an amnesty protecting the embattled leader and thousands of other officials from corruption charges.
The National Accountability Bureau, a politically independent government investigative body, gave the court a list of allegations involving Mr. Zardari, following a request by Chief Justice Iftikhar Mohammed Chaudhry. Mr. Zardari's spokesman denied the allegations and said the asset list was inaccurate and fabricated to victimize Mr. Zardari. "Reports of $1.5 billion of national and foreign assets allegedly belonging to President Zardari are no more than a regurgitation of decade-old unproven politically motivated allegations," said Farhatullah Babar, the chief spokesman for the president. The court will also consider whether a presidential immunity provided by the constitution applies to cases of alleged corruption that took place before Mr. Zardari took office last year. The hearings could open the way for challenges to the legality of Mr. Zardari's presidency, constitutional law experts said.
That would add further tension in Pakistan at a time when the U.S. ally has been hit by a series of militant attacks across country. On Tuesday, suspected Islamist militants launched a gun, rocket and suicide attack on an intelligence office in the central Pakistan city of Multan, killing 12 people. The raid came a day after twin bombings at a market in the eastern city of Lahore killed 49. Tuesday's attack ripped the facades off several buildings in a part of the town largely reserved for government and security agencies. Also damaged was a building housing an office of Pakistan's Inter-Services Intelligence agency. The National Accountability Bureau alleged that Mr. Zardari accumulated wealth "beyond his means." The bureau said Mr. Zardari owned properties and bank accounts in the U.S., U.K., Spain and several other countries. This wealth was largely accumulated while his wife, Benazir Bhutto, was serving as prime minister in the 1990s, investigators said. They alleged the money had come from kickbacks and commissions on government deals. Mr. Zardari spent a total of 11 years in jail in Pakistan while facing trial for corruption and murder charges. He was released on bail in 2004 and allowed to leave the country. Six cases against him remained open, relating to alleged corruption. Those charges were dropped under an amnesty enforced in October 2007. The amnesty, which was brokered by the U.S. and U.K., was introduced through a decree by former President Pervez Musharraf under a deal that paved the way for Ms. Bhutto to return home from self-imposed exile. Ms. Bhutto was assassinated two months later, leaving Mr. Zardari to lead her party to victory in general elections in February 2008 and then become president after Gen. Musharraf resigned in August 2008. A 17-member bench of the Supreme Court on Monday began hearing appeals by two political opponents of Mr. Zardari against the amnesty, which expired on Nov. 28 when an effort to renew it failed in Parliament. The anticorruption body's report said Mr. Zardari had bought properties in the U.S., Britain, Spain, France and other countries through offshore companies he owned and through frontmen, according to Retired Lt. Gen. Shahid Aziz, a former chief of the National Accountability Bureau who resigned in July 2007 to protest the termination of investigations into Mr. Zardari's activities. In the largest single payment, investigators said they had discovered a company dealing in gold in the Middle East deposited at least $10 million into an account controlled by Mr. Zardari after the Bhutto government gave the dealer a monopoly on gold imports. The money was then deposited into several bank accounts of companies owned by Mr. Zardari, investigators said. Charges in the case were dropped with the amnesty in 2007, and the gold dealer denied wrongdoing. WSJ
 US President Barack Obama has sharpened his message to Pakistan over harbouring terror groups such as al-Qa'ida and Lashkar-e-Toiba, warning that it can no longer use them as a "policy tool" and remain a US ally. Details of the two-page letter -- which was delivered to Pakistan's embattled President Asif Ali Zardari late last month -- were leaked to the US media yesterday, hours ahead of Mr Obama's expected announcement of a 34,000-strong troop surge for next-door Afghanistan. Mr Obama is believed to have offered Pakistan an expanded strategic partnership, including enhanced trade and development aid and help to improve its relations with India. But he warned the nuclear-armed nation to end the "ambiguity" in its relations with five extremist groups -- al-Qa'ida, Afghan Taliban, the Haqqani network, Tehrik-e-Taliban (Pakistan) and LET -- and work more co-operatively with the US to stamp them out. The letter was delivered by Mr Obama's national security adviser, General James Jones, during a recent trip to Islamabad, where he told officials that the US military effort to defeat the Afghan insurgency would fail unless Pakistan increased its strikes against those five groups. A recent review of US policy in the region also acknowledged Pakistan's crucial role, with one senior administration official telling The Washington Post yesterday: "We can't succeed without Pakistan." Another official told the paper: "No matter how many troops you send, if the safe haven in Pakistan isn't cracked, the whole mission is compromised." Britain is also taking a harder line against the Pakistan establishment's tacit support of groups such as the Afghan Taliban, whose command structure is believed to be openly operate from the Pakistani city of Quetta. At the weekend, British Prime Minister Gordon Brown said: "People are going to ask why, eight years after 2001, Osama bin Laden has never been near to being caught." The Australian
 PRESIDENT Asif Ali Zardari has given up control of Pakistan's nuclear arsenal in a bid to fend off mounting pressures threatening to weaken his rule further and complicate the war on the Taliban. Mr Zardari took the decision overnight as an amnesty protecting him and key aides from corruption cases expired and risked flinging the country, struggling to contain a Taliban insurgency in the northwest, into fresh political crisis. The presidency announced that control of the National Command Authority, which analysts and lawyers confirmed is responsible for nuclear weapons, had shifted to Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani. "The president has handed over his power regarding the national command and control authority to me and has issued an ordinance," Mr Gilani said. Islamabad earlier this month rejected a report in The New Yorker magazine that raised fears of a militant seizure of Pakistan's nuclear weapons and suggested that the US had a hand in protecting the arsenal. Mr Zardari's predecessor, military ruler Pervez Musharraf, enforced a state of emergency in 2007, introducing a 17th amendment to the constitution that gives the president the power to dissolve parliament and sack the prime minister. "We are going in the right direction. There is no threat to democracy and to the present government," said Mr Gilani, a member of Zardari's Pakistan People's Party (PPP) but who is said to enjoy closer relations with the military. "He believes in the balance of power between the presidency and the parliament and he is committed to undo the 17th amendment," he said. More in the Australian
 At least seven Pakistani soldiers have been killed in a roadside bomb blast in a tribal region of northwest Pakistan, officials say. The vehicle was travelling in Pakistan's Khyber region on Saturday when it was struck about 15km west of the city of Peshawar. "Seven paramilitary soldiers were killed and 11 were wounded in the remote-control bomb attack," Shafirullah Khan, the chief administrative official of Khyber tribal district, told the AFP news agency. Khyber is on the main supply route through Pakistan to Afghanistan, where international military forces are fighting the Taliban. The bomb blast came as Pakistan's military continued its offensive against Taliban fighters in South Waziristan, in the country's northwest. Pakistani fighter jets bombed three suspected Taliban positions in the Orkazai tribal region on Saturday, the Associated Press news agency reported. At least eight fighters were killed and several others wounded, the news agency cited intelligence officials as saying. The military launched the offensive two weeks ago, pitting about 30,000 Pakistani troops against an estimated 10 to 12,000 members of the Tehreek-e-Taliban Pakistan (TTP). Asif Ali Zardari, Pakistan's president, has said security forces will not stop until they have defeated the fighters. "There [is] no turning back ... until the complete elimination of the militants," a statement from his office said on Friday. His pledge follows comments from Hillary Clinton, the US secretary of state, who suggested on Thursday that Pakistani officials could do more to find and fight al-Qaeda and the Taliban. She said al-Qaeda had enjoyed a "safe haven" in Pakistan since 2002 and said that some Pakistani officials might know where the group's leaders are hiding. "I find it hard to believe that nobody in your government knows where they are and couldn't get them if they really wanted to," Clinton said to a group of newspaper editors in the city of Lahore during a three-day visit to the country. Source: Al Jazeera (English)
ISLAMABAD: For the first time, Pakistan President Asif Ali Zardari has admitted that militants and extremists were "created and nurtured" in the country as a policy to achieve some short-term tactical objectives. But they began to haunt the country in the post-9/11 era, Zardari said in a candid admission during an interactive meeting with former senior civil servants at the presidency last night. Militants and extremists emerged on the national scene and challenged the state not because the civil bureaucracy was weakened and demoralised, but because they "were deliberately created and nurtured as a policy to achieve some short-term tactical objectives," he said. "Let us be truthful to ourselves and make a candid admission of the realities," Zardari said. Read more ...Source: The Times of IndiaH/T: Jihad WatchPresident Zardari
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PAKISTAN has ordered its military to eliminate "terrorists" as air and ground troops pounded extremists branded by Washington a threat to the nuclear-armed country's very existence.As the US moves forward in Afghanistan and considers reconciliation with some members of the Taliban, the Swat Valley in Pakistan offers some lessons. Attack helicopters and war planes bombarded suspected Taliban hideouts in the Swat Valley during the deadliest fighting to grip the northwest district since the government brokered a February peace agreement with hardliners. Prime Minister Yousuf Raza Gilani delivered a televised address urging the nation to unite against extremists, whom he said were threatening the country's sovereignty and who had violated the peace deal with attacks. And Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari vowed that military operations would last until “normalcy” had returned to the troubled Swat Valley. The deeply controversial agreement between the government and a pro-Taliban cleric to put three million people in a wide region of northwest Pakistan under sharia law had been meant to end a nearly two-year violent Taliban uprising. In order to restore honour and dignity of our homeland, and to protect people, the armed forces have been called to eliminate the militants and terrorists,” said Gilani, dressed symbolically in traditional Pakistani dress. “The time has come when the entire nation should side with the government and the armed forces against those who want to make the entire country hostage and darken our future at gunpoint,” the premier added. Thousands of civilians streamed out of the Taliban stronghold and former tourist resort of Swat on foot or crammed into cars in the face of the fighting, as the Red Cross warned that the humanitarian crisis was escalating. Pakistan is under heavy US pressure to crush militants, whom Washington have called the biggest terror threat to the West. US President Barack Obama has put the nuclear-armed Muslim country at the heart of the fight against al-Qa’ida. “(The operation) is going to carry on until life in Swat comes back to normalcy,” Zardari told reporters at the US Capitol after meeting key senators. “It's a regional problem, it's a worldwide problem,” Zardari said. “I think the world is coming to that realisation,” he added. Following talks with Zardari and Afghan President Hamid Karzai, Senator John Kerry said the US Congress would urgently complete an aid bill to stabilise Pakistan. Meanwhile, US Defence Secretary Robert Gates, speaking in Kabul, praised Pakistan's action against the Taliban. Read more....
 Amanda Hodge, South Asia correspondent | May 07PAKISTAN is facing the world's largest internal displacement of people amid renewed fighting between the Taliban and government forces, the President has warned.Asif Ali Zardari called for immediate aid yesterday after more than a million people were forced to leave their homes, with another 500,000 expected to stream out of conflict zones within days. As he prepared to hold emergency talks with US President Barack Obama and Afghan counterpart Hamid Karzai in Washington, Mr Zardari said a failure to assist refugees would turn the North West Frontier Province into a "breeding ground for terrorism". More than 40,000 people have poured out of the Swat Valley in the past three days after Taliban militants signalled an end to a peace deal by ambushing troops and seizing government offices in the town of Mingora. A curfew on the district was briefly lifted to allow residents to evacuate but fighting intensified yesterday after the Government sent in more troops backed by helicopter gunships. Up to 35 civilians and 15 militants were reportedly killed in clashes yesterday. Humanitarian agencies were straining to accommodate the thousands of refugees pouring into towns and refugee camps across the NWFP. Swat chief administrator Khushhal Khan said he expected up to 500,000 people, already brutalised by the Taliban's 18-month campaign for control of the area, to attempt to flee the district in coming days. "I don't want my unborn baby to have even the slightest idea what suicide attacks and bomb blasts are. That's why I'm leaving Mingora with my husband," said a sobbing, pregnant Bakht Zehra. "For God's sake, tell me where I can bring up my child where there are no suicide attacks." The Pakistan Government struck a peace deal with the Taliban in February, agreeing to impose a harsh form of sharia law on Swat and surrounding districts in exchange for an end to the violence in the region. A bill formalising the agreement was passed through parliament a fortnight ago. But the Taliban has refused to lay down its arms, instead expanding its reach from the Swat stronghold into other regions across the NWFP, including Lower Dir and Buner, just 100km from the capital, Islamabad. The UN High Commission for Refugees spokeswoman Massoumeh Farman-Farmaian said three new camps would be established in Mardan and Swabi this week to accommodate the estimated 100,000 people forced to leave Lower Dir and Buner. But many of the existing camps and host communities were already exhausted and the international community had been slow to respond to UN pleas for assistance. "We keep wondering why people don't recognise this desperate need," Ms Farman-Farmaian told The Australian. Anger in the refugee camps was heightening, creating fertile ground for militant recruitment, she added. "(We have to) give these people the assistance they need and deserve and act as a buffer because tomorrow if they don't get a chance and some other group, maybe militants or Taliban, offers them funds, then they are going to take them." In Kacha Garhi camp in NWFP's capital, Peshawar, more than 16,000 people live in makeshift tents with limited food and water, and no electricity. Most were displaced by an aerial bombing campaign by the Pakistani army launched last August to flush out Taliban forces. Many blame the Government and militants as architects of their misery. Source: The Australian
WASHINGTON (CNN) — President Barack Obama said Wednesday that the leaders of Afghanistan, Pakistan, and the United States are meeting “as three sovereign nations joined by a common goal: to disrupt, dismantle, and defeat” al Qaeda and the Taliban. To do so, Obama said, the three nations have to deny extremists the space necessary to operate, and bring a better life to the people of Afghanistan and Pakistan. Obama, in remarks delivered with Afghan President Hamid Karzai and Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari at the White House, stated that the security of Afghanistan, of Pakistan, and of the United States are linked. Al Qaeda and its allies are responsible for killing innocent civilians and challenging the democratically elected governments in the nations, he said. Source: CNN Wire
 US President Barack Obama said yesterday he was "gravely concerned" about the stability of the Pakistani Government and did not rule out US intervention if the Islamic power's nuclear weapons fell into extremist hands. In a prime-time news conference marking the 100-day milestone of his presidency, Mr Obama gave an assurance that, one way or another, Pakistan's nuclear arsenal would not fall into the hands of Islamic extremists. He said he was confident "primarily, initially" because he believed Pakistan would handle the issue on its own. But he left the door open to eventual US action to secure the weapons if needed. Pakistani army forces are at war with Taliban insurgents who have been advancing on Islamabad, and Mr Obama said he believed the Government was serious about fighting Islamic militants. But Mr Obama said the civilian Government of President Asif Ali Zardari, who is due in Washington next week, was unable to provide basic services that would ensure people's loyalty. "I am gravely concerned about the situation in Pakistan, not because I think that they're immediately going to be overrun and the Taliban would take over in Pakistan," Mr Obama said. "I'm more concerned that the civilian Government there right now is very fragile." "We want to respect their sovereignty, but we also recognise that we have huge strategic interests - huge national security interests - in making sure that Pakistan is stable and that you don't end up having a nuclear-armed militant state." Pressed on whether the US would intervene if Pakistan's nuclear arsenal were under threat, Mr Obama said he would not respond to a hypothetical question. Mr Obama, who has put a new focus on rooting out extremism in Pakistan and Afghanistan, has continued the previous administration's controversial drone attacks to kill terror suspects inside Pakistan. But Mr Obama also declared that the practice of waterboarding - simulated drowning, which was used on at least three terrorist detainees - violated US "ideals and values". "I do believe that it is torture," the US President told the White House press corps when asked if waterboarding was torture. "I don't think that's just my opinion; that's the opinion of many who've examined the topic. And that's why I put an end to these practices." Bush administration officials, including former vice-president Dick Cheney, have admitted waterboarding was used on a limited number of detainees. It was confirmed in the so-called torture memos released by the Obama administration last month. It was revealed that 9/11 planner Khalid Shaikh Mohammed was waterboarded more than 180 times but the Bush administration argued key plots were unveiled and the interrogation of Mohammed helped lead to the capture of Bali bombing architect Riduan "Hambali" Isamuddin. But Mr Obama's statement yesterday was his most declarative statement so far as President that torture was used and it will embolden those calling for prosecutions of former Bush administration officials. Mr Obama said the waterboarding and other methods dubbed enhanced interrogation techniques "corrodes the character of a country". He has banned the practices, saying "I am absolutely convinced that it was the right thing to do". "Not because there might not have been information that was yielded by these various detainees who were subjected to this treatment, but because we could have gotten this information in other ways - in ways that were consistent with our values, in ways that were consistent with who we are." He said he believed that the steps taken to prevent these kind of enhanced interrogation techniques would make "us stronger over the long term, and make us safer over the long term because it will put us in a position where we can still get information". "In some cases, it may be harder. But part of what makes us, I think, still a beacon to the world is that we are willing to hold true to our ideals, even when it's hard, not just when it's easy." Source: The Australian
April 24 Fighting Terror: It's a very real threat when people who are our sworn enemies suddenly begin capturing territory at the expense of our allies. And today, that's exactly what's happening in Pakistan. Taliban Militants Stay In Control Near Pakistan Capital." That headline should send a chill through you. Because it means the forces of medieval darkness and terror in Afghanistan and Pakistan are gaining ground — and are perhaps just one leap away from capturing Islamabad, Pakistan's capital, and its nuclear arsenal. Pakistan's government made the big mistake a week and a half ago of agreeing to let Taliban-linked groups in the North-West Frontier Province enforce Sharia, or Islamic law, in the Swat Valley. Since then, the Taliban and its radical affiliates have begun infiltrating members into surrounding areas, especially the Buner Valley — just 60 miles from Islamabad. They smell weakness on the part of the Pakistani regime, and are going to push until they're stopped. At this rate, if unchecked, they'll control Pakistan by year-end — not to mention the Pakistani government's 24 to 55 nuclear weapons. We're glad to see this isn't going unnoticed. "Pakistan poses a mortal threat to the security and safety of our country and the world," Secretary of State Hillary Clinton said last Wednesday, in blunt remarks that took some by surprise. This, surely, is the "test" that Vice President Joseph Biden warned that President Obama would face early in his presidency. Now, the question is, recognizing the problem, what do we do? The answer's unclear. True, Obama has sent 17,000 added troops to Afghanistan. And pressuring the Pakistani government to "do more" will at least put the heat on it to take the Taliban seriously. But what concerns us is this administration's failure to recognize, as the previous administration did, that this isn't only about Pakistan; it's about Islamic extremism, a worldwide movement whose ultimate goal is to weaken, subvert, defeat and replace a demoralized West. Pakistan would be quite a prize for the extremists. As we said, that nation has nuclear weapons It lies adjacent to India, Pakistan's most bitter enemy, one of our best allies and the world's largest democracy. We agree with Clinton that this is a mortal threat. We wonder, though, how we can defeat our enemies if we can't even bring ourselves to call them terrorists. How we can win the global war on terror when we downgrade it rhetorically to merely an "overseas contingency operation"? And how can we defeat them if we're on the verge of revealing dozens of photographs that purport to show U.S. military personnel mistreating captives in Afghanistan? Surely, that will inflame Muslims in Afghanistan and Pakistan, making the job of our military now engaged in a life-or-death struggle for Afghanistan with the Taliban all the more difficult. It will end up costing American lives. And for what? To score a few cheap political points against former President Bush's policy of pursuing terrorists to the hilt? The problem is, the only reason Pakistan's government made a deal with the Taliban in the first place is, frankly, it doubts the bona fides of the Obama administration when it comes to fighting terrorism. Better to cut a deal with the renegades and hope for mercy later than to have the U.S. sit and do nothing to aid a vital ally, as we did when the shah of Iran fell in 1979. Worse, if we and Pakistan's feckless government allow a Taliban takeover, how seriously will Iran take our protestations as it marches toward its own nuclear answer to the West? Last week, former British Prime Minister Tony Blair called on the world to defeat Islamic extremists, calling them as big a threat as communism was in the 20th century. "Our job is simple," Blair said. "It is to support and partner those Muslims who believe deeply in Islam, but also who believe in peaceful co-existence, in taking on and defeating extremists who don't." We agree. But it will take more than pressuring the locals and their governments to do the job. We have a major problem in Pakistan, and no, contrary to the assertions of the Obama White House, it's not just al-Qaida. It's only one part of a multifaceted, international problem, as Blair rightly pointed out. And while we show an interest in diplomacy, these foes see diplomacy as the last resort of weaklings. At the very least, we must insist that Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari and Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gillani reassert control over the country. We also must recognize that the border between Afghanistan and Pakistan, which U.S. forces treat as something real and inviolable, is little more than fiction. The war on terror has no borders. Source: Investor's Business Daily
 ISLAMIC militants are within striking distance of Tarbela Dam, one of Pakistan's main sources of water and power, an MP warned yesterday as Hillary Clinton accused the Government of "abdicating to the Taliban". The Taliban are within 100km of the Pakistani capital, Islamabad, after seizing control of more towns in the North Western Frontier Province this week, including the provincial administrative headquarters of Buner. Pakistani paramilitary forces have been deployed to protect government buildings and bridges in Buner, a senior official said. The leader of the Jamiat Ulema-I-Islam Islamic party, Maulana Fazlur Rehman, told parliament the Taliban forces could soon be "knocking at the doors of Islamabad". "After occupying Buner, they have reached Kala Dhaka and may also be taking over the water reservoir of the Tarbela Dam," Mr Rehman said. The southern tip of Tarbela - the world's largest earth- and rock-filled dam - is just 50km from Islamabad. The dam provides 30 per cent of the country's hydroelectricity and much of the north's irrigation water. The US has reacted with alarm to the security crisis in its subcontinental ally. US President Barack Obama has dispatched his joint chiefs of staff chairman Mike Mullen to Islamabad for the second time in a fortnight, and has summoned the Pakistan and Afghan presidents to Washington. The march of the Taliban prompted harsh criticism yesterday from the US Secretary of State, Ms Clinton, who told a congressional panel the deteriorating security situation in Pakistan "poses a mortal threat to the security and safety of our country and the world". "The Pakistani Government is basically abdicating to the Taliban and to the extremists," she said. "We cannot underscore the seriousness of the existential threat posed to the state of Pakistan." Ms Clinton called on Pakistanis to speak out "forcefully" against the policies of their Government, which was ceding "more and more territory to the insurgents, to the Taliban, to al-Qa'ida, to the allies that are in this terrorist syndicate". Pakistan's Government agreed in February to impose sharia law in the country's northwestern Swat Valley and the surrounding Malakand region in exchange for a ceasefire with Taliban forces. President Asif Ali Zardari ratified the agreement last week following unanimous parliamentary support. But on Tuesday, hundreds of armed Taliban entered Buner, a district of more than a million people 100km from Islamabad, setting up checkpoints, occupying mosques and ransacking offices of non-government organisations. Regular courts stopped functioning in Buner yesterday after the Peshawar High Court deemed it too dangerous for officials to function. The move coincided with a deadline set by the militants for the Government to abolish the regular courts. A Taliban commander said they would set up sharia courts in Buner - as they have done in Swat - to end a "sense of deprivation", but would not interfere with police work. The Pakistani Government yesterday refused to rule out using force against the Taliban. Source: The Australian
Anna Mahjar-Barducci | April 15 The apparent capitulation of the Pakistani authorities to the demands of the Taliban is actually a part of a long-standing alliance between them. The Pakistani military - that actually created and trained the Taliban in the 1990s - has long been using this movement to control Afghanistan and as a tool in its confrontation with the West. The Taliban, for its part, uses the support and protection of Pakistan to consolidate its strength and gain control over increasingly large areas in Pakistan and Afghanistan. It has long been alleged that some within ISI, the Pakistani intelligence, have retained links to the Taliban. Last year, the head of the CIA flew to Islamabad to present evidence that showed that ISI elements were involved in a deadly bomb attack on the Indian embassy in Kabul. Officials in Washington now say that, according to human intelligence and electronic intercepts, the ISI, through its "S Wing," which officials say directs intelligence operations outside Pakistan, is involved in operations in Afghanistan by supporting more militant networks than was previously thought, including ... More »Source: Hudson New York
ISLAMABAD – Pakistan's pro-U.S. president signed a regulation late Monday to put a northwestern district under Islamic law as part of a peace deal with the Taliban, going along after coming under intense pressure from members of his own party and other lawmakers. Asif Ali Zardari's signature was a boon for Islamic militants who have brutalized the Swat Valley for nearly two years in demanding a new justice system. It was sure to further anger human rights activists and feed fears among the U.S. and other Western allies that the valley will turn into a sanctuary for militants close to Afghanistan. Whatever criticism may come, Zardari can claim some political cover — the National Assembly voted unanimously Monday to adopt a resolution urging his signature, although at least one party boycotted. Earlier, a Taliban spokesman had warned lawmakers against opposing the deal. Read more ...Source: AP H/T: Jihad Watch
PAKISTAN entered a potentially dangerous new era yesterday after its parliament ratified a bill establishing a separate Islamic legal code for the Swat Valley, dividing the country into areas ruled by the state and those by sharia law. The bill, passed unanimously by parliament and signed off late on Monday night by pro-US President Asif Ali Zardari, is the culmination of a controversial peace deal signed in February with Taliban militants who have waged a bloody 18-month campaign for control of the former tourist region. The Nizam-a-Adl regulation effectively cedes control of the entire Malakand province, less than 200km north of the capital Islamabad, to Islamic extremists in exchange for a ceasefire between the security forces and local Taliban militants who have terrorised the community. Mr Zardari had delayed signing the bill, saying he wanted to see peace restored to the valley first, but relented under pressure from his own party and the hard-line Muslim clerics who brokered the deal but accused the Government last week of reneging on it. The legislation has been greeted with alarm by analysts and human rights groups, who warn it will further diminish the authority of the weak civilian Government and embolden the militants to move their writ beyond the Swat. Retired general Talat Masood said the Government had chosen "the path of least resistance, which has dire consequences for the future of Pakistan". "It will change the entire complexion of the country," General Masood said, warning that the issue would not be confined to Malakand. "My view is (Islamic extremism) will probably spread over all the country west of the Indus. No one is defining what Pakistan should be - there's no ideological or intellectual clarity." Pakistan was probably headed into a violent Islamic cycle in which the country would be ruled once again by right-wing forces with religious links, he said. Even before parliamentary approval, judges trained in Islamic law had begun hearing cases in Swat, and Taliban fighters are said to be in control of much of the region. A video smuggled out of the area last month showed a young woman being publicly flogged for allegedly leaving her house in the company of a man who was not her blood relative. Since the February deal, Taliban militants have reportedly been pouring into the Swat Valley. US officials say the deal has given the Taliban and its al-Qa'ida allies an advantage in their long-running battle against Pakistan's military. "This is a rest stop for the Taliban, it's nothing more," one Washington official told The Wall Street Journal. Pakistani and US officials estimate as many as 8000 militants are now based in Swat, nearly double the number in the area at the end of last year. The militants have begun to spread - at least 13 were killed in clashes with security forces and local militiamen in neighbouring Buner last week after tribal elders there failed to convince Taliban infiltrators to leave. Pakistan's English-language newspaper The Dawn reported yesterday that 120 Taliban, including a group of militants who had taken over the local police station and an important Sufi shrine, left Buner at the weekend. Taliban militants warned before the parliamentary vote that MPs who opposed the pact were guilty of apostasy - a crime punishable by death in parts of the Muslim world. Talking to the local media after the bill was passed, Swat Taliban spokesman Muslim Khan said Pakistan's parliament had proved it was brave and Islam-friendly. Source: The Australian
By Syed Saleem Shahzad Pressure is mounting on Pakistan's president Asif Ali Zardari to sign the peace deal implementing Islamic law in North West Frontier Province's Malakand region, which encompasses the troubled Swat valley. The hardline Muslim cleric Sufi Mohammad, who has mediated peace talks between Pakistan and the Taliban in Swat has refused to hold direct talks with the government until Zardari signs the accord. Mohammad earlier this week abandoned his peace camp, installed to oversee the peace, following the historical accord signed in mid-February between militants and the NWFP government and went back to his village. He is chief of the Tehrik Nifaz-i-Shariat-i-Mohammadi group in Swat. Mohammad last month signalled he was unhappy at what he calls the slow pace of implementation of the peace accord and complained that un-Islamic' laws were still in force in Malakand. But interior minstry chief Rehman Malik played down the situation. “Maulana Sufi Mohammad did not back out from the Swat deal. He simply has changed his location," Malik told journalists in Islamabad on Thursday. "The president will sign the Nizam-e-Adal (Islamic law) regulation but he is waiting for militants to lay down their weapons completely,” Malik said. Read more ...Source: AKIH/T: Jihad Watch
 Amanda Hodge, South Asia correspondent | April 08 THE US warned yesterday it would broaden and intensify its controversial drone strikes on militants hiding in Pakistan's interior if the country did not crack down on Islamic extremists, despite Taliban threats to launch suicide bomb attacks twice a week in retaliation. The warning came as US special envoy to Afghanistan and Pakistan Richard Holbrooke and Admiral Mike Mullen, chairman of the joint chiefs of staff, met Pakistani leaders in Islamabad to urge greater co-operation to combat terrorism. The US has already intensified its attacks on militants who are using Pakistan's Federally Administered Tribal Areas as a base from which to strike at US and NATO forces in neighbouring Afghanistan. But US officials told The New York Times yesterday the Obama administration intended to start targeting top militant commanders, believed to be hiding in Baluchistan, as part of a strategy to "disrupt, dismantle and defeat" al-Qa'ida and associated groups. While US officials stepped up their rhetoric yesterday, President Barack Obama attempted to patch up US relations with the world's Islamic communities in a speech to the Turkish parliament in which he stressed that "America's relationship with the Muslim world cannot, and will not, be based on opposition to al-Qa'ida". "Our partnership with the Muslim world is critical in rolling back a fringe ideology that people of all faiths reject", he said, adding that "the United States is not at war with Islam". Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari told the two US envoys yesterday that his country needed "unconditional support" to defeat the militants threatening its survival. "Pakistan is committed to eliminating extremism from the society, for which it needs unconditional support by the international community in the fields of education, health, training and provision of equipment for fighting terrorism," Mr Zardari said. He also urged the US to negotiate with some militants - a strategy the US is believed to be pursuing in Afghanistan and considering for Pakistan. The shift in US thinking towards a negotiated settlement with local Taliban leaders not aligned with al-Qa'ida is believed to be influenced by David Kilcullen, a former Australian soldier turned counter-terrorism adviser to the US state department. Mr Kilcullen - one of a growing number of experts and analysts predicting the US is running out of time to stabilise Pakistan and Afghanistan - warned last week that the nuclear-armed nation could collapse within six months and that such a collapse "would dwarf everything we have seen in the war on terror today". Source: The Australian
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KARACHI, Pakistan — Authorities appealed for calm Tuesday after a bombing against a Shiite Muslim procession killed 43 in Pakistan's largest city of Karachi, setting off riots and igniting fears of sectarian unrest.
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