Clinton and Zardari agree on holding direct talks with Militants

By: Anwar Iqbal

WASHINGTON: The United States and Pakistan agree on a framework for holding direct talks with the militants and are now working to operationalise the plan, says the US State Department.

US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, third from left, meets with Pakistan’s President Asif Ali Zidari, right, alongside US special envoy for Afghanistan and Pakistan Marc Grossman, left, and US Ambassador to Pakistan Cameron Munter, second from left, in Islamabad on Oct. 21, 2011.

At a briefing for the press corps that accompanied Secretary of State Hillary Clinton to Islamabad last week, two State Department officials explained what the secretary meant when she said in her recent interviews that the US and Pakistan had agreement on 90-95 per cent of issues they confronted.

They said the US, Pakistan and Afghanistan had already an understanding on holding a “tri-logue” with the Taliban militants.

They also agree that this has to be Afghan-led and has to be at the pace and scope that the Afghans decide on.

“That Pakistan has to play its part in this; it has to encourage reconciliation. And that as efforts are made at reconciliation, if the US can play a helpful role, that we would be available to do that,” said one official.

After agreeing on this framework, the US and Pakistan were now working on the need to operationalise it. “What does it mean? And particularly in the context of the awful, horrific experience that the Afghans had with the death of President Rabbani … we’re all working off the script that is going to protect against that kind of thing happening again,” the official said.

Operational details like where to hold the dialogue, who to talk to and in what form and formats and for how long were now being worked out, the official added.

“We needed to start with ensuring we were all on the same page in terms of the framework.” The two officials explained that in their meetings with the US delegation, which included the CIA and military chiefs, Pakistani leaders kept referring to the resolution passed by the all-parties conference on the proposed talks with the militants.

“What does the all-parties conference mean to them? It means that every party in Pakistan got together and agreed that reconciliation, if it can be done right and if it is Afghan-led and if it meets the red lines, is in Pakistan’s interests,” said the State Department official.

“And so as they seek to work with Afghanistan and with us on this, what we heard in general, was that they need to keep the Pakistani body politic together on this agenda. And they think that they have a framework for doing that with this agreement of the all-parties council,” the official added.

The two officials disagreed with a suggestion that the Pakistanis were refusing to take military action against the militants because they had failed to produce results.

“The conversation that we had was very much on the lines that we have to squeeze them,” said one State Department official.
“But we also have to have a track for talking for those who are willing to come in off the battlefield within the parameters that the Afghans have set.

“So I don’t think there’s any disagreement between us, that we have to fight and squeeze even as we talk.”

Another senior State Department official said that Pakistan also recognised that there were militant safe havens inside its territory and the two sides needed to work together to deal with them.

In an interview to The Washington Post, Gen. Scaparrotti noted that until last year he enjoyed excellent cooperation with the Pakistani military and toured the battlefield with his counterparts from Pakistan along both sides of the porous border.

After the US raid on the Bin Laden compound in Abbottabad, “this relationship is not what it was, say, a year ago,” he said. “My intent is to start rebuilding this on a mil-to-mil basis, at least.”

A week before Secretary Clinton’s visit to Islamabad, Gen. Scaparrotti met top Pakistani military officials and pressed for re-establishing “routine daily communication” and discussions of how to deal with insurgents.

“If we work together, we can have a joint effect on [the insurgents], and we need to do so,” he said.

Meanwhile, former State Department official Vali Nasr, who was a senior adviser to the late US special representative for Pakistan and Afghanistan, Richard Holbrook, noted that the Obama administration clearly wanted to re-engage Pakistan.

“Every one of our assumptions about our timetable of getting out of Afghanistan, our success on the ground with military operation has been predicated on the kind of at least minimal cooperation we have had with Pakistan over the past two years,” he told the US National Public Radio.

“If that cooperation ceases to exist and our relations get any worse than they are currently, it’s very difficult to see how the United States can meet its deadlines in order to be able to withdraw from Afghanistan.”

Libya – A Trophy Won By The West

By Pepe Escobar

They are fighting over the carcass as vultures. The French Ministry of Defense said they got him with a Rafale fighter jet firing over his convoy. The Pentagon said they got him with a Predator firing a Hellfire missile. After a wounded Colonel Muammar Gaddafi sought refuge in a filthy drain underneath a highway – an eerie echo of Saddam Hussein’s “hole” – he was found by Transitional National Council (TNC) “rebels”. And then duly executed.

Abdel-Jalil Abdel-Aziz, a Libyan doctor who accompanied Gaddafi’s body in an ambulance and examined it, said he died from two bullets, one to the chest, one to the head.

The TNC – which has peddled lies, lies and more lies for months – swears he died in “crossfire”. It may have been a mob. It may have been Mohammad al-Bibi, a 20-year-old sporting a New York Yankees baseball cap who posed to the whole world brandishing Gaddafi’s golden pistol; his ticket perhaps to collect the hefty $20 million dangled as the bounty for Gaddafi “dead or alive”.

It gets curioser and curioser when one remembers that this is exactly what US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, in her lightning visit to Tripoli, had announced less than 48 hours before; Gaddafi should be “captured or killed”. The Fairy Queenie satisfied Clinton’s wishes, who learned about it by watching the screen of a BlackBerry – and reacting with the semantic earthquake “Wow!”

To the winners, the spoils. They all did it; the North Atlantic Treaty Organization (NATO), the Pentagon and the TNC. From the minute a United Nations resolution imposing a no-fly zone over Libya became a green card to regime change, plan A was always to capture and kill him. Targeted assassination; that’s Barack Obama administration official policy. There was no plan B.

Let me bomb you to protection

As for how R2P (“responsibility to protect” civilians), any doubters should cling to the explanation by NATO’s secretary general Anders Fogh Rasmussen; “NATO and our partners have successfully implemented the historic mandate of the United Nations to protect the people of Libya.” Anyone who wants to check NATO’s protection of civilians just needs to jump on a pick-up truck and go to Sirte – the new Fallujah.

Reactions have been quite instructive. TNC bureaucrat Abdel Ghoga went Colosseum in the Roman Empire, saying, “The revolutionaries have got the head of the tyrant.”

United States President Barack Obama said the death of Gaddafi means “we are seeing the strength of American leadership across the world”. That’s as “we got him” as one can possibly expect, also considering that Washington paid no less than 80% of the operating costs of those dimwits at NATO (over $1 billion – which Occupy Wall Street could well denounce would be more helpful creating jobs in the US). Strange, now, to say “we did it”, because the White House always said this was not a war; it was a “kinetic” something. And they were not in charge.

It was up to that majestic foreign policy strategist, US Vice President Joe Biden, to be starkly more enlightening than Obama; “In this case, America spent $2 billion and didn’t lose a single life. This is more the prescription for how to deal with the world as we go forward than it has in the past.”

World, you have been warned; this is how the empire will deal with you from now on.

Feel my humanitarian love

So congratulations to the “international community” – which as everyone knows is composed of Washington, a few washed-up NATO members, and the democratic Persian Gulf powerhouses of Qatar and the United Arab Emirates (UAE). This community, at least, loved the outcome. The European Union (EU) hailed “the end of an era of despotism” – when up to virtually Thursday they were caressing the helm of Gaddafi’s gowns; now they are falling over themselves in editorials about the 42-year reign of a “buffoon”.

Gaddafi would have been a most inconvenient guest of the International Criminal Court in The Hague, as he would have relished recalling all the hand-kissing, the warm embraces and the juicy deals the West was begging to clinch after he was promoted from “Mad Dog” (Ronald Reagan) to “our bastard”. He would also relish detailing all the shady backgrounds of those opportunists now posing as “revolutionaries” and “democrats”.

As for the concept of international law, it lies in a drain as filthy as the one Gaddafi was holed up in. Iraqi dictator Saddam at least got a fake trial in a kangaroo court before meeting the executioner. Osama bin Laden was simply snuffed out, assassination-style, after a territorial invasion of Pakistan. Gaddafi went one up, snuffed out with a mix of air war and assassination.

Power vultures are congesting the skies. London-based Mohammed El Senussi, the heir to the Libyan throne (King Idris was overthrown in 1969) is ready for his close-up, having already established that he “is a servant to Libyan people, and they decide what they want”. Translation; I want the throne. He’s obviously the favorite candidate of the counter-revolutionary House of Saud.

And what about those Washington think-tank donkeys mumbling that this was the Arab Spring’s “Ceausescu moment”? If only the Romanian dictator had improved his country’s standard of living – in terms of free healthcare, free education, incentives for the newlywed, etc – by a fraction of what Gaddafi did in Libya. Plus the fact that Nicolae Ceausescu was not deposed by NATO “humanitarian” bombing. v Only the brain dead may have swallowed the propaganda of NATO’s “humanitarian” 40,000-plus bombing – which devastated Libya’s infrastructure back to the Stone Age (Shock and Awe in slow motion, anyone?). This never had anything to do with R2P – the relentless bombing of civilians in Sirte proves it.

As the top four BRIC members knew it even before the voting of UN Resolution 1973, it was about NATO ruling the Mediterranean as a NATO lake, it was about Africom’s war against China and setting up a key strategic base, it was about the French and the Brits getting juicy contracts to exploit Libya’s natural resources to their benefit, it was about the West setting the narrative of the Arab Spring after they had been caught napping in Tunisia and Egypt.

Listen to the barbaric whimpers

Welcome to the new Libya. Intolerant Islamist militias will turn the lives of Libyan women into a living hell. Hundreds of thousands of Sub-Saharan Africans – those who could not escape – will be ruthlessly persecuted. Libya’s natural wealth will be plundered. That collection of anti-aircraft missiles appropriated by Islamists will be a supremely convincing reason for the “war on terror” in northern Africa to become eternal. There will be blood – civil war blood, because Tripolitania will refuse to be ruled by backward Cyrenaica.

As for remaining dictators everywhere, get a life insurance policy from NATO Inc; Egypt’s Hosni Mubarak, Tunisia’s Zine al-Abidine Ben Ali and Yemen’s Ali Abdullah Saleh were clever enough to do it. We all know there will never be R2P to liberate the Tibetans and Uyghurs, or the people in that monster gulag Myanmar, or the people in Uzbekistan, or the Kurds in Turkey, or the Pashtuns on both sides of the imperially drawn Durand Line.

We also know that change the world can believe in will be the day NATO enforces a no-fly one over Saudi Arabia to protect the Shi’ites in the eastern province, with the Pentagon launching a Hellfire carpet over those thousands of medieval, corrupt House of Saud princes.

It won’t happen. Meanwhile, this is the way the West ends; with a NATO bang, and a thousand barbaric, lawless whimpers. Disgusted? Get a Guy Fawkes mask and raise hell.

Kashmir Solution: Desmond Tutu Option

An elite group of Kashmiri Americans has proposed to UN secretary general Mr. Ban Ki-Moon to appoint rights activist Bishop Desmond Tutu as head of a UN effort to stabilize Kashmir, where 2,700 unmarked graves were discovered last month.

Warning that Indian occupation soldiers are responsible for a “semi-genocidal campaign” in the disputed territory, the Kashmiri American Council [KAC] used the occasion of the raising of Libya’s new flag at the UN to paint a dark picture behind India’s media blackout on Kashmir.

KAC’s statement is linked to UN Secretary General Ban Ki-Moon’s remarks during The Otto L. Walter annual lecture at the New York Law School. In the lecture, Mr. Ki-Moon appeared to be reviving a key function of the UN: to support the will of the people.

KAC is an American group lobbying for peace by resolving one of the oldest international disputes on the agenda of UN Security Council. India first involved the UN in the dispute and its first prime minister, Jawaharlal Nehru, pledged on 2 November 1948 to allow Kashmiris the right to decide their future but later reneged and forcibly annexed the region.

Mr. Ki-Moon said that support for the Libyan people has revived UN’s mission of standing by the people when their government cannot or will not protect them.

Kashmiris in the Indian-controlled territory and the large Kashmiri Diaspora worldwide “look to the Secretary General of the United Nations as the custodian of the moral responsibility of the United Nations,” KAC said in a statement.

Copies of KAC’s statement were received at powerful offices in the US capital, including the White House, the Department of State and the Capitol building.

The KAC board also referred to petitions submitted earlier to the office of the UN Secretary General:

“The people of Kashmir have tried to address to you various petitions and communications regarding the situation in Kashmir. The information establishes that a massive campaign of brutal oppression that was launched by India in 1990 continues unabated. Various estimates are given of the death toll of civilians so for. Making due allowance for unintended exaggerations, the figure runs into tens of thousands. Countless individuals have been maimed and countless women molested and assaulted. United States, Department of State’s country report on human rights says that 8,000 to 10,000 people have involuntarily disappeared.”

The group’s principals made sure to remind Washington and the international diplomatic presence at the UN of the unmarked graves in Kashmir, which is a scandal for India because the country is already home to 21st century’s first and biggest genocide so far, where 2,000 Indians were butchered over three days in 2002 for being non-Hindus.

“The Board quoted Amnesty International which in its report on September 26, 2011, said that over 2700 unmarked graves have been identified by an 11-member police investigation team of the State Human Rights Commission (SHRC) in four districts of north Kashmir. The state government must ensure that all past and current allegations of enforced disappearances are promptly, thoroughly, independently and impartially investigated and that, where there is sufficient evidence, anyone suspected of responsibility for such crimes is prosecuted in proceedings which meet international fair trial standards.”

In a proposal that could help nudge Kashmir on the UN Security Council’s agenda, KAC offered key suggestions:

“The Board warned that India has succeeded in erecting a smokescreen by claiming that the Kashmir issue is to be resolved bilaterally between India and Pakistan without the intervention of a third party. That wishful thinking has never allowed a meaningful dialogue for a durable and equitable settlement of Kashmir dispute. The human urgency of the situation in Kashmir demands that tripartite negotiations between Governments of India and Kashmir & the genuine leadership of the people of the State of Jammu and Kashmir be initiated under the leadership of the United Nations. The U.N. can appoint a person of an international standing, like Bishop Desmond Tutu to be the facilitator in this regard.”

Kashmiri-American sources in Washington DC tell PakNationalists.com that Kashmiri-Americans are already in contact with US lawmakers and diplomats from several countries, including Turkey, Belgium, Russia, China and Pakistan, in addition to senior UN officials, to push the idea of Mr. Tutu leading a UN-sponsored arbitration of the Kashmir dispute.

US officials and experts working to improve the chances of peace between Pakistan and India find the idea worth considering.

Full Action Against Banned Religious Outfits in Karachi

Police and law enforcement agencies launched a search operation in the Godhar Colony of Karachi and demolished the offices of Sunni Tehreek and other banned outfits, Express 24/7 reported Friday.

The law enforcement agencies have been put on a high alert to subvert any terror activity in Karachi.

Police also seized all literature and other items from the offices.

The law enforcement agencies have been put on a high alert to subvert any terror activity in Karachi.

The search operation was launched in the area late at night jointly by police, Frontier Corps (FC) and Rangers.

Certain houses were searched on a tip-off and no civilian was allowed to enter or leave the area.

Some women protested against the demolition of the Sunni Tehreek office.

A few people were arrested from the areas, however, police did not disclose the identity of the arrest persons.

Earlier this month, Sunni Tehreek leader Shahid Ghouri and other activists were remanded into custody till October 11.

Karachi Anti-Terrorism Court Administrative Judge Justice Maqbool Baqar of the Sindh High Court remanded the activists to police custody for two days.

They were accused of setting public transport on fire and violence during a strike in Orangi Town against the conviction of former Punjab governor Salmaan Taseer’s killer Mumtaz Qadri, on October 7.

Gunmen open fire at police van in Islamabad, one killed

By Sohail Chaudhry

A policeman was killed in Islamabad when gunmen opened fire at a security vehicle in the capital on Friday.

The police van was patrolling 15th street in the I-10 sector area of Islamabad when the attack took place.

Unidentified assailants appeared on two motorcycles and opened fire at the police van. One sub-inspector, Riaz, was killed as a result while another policeman was injured.

Eyewitnesses said that a female passerby was also injured in the attack, but this was not confirmed by authorities.

Yesterday (Thursday), Islamabad police foiled two bids to smuggle weapons including machine guns and sniper rifles into the capital and apprehended four suspects.

Interior Minister Rehman Malik said that a major terror plot in Islamabad’s Red Zone district had been foiled. The district is home to Western embassies, parliament, the presidency and the Inter-Services Intelligence agency (ISI) headquarters.

“As a result of strict security measures in the federal capital, some major terrorist plots have been foiled,” he told reporters.

“The terrorists wanted to target certain specific places in the Red Zone (the heavily fortified government district) and the headquarters of an elite agency,” Malik said

Five Day Week Official in Pakistan

The Ministry of Interior has notified two weekly holidays at all the public and private offices taking effect from Saturday (October 15).

The notification issued here said, “The selected operational branches of the commercial banks shall, however, continue to work on Saturdays, to facilitate the corporate customers and businesses in their financial transactions.”

“The Notification shall take effect from first weekend falling after the Cabinet decision i.e. 15th October, 2011.”

Office are directed to follow 8am-4pm schedule from Monday to Thursday, with 30-minute lunch and prayer breaks at 1pm.

Office timings on Friday would be the same with 1.5-hour lunch and Friday prayer break from 12.30pm to 2pm.

Rental Power Plants, A New Battle Arising

By: Ahmad Ahmadani

The government and Supreme Court of Pakistan might lock horns over another controversy regarding Rental Power Projects (RPPs), as the apex court is set to hear a related suo moto case today (Tuesday) while the Prime Minister is likely to give approval of advance payment to RPPs to the cabinet.

After finding no solution to end or reduce energy crisis growing with each passing day, the Power Ministry has sent a summary to the federal cabinet seeking hefty amount of Rs 2 billion for advance payments to only two 135-MW Rental Power Projects (RPPs) named as Kamonki Rental Power Project and Sialkot Rental Power Project, sources privy to the development revealed on Monday, adding that though the Finance Ministry has declined to provide this hefty amount for both RPPs, yet this is included in the agenda of upcoming special meeting of the federal cabinet likely to be held tomorrow (October 12). The federal cabinet would give go ahead to Water and Power Ministry to initiate these both RPPs to meet the energy crisis, the sources said.

However, on the other hand, a suo moto on the much debated RPPs will be taken today by the Supreme Court of Pakistan and it is likely that SC would stop the government to initiate another adventure which has already played with the over burdened general public bearing the brunt of such irrational decisions of Pakistani government.

It was also learnt that PEPCO has apparently assured the Water and Power Ministry to provide the advance payments for both RPPs. Sources were of the view that Power Ministry despite failing to give due payments and Furnace oil in time to the Independent Power Plants (IPPs) of the country till this effect, however, it is gearing up its serious efforts to get the final nod in this regard from the federal cabinet during next meeting of the cabinet focusing on energy crisis to be chaired by the Prime Minister Syed Yousuf Raza Gilani.

It is testimony of the fact that the federal cabinet on 21st September turned down this very summary seeking advance payments to both RPPs after finding no comments from the concerned ministries. Further, the generation capacity of Kamonki RPP is 65MW and Sialkot RPP is 65MW, which in total of both would be 135MW but it is ironic to learn that Lakhra Power Generation Company Limited (state-owned) could not provide Furnace oil to 232MW Karkey Rental Power Project that is operational from last seven months to meet the demand and supply gap of electricity caused long hours load shedding in the country. Additionally, Asian Development Bank in its report on RPPS has recommended review or to make an end to this very idea, sources said.

Rental power plants were set up to meet short-term and emergency requirements of the country. Rental periods are normally 5-7 years depending on the country’s need. Rental power plants have been set up in the US, UK, India, Bangladesh, Kuwait, Sri Lanka, Turkey, UAE, Saudi Arabia, Iraq, Palestine. The concept was introduced in Pakistan in 2007.

Economic pundits when contacted argued that rental power project may be a viable option to lessen electricity demand-supply gap over the short run, but there is a need to reconsider whether burdening the economy with makeshift (and palatial) thermal energy. They were of the view that RPPs had seemingly contributed disadvantages so far as oil bills had increase; gas reserves were depleting very fastly, and high tariffs while producing electricity from rental power plants. Only spending amount on rehabilitation of existing generators and promoting energy conservation can give out positive outcomes, they opined. “Now Pakistan People’s Party led coalition government has opted the option of using Rental Power Plants (RPPs) to overcome persistent electricity crisis that is not only causing great amount of hardships for the fellow citizens but also hitting hard to country’s economy, they said, adding, that In recent past there was much hue and cry from political and other circles over alleged kickbacks in deals of RPPs.

Pakistan Muslim League-Nawaz had already announced to issue a ‘White Paper’ on RPPs while another political party-Pakistan Muslim League (Q)- was also at the forefront in highlighting alleged wrongdoings in the execution of RPPs, they said.

According to them, it is incorrect to suggest that rental power costs are substantially higher than that of IPPs. Due to different tariff of rental plants, even after taking into account the high fuel costs, the cost difference is almost equal or marginally higher in case of RPPs. Compared with IPPs, RPPs power generation cost ranges between 12-13 cents per KWh, and IPPs’ power generation costs approximately 12 cent per KWh. But, the government circles are of the view that mere blame game is going on just for the sake of leg pulling. There is nothing wrong in RPPs and the only viable option to get rid of load shedding is rental power plants, they believe.

However, critics of RPPs are of the sanguine view that highly controversial RPPs had proved fruitless resort to overcome the power crisis, which has hit hard the economic growth of the country besides adding salt to public miseries at large. RPPs would not only fail to meet rising electricity demand but also add burden to the national exchequer in general and power consumers in particular. The public is justifiable in questioning that if RPPs are the option, why it is adopted too late? they questioned.

Top Haqqani Commander Killed in NATO Strike

A week after the senior Haqqani network leader in Afghanistan was captured, a coalition airstrike killed one of his associates, NATO’s International Security Assistance Force said on Wednesday.

Dilawar, known by one name, died in the Musa Khel district of eastern Afghanistan’s Khost province on Tuesday in what ISAF called “another significant milestone in the disruption of the Haqqani network.” Two other militants were killed in what was an Afghan-coalition operation, ISAF said.

Dilawar was a “senior Haqqani leader” and “a principal subordinate” to Haji Mali Khan, whose capture in Paktia province last Tuesday was hailed as a blow against the network, widely regarded as one of the most effective militant groups in Afghanistan.

Western officials believe the Haqqanis were involved in the assassination last month of Burhanuddin Rabbani, the chairman of Afghanistan’s High Peace Council, and a June attack on the Intercontinental Hotel in Kabul.

Dilawar planned attacks with Mali Khan, including an ambush on Afghan forces in Paktia last month.

“Dilawar operated along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, between the Khost and Paktia provinces, where he actively coordinated numerous attacks against Afghan forces and facilitated the movement of weapons. Dilawar also facilitated the movement of foreign fighters and was associated with both al Qaeda and the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan,” ISAF said.

ISAF said security forces have conducted more than 530 operations this year “to disrupt Haqqani network activities in eastern Afghanistan. It said the effort led to the deaths of 20 network leaders and the capture of more than 1,400 suspected Haqqani insurgents.

Khan is the uncle of Siraj and Badruddin Haqqani — the brothers who lead the network — and worked directly under Siraj, managing bases and overseeing operations in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The network was founded by Siraj Haqqani’s father with Pakistani backing to fight against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. Today, the group is believed to maintain ties with Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency.

Top Haqqani Commander Killed in NATO Strike

A week after the senior Haqqani network leader in Afghanistan was captured, a coalition airstrike killed one of his associates, NATO’s International Security Assistance Force said on Wednesday.

Dilawar, known by one name, died in the Musa Khel district of eastern Afghanistan’s Khost province on Tuesday in what ISAF called “another significant milestone in the disruption of the Haqqani network.” Two other militants were killed in what was an Afghan-coalition operation, ISAF said.

Dilawar was a “senior Haqqani leader” and “a principal subordinate” to Haji Mali Khan, whose capture in Paktia province last Tuesday was hailed as a blow against the network, widely regarded as one of the most effective militant groups in Afghanistan.

Western officials believe the Haqqanis were involved in the assassination last month of Burhanuddin Rabbani, the chairman of Afghanistan’s High Peace Council, and a June attack on the Intercontinental Hotel in Kabul.

Dilawar planned attacks with Mali Khan, including an ambush on Afghan forces in Paktia last month.

“Dilawar operated along the Afghanistan-Pakistan border, between the Khost and Paktia provinces, where he actively coordinated numerous attacks against Afghan forces and facilitated the movement of weapons. Dilawar also facilitated the movement of foreign fighters and was associated with both al Qaeda and the Islamic Movement of Uzbekistan,” ISAF said.

ISAF said security forces have conducted more than 530 operations this year “to disrupt Haqqani network activities in eastern Afghanistan. It said the effort led to the deaths of 20 network leaders and the capture of more than 1,400 suspected Haqqani insurgents.

Khan is the uncle of Siraj and Badruddin Haqqani — the brothers who lead the network — and worked directly under Siraj, managing bases and overseeing operations in Afghanistan and Pakistan.

The network was founded by Siraj Haqqani’s father with Pakistani backing to fight against the Soviet occupation of Afghanistan. Today, the group is believed to maintain ties with Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency.

Our Hazara brothers are not alone!

Police carried out search operations in various areas of Quetta and arrested over 100 suspects on Wednesday.

The arrests were made in the wake of yesterday’s gruesome firing incident in Quetta in which 14 Shia Hazaras were killed.

On Tuesday, unidentified men opened fire on a bus and killed 14 Shia Hazaras in the Akhtarabad area of Quetta.

The Shia Ulema Council, Izadari Council, and Majlis Wahdat al Muslimeen announced a three day mourning over the incident.

Shops and markets in some areas have also shut down in protest today.

Security has been beefed up at all entry and exit points of the city.

Four days ago, rallies in Australia, the US, the UK, Austria, Norway, Denmark and Canada marked an international day of protest against the unending wave of attacks on Hazaras in Pakistan. The call has evidently not been heard. Indeed, approximately 250 Hazara citizens of Pakistan have been killed in the past three years.